Chapter 14 - Charles Gives Evelyn One Honest Answer
My father asked to see me nearly a year later.
Nathaniel did not come.
I wanted this conversation without a powerful husband standing behind
me.
Charles had resigned from leadership roles at his firm.
He looked smaller.
Not broken.
Just stripped of the room-commanding certainty I remembered.
“Why did you treat me like that?” I asked.
He knew I was not asking about the wine.
He stared at his hands.
“Because you challenged me.”
“That’s it?”
“You noticed things.”
I almost laughed.
He continued.
“Camille wanted approval. You wanted explanations.”
“And that made me difficult.”
“Yes.”
At least he did not lie.
Then he said something I never expected.
“You reminded me of my father.”
Grandfather Hartwell had been brilliant, exacting, and impossible to
fool.
Charles spent his life trying to escape his judgment.
Then he raised a daughter with the same instinct for questions.
“So you punished me for reminding you of someone you feared?”
His eyes filled.
“Yes.”
It was not a sufficient excuse.
May you like
It was an honest answer.
Sometimes that was all closure offered.
