Chapter 14 - The Mansion Was The Last Thing I Let Go
I sold the mansion two years after the foyer incident.
People assumed divorce forced it.
It didn’t.
I could afford it.
I simply stopped wanting the house.
Too large.
Too polished.
Too easy to confuse ownership with authority inside it.
The foyer was the hardest room to empty.
The carved tables.
The chandelier.
The sweeping staircase.
The spot where Orson’s toy landed.
The place the whiskey glass shattered.
I stood there alone on the last afternoon.
The marble had been repaired long ago.
No trace remained.
Still, I could see everything.
Maeve holding her cheek.
Orson screaming.
Me realizing my son was looking at me like a threat.
I found the orange-and-blue toy airplane in a drawer upstairs.
One wing scratched from the impact.
I considered throwing it away.
Instead, I gave it to Orson.
He turned it over in his hands.
“You kept this?”
“Yes.”
He shrugged.
“Cool.”
That was it.
Children do not always attach meaning to the objects adults turn into symbols.
He put it on his shelf beside newer toys.
The airplane stopped being evidence.
It became a toy again.
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I envied that ability.
Then tried to learn it.
