Chapter 18 - ELEANOR LOST HER PERFECT HOUSE
Civil judgments and restructuring costs forced Eleanor and Charles to sell the Napa residence where the dinner occurred.
The vineyard itself stayed under the reorganized company.
The mansion did not.
Eleanor called me once before the sale.
“I hope you’re satisfied.”
“No.”
That answer irritated her.
“What do you want from us?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why continue?”
“Because wanting nothing from you does not cancel what happened.”
She cried.
“We’re losing our home.”
I looked around my condo.
My home.
The one she had already assigned herself in front of twenty relatives.
“You told me to rent somewhere smaller.”
Silence.
I did not say it cruelly.
I said it because truth sometimes arrives with symmetry no one planned.
Eleanor eventually moved into a comfortable condominium she purchased herself.
Two bedrooms.
Safe neighborhood.
No $2,800 monthly payment from me.
She survived.
Charles survived.
That mattered.
Their threats had always implied boundaries would destroy them.
May you like
Boundaries did not destroy them.
They simply forced them to live within what actually belonged to them.
