Chapter 18 - Vivian Without the Ballroom
Vivian wrote to me from prison.
The first letters asked for forgiveness.
The next blamed Arthur.
Then society.
Then me.
I answered none.
Six months later, a different letter arrived.
I do not know how to speak without performing.
Dad watched every room.
I learned to become whatever expression gave me the advantage.
When I ripped your shirt, I wanted the guests to see what he taught me to see.
Failure.
Then the admiral saluted you, and I realized everyone had been looking at the wrong daughter.
I still hated you for it.
I believe that hatred belonged partly to me.
I placed the letter inside a drawer.
Not destroyed.
Not displayed.
I was not ready to respond.
Julian’s letters were shorter.
He wrote about our mother.
He remembered the crash differently every week.
Sometimes he insisted he never touched her car.
Sometimes he described seeing her face through the rain.
His therapist called the shifting memories trauma.
The court called the stable parts evidence.
I visited him once.
He sat behind glass.
“I loved you,” he said.
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“You still abandoned me.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I thought I was saving you.”
“You were saving yourself from choosing.”
“That too.”
We sat quietly.
“I cannot forgive you today,” I said.
“Will you someday?”
“I do not know.”
The honest answer disappointed him.
It was also the first relationship we had ever had that did not require one of us to lie.
Before I left, Julian placed his hand against the glass.
I did not place mine beside it.
Not yet.
Outside, reporters asked whether the Warren siblings had reconciled.
May you like
I walked past them.
Some family stories did not need a satisfying photograph.
