Chapter 17 - The Empty Throne
Following the trial, the main house across the lawn stood abandoned for weeks.
My mother had packed what little she could carry and moved into a small, rented apartment across town, entirely dependent on whatever meager savings she had hidden away. Lucas and Sarah had officially filed for separation, with Sarah taking full custody and establishing a stable, independent life for her children just two miles away with my full support.
One afternoon, I walked across the dry autumn grass toward the main house. The front door was unlocked, left that way by the estate executors.
I stepped inside. The air was stale and cold.
The dining room table still bore the faint, pale scar where my father’s dinner plate had shattered against the wall months ago. Nobody had bothered to fix the plaster. The jagged hole remained like an open wound in the lath, a permanent monument to the night the illusion shattered.
I stood there for a long moment, tracing the outline of the crack with my fingertip. I felt no triumph, no bitter satisfaction—only a profound, sweeping sense of emptiness where generations of generational trauma had once taken up residence.
May you like
I turned my back on the dining room, walked out the front door, and locked it behind me for the very last time.
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