Chapter 9 - THE EMPTY COFFIN
On the twentieth anniversary of Catherine’s fake funeral, Penelope was twenty-one.
She asked:
“Was there really a coffin?”
“Yes.”
“Empty?”
“Yes.”
“Why empty?”
We told.
Because remains supposedly unavailable after fire.
Then she asked Catherine:
“Did you ever see your grave?”
Catherine nodded.
Once.
Years after restoration.
We went.
Headstone:
CATHERINE ELISE KINCAID
Beloved wife.
Wrong dates.
Cemetery corrected records.
What do with stone?
Catherine decided remove death date but keep name? Eventually replaced family memorial stone.
No dramatic smashing.
She said:
“I don’t need to destroy rock to be alive.”
Then Penelope asked:
“Do you hate Grandma?”
Catherine:
“No.”
“Do you love her?”
“No.”
Honest.
“Do you forgive?”
“Enough not to organize my life around her.”
Good.
Then Penelope:
“Dad?”
I said:
“I love her. She is my mother. I also do not trust her with power.”
Complex.
Then family history.
Penelope took business law class.
Read public case.
Horrified by corporate angle.
“People did all that over voting control?”
Catherine:
“Control makes people explain terrible choices as necessary.”
Then Penelope asked if she would inherit Kincaid voting shares.
Trust says eventually some economic interest.
She could decline active governance.
She said:
“I don’t want company.”
Fine.
She studied medicine? Maybe journalism. No need.
Then she asked:
“Did Grandpa’s will cause all this?”
I said:
“No.”
“It gave people something to fight over. Their choices caused.”
Important.
Then she asked whether I would have found Catherine without hotel.
Maybe.
Mara had narrowed location.
Samuel arranged.
Graham leak.
Likely.
But no certainty.
Then Catherine:
“I was done waiting.”
She had approached because she chose.
Good.
Then black sedan.
Penelope joked:
“I hate black cars.”
Catherine:
“You've been in twelve.”
Trauma doesn't become family superstition.
Then Daria died? Could later, but maybe final.
Before death she left transparent estate.
No controlling conditions.
She explicitly excluded herself from company? Already.
Letters.
To Catherine:
I do not ask you to forgive me. I ask only that Penelope never inherit my belief that love gives authority.
Catherine kept.
To me:
I mistook being necessary for being loved.
Strong.
Then:
When your father removed my power, I thought he was removing me.
That explained.
She died natural at 89.
Catherine attended funeral? She did, for Penelope maybe.
She stood back.
No eulogy.
I said:
“My mother was capable of love and terrible control. We honor truth by saying both.”
Good.
May you like
Then buried next to Dad.
No sainthood.
