Chapter 20 - Better Habits
The garden shed had been locked since Margaret died.
Inside were old tools, clay pots, seed packets, and a wooden box with Ethan's name burned into the lid.
He opened it beside Richard.
There was no money.
No secret stock certificate.
No final corporate instruction.
Only family photographs and a stack of handwritten cards.
One showed Ethan at six with a missing front tooth.
Another showed Richard asleep on the couch with baby Ethan on his chest.
At the bottom was a note from Margaret.
If you are opening this after your father and I have both managed to make you crazy, congratulations. You survived us.
Ethan laughed.
Richard did too.
The note continued.
Do not inherit our worst habits just because they are familiar. Keep the good ones. Replace the rest.
A year after the night in the hallway, the Whitmore family gathered for dinner again.
No ballroom.
No board members.
No cameras watching every corner.
Richard had removed most of them after the case ended.
One remained above the front entrance.
Ethan noticed it and raised an eyebrow.
"Keeping one?"
"I'm old, not stupid."
They laughed.
Halfway through dinner, Ethan accidentally knocked over a glass.
Richard looked at him.
Ethan looked back.
For one ridiculous second, both remembered that terrible night.
Then Richard handed him a towel.
"Ask before assuming," Richard said.
"Listen before choosing sides," Ethan replied.
"And?"
Ethan smiled. "Never hit your father."
Richard laughed so hard he had to sit down.
The scar between them had not vanished.
It had simply stopped being the only thing they could see.
Before Ethan left that night, he paused beneath the remaining camera.
The tiny red light blinked above him.
A year earlier, that light had saved Richard from a lie.
Now Ethan looked at his father and understood something harder.
Evidence could prove what happened.
It could not repair what happened.
That part required people.
It required questions.
May you like
It required time.
And, as Margaret had written years before, it required better habits.
