Chapter 14 - NICHOLAS'S LETTER
Joshua did not open Lily’s envelope.
He gave it to her.
“Do you want me here?”
“Yes.”
Lily opened it.
Nicholas’s handwriting covered two pages.
He apologized.
Not perfectly.
The first paragraph still defended family joking.
Joshua almost interrupted.
Then the letter changed.
Nicholas wrote:
I thought resilience meant learning to laugh when people laugh at you. I never asked whether I taught that because it was healthy or because I didn’t know how to stop once my own father taught it to me.
Joshua froze.
His grandfather, Antonio Rivas, had been famous in the family for public jokes.
Birthday cakes pushed into faces.
Embarrassing stories told to dates.
Nicknames that lasted decades.
Nicholas had inherited the culture.
Then passed it down.
The letter continued:
I read your list. I knew you hated messy pranks. I told myself doing one anyway would prove you were stronger than the list.
Then:
That was me deciding strength for you.
Lily stopped reading.
“Is Grandpa coming back?”
Joshua answered honestly.
“I don’t know.”
Nicholas returned three days later.
He had gone to his brother Marco’s cabin.
When he came back, he agreed to counseling with the family.
His first session went badly.
He called the new consent rules “corporate nonsense.”
The therapist asked:
“Then why are you here?”
Nicholas answered:
“Because my granddaughter is afraid to tell me no.”
Silence.
That was the real reason.
Over the next six months, Rivas Rewind shrank.
Studio downsized.
Two freelancers left.
One editor became full-time.
Then Lily’s eleventh birthday approached.
She wanted a backyard party.
Joshua asked:
“Do you want any cameras?”
“One.”
“For what?”
“Cake.”
“Anything else?”
“Maybe dog videos if Grandpa brings Pepper.”
“Any pranks?”
“No.”
Joshua smiled.
“Easy.”
Then Caleb called.
“I found something while closing the old studio.”
Joshua’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
“A locked portable drive.”
“Whose?”
“No label.”
“Open it.”
“I did.”
Silence.
Caleb continued:
“It has Rivas Rewind footage from before I started the company.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Apparently Dad was filming family prank reels years before I ever monetized anything.”
Joshua frowned.
“How old?”
“Some are from when we were kids.”
May you like
Then Caleb said:
“And there’s one folder with your name on it.”
