Chapter 10 - RICHARD'S FAILURE
Richard wanted Evelyn prosecuted.
Then Grace asked him:
“What did you choose not to see?”
He became angry.
“I was deceived.”
“Yes.”
“For fifteen years.”
“Yes.”
“Then what exactly is my failure?”
Grace opened old records.
At age seventeen, Vanessa refused to attend a family reunion because Claire’s childhood friends would be there.
Richard accepted:
trauma.
At nineteen, she refused DNA ancestry testing offered at a charity event.
Richard accepted:
privacy.
At twenty-one, she asked:
“If I weren’t Claire, would you still love me?”
Richard answered:
“Don’t say ridiculous things.”
He remembered.
At twenty-five, Vanessa begged him to remove Evelyn from control of her documents.
Richard said:
“Your grandmother handles family administration.”
He remembered that too.
Richard had received signals.
Not proof.
Signals.
He kept choosing the explanation that preserved the family story.
Why?
Because losing Claire once nearly destroyed him.
The possibility he had been loving the wrong person felt unbearable.
So he never examined it.
Vanessa said:
“You loved me as Claire.”
Richard cried.
“I loved you.”
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“Then why didn’t you want to know who I was?”
He had no answer.
