Chapter 9 - Cordelia’s Version
I met Cordelia two days later.
Lawyers were not necessary yet.
Elowen did not come.
Neither did Bram.
My mother sat across from me at Hartwell House.
Same posture she had used when I was thirteen and had broken a window with a baseball.
“I was protecting Bram.”
“No.”
“He hates being stared at.”
“He told you that?”
“He doesn’t have to.”
“Then don’t use him to explain your decision.”
Her jaw tightened.
“The terrace was crowded.”
“You canceled the ramp.”
“It was ugly.”
There.
Not:
unsafe.
Not:
impractical.
Ugly.
I waited.
She continued.
“The entire feature was about architecture.”
“It was also about my family.”
“Yes.”
“And you removed my son.”
“I moved his chair.”
I leaned forward.
“You cannot separate those sentences.”
“He could have been photographed seated in a normal chair.”
“Normal?”
She realized.
Too late.
“I meant dining chair.”
“He cannot independently move through the event in a dining chair.”
“We would have carried him.”
That sentence almost ended the meeting.
“You would have carried my six-year-old son around a wedding so his wheelchair didn’t appear in photographs?”
She went silent.
Then:
“Do you understand what a single image does to a brand?”
I stood.
The meeting was over.
“Yes.”
May you like
Then:
“I understand what your answer does to a family.”
