Chapter 26 - The service room opens
Three years after the banquet, Sinclair House underwent renovations.
The east service room still existed.
Oren was eleven.
I considered removing the door.
Then stopped.
Architecture had not locked him inside.
Sabella had.
We changed the hardware because the old external key lock was inappropriate for a room children might enter during events.
Interior release.
No external lock during functions.
Clear safeguarding policy.
The room became storage again.
One afternoon Oren walked inside voluntarily.
I stayed in the hallway.
He looked around.
“Smaller.”
“Yes.”
“I thought huge.”
“You were eight.”
He saw an old shelf.
“Meals were there.”
I said nothing.
Then:
“Can we go?”
“Yes.”
He walked out.
Did not look back.
Later that day he ate two pieces of chocolate cake at the main dining table and complained the frosting was:
“old-person flavor.”
Apparently trauma did not improve culinary manners.
May you like
Good.
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