Chapter 9 — The First Person Who Held Yvette
Yvette stared at the sentence.
“What does that mean?”
Dorian shook his head.
“You’ll have to ask him.”
Yvette wiped her face.
For twenty minutes she sat with the note.
Then returned downstairs alone.
Dorian stayed with Amelie.
Conrad was exactly where she left him.
He stood when she approached.
“Everything okay?”
Yvette sat across from him.
“Mom left me a note.”
Conrad’s face changed.
“About me?”
“Yes.”
He looked frightened.
Yvette did not read it to him.
It belonged to her.
Instead she asked:
“She wrote that you held me before she did.”
Conrad stared.
Then tears immediately filled his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Conrad looked down at his hands.
Yvette’s birth had become complicated near the end.
Nothing catastrophic.
But Celia needed urgent medical attention immediately after delivery.
Adrian stayed beside her.
A nurse asked who could hold the baby while the doctors worked.
Conrad happened to be the only other family member already there.
“They handed you to me.”
His voice broke.
“You were screaming.”
Yvette smiled faintly through tears.
“Sounds accurate.”
Conrad laughed softly.
“Then you stopped.”
“You opened your eyes.”
“And I remember thinking I had never seen anyone so small.”
Yvette looked toward the ring.
“Were you wearing that?”
“Yes.”
“You touched my hand with one finger.”
“Your entire hand closed around the stone.”
Yvette felt a chill.
That explained why the ring appeared so prominently in the hospital photograph.
Conrad continued.
“Celia later joked that you liked the ring more than you liked me.”
Yvette smiled despite herself.
Then the smile disappeared.
“Mom also wrote that she didn’t regret cutting you off.”
Conrad nodded immediately.
“She shouldn’t.”
Yvette looked surprised.
“You agree?”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“At the time I thought she was cruel.”
“I thought she was keeping my granddaughter from me to punish me.”
“It took years before I understood she was protecting her ability to parent without me constantly stepping over her.”
Yvette watched him carefully.
“Would you do the same thing now?”
“No.”
“Because you know it would cost you another relationship?”
Conrad shook his head.
“Because I understand now that love without respect becomes a burden for the person being loved.”
Yvette looked down.
That sounded like something Celia might have wanted him to learn.
Then Conrad asked quietly:
“Did she hate me when she died?”
Yvette looked at him.
Her mother’s note had an answer of sorts.
But it was not the one Conrad expected.