An Understated Dominance novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Letter

Colter read his mother's letter at the kitchen table, in my robe, with his glasses pushed up on his forehead.

I made coffee and stayed on the other side of the kitchen.

It was four pages, written in blue ink, in a hand that sloped.

He read it once.

Then he put it down flat and laid both palms over it.

"Do you want to hear it?" he asked.

"Only if you want to read it."

He picked it up again.

His voice was steady for the first paragraph.

"My dear Colter. By the time you read this you will be a man, and I will not be there to see it."

"I want to tell you three things. The first is that I am not afraid."

"The second is that your father loves you the only way he knows, which is by owning it."

"That is a sickness and not a character."

"The third is that I hope you leave him. Not in anger."

"Leave the way a boy leaves a house that is too small."

"Find a person who doesn't need you to be anything, and be nothing in particular for her."

"Make something with your hands. Let someone see you do it."

He stopped.

I put the coffee down and crossed the kitchen.

I sat on the floor beside his chair and put my head against his knee.

He rested his hand on my hair.

"She said I should find a person who doesn't need me to be anything," he said, after a while.

"You found a person who needed you to be everything," I said. "Then you found out you could be nothing in particular."

"I never wanted to be nothing in particular."

"I know. Give it time."

He laughed, wetly.

Someone rang the doorbell.

It rang twice, politely, and then a third time.

Colter looked at me.

"I'll go," I said.

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