Chapter 19 - TURNING THE PAGE
That evening, after Grant and Claire had put Harper to bed and Mason was finishing his homework at the kitchen island, I placed the old leather ledger in the center of the dining table.
Grant walked in, wiping his hands with a dish towel, and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw it.
"Where did you get that?" Grant asked, his voice tightening slightly as he stared at the cracked leather binding. "Uncle Richard’s ledger? I thought that was gone forever."
"He brought it by this afternoon," I said, sitting down at the head of the table.
Grant pulled out a chair and sat across from me, his fingers tracing the worn edges of the cover. "Why? Richard hasn’t spoken to anyone in this family since my father’s funeral."
"Because he realized something important," I replied softly. "He realized that holding onto old poison doesn't hurt the people who wronged you—it only poisons the people standing right in front of you."
Mason looked up from his homework, sensing the shift in the atmosphere. He walked over to the table, staring down at the book with curious eyes. "What’s inside?"
"History, Mason," Grant said, looking up at his son with a steady, unreadable expression. "Family history. Some of it good, some of it messy, and a lot of it mistakes made by men who didn't know how to listen."
"Do you want to burn it?" Mason asked quietly, surprising both of us.
May you like
Grant looked at his son, then down at the book, and finally at me. A slow, deliberate smile touched his lips.
"No, buddy," Grant said, reaching out to rest his hand on Mason’s shoulder. "We aren't going to burn it. We’re going to open it, read it, and make sure we don't repeat a single word of it."
