Full Circle - Day 16

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Day 16

By now Viola was crying too. She remembered the lengthy conversations they had had with the doctor who cared for the babies after their birth. He had asked so many questions about their family history and neither she nor Ivan had given him any information that would indicate why Camille would have been born with such a debilitating condition. But why had the doctor not known? After all, Ivan’s own mother had sent him to them. Had her own sister’s birth been their family secret? And where was she now? No one had ever seen nor heard of her until now. Perhaps Olivia had a few secrets of her own. Now so many things were beginning to make sense. But it was all far too late… for Camille anyway. Viola wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. “You should have told me,” she said, her words cutting him like a knife. “Maybe there was something…”
“No,” Ivan said, cutting her off. “It would not have made a difference. I’m so sorry,” he added softly. “I wish…” He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. What difference would it make now anyway?
Viola shook her head. “But how do you know it wouldn’t have made a difference? You didn’t even try.”
Ivan took a deep breath. “I just know, Viola. Please trust me.”
“I’ve always trusted you, Ivan. Now I wonder just how wise that decision was.”
The words ripped Ivan’s heart into pieces. “I don’t know how to fix this. Tell me what you want me to do.”
Viola shrugged her shoulders sadly. “Do? There’s really nothing you can do except fill us in on all the other things that you have so skillfully kept from us for so long.”
So with words filled with great pain, Ivan continued to tell them all the agonizing details from the night Camille died and the days following. He also told them how Sophia, his mother’s twin sister, had been born with exactly the same heartbreaking disabilities as Camille. He told them how his grandfather had always told his own daughters ‘only the strong can survive.’ He told them how Olivia had loved Sophia and how devastated she had been when her twin had died. Ivan went on. He knew they all wanted to know how Sophia had died and what happened after her death. But no one asked and Ivan felt it wasn’t really that important to them right now anyway. What they all wanted… needed, was closure for Camille. So he reluctantly went on to tell them how it had been Olivia, his mother, who had been the one to decide that Victoria, though stronger than Camille both physically and emotionally, did not really have the true Van Cort strength. She, in Olivia’s opinion, did not have the steel nerves to maneuver in such a powerful empire that her own grandfather had built up on reputation alone.
Ivan paused now. As much as all that he had already told them had been difficult to say, the worst of it all was still yet to come. He looked at his family. And now for the first time, he felt that he could truly see. All along, he had thought his mother had been the driving force in his life. He had always believed that he drew his strength from her. But now looking at his family, he knew that they had really been what kept him going. They were beautiful and wonderful and had quietly walked behind him in traditional Van Cort fashion. They were really all that he had. He only hoped they were also forgiving.
With pain staking detail, Ivan continued to free himself from the past that had haunted him… all of them. No one dared to move. Night changed to morning and then to night again as he continued to draw them deeper and deeper into the past with each word.
Finally, he sighed and took a deep breath. He actually felt more alive than he had in years.
“Victoria, “ he said, slowly, a sad heaviness still lingering in his voice. “Camille died when you took the chain from around her neck. It was an accident, though. The chain strangled her as you tried to release the clasp.”
Countdown to the exciting conclusion.
Be sure to look for the continuation of this story in about 3 days.