"Serafina, my mother and I were in the wrong back then. I'm apologizing on her behalf. Can you find it in yourself to forgive us?"
Elara's head tilted slightly to the right, her smile softening into something that looked, to anyone who didn't know better, like genuine remorse.
I turned to Ansel, my voice shaking.
"So, you think I should forgive them, both mother and daughter?"
The pain of a ruptured eardrum. The numbness from bamboo whips. The torment of seeing my mother's belongings reduced to ashes, her correspondence burned, the backup cipher keys and personal letters gone forever because Vittoria Corsetti decided the first wife's memory had no place in her house.
I didn't ask why he fell for Elara. It would have made me seem too weak.
As I stubbornly waited for his response, Ansel's guilt seemed to dissolve into the air. His fingers drifted to the base of his left ring finger, brushing the bare skin there, and then he spoke.
"Serafina, Elara was just a kid back then. She didn't understand right from wrong. She's been remorseful for years and has already apologized to you. Why hold onto the past so tightly?"