Chapter 7 - Clearing the Foundation
With the legal proceedings underway, Claire and I decided it was time to cleanse our home of every remaining physical vestige of the Whitmore-Miller legacy.
On a Saturday morning in mid-December, we tackled the attic and the formal dining room.
Down came the heavy, silver-plated candelabras Margaret had gifted us for our wedding—vessels of obligation that we immediately boxed up for a local charity auction. Out went the stiff, formal china sets that we never used because we were terrified of chipping them. In their place, we brought in warm, colorful stoneware that Ethan and Ava had picked out together at a local artisan market.
While sorting through a storage chest in the basement, Ethan pulled out a heavy, leather-bound photo album embossed with gold lettering: The Whitmore Family Archives.
“Dad, do you want me to throw this in the recycling bin with the rest of Grandma’s stuff?” Ethan asked, holding it up like it was a hazardous material.
I walked over, took the heavy book from his small hands, and flipped it open. Inside were stiff, unsmiling portraits of ancestors who looked like they viewed joy as a punishable offense, alongside pictures of a solemn, miserable ten-year-old Daniel standing rigidly beside his mother.
I closed the cover and handed it back to Ethan with a grin.
“Actually, Soph—er, Ethan, let’s do something better,” I said.
Ten minutes later, we carried the heavy album out to the backyard fire pit. We stacked a few dry logs beneath it, struck a match, and watched as the flames caught the thick leather binding, curling the pages and turning decades of aristocratic pretense into warm, crackling ash.
Ava and Ethan stood beside us, holding long sticks of marshmallows, roasting them over the fire pit as the winter sun dipped below the tree line, painting the sky in shades of violet and gold.
May you like
“Now that is a proper Thanksgiving tradition,” Ava laughed, biting into a gooey, charred marshmallow.
Claire leaned her head against my shoulder, her fingers intertwining with mine. The warmth of the fire radiated against our faces, chasing away the December chill.
