At the time, she told me she wanted authenticity. She claimed to loathe the stiff, inherited wealth of the men her parents, Roger and Lynn Mann, tried to force upon her. I was the “son of the soil,” the man who understood how to read a joist and a budget, and for a while, I believed I was her rebellion.
But as my own firm flourished, as I began to win commissions based on my talent rather than her family’s connections, the dynamic shifted. Candace didn’t want a partner who could build his own world; she wanted a trophy she could polish and place on a shelf.
The poison eventually trickled down to Isabella. She didn’t see a daughter; she saw a project. An extension of the Mann brand that was currently failing to meet its quarterly quotas.
I pulled into the gravel driveway, my heart hammering against my ribs. Technically, the house was still a joint asset, though I’d been living in a stark apartment downtown for four months. The separation was a cold war, one Candace was intent on winning by controlling the narrative and, by extension, our daughter.
Isabella met me at the door. At seventeen, she had my dark hair and athletic build, but the sharpness of her features was all Candace. Right now, however, she looked hollow.
“Show me,” I commanded.
She led me upstairs to a room that smelled of old books and discarded childhood. The navy-blue graduation gown lay in ribbons across her bed. It hadn’t been torn in a fit of rage; it had been methodically, surgically shredded with scissors. It looked like a pile of blue confetti. The gold tassel had been snipped into tiny threads, scattered like dust across her pillow.
The note sat in the center of the wreckage, written in Candace’s perfect, rhythmic cursive.
You are no longer my daughter. You are a failure. You have proven yourself to be mediocre, embarrassing, and utterly beneath the Mann standard—just like your father. Do not look to me for university tuition. You are on your own.
I read it twice, the words searing into my retinas.
