Make Them Regret It Chapter 21
That night, my father and my two brothers came to the vigil room.
Five new photographs had been placed there.
My father knelt at the front. In just a few days, his hair had turned completely white, and his back was bent with age.
“Blythe,” he said, “I’ve confessed my crimes to the family council. I’ve also resigned as head of the family.”
“From now on, I will stay on the back hill and watch over your grandmother and your mother until I die.”
“Can you… forgive me?”
I stood before the photographs and lit a candle for my grandmother.
“No.”
My father’s body swayed.
“Why?”
“Because your apology isn’t for me.”
“You can’t bear the fact that they died.”
“If they had all survived that night, you would have brought them back with blankets and hot soup. You would have begged Nonna not to be angry, begged Mom to understand, told my sisters-in-law not to take it to heart.”
“You would have told me that Isabella had suffered, and asked me not to hold a grudge.”
“You would never have thought you’d done anything truly wrong.”
My father’s mouth hung open, but no sound came out.
Because every word I said was the truth.
My second brother knelt on the floor and asked me, his voice broken, “Blythe… my wife… did she say anything at the end?”