Chapter 26 - THE BLUE PAPER BECOMES A JOKE
When Elise was four, Penny found an old blue folder in my study.
Not the original.
A copy.
CERTIFIED NEXT-GENERATION DESCENDANTS.
She held it up.
“You kept this?”
“Archive copy.”
“Why here?”
“Because I’m disorganized.”
She laughed.
Then little Elise ran in.
“Blue!”
She wanted paper.
Penny looked at me.
“Can she draw?”
I hesitated.
The original legal copy existed securely elsewhere.
This was a photocopy.
“Sure.”
Penny handed her daughter crayons.
Elise drew a purple horse over the words CERTIFIED NEXT-GENERATION DESCENDANTS.
Then scribbled across Travis’s name.
Then Penny’s.
No one stopped her.
Camilla arrived twenty minutes later and saw the page.
She froze.
Then laughed.
“What is that?”
Penny:
“Governance reform.”
Camilla sat beside Elise.
“Can I have green?”
Elise gave her green.
Camilla drew a flower in the margin.
I watched.
Once, blue paper had decided how children thought they ranked.
Now a four-year-old was coloring over it because nobody in the room needed it to determine who belonged.
Then Travis arrived with Miles.
Miles wanted crayons too.
Elise refused purple.
Fight.
Normal.
No branch dispute.
Then we ordered pizza.
No formal table.
No place cards.
Camilla sat wherever a chair was open.
At one point Miles said:
“I’m older.”
Elise answered:
“So?”
Camilla and I looked at each other.
Rosalia would have smiled.
Then I put the photocopy into recycling after dinner.
Penny noticed.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“The legal one exists.”
“Yes.”
“Then recycle.”
Done.
No ritual burning.
Paper.
Then Camilla said:
“I spent four years protecting something that ended up in a recycling bin.”
“No. You spent four years protecting authority.”
“Worse.”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
Then:
“Worth anything now?”
“Only as lesson.”
“Annoying.”
We laughed.
Then Elise spilled soda on the remaining corner of the page.
Perfect.
May you like
The blue paper finally became what it should always have been around children.
Background.
