Chapter 4 - TRAVIS WAS TEN
I met Travis without Camilla.
Not secretly.
Through his father, Peter, who had been divorced from my sister for six years and lived in Connecticut. Peter was not a Ferretti employee and had spent most family events staying politely outside governance arguments.
When I called, he sounded exhausted.
“Camilla told Travis he humiliated the family.”
“He humiliated Penny.”
“He’s ten.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Fair.
We arranged a meeting with a child therapist present because I had no interest in interrogating my nephew.
Travis sat across from me wearing sneakers instead of polished party shoes.
He looked younger.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I know.”
“I shouldn’t have smashed it.”
“No.”
“Mom said Penny was stealing my future.”
There.
The therapist glanced at me.
I kept my voice neutral.
“What future?”
“My chair.”
“What chair?”
“The committee one.”
“Do you want it?”
He shrugged.
“Mom says I have to.”
Children inherit obligations before assets.
Then he said:
“She says when I’m eighteen, I get the blue twelve.”
I almost corrected immediately.
The therapist stopped me with a look.
Better.
“What do you think the blue twelve does?”
“Runs family stuff.”
“Do you want to run family stuff?”
Another shrug.
“I want to design cars.”
There.
Camilla was fighting to preserve an inheritance her son did not even want.
Then Travis looked at me.
“Is Penny real family?”
“Yes.”
“Mom says her mom wasn’t married to you.”
“That does not make Penny less my daughter.”
“Grandpa never corrects her.”
There.
Augustine’s silence again.
Then:
“Why did Penny get a birthday if she’s taking my stuff?”
I looked at the therapist.
She nodded.
I answered:
“Penny did not take anything from you. Adults made rules before either of you were born. Whatever those rules say, you are not responsible for losing something just because Penny exists.”
He started crying.
Quietly.
“Mom said if Penny goes on blue paper, Grandpa wins.”
“What does Grandpa win?”
“I don’t know.”
Interesting.
This was not only Camilla versus Penny.
It was Camilla versus Augustine.
Then Travis said:
“She has a red folder.”
“Who?”
“Mom.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know. She says it proves Grandpa can’t take the vote back.”
The therapist ended the meeting before curiosity became interrogation.
Good.
I left knowing less than I wanted and more than I expected.
Then Peter stopped me outside.
“Niccolo.”
“What?”
“Camilla has been telling Travis for years that he is the only grandchild Augustine respects.”
“That’s not true.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you stop it?”
“I tried. She said I was jealous because Travis is a Ferretti.”
Pain travels across divorces too.
Then:
“She also told him Penny’s mother was temporary.”
My hands tightened.
Elise.
Dead.
“Explain.”
“She said children from women who don’t marry into the family don’t count the same.”
I looked away.
Elise had disliked Camilla from the beginning.
The feeling was mutual.
Maybe the trust conflict simply gave Camilla a respectable vocabulary for older contempt.
Then Schedule Eleven arrived.
Naomi insisted we read it privately with Hawthorne’s current fiduciary counsel.
The first pages confirmed:
Twelve-percent Next Generation Continuity segment.
Temporary steward while only one certified grandchild branch existed.
Camilla.
Then:
Upon certification of a second qualifying descendant from a separate child branch, temporary sole stewardship terminates.
The twelve percent does not go to the children.
It divides into two six-percent minor-descendant stewardship subaccounts.
Both administered by independent fiduciaries.
Parents receive consultation.
Children later receive education and limited participatory rights as adults.
No automatic ownership.
No throne.
Then one cross-reference:
Upon branch division, prior temporary stewardship transactions involving material conflicts shall undergo five-year independent review.
There.
Camilla’s contracts.
Meridian.
Then an additional clause.
No descendant may be denied certification based on legitimacy of the parents’ marriage, surname, residence, or refusal to participate in family employment.
Augustine looked at me.
“Your grandmother wrote that.”
My late grandmother Rosalia.
Why?
Because Augustine himself had been born before his parents married.
I almost laughed.
Camilla had spent four years weaponizing a distinction the trust explicitly rejected because our own father would have failed it.
Then the last page.
Age-four trigger.
If an eligible descendant remained uncertified at age four, Hawthorne had to bypass family-office administration and verify directly with the custodial parent.
That was why Camilla intercepted the notice.
She had reached the end of informal delay.
Penny’s fourth birthday did not create her rights.
It forced the trustee to stop accepting family explanations about why those rights were not being administered.
Then Hawthorne counsel said:
“Certification can proceed within days.”
Camilla’s attorney interrupted by email.
FORMAL OBJECTION.
Basis:
Niccolo previously declined participation.
Penny has not been raised within continuity culture.
Sudden activation would destabilize Meridian.
I stared.
None of those sounded like legal disqualification.
Naomi agreed.
Then the red folder.
We did not need Travis to find it.
Camilla attached part of it to her objection.
At the top:
SOLE-BRANCH CONTINUITY DECLARATION.
Prepared two years earlier.
Signature line for Augustine.
Unsigned.
Camilla had been trying to get our father to formally declare Travis’s branch the sole next-generation continuity line.
Why had he refused?
Because he knew Penny existed.
Why had he allowed Camilla to act temporarily anyway?
May you like
Because he believed delay was reversible.
The trust hearing would decide whether his passivity had already become a governance failure.
