Page 183 of Perfect Satisfaction

“Us?” I question.

“All of us.”

“When?”

“Right now.”

CHAPTERNINETY-ONE

Just this once, go read StellaNova.

@mooreyouwant @brendanblake @joshuabassetmsw

#wearefamily

—Moore You Want

CHAPTERNINETY-TWO

This letter from the deceased West Moore is posted in its entirety with permission from his solicitors, Heythrop and Associates.

No parts may be used or reprinted in part or whole without their explicit written permission. Any references to this letter must refer to the StellaNova website.

—StellaNova

My dear Ursula,

If you’re reading this, I’m dead, and it’s likely neither you nor your brothers are terribly burdened by that.

There are some important things I believe you should know. Things I hope will make your own marriage easier as you go forward—for you and your brothers.

I grew up in a miserable home. My parents despised one another. I don’t have one happy memory of them, only of the women my father brought in or the men my mother did. Those individuals were often kind to the child who kept out of sight lest he receive corporeal punishment from those who brought him into this world.

No sympathy? Certainly, I appreciate your derision. After all, I was a miserable husband and even a greater disappointment as a father. All three times to all three wives and all three children. Yet, somehow, I fathered intelligent, vibrant humans who raised each other instead of succumbing to the toxicity of the mistakes of their father’s line.

Instead of ignoring you, like my family did to me, I was determined to be present so none of you would make the same mistakes that I had.

Or, so I hoped.

I was infuriated when I found out you married a bloke you barely knew. It was something I had done myself with little success. I kept asking myself how you could do something so reckless after living the mistakes of my past? How could you be so bloody foolish?

It took me a long while—too long—before I began asking myself the right question as you devolved from the strong woman who had no difficulty telling me where to stuff my over-inflated ego into a ghost after I showed you the file about your husband.

A file that destroyed you as surely as if you had been physically beaten.

After you left my office that day, I felt the first stirring of pain—later to be determined as my cancer. Honestly, daughter? I have little doubt it was your mother using the full power of the Lord himself to dispense appropriate justice for an act so cruel.

I reread each and every word of that report. I became more and more ill—not from cancer, but from myself. How did I never take the time to get to know you?

I never knew you gave up the millions Meera left you to establish a charity. You could have been set for the rest of your life, yet that wasn’t what you sought. You craved absolution for a sin not of your own but for one you carried.

But you see, despite appearances, I do know you, Ursula. You would never be satisfied with nothing but perfection.

You needed Angela to be happy. You needed a chance for your own love to flourish.

And I’d ripped that away from you.

After you came back from America and asked for my assistance to dissolve your marriage, I couldn’t let you. Forgive me, Sula. You see, I recognized the pain on your face because someone else was also wearing it.