Chapter 2 Oliver

One of the house maids came into the dining room and told my mother and father that a communiqué had just arrived, my mother asked her to bring the paper to her, as soon as she read the contents of this letter she collapsed, she didn't know what it was about yet but she could be completely sure that it wasn't something good by the way my mother immediately felt sick when she read it.

My father tried to hold my poor mother as her body gave way to the stress, but was almost unsuccessful in preventing her body from crashing to the floor, Maya and I just watched in complete shock as we stared at each other while we tried our best to help our father with our mother's care.

My father took the communiqué and as soon as he read the contents of the letter, he turned totally pale, it was as if he had seen a ghost right in front of him, at that moment I wished that Oliver was with us to calm our father and help him deal with whatever was going on. My father asked us to take care of our mother and didn't say another word before quickly walking out the front door of the mansion and shouting for one of his employees to bring him a horse. After a few minutes and a reasonable amount of water my poor mother finally woke up, Maya and I were restless wanting to know what that communiqué was about, however we decided that we shouldn't put our poor mother's fragile health at risk just out of curiosity, waiting until she was calmer was for sure the best decision to make at that moment.

It was already past two o'clock on that chaotic afternoon while Maya and I didn't have a single piece of news about anything that had happened, both of us were sitting at the tea table in an external area of the house, both of us were trying to leave all this aside and calm down, after all, one hour or another the details about what had happened would reach our ears. It didn't take long until our father returned to the house, one of the maids warned us that he had just returned, Maya and I ran to the main hall where the entrance door was and we bumped into our father, his face had an apathetic and depressed semblance and when I finally had the courage for both of us to ask what had happened, he just asked us to follow him to one of the rooms since it wouldn't be a very nice conversation. We obeyed him and walked with him to the dining room, on the way Maya and I looked at each other seeking some comfort from both of us, we didn't know yet what it was about, but the certainty that it was something more serious than we imagined took over us.

We arrived at the dining room and we both sat down in our usual chairs during meals, our father took a deep breath as he ran his hand through his almost gray hair before finally beginning to speak.

"Listen carefully my dear daughters, I would like to say that the news I received earlier has left me devastated and I hate with all my heart to be the bearer of such unfortunate news. The letter we received earlier was a statement from the court itself that made it more than clear that your brother had been arrested when he was caught red-handed committing a crime of sadomy with his childhood friend David. The flagrant was made by David's father who insisted that both of them should be brought to trial after making a big scandal.

"That can't be true dad, Oliver and David are just very close childhood friends."

"David's father claims that most of the employees in the house witnessed the scene, they were without their clothes and actually committing sadomy. The evidence is overwhelming. I really can't believe that my only son would bring me such shame and heartbreak."

"Don't tell me that you intend to turn your back on Oliver. "

"That's exactly what I'm going to do. I can't let the entire high-class community think that I condone such profanity."

"Is your reputation with these hypocritical and arrogant people worth more than the life of your only son! How can you say things like that?"

"Don't you see how this will affect the lives of all of us? How will I be able to find good suitors for you two if this whole situation gets worse? It's going to be hard enough for me to walk around with our reputation tarnished by something like this."

Those words. I couldn't believe I was hearing them, couldn't believe that my beloved father was trading Oliver's life for a mere reputation.