Chapter 236

• I kept my midday meal light a simple bowl of homemade chicken soup before heading to the family estate’s private memorial room to pay my respects.
• The Sinclair family was one of the most influential dynasties in the business world, with our own dedicated sanctuary where portraits and plaques commemorated my late parents, brothers, and close relatives. But as a woman, tradition dictated that I could not enter the inner sanctum of the memorial room. I was only permitted to honor my family from the outer hall.
• It was a rigid custom rooted in old-world corporate legacies: women born into the Sinclair family would eventually “marry out,” joining other influential houses, and thus were not granted full access to the family’s core heritage spaces. Only women who had married into the Sinclair lineage were given that privilege.