Chapter 10 Hauses Hohenwald
Hauses Hohenwald
Hildy
Itell myself I’m not going to look him up, and that’s not even the first lie of the night.
I sit on my bed with my laptop balanced on my lap and open it, watching Lucy to make sure it doesn’t disturb her sleep.
This feels intrusive, like skipping steps. Like accusing him of being something before I’m ready to know what that something is. But you know what else was intrusive? The book left on the counter that messed with my head.
I type what I think is safe.
Lenzin Faulker, Munich, Germany.
It feels reasonable. Academic. The kind of search you do when you’re still hoping the answer is boring.
The first result isn’t a person. It’s a place.
A regional article in English, translated clumsily, about land preservation outside Munich.
Rolling hills. Dense forest. Stone fencing that looks older than most American cities.
The caption mentions a rural district I half-recognize, close enough to Munich to claim it socially, far enough to still be countryside. Not city. Land.
I scroll back up, pulse ticking faster.
The second result is in German. I read it carefully, sentence by sentence, because I know how much hides in phrasing.
Lenzin Faulker, listed as residing near Munich. Rural district. Agricultural zoning. Heritage council affiliation. Not Munich proper.
I click.
Municipal records. No photos. No drama. Just a short bio and a list of committees. And then, almost as an afterthought, a line buried in parentheses.
Erbe des Hauses Hohenwald.
Heir of the House of Hohenwald.
My fingers still on the trackpad, my brain stalls. House. Not family. Not name. House.
I copy it. Paste it into a translator even though I don’t need to. The meaning doesn’t change.
I feel stupid for a second. For not realizing what that phrasing implies.
I open a new tab.
Lenzin Faulker von Hohenwald.
This time the results reorganize themselves, like the internet has decided I’m finally asking the right question.
Academic affiliations. European land trusts. A foundation bearing the Hohenwald name, described as multi-generational.
I click again.
There’s a profile now. Minimalist. Institutional. The kind of page that exists for people who don’t need publicity. Near the bottom, in restrained, almost apologetic language, it says:
Designated successor to Graf von Hohenwald.
I stare at it.
Successor. Not someday. Not theoretically. Next.
My chest tightens in a way that feels cold instead of panicked.
The man who listened to me talk about legitimacy and capital and power structures like it was an intellectual exercise is the next one in line to inherit a title that predates most democracies.
I scroll.
There’s a photo of the estate now. Not flashy. Stone buildings nestled into forest. Maps outlining land boundaries that stretch farther than they should. Conservation language layered over ownership like a veneer of benevolence.
Stewardship. Legacy. Continuity.
This isn’t a man who rents space in the world. This is a man the world has been holding room for.
I close one tab and open another, chasing the thread because now I need to understand the scale of what I didn’t know.
It’s not fame. It’s infrastructure. Boards. Lawyers. Endowments. A quiet assumption threaded through everything that says this family has always known where it belongs.
I think about how he introduced himself.
Von Hohenwald, how did that not click? Oh right, you nerding out.
I open a new tab and type Hohenwald Foundation without adding his name, like I’m trying to keep this professional. Detached. Like this is just research, not my life spiraling quietly in front of me.
The site loads fast. Designed well. No excess language. Earth tones. Serif font that screams credibility.
The first line is almost gentle.
Dedicated to stewardship, education, and the long-term stability of European families and institutions.
Families.
I scroll.
Programs. Grants. Partnerships. The words are neutral, careful, deliberately non-inflammatory. Academic fellowships. Heritage conservation. Legal research initiatives focused on “family continuity” and “intergenerational stability.”
I stop breathing for a second. Family continuity is not a phrase you use accidentally.
There’s a tab for Advisory Board, I don’t want to click it. I do anyway.
His name isn’t at the top. That would be tacky. It’s further down, under Future Trustees, listed with the same restrained language I’ve seen everywhere else.
Lenzin Faulker von Hohenwald, designated successor.
I scroll faster now, pulse loud in my ears.
Legal partnerships. Policy research. White papers. Collaborations with institutions I recognize immediately. Some I’ve cited. Some I’ve side-eyed. Some I know for a fact have opinions about what makes a “stable home.”
This foundation doesn’t fight custody battles. It shapes the thinking behind them.
That’s when it hits. This is the same language you hear in courtrooms. The same framing you hear from judges who think they’re being neutral.
The same logic that turns money into morality without ever saying so out loud.
Stability. Resources. Continuity.
I’ve been translating this for other women for years and for myself over the past couple of days. Now I know why the deck feels stacked even when no one is cheating.
And now I’m staring at the institutional blueprint behind it.
My hands are cold and shaking as I scroll to the bottom of the page, half hoping for something obvious. Something ugly. There’s nothing. Just annual reports and impact statements and photos of panel discussions in rooms that look exactly like the lecture hall where I met him.
That’s the part that makes my throat close. This isn’t a villain. This is a system that believes it’s doing good. And he’s not just adjacent to it. He’s next in line to run it.
I think about the way he listened to me. The way he took my question seriously. The way he looked at me like my mind mattered.
I don’t think that was fake. I think that’s what makes this so dangerous.
Because if I tell him, he won’t see himself as the threat. He’ll see a problem that needs solving. A situation that requires structure. Support. The full weight of the resources he’s been raised to deploy. And I know, in my bones, what happens when a man like that decides to help.
I close the tab slowly. Deliberately. Like I’m sealing something away.
This isn’t about whether I can raise a child. I already know I can. So does he.
This is about whether I can protect one from a world that would politely, reasonably decide it knows better than I do.
I sit there for a long time, laptop dark, room humming around me, and let the truth settle.
The foundation isn’t the threat. The inevitability is. And for the first time since the bathroom floor, since the test, since the name clicked into place, I don’t feel panicked.
I feel alert.
Which tells me everything. I’m ready to fight.
I sit back on my bed, laptop warm against my thighs, and feel something settle in my gut with terrifying clarity.
If this ever becomes a fight, it won’t be loud.
It will be calm. Measured. Conducted by people who already know his name.
I press my hand to my stomach without realizing I’m doing it.
The countryside outside Munich feels impossibly far away. And suddenly, unbearably close.
Not influencer-famous. Not tabloid-famous. Institutional-famous. The kind that doesn’t trend but absolutely matters when documents get signed.
I close my laptop too fast, like it might bite me.
This is the man I slept with.
Not a professor. Not a visiting scholar. Not even just a brilliant, nerdy stranger who saw me and made me feel like I belonged.
I think again about how he introduced himself. How deliberate it was. How he didn’t say heir. How he let the name do just enough work and no more.
I think about the way he looked at me. The respect. The attention. The calm certainty.
He wasn’t hiding. He was managing. He still is.
I sit there, hands clenched in the fabric of my comforter, and feel something cold and precise settle in my gut.
I am not dealing with a man who disappears. I am dealing with a man who shows up with infrastructure. Lawyers. Advisors. Generations of precedent that say children belong where money says they’re safest.
I don’t need to scroll any further to know that if this ever becomes a fight, it will not be fair. Not because he would cheat. Not because he would be cruel. But because the system already knows his name.
I whisper it once, just to hear how it sounds in my own mouth. “Von Hohenwald.”
The universe gave me a solid this morning. The team’s flight was delayed, giving me breathing room. And speaking of breathing room, I have none in my favorite jeans. Lucky for me, I love a good thrift find and a belt. Unlucky for me, I need to find a new belt, like soon.
Nalani and Sofie texted this morning after I’d asked Noelle if she wanted me to come in early and give us a ride to grab the suitcases my roommates sweetly packed up, all three of them, and then to work.
Lucy and I were very excited that Noelle had set up a cute little reading nook with a chair that unfolds into a chaise lounge and a low folding table she can sit on the floor and color at in the office directly behind the counter.
She was very excited to meet new friends, and yes, they signed her cast.
Right now, she is in the office up front with Preya, another new friend, while I am in the used book section that we just added, shelving all the battered paper Fitzgeralds and Austen reprints in a quad-stack formation, making sure every spine is squared to the shelf’s lip.
There’s something cathartic about alphabetical order, and although we don’t use the law of Dewey here, I love that too.