Chapter 13 - ELEANOR’S HISTORY OF “CALMING PEOPLE DOWN”Julian’s sister Brooke arrived from Chicago.
I had always liked Brooke.
Forty-two.
Corporate recruiter.
Efficient.
Blunt.
The only Whitmore who regularly told Eleanor no.
At least I thought.
Brooke sat in my kitchen.
“Mom has always been weird about anxiety.”
“What does that mean?”
“When we were kids, if Julian got worked up before school, she gave him antihistamine.”
Julian looked stunned.
“What?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.”
Brooke shrugged.
“She called it allergy medicine.”
“Did you get it?”
“Sometimes.”
I looked at Julian.
His face had emptied.
Brooke continued.
“Dad hated it. They fought.”
“Was it prescribed?”
“No. Over-the-counter.”
Not the same as what happened to me.
But pattern.
Eleanor viewed sedation as regulation.
Brooke added:
“When Dad was dying, she wanted the hospice nurses to give him more medication whenever he got agitated.”
“That is different.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not saying it’s the same.”
Good.
Then Brooke said:
“She thinks calm means safe.”
That sentence stayed with me.
May you like
It did not excuse anything.
But it explained the shape of her thinking.
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