Chapter 21 - MILLICENT AND REBECCA At twenty-four, Silas asked Millicent about his mother.
Not the polished stories.
The conflict.
He told me beforehand.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Should I not?”
“Your choice.”
He met her alone.
Adult.
No supervisor.
Later he told me.
“Grandma said Mom didn’t like her.”
“True sometimes.”
“She said Mom thought she was controlling.”
“Also true.”
“She said Mom was controlling too.”
I laughed.
“Also true.”
Rebecca was not a saint.
She hated Millicent dropping in unannounced.
Once changed the locks without telling me because my mother kept using a key.
I was furious at Rebecca.
Now I understood.
Silas asked Millicent:
“Did you wish Mom wasn’t there?”
Millicent said:
“Sometimes I wished she would stop standing between me and my family.”
Ugly.
Then:
“I did not wish she would die.”
Important.
No retroactive conspiracy.
No hidden role in Rebecca’s aneurysm.
Death stays death.
Silas asked:
“Were you happy after?”
Millicent cried.
“No.”
“Did you like being needed?”
“Yes.”
There.
Then:
“I was ashamed that part of me felt more important after she was gone.”
That is the kind of confession that does not create crime.
It creates truth.
Silas told me:
“I think Grandma loved Mom badly.”
Interesting.
“What does that mean?”
“She wanted Mom in the family if Mom agreed with her.”
Yes.
Conditional belonging.
The pattern.
Then Silas said:
“Did you do that too?”
I stopped.
“To Mom?”
“Did you expect her to handle stuff because she was better at it?”
“Yes.”
“Did she hate that?”
“Sometimes.”
He nodded.
No hero father.
Good.
I had become better by being forced to see my own passivity.
Rebecca had carried emotional labor.
Millicent then filled the vacancy.
I accepted both because their competence made my life easier.
Different women.
Different consequences.
But the habit belonged partly to me.
That realization came late.
Still useful.
Then Silas showed me something Millicent gave him.
The dinosaur lamp.
She had kept it.
At twenty-four he wanted it back.
“Why?”
“For my apartment.”
I stared.
“That ugly thing?”
“History.”
He plugged it in.
Still worked.
The room he once feared losing now existed in another city, under another roof, by his own lease.
May you like
The lamp moved because he chose it.
That was the opposite of the trunk.
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