Chapter 8 - Victoria’s favorite child
People in families hate the phrase favorite child.
Especially when everyone knows who it is.
Arthur was my mother’s.
Not because she did not love me.
She did.
She also interpreted us differently.
Arthur failed?
Pressure.
Clara failed?
Poor judgment.
Arthur raised his voice?
Leadership.
Clara raised hers?
Drama.
Arthur did not call for two weeks?
Busy.
Clara did not call for two weeks?
Punishing the family.
When Arthur was twenty-six, he lost almost eighty thousand dollars in a business investment.
Charles gave him another loan.
“He took a risk.”
When I was twenty-eight, I left a marketing job I hated and worked freelance for six months before finding another position.
Victoria called:
“Self-sabotage.”
That was our family language.
Arthur was allowed context.
I was assigned character.
I had spent years fighting it.
May you like
Then, after Gigi was born, I started tolerating it again because I wanted my daughter to have grandparents.
That compromise became dangerous when I allowed grandparents to interpret access as authority.
