Chapter 4 - Amanda
Amanda Fairmont died when Silas was four.
Not after a long cancer treatment.
That would have given us time to prepare.
She died in three days.
A cerebral aneurysm.
Thursday morning she had complained about the worst headache of her life.
By Sunday afternoon, I was signing organ-donation documents with her brother beside me.
Silas was four years and two months old.
For six months afterward, he followed me from room to room.
If I took out trash:
“Where are you going?”
Bathroom:
“Are you coming back?”
Work trip:
Impossible.
I canceled everything I could.
Millicent helped.
That part of the story mattered.
She was not an outsider who suddenly appeared and took over.
She earned trust.
She slept at our house when I could not sleep.
She brought food.
She took Silas to preschool.
She sat on the floor beside him during nightmares.
She held him at Amanda’s memorial when I could barely stand.
For a year, my mother was one of the reasons I could remain employed and still function as a father.
I will never erase that.
Then something changed.
Silas improved.
I improved.
We moved from survival to routine.
He went to kindergarten.
I reduced Millicent’s pickups from four afternoons to two.
I hired a sitter for one.
Used after-school care on another.
Not because I distrusted her.
Because I needed a system.
Millicent took it personally.
“You’re paying strangers when I’m available.”
“It’s after-school program.”
“I’m his grandmother.”
“I know.”
“He needs consistency.”
“This is consistency.”
She hated that answer.
Then Silas started therapy with Dr. Maya Ellison.
Once weekly.
Grief and separation anxiety.
No major diagnosis.
Dr. Ellison told me:
“Comfort him, but also let him experience ordinary separations and successful reunions.”
Reasonable.
Millicent somehow heard:
“Stop coddling him.”
But she applied it differently.
When Silas cried for me:
“You’re fine.”
When he asked when I would return:
“Stop obsessing.”
When he wanted to take Amanda’s red truck to her house:
“You cannot carry your mother around in a plastic toy.”
I fought with her over that.
She apologized.
May you like
I thought the issue ended.
Apparently it did not.
