Chapter 7 - Laurel
Camilla’s resentment did not begin with the kennel.
It began with a ghost.
Laurel was dead.
She was still everywhere.
Photographs.
Pippa’s face.
Stories my family told.
The recipe cards in our kitchen.
The rosebush she planted.
I had tried to be respectful to Camilla.
I moved some photographs from our bedroom.
Never asked her to become Laurel.
Never encouraged Pippa to call her Mom.
But grief does not obey interior design.
Pippa sometimes said:
“My first mommy did it this way.”
Camilla smiled at first.
Later:
“You don’t have to compare everything.”
Fair.
Then she began interpreting grief as manipulation.
If Pippa cried when I traveled:
“She knows crying keeps you on FaceTime longer.”
If she wanted Laurel’s stuffed rabbit:
“She uses it whenever she doesn’t want to self-soothe.”
If she said:
“My mommy wouldn’t make me eat this,”
Camilla heard deliberate cruelty.
Sometimes Pippa probably was testing boundaries.
She was five.
May you like
Children weaponize every available argument.
Adults are supposed to remain adults.
