Chapter 9 - What Mom had done for me
Diane had done things for me.
This story becomes dishonest if I erase them.
When I was eight and had pneumonia, she slept on the hospital chair.
When I was twelve and bullied at school, she marched into the principal’s office.
When I was twenty-five and broke an ankle, she stayed three days.
When Ben and I moved into our first house, she painted the guest bedroom.
She loaned me $4,000 for a car at twenty-three.
I repaid it.
She never mentioned it again.
Mom was not a woman who woke each morning planning to exploit her daughter.
She was a woman whose concept of family became distorted by decades of unequal rescue.
Rachel needed.
Elena had.
Therefore Elena helped.
At first Mom asked.
Then assumed.
Then presented need as obligation.
Then adjusted stories when she worried I might refuse.
That progression mattered more than assigning one villain word.
May you like
I could love the woman who sat beside my childhood hospital bed and still refuse access to my adult bank account.
Both.
