Chapter 14 - MOM AND DAD’S OLD WAROnce Gary was temporarily out of the house, Mom and Dad finally had to speak honestly in mediation.
I was not in the room.
I later heard enough from both.
Dad accused Mom of blocking contact.
Mom accused Dad of disappearing when conflict became difficult.
Both were right.
After Dad’s DUI, Mom stopped trusting him.
Reasonably.
Then he recovered.
She did not update her fear.
When he moved for work, she interpreted distance as proof.
When he missed one supervised visit because his car broke down, she treated it as pattern.
When he asked for flexibility, she refused.
Dad became resentful.
Instead of litigating every denial, he sometimes stopped calling for weeks.
Then months.
Mom told us:
“He doesn’t care.”
Dad told himself:
“They’re better off without constant fighting.”
Both stories protected the adult telling them.
Neither protected us from absence.
Gary entered that gap.
He liked being the reliable man in the house.
At first, he was.
May you like
Then reliability became authority.
Authority became control.
Related Stories
