Chapter 13 - THOMASIN’S VERSION OF REPLACEMENT
Thomasin gave a deposition in the visitation matter because her conduct was central.
She said:
“I loved Alwyn.”
True.
“I wanted a family.”
True.
“I resented living beside someone who was dead.”
Ugly.
Honest.
Then:
“Carys had a place in every room.”
Not literally.
Emotionally for Thomasin.
Then:
“Honora told me if I waited long enough Lowri would transfer attachment.”
There.
“Did you believe her?”
“Yes.”
“Did Lowri?”
“No.”
Then:
“When did you begin cutting photographs?”
“Two months before engagement.”
“Why?”
“Lowri kept making albums where every family page ended with Carys.”
She was five.
Then:
“Did Alwyn know?”
“No.”
“Why hide it?”
“Because I knew he would be angry.”
There.
Knowing wrong.
Then:
“Why tape your image over Carys?”
Thomasin cried.
“Because I wanted to see what it looked like.”
That answer was almost pathetic.
Then:
“Did you show Lowri?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I told her we could make new family pages.”
“Did she want that?”
“No.”
Then the reunion.
Why tear album?
Lowri had included the engagement portrait?
No. She had included one page labeled “Daddy and Thomasin,” but Carys still appeared elsewhere.
Thomasin saw that and became angry.
Important.
Lowri was not refusing Thomasin’s existence.
She was refusing Carys’s deletion.
Thomasin had been given a place.
She wanted exclusive place.
Then the threat:
“Touch me and Lowri learns the truth.”
What truth?
Thomasin answered:
“That Carys had tried to restrict Honora and had written letters describing Alwyn as someone who minimized problems.”
That was supposed to hurt me.
Maybe expose that Carys did not fully trust me either.
I already knew.
Then Thomasin said:
“She also wrote that she wasn’t sure Alwyn would protect Lowri if he remarried too quickly.”
My heart dropped.
Was that true?
Jonathan confirmed Carys wrote:
I worry Alwyn will rush to create stability after I die because he hates uncertainty.
There.
Not:
he is bad father.
A prediction.
Accurate.
I had become engaged eighteen months after death? Here dating 11 months and engagement 3 months ago, death 22 months. So engagement at 19 months, not insanely quick. But emotionally perhaps still. Fine.
Then:
If he chooses someone who treats remembering me as competition, Lowri will pay for his need to make the house feel normal.
That hurt.
Carys knew me.
Again.
Then child specialist asked:
“Does knowing this mean you should never remarry?”
“No.”
Good.
“Then what?”
“I need to choose someone who can coexist with Lowri’s history.”
Exactly.
May you like
No dead wife controlling future forever.
Just a standard.
