Chapter 3 - I HAD ALREADY BEEN WARNED
The worst evidence against me was my own text history.
Carys and I had never deleted our messages.
I searched:
Mother.
Lowri.
Thomasin.
Replacement.
Then I found one from sixteen days before Carys’s final hospitalization.
CARYS:
Please don’t leave Lowri with your mother tomorrow.
ME:
Why?
CARYS:
I don’t want to explain by text.
ME:
I have the board meeting and Thomasin will be there too.
CARYS:
That is worse.
I sat down.
I had forgotten.
Completely.
My answer:
ME:
You’re exhausted. Mom loves Lowri. We’ll talk tonight.
CARYS:
You always say that when you’ve already decided I’m overreacting.
Nothing after.
That night Carys had been vomiting from treatment.
We did not have the conversation.
The next morning I left Lowri with Mother for three hours.
Thomasin was there.
I stared at the message until my vision blurred.
Naomi said:
“You need to tell the child therapist this existed.”
“Yes.”
“And your lawyer.”
“Yes.”
“And do not start rewriting your own past to make yourself innocent.”
“I’m not.”
Good.
Then I found another exchange.
CARYS:
Lowri came home saying Grandma told her she’ll need “a new mommy helper.”
ME:
Mom means after treatment.
CARYS:
No, she doesn’t.
ME:
I’ll talk to her.
Did I?
I had.
Mother laughed.
Said Lowri misunderstood.
I accepted.
Then a message to Thomasin.
ME:
Please don’t talk to Lowri about Carys dying.
THOMASIN:
I didn’t.
ME:
She says you told her angels choose replacement mommies.
THOMASIN:
That sounds like something a child invented.
I had believed Thomasin.
Why?
Because the alternative was ugly.
Because my mother trusted her.
Because Carys was sick and angry and terrified.
Because I was cowardly enough to prefer misunderstandings.
Then another.
CARYS:
If Thomasin is at your mother’s, bring Lowri home.
ME:
Carys.
CARYS:
I mean it.
ME:
Fine.
That time I did.
Small.
Not enough.
Then Thomasin’s engagement portrait.
I stared at our smiling faces.
How had I reached engagement?
After Carys died, Thomasin helped.
Meals.
School pickups.
Organized paperwork.
My mother said:
“Lowri needs a stable woman around.”
I resisted for months.
Then Thomasin and I became close.
She told me Carys would want me happy.
Maybe.
Lowri never liked her.
I told myself grief.
When Lowri complained Thomasin moved Carys’s photo from the living room to a hallway shelf, I told Thomasin to put it back.
She did.
I considered problem solved.
It wasn’t.
Then family-reunion guest Meredith called.
She had witnessed the patio incident.
“I should tell you something.”
“What?”
“Thomasin has been removing Carys from family displays for months.”
My stomach dropped.
“How?”
“At your mother’s house. Reunion planning. Old photographs.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you knew.”
Everyone’s favorite sentence.
Then:
“Honora said it was healthier for Lowri.”
There.
“Did Mother remove pictures herself?”
“I saw her take down one framed wedding photo.”
“Destroy it?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“Storage maybe.”
Again.
Distinguish.
Thomasin tore.
Mother removed.
Different.
Then Meredith said:
“Your mother kept saying children shouldn’t live in mausoleums.”
Maybe a reasonable concern in another context.
Not this.
Then:
“She said Thomasin would never feel secure if Carys was everywhere.”
There.
Thomasin’s feelings.
Above Lowri’s memory.
May you like
I had allowed engagement to become a negotiation over a dead woman’s visibility.
And I had never understood Lowri was losing that negotiation every time I left the room.
