My mother stood up.
She did it slowly, one hand on the back of her chair, and everyone turned to look at her. She drew herself up the way she did at funerals and bake sales, shoulders back, chin high.
“I would like to say,” she announced, in a clear, trembling voice, “that I have never in my life been so insulted.”
Nobody moved.
“I raised these children alone. I worked nights. I scrubbed floors. I gave up everything so they’d have a chance. And now I’m accused of theft, in front of strangers, by my own daughter.”
“Mom…”
“I’m not finished!”
I stopped.
“Natalie has always been a difficult child,” she told the room. “Secretive. Proud. She keeps accounts on the people who love her. I think she’s been waiting her whole life for a chance to punish me.”
She pulled an embroidered handkerchief with a lace edge out of her purse and pressed it to her eyes. I recognized it. It had been in that purse since my father’s funeral.
And with a jolt, I realized she believed every word.
I’d always thought of my mother as a liar, a patient and practiced one. I’d spent twenty-two years looking for the seam where her stories split.
I’d been wrong. She wasn’t lying, not inside her own head. She’d rebuilt the past one brick at a time until it fit her. In her version, she was the one who gave and gave, and her cold, careful daughter was the one who held back.
It was the only story she could live inside.
Part of me wanted to go to her and put my arms around her. I could see how frightened she was.
Under the table, Helen’s hand closed around my wrist. Not yet.
“Mrs. Mercer,” Alston said quietly. “Please consider your answers carefully. When you told your daughter Kyle was going on the loan only to help you qualify, did you already intend to put him on the deed?”
“We discussed it. As a possibility.”
“Did you tell Natalie?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It was a family matter.”
“Natalie is family.”
“She wouldn’t have understood!”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s selfish!”
The word rang off the glass wall.
I’d braced for that word in the car on the way over. I’d expected it to hurt. Instead, I felt a strange, clear relief, like a splinter finally pulled out.
Selfish. I’d heard it my whole life. Don’t be selfish, Natalie. Natalie’s so selfish. It had followed me through every room I’d ever walked into. And now it had been said out loud in front of a lawyer, a paralegal, and a recording phone.
And finally it sounded like what it was: the voice of a woman who needed me to be the villain so she wouldn’t have to be.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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