But something was wrong with the spell now. The words just lay there, old and exhausted. They did nothing.
I watched her wipe and wipe, ignoring the crumpled, bleeding paper at the center of the table, and the pity I had always felt for her—poor, anxious Mom, caught in the middle, always begging for peace—evaporated.
She was maintaining a system.
My mother wasn’t helpless. She was invested. Addicted to the image of the happy family she’d curated like her Pinterest boards. Dinner at the cabin. Matching sweaters for the Christmas photos. Jessica’s successes trumpeted on Facebook, my life summarized in polite bullet points.
She would pay any price to keep that picture intact.
She just never paid it herself.
She taxed us—the quiet ones, the good ones, the ones who wouldn’t scream. She taxed our self-esteem to keep Jessica calm. She sacrificed our dignity to keep Jessica from burning the house down.
Susan would let Jacob bleed if it meant the carpet stayed clean.
Jessica, emboldened by the performance, leaned back in her chair, swirling her wine, her confidence slinking back over her shoulders.
“Exactly,” she said. “He’s too soft. Sarah babies him. I’m doing him a favor, teaching him how the real world works.”
I heard it snap inside me.
My father stood.
He didn’t slam his chair back or shout. He rose with the slow, grinding inevitability of an old building finally shifting under its own weight. The movement drew every eye more effectively than any outburst could have.
He stepped away from the table and walked to the stone fireplace, to the mantel where a wooden sign hung—one of those mass-produced rustic plaques my mother loved. FAMILY IS FOREVER, it read in curling script.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then he turned to my mother.
“You wiped the table,” he said. Continue reading…
