“Because every time you tell me what you meant, I remember what you did.”
She whispered:
“I was overwhelmed.”
“With what?”
“Three kids.”
“Your work.”
“The house.”
“Everything.”
“Then why was Nia carrying more punishment than the others?”
She looked away.
The mediator waited.
Renee said:
“Because she challenged me.”
“She’s ten.”
“She would look at me like I wasn't her mother.”
“You aren't.”
The words came too sharply.
Renee flinched.
I regretted tone.
Not content.
She whispered:
“I tried.”
“I know.”
“She never accepted me.”
“That isn't true.”
“She tolerated me.”
“Maybe.”
“Marcus, do you know what it’s like to live in a house with a dead woman?”
I went still.
The mediator leaned forward.
Renee continued:
“Alana was everywhere.”
“Pictures.”
“Stories.”
“Nia comparing food.”
“Your sister correcting me.”
“‘Alana used to do it this way.’”
“I could never win.”
My anger changed shape.
Not disappeared.
Changed.
“You were jealous of my dead wife.”
Renee started crying.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Not the whole truth.
But a real one.
“I hated admitting it.”
“Because what kind of woman competes with someone who died?”
“I would make dinner and Nia would say, ‘Mom used more garlic.’”
“I would fix her hair and she’d say, ‘Mom did two braids.’”
“You still had Alana’s Christmas ornaments.”
“I felt like I moved into somebody else's marriage.”
I sat back.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“I said we needed our own traditions.”
“That’s not the same.”
“I didn't know how to say, ‘Your dead wife makes me feel invisible.’”
“So you took it out on her daughter.”
Silence.
Renee covered her face.
“I think I did.”
The mediator allowed quiet.