Chapter 12 - Margaret Finally Faced Vanessa
Vanessa confronted Margaret without Daniel present.
Later, she told him what happened.
Margaret denied everything first.
Then minimized it.
Then blamed Daniel.
Finally Vanessa asked:
“Why did you keep telling me Lily was the reason I wasn’t happy?”
Margaret answered:
“Because every time you cried, she was there reminding you Daniel already had what you lost.”
Vanessa went quiet.
Margaret continued.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From a toddler?”
“From disappearing inside his old life.”
Vanessa stared at her mother.
“You taught me to hate a child because I was grieving.”
Margaret’s face hardened.
“I did not make you do anything.”
That was true.
And devastating.
Vanessa had been waiting for someone else to take responsibility for what she became.
Margaret refused.
For once, that refusal was useful.
Vanessa said:
“You encouraged me. But I did it.”
Margaret tried to leave.
Vanessa stopped her with one question.
“If Lily had been my biological daughter, would you have treated her that way?”
Margaret did not answer.
She did not need to.
Vanessa ended contact with her mother for the time being.
Not as punishment for Daniel.
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Because therapy had made one thing unavoidable.
As long as Margaret remained the person Vanessa ran to whenever she felt ashamed, Margaret’s explanations would keep becoming Vanessa’s reality.
