Chapter 6 - Callie Had Seen Something Too
Ethan went to his sister.
Callie did not defend Marlene.
That was unusual enough to make him nervous.
They sat on Callie’s back deck while her two teenagers were at school.
Ethan explained the payments.
Callie lowered her coffee.
“She was taking money from Nora?”
“For almost a year.”
Callie looked genuinely horrified.
Then Ethan mentioned the hospital.
Her expression changed again.
“You knew something.”
“I knew Mom hated how attached you were to the baby.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Callie told him about an argument she had overheard three weeks before Lily was born.
Marlene and Nora were in the kitchen during the baby shower cleanup.
Nora wanted Ethan to reduce his weekend work once Lily arrived.
Marlene called that selfish.
Nora replied that Ethan was becoming a father, not abandoning his mother.
“That set Mom off,” Callie said.
“What did she say?”
“She told Nora, ‘Children come and go. Mothers don’t.’”
Ethan stared at her.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Callie gave him a tired look.
“Because you know what happened anytime anybody criticized Mom.”
Ethan knew.
He explained her.
Defended her.
Minimized.
Callie had done the same for years because resisting Marlene took more energy than accommodating her.
There were other examples.
Marlene had complained when Ethan and Nora bought the Naperville house instead of living closer to her in Oak Brook.
She had become angry when Ethan stopped attending Sunday dinner every week.
When Lily was born, she repeatedly offered to stay overnight even after Nora said no.
Callie leaned back.
“I don’t think Mom wanted Lily hurt.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“She humiliated her yesterday.”
“I know. I’m not excusing that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I think she resented what Lily represented.”
“What?”
Callie looked at him.
“A life where you didn’t need Mom at the center anymore.”
It was the first explanation that made Marlene’s behavior coherent.
Not reasonable.
Not forgivable.
But coherent.
Then Callie remembered something else.
Two months after Lily was born, Marlene had suddenly paid off nearly nine thousand dollars in credit-card debt.
Ethan stopped breathing for a second.
“Where did she get the money?”
Callie shook her head.
May you like
“I assumed she sold investments.”
Ethan knew now that at least some of it had probably come from his wife.
