Chapter 12 - What Beatrice Was Actually Afraid Of
The second mediation was different.
Beatrice had no spreadsheet.
She looked smaller somehow.
Not physically.
Socially.
As though the absence of performance had reduced her.
Claire asked one question.
“Why did my cancer embarrass you?”
Beatrice’s attorney started to object to the emotional direction.
The mediator allowed it.
Beatrice stared at her hands.
“I didn’t want people looking at me with pity.”
Claire almost laughed.
“At you?”
“My husband died. Then my business fell apart. Then you got sick.”
“That happened to me.”
“I know.”
“No. You keep saying things that happened to other people as if they happened to you.”
Beatrice’s mouth tightened.
Claire continued.
“You told everyone I was on vacation because you didn’t want them knowing your daughter had cancer.”
“I didn’t want questions.”
“You didn’t want witnesses.”
That landed harder.
Beatrice finally looked at her.
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“I could lose the house.”
“So you charged me eighteen hundred dollars.”
“You were thirty-two years old, Claire. I didn’t think asking you to contribute was monstrous.”
“Charging rent wasn’t the worst part.”
Claire leaned forward.
“Making me think nobody else wanted me was.”
Beatrice’s face crumpled slightly.
“I knew you’d leave.”
“Yes.”
“And then what was I supposed to do?”
There it was again.
What about me?
Claire had heard some version of that sentence since childhood.
When Claire chose an out-of-state college.
When she spent Christmas with her father’s family.
When she accepted a job in Manhattan.
When she dated someone Beatrice disliked.
Claire’s independence always registered as Beatrice’s abandonment.
Cancer had made Claire temporarily dependent again.
Beatrice had wanted to preserve that.
Not because she wanted her daughter sick.
Because she wanted to feel necessary.
The money made necessity profitable.
The image management made it respectable.
Silas finally spoke.
“You ripped off her wig because you couldn’t stand that she was standing there without needing your approval.”
Beatrice turned toward him.
“I was angry.”
“You were losing control.”
She looked back at Claire.
“I’m still your mother.”
Claire nodded.
“That’s why this hurts.”
Beatrice started crying.
May you like
Claire did not move to comfort her.
That was the first time in her life she allowed her mother’s tears to remain Beatrice’s responsibility.
