Chapter 6 - THE THINGS I HAD CALLED HELP
Mason’s therapist, Dr. Feld, asked me not to interrogate him about Vanessa.
“Let him tell you what matters to him.”
So I listened.
The stories came slowly.
Vanessa removing Emily’s pictures from his room.
Grandma telling him not to mention his mother when Vanessa was having “a hard day.”
Vanessa saying that if she and I eventually had a baby, Mason would need to stop making everything about “the old family.”
Nothing physical.
Nothing dramatic enough that an outsider would immediately call emergency services.
But together, the message was unmistakable.
His grief was inconvenient.
His mother was competition.
His place in the family was negotiable.
The worst part was how many things I remembered noticing and dismissing.
A missing photograph.
A changed seating arrangement.
Mason suddenly asking whether I still loved him.
I had accepted explanations because they were easier than investigating discomfort.
Then Lauren brought me something.
A birthday card Emily had written for Mason to open when he turned ten.
She had entrusted it to Lauren instead of my mother.
On the envelope, Emily had added one sentence:
Please keep this yourself. Diane has started deciding what Ryan should and shouldn’t see after I’m gone.
That afternoon I confronted Mom again.
This time she did not deny it.
“I filtered things.”
“You hid things.”
“I was trying to keep you functioning.”
“You mean manageable.”
She flinched.
Then she admitted something else.
Before Emily died, she had encouraged Vanessa to spend more time around our family.
“She was competent. Mason liked her then. You trusted her.”
“Emily was alive.”
“I knew what was coming.”
The words made me stand.
“You were preparing my next marriage?”
“No.”
“What were you preparing?”
Mom covered her face.
“A softer landing.”
I suddenly understood why Emily had been afraid.
My mother had turned grief into logistics.
And somewhere along the way, she had decided she was entitled to choose which emotions, people, and information reached me.
Then Mom lowered her hands.
“I found the blue journal.”
“Where?”
“My bedroom closet.”
“And the letter?”
Her eyes moved away.
May you like
“Still missing.”
I didn’t believe her anymore.
