Chapter 8
A year passed.
Patricia wrote letters from prison.
Laura read hers.
I did not read mine.
Ethan chose not to receive any.
That was his therapist’s recommendation.
His choice.
Patricia’s letters to Laura began with blame.
Then excuses.
Then loneliness.
Then, finally, something close to admission.
I thought if I controlled the name, I could control the family.
Laura read that line aloud in counseling.
Then she cried.
Not because she missed Patricia.
Because she recognized the cage.
“I thought control was love,” Laura said.
The counselor asked, “What do you think love is now?”
Laura looked at me.
Then at Ethan’s drawing on the wall.
“Room to tell the truth.”
I nodded.
That sounded right.
Ethan began working on a family tree project for school.
He put me on one side.
Laura on the other.
Then he added Patricia in a small box with dotted lines.
His teacher asked what the dotted lines meant.
“Complicated,” he said.
Fair.
He also added my parents, Laura’s late father, and our dog Max, who technically belonged to me but emotionally belonged to Ethan.
At the bottom, he wrote:
My family tells the truth now.
May you like
I kept a copy.
So did Laura.
