Chapter 8 - DIANE KNEW LESS THAN LAURA FEARED AND MORE THAN SHE ADMITTED
Diane asked to see me the following spring.
Laura’s mother had always been kind to me.
Not intimate.
Kind.
She lived inside a strange mythology after Frank died.
The company was Frank.
Therefore the company was good.
Caleb was Frank’s son.
Therefore Caleb would protect it.
Laura was the responsible daughter.
Therefore Laura would fix anything that threatened it.
Every person had a role.
Facts were expected to cooperate.
We met at her assisted-living apartment.
She made coffee.
Then forgot to drink hers.
“I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“I knew Caleb used your address for something.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
“He complained once that Laura made him change paperwork because you’d be furious if you found out.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
I stared at her.
“You said nothing.”
“I didn’t understand.”
“Did you ask?”
Diane looked down.
“No.”
There it was again.
A family full of people who considered not asking a form of innocence.
“Laura thought she was protecting you,” I said.
Diane began crying.
“I know.”
“No. She was protecting a story about you.”
She looked at me.
“What story?”
“That you couldn’t survive knowing what your husband’s company became.”
Diane wiped her eyes.
“Maybe I helped her believe that.”
“How?”
“Every time she tried to tell me there was trouble, I said, ‘Your father would know what to do.’”
I waited.
“She hated that.”
“I imagine.”
“I meant it as encouragement.”
“It sounds like comparison.”
Diane nodded.
“I think I kept asking her to make the company stay Frank’s company.”
That was impossible.
Dead people are terrible standards for living institutions.
They do not have to respond to market changes.
Bad decisions.
Grief.
Greed.
Laura spent years keeping her father’s company cosmetically alive because her mother could not bear another loss.
Caleb exploited that.
Laura participated in it.
Diane benefited from it.
Again, not equally.
But interconnected.
Then Diane told me something I did not know.
The assisted-living deposit Laura paid using the questionable bonus?
Diane had offered to sell a small investment account to cover it.
Laura refused.
“She said Dad would want me to keep it.”
I almost smiled.
Of course.
Laura did not merely save people because they needed saving.
Sometimes she prevented them from making their own sacrifices because she needed to remain the person carrying the burden.
That understanding changed how I saw her.
Not more innocently.
More completely.
When I told Laura later, she sat quietly for a long time.
Then said:
“I didn’t even ask Mom whether she could pay.”
“No.”
“I assumed.”
“Yes.”
“Like I assumed you couldn’t handle knowing.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“I thought taking care of people meant making sure they never had to face the worst version of anything.”
I knew that feeling.
My version was different.
I thought loving people meant not making them face the worst version of me.
My fear.
Anger.
Need.
Laura hid crises.
I hid reactions.
May you like
No wonder our house was quiet.
We had both been soundproofing it from opposite walls.
