Chapter 7 - MY MOTHER WAS HARDER
Mom did not apologize for two months.
She called.
Texted.
Sent letters.
None began with:
I was wrong.
They began with:
You know how much I’ve done for Luna.
True.
I treated that child like my own when Anna died.
Sometimes.
You are destroying this family over one bad afternoon.
False.
The last message made me angry enough to block her for three weeks.
Then Dr. Cho asked:
“What would you need before considering contact?”
Not:
What does Luna owe?
What do you want?
I listed things.
Acknowledgment.
No minimizing.
No discussion of property.
No demand to see Luna.
No apology addressed to Luna until her therapist thought it would be useful.
Most importantly, Mom needed to understand why calling a child “lucky” could become coercive in this context.
Julia and I agreed to meet our parents without children.
Mom arrived with a folder.
Of course.
Photographs.
Luna’s birthdays.
Christmas.
Swim lessons.
Proof of love.
She spread them across the table.
“Look.”
I stared.
“What am I looking at?”
“Everything I’ve done.”
Julia closed her eyes.
Mom continued.
“I bought her clothes. Took her places. Sat with her when she had nightmares. I changed my whole schedule after Anna died.”
“All true.”
“Then how can you say I don’t love her?”
“I didn’t.”
She stopped.
“You love her.”
Mom looked confused.
I continued.
“You also humiliated her.”
Her eyes filled.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No.”
She tapped the photographs.
“You do not do all this for someone you don’t consider family.”
“Then why did you make her wash your other granddaughters’ dishes?”
“She was rude.”
“How?”
“She refused to clear Ava’s plate.”
Julia stared.
“She should refuse.”
Mom looked at her.
“Julia.”
“No. My daughters have hands.”
“She had already been told—”
“Mom.”
My sister’s voice hardened.
“You taught my daughters they were above her.”
Mom went pale.
“I did no such thing.”
“Ava knows the phrase ‘real Mercer girls.’”
Silence.
Mom looked at Dad.
Dad looked down.
Good.
He did not rescue her with denial.
Mom’s face changed.
“That was a joke.”
“No,” I said. “It became a hierarchy.”
“She isn’t a Mercer by blood.”
“And?”
“And that is a fact.”
“So is gravity. You don’t have to use it to throw someone downstairs.”
Mom glared at me.
Julia almost smiled.
Then Mom said the thing I think she had been trying not to say for years.
“She came from strangers.”
The room went silent.
I looked at her.
“Everybody comes from somebody you don’t know until you know them.”
“Don’t be clever.”
“I’m not.”
Mom’s eyes filled.
“We knew nothing.”
“About her biological family?”
“Yes.”
“Neither did Anna and I at first.”
“Exactly.”
“What were you afraid of?”
Mom did not answer.
Dad said quietly:
“Tell him.”
She snapped:
“You stay out of it.”
Interesting.
Then I understood.
This fear was hers.
Not his.
“Mom.”
She looked at me.
“What happened?”
Her face broke.
“When Julia was born, I had postpartum depression.”
Julia went still.
We knew.
Pieces.
Not the depth.
Mom continued.
“I was terrified somebody would take her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
That was probably true.
“I would wake up and check whether she was breathing. I thought nurses had switched babies. I thought your father’s mother was going to tell everyone I was unfit.”
Julia whispered:
“Mom.”
“I got better.”
She looked embarrassed.
“Eventually.”
I waited.
“What does that have to do with Luna?”
Mom twisted her hands.
“When you became foster parents, every time you talked about reunification I thought: How can you love a child while knowing somebody might come and take her?”
I stared.
She continued.
“I couldn’t understand it.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She cried.
“I thought Anna was going to destroy both of you.”
That hurt.
“And then adoption happened.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I thought, finally. She’s yours.”
There.
Possession again.
“Then Anna died.”
Mom wiped her face.
“And I watched Luna ask about her first mother. Ask about Anna. Have pictures of all these people.”
I understood before she finished.
“You felt like she had too many mothers.”
Mom looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
As though love were a table with limited chairs.
“I kept thinking, What if she grows up and decides none of us were enough?”
That fear resembled Dad’s.
Different route.
Same destination.
Mom had been abandoned by certainty after childbirth.
She spent decades equating secure attachment with exclusive claim.
Luna’s family story violated that.
Biological mother.
Adoptive mother Anna.
Father Martin.
Grandparents.
Potential future contact.
Mom responded by wanting proof.
Gratitude.
Labor.
Obedience.
“You made her earn permanence,” I said.
Mom sobbed.
“Yes.”
It was the first fully honest answer she gave.
Then I said:
“You understand that explanation does not get you near her.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“I want to tell her I’m sorry.”
“Maybe someday.”
Pain crossed her face.
I did not fix it.
Mom had spent years demanding Luna tolerate adult discomfort.
May you like
Now Mom could tolerate some herself.
That was part of repair.
