Chapter 8 - JANICE’S VERSION
Janice finally asked to speak directly to Megan two months after the porch confrontation.
Megan refused.
Then reconsidered for one reason:
Alison’s therapist had advised that long-term co-parenting arrangements might eventually require a clear written boundary record, especially if Eric remained married during the early separation period.
So they met in a lawyer’s conference room.
Eric attended with counsel.
Megan with Rebecca.
Janice with her attorney.
No Alison.
Janice looked different.
Her hair was shorter.
Without extensions.
The thinning near her temples was visible.
For one second Megan felt sympathy.
Then remembered the bathroom stool.
The scissors.
The promise about Daddy coming home.
Sympathy remained.
It simply lost authority.
Janice spoke first.
“I never intended to traumatize Alison.”
Megan answered:
“Intent is not consent.”
Janice’s mouth tightened.
“She agreed.”
“She was five.”
“She said yes.”
“After you made her think her father’s absence depended on it.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Eric interrupted.
“She believed it.”
Janice turned toward him.
“And you’re just going to accept everything Megan says now?”
Eric’s face hardened.
“This isn’t about Megan.”
“Of course it is. It’s always about Megan.”
There it was.
The deeper resentment.
Janice talked for nearly ten minutes.
How Megan never trusted her.
How Alison compared everything to “Mommy’s way.”
How Eric stayed emotionally tied to his old family.
How Janice felt like hired help during Eric’s custody time.
How she bathed Alison, packed lunches, handled school drop-offs, then was told she wasn’t a real parent whenever decisions mattered.
Some of it was true.
Megan knew it.
Stepparenting can be thankless.
Invisible.
Painful.
None of that gave Janice ownership over a child’s body.
Rebecca eventually asked:
“Why was Alison’s hair labeled with Sophie Wells’s name?”
Janice looked down.
For the first time her certainty cracked.
She claimed she reused an old bag because she was upset and disorganized.
Then Rebecca asked about Grace Miller.
Janice’s attorney stopped the interview.
That told them enough.
As everyone stood, Janice said quietly:
“You all act like I’m some monster.”
Megan looked at her.
“No.”
Janice blinked.
Megan continued:
“You’re a woman who was hurting and decided that gave you the right to make children solve it for you. That’s worse in some ways because you could have stopped.”
Janice’s eyes filled.
Megan did not enjoy it.
She had learned there was a difference between accountability and cruelty.
Before leaving, Eric removed his wedding ring.
Not dramatically.
He placed it in his coat pocket.
Janice saw.
Her face collapsed.
That was the first time Megan wondered whether Alison’s strange sentence—
Daddy would come home if I gave her all my curls—
contained another layer.
Not just Eric returning from work.
Janice may have been trying to make the household feel bound together enough that Eric would stop talking about their already failing marriage.
The haircut had been an offering.
May you like
A child made to pay for an adult relationship.
That realization made Megan angrier than anything before it.
