The weekend of my nephew’s wedding was beautiful and fair in the streets and roads of the Georgia town where it was held.
While riding in my parents’ car, my mother suddenly cleared her throat and said, “Wasn’t I a good mother, Jenny, wasn’t I good mother?” Then she repeated, “Wasn’t I good mother, Jenny, wasn’t I good mother?”
I was dumbstruck. All the times she’d put me down, screamed at me to vent her frustrations with other people, stabbed me in the back with the family, and had chosen my brother over me in a family standoff flew through my mind. Could I just tell her what she demanded to hear? And what then? Were all my feelings and observations nothing? Should I force myself to lie, when I’d always been the one to speak the truth, even at her own peril?
I said nothing. My stepfather laughed nervously. My mother shot a look at him, and he stopped immediately. Then she turned to me in the reflection of her window. Of all the times I’d seen her angry or demanding, the deep darkness of this expression was not one I knew.
Could I save the moment? Could I lie, now? Should I list what I’d stored up in my mind as her worst offenses? Then I thought: If you don’t tell the truth now, you never will, and all of your pain from her counts for nothing.
I stayed quiet.
Was my integrity worth all that it subsequently cost me? I still don’t know. I do know that even though that afternoon was sunny and unseasonably warm, some terrible clouds arose over us, never to go away again.
She changed her life insurance to 90% for my brother, 10% for me. She gave all of her expensive jewelry to my sister in law, a flatterer and liar.
Today, I still wonder sometimes whether that moment of self righteousness was worth not being able to pay off my house, or have some of the beautiful jewelry she had collected. I wonder if a lie would have saved our relationship. But I think the relationship was gone the minute I was forced to lie about it.
Lo Scriviti 