I genuinely, in some exhausted part of myself, hoped that he was happy, that it had been worth burning what we had.
Otherwise, it was just waste.
He didn’t answer.
I hung up.
My mother-in-law sent me a letter during the proceedings.
Handwritten.
3 pages.
I read it once.
The general substance was that I had never truly made an effort to be part of the family, that my career had always come before my marriage, that she had seen this coming for years and had only ever wanted what was best for her son.
On the last page, in slightly different ink, as though she’d paused and come back to it, she wrote, “I want you to know that the seating at the wedding was my decision and mine alone. Marcus had nothing to do with it.”
Marcus was my brother-in-law.
“I thought it would make things clearer. I see now it only made things harder.”
I folded the letter and put it in a manila folder and labeled the folder and put it in a filing cabinet.
That is what I do with things I don’t know what to do with yet.
Patricia told me near the end of everything that I was one of the most composed clients she’d ever had.
I said I spent 9 years learning how to stay composed in rooms where people were trying to take things from me.
She laughed.
