Chapter 11 - WHY JOE HATED MY MOTHER
I asked Joe to move out.
Not forever.
I didn’t know what forever meant anymore.
He packed one suitcase.
No argument.
No guilt.
No promise that twenty-seven years should earn automatic forgiveness.
Before leaving, he said:
“I love you.”
I answered:
“That isn’t the problem.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
Three weeks passed.
I met Rebecca, my half sister, in person.
She drove down from Vermont.
When she walked into the café, I saw Peter immediately.
Not because I had known him.
Because I knew his photograph.
The same narrow eyes.
The same chin.
She hugged me cautiously.
“I don’t know what people do in this situation.”
“Neither do I.”
So we ordered coffee.
We talked for four hours.
Peter had been sober for the final twelve years of his life.
He volunteered at a recovery center.
He never tried to pretend his past disappeared because he improved later.
Rebecca respected him.
Loved him.
And remained angry at him.
That helped me.
People could be more than one thing.
So could Mom.
So could Joe.
Rebecca gave me Peter’s journal.
One section described Joe.
Joe Mercer hates Margaret almost as much as Margaret hates me.
Not quite.
Joe hates what she makes him become.
I read it again.
Joe hated Mom because every holiday forced him to sit across from me carrying a lie she had demanded he keep.
Mom hated Joe because he reminded her that someone else knew what she had done.
Their hostility was guilt wearing different clothes.
Then I found a later entry.
Margaret doesn’t know this, but Joe told me years ago that if I ever contacted Laura sober, respectfully, and without demanding anything, he would not stop me.
I froze.
Peter had been given permission.
He never used it.
Why?
The next line answered.
I am afraid she will look at me and see only what I was.
Another person afraid of my judgment.
Another person deciding silence was safer.
Then Rebecca handed me one final envelope.
“Dad told me not to mail this unless you found me yourself.”
Inside:
LAURA — IF YOU CAME LOOKING, YOU DESERVE THE WHOLE TRUTH.
Peter had written it five months before he died.
May you like
And the first sentence surprised me more than anything else.
Your mother saved my life the night everyone believed I disappeared.
