That one hurt more than anything else that day.
Because she was right.
I’d never told her my side.
I’d thought I was protecting her. I’d thought that a good mother doesn’t drag her children into her marriage. I’d thought that if I just stayed quiet, stayed pleasant, stayed fair, my children would grow up without ever having to choose between us.
But silence isn’t neutral.
When only one person is talking, the story becomes theirs.
“Lauren,” I said. “I’m going to tell you some things now. Not to make you hate your father. I don’t want that. But because you’re an adult, and you deserve the truth, and because keeping it from you is part of how we got here.”
And I told her.
Not everything. Not every argument or every hurtful word. But enough.
I told her about the money he’d moved out of our joint savings without telling me, three different times. About the way he’d go silent for days whenever I disagreed with him, until I apologized for things I hadn’t done. About the time he’d told me, when she was in college, that if I ever left him, he’d make sure the kids knew exactly whose fault it was.
