Then she said, “Veronica was always harder.”
I waited.
“She screamed. She slammed doors. She stopped speaking to me. Even when you were little, if she didn’t get what she wanted, the whole house paid for it.”
“And I didn’t.”
“No.”
“So you learned to disappoint me.”
Her eyes filled.
“I learned you would survive it.”
I felt something inside me settle into place.
There it was.
Not an excuse. The truth.
“You made my ability to survive unfairness the reason I deserved more of it.”
She covered her mouth.
For once, she did not argue.
“I am sorry,” she said.
I had imagined those words for years. They did not heal anything instantly. They did not make me twelve again with my bedroom back. They did not put her in the audience at my pinning ceremony.
But they mattered because she did not add a but.
I stepped aside only after she asked, “May I apologize to Madelyn?”
Not talk to her.
Not explain.
Apologize.
Madelyn listened from the couch with her rabbit in her lap. Rosalind crouched in front of her and said she had made an unfair choice. She said Madelyn had done nothing wrong. She said adults were supposed to make children feel welcome, and she had failed.
Madelyn studied her for several seconds.
Then she asked, “Why didn’t you put Lily on the floor too?”
Mom flinched.
“Because I was trying to keep your aunt happy.”
“Did it work?”
From the kitchen, I closed my eyes.
Rosalind gave a small, broken laugh.
“No.”
