Chapter 16 - ELEANOR MEETS VERONICA
Mother finally agreed to a therapeutic meeting with Veronica almost two years after the mop.
Neutral office.
I did not attend.
Later Mother told me enough.
First question:
“Why did you take my cane?”
Veronica answered:
“Because you followed me while I was angry and I wanted to stop you.”
Mother:
“You could have left.”
“Yes.”
“Why bell?”
“I wanted you to stop calling staff around me.”
“Why dinner?”
“I wanted you to feel excluded.”
Specific.
“Why mop?”
“I wanted to scare you into stopping the call to Renato.”
“You hit Audrey.”
“Yes.”
Then Mother asked:
“Did you hate me?”
Veronica answered:
“Sometimes.”
Mother laughed.
Honest.
Then:
“Did you think I hated you?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes I did.”
There.
No saintly elder.
Then Mother apologized for years of treating Veronica as temporary.
Not for the mop.
Not for the trust.
Her part.
Veronica cried harder at that than anything else.
Then:
“Do you forgive me?” Veronica asked.
Mother said:
“I forgive enough to have coffee someday.”
No hug.
No reinstatement.
No household role.
Good.
A month later they had coffee.
Public café.
Forty minutes.
Then three months later again.
Relationship became limited.
Neither family nor friendship exactly.
May you like
A surviving connection.
Enough.
