Chapter 10 - Linda Had Spent Years Rewriting Caroline’s Childhood
Once the secret contact was exposed, other relatives began talking.
Linda had been telling a softer version of Raymond’s history for years.
“He had a temper.”
“He worked too much.”
“The divorce was ugly.”
“Caroline never forgave easily.”
None of those statements were technically invented.
They were incomplete enough to become lies.
Caroline had once shown me photographs of the bedroom door Raymond punched through.
Emails where he threatened to cancel her college tuition if she visited Linda.
A police report from the apartment incident.
Linda knew those existed.
But time had softened her memory in the direction she preferred.
She missed the man Raymond could occasionally be when he wasn’t frightening everyone.
Then Caroline died.
Linda became convinced reconciliation had been stolen from Raymond unfairly.
There was one massive problem with that belief.
Reconciliation had belonged to Caroline.
Not Linda.
Her daughter died without changing the boundary.
Linda decided death gave her permission to change it for her.
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And Ellie became the person forced to absorb that decision.
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