Chapter 5 - Helen Refused to Attend My Anatomy Scan Celebration
At twenty weeks we learned:
girl.
I texted the family group:
Baby girl looks healthy.
Dad sent:
heart emojis
in quantities no sixty-five-year-old man should use.
Rebecca:
ANOTHER GIRL. I’m buying tiny boots.
Mom sent:
nothing.
That evening Dad called.
“She’s having a hard day.”
I almost laughed.
“Why?”
“You know.”
“No.”
“Margaret.”
I made him say it.
“Because you’re having a daughter.”
I sat quietly.
Then:
“Why does that matter?”
He hesitated.
“Your mother always imagined Rebecca would have the first granddaughter.”
There it was.
Not:
first grandchild.
Granddaughter.
My mother and her own mother had been extremely close.
Helen had built a mythology around:
women passing things down in order.
Her grandmother’s pearls.
Recipes.
A christening dress.
Names.
She believed Rebecca’s first daughter would occupy some symbolic place in:
the maternal line.
Nobody had agreed to this.
No legal inheritance depended on:
gender
or:
birth order.
There was no trust.
No estate condition.
Just:
Helen’s private constitution.
I said:
“That is insane.”
Dad immediately softened it.
“She’s grieving.”
“Dad.”
“I know.”
“No.”
“You always say you know.”
Then nothing changes.
I did not say the last sentence.
May you like
I should have.
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