He said Madison had started therapy.
“She did not want to go,” he explained. “I told her the family would no longer protect her from every consequence. If she wants relationships, she has to learn how to participate in them.”
The loan was no longer being considered. Madison would need to finance her own plans or find legitimate investors.
My parents were refinancing the mortgage. Dad planned to work shifts so they could cover their expenses.
“I should have done that three years ago,” he admitted.
“Yes,” I said.
Then he asked whether there might someday be a path for me back into the family—not the family as it had been, but something healthier.
I thought about the silk across my bedroom floor. I remembered him stepping over it without asking whether I was all right. I remembered twenty-five years of being the dependable daughter whose needs could wait because Madison’s were louder.
