Chapter 10 - THE OTHER CHILDREN
Diane had raised three children:
Daniel,
Rebecca,
and Thomas.
Claire became afraid.
“Did she do this to them too?”
Adult children reconstructed memories carefully.
Not every sleepy childhood day became retroactive medication.
Daniel remembered occasional cough syrup when sick.
Normal for the era.
Rebecca remembered Diane giving her something “to settle down” before a long car trip once.
Unclear what.
Thomas remembered no such thing.
No evidence of a lifelong poisoning pattern.
Claire felt relief.
And frustration.
She wanted a simple origin.
There wasn’t one.
Then Rebecca told Claire:
“Mom always needed to be the parent who knew best.”
When Rebecca’s daughter had colic, Diane criticized every decision.
When Thomas’s son had food allergies, Diane called restrictions dramatic until a doctor corrected her.
Pattern:
not hidden medicine necessarily.
Authority.
Diane experienced boundaries as insults to her competence.
Then Rebecca admitted she stopped leaving her own children alone with Diane years earlier.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you already knew how she was.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
Another family assumption.
Everybody thinks everybody else has the warning.
Then Thomas said:
“Mom behaves better when there’s a man in the room.”
Daniel looked at him.
“What?”
“She challenged Rebecca more when her husband was at work. Same with Claire.”
Gendered family hierarchy.
Not enough to explain everything.
Relevant.
Then Claire looked at Daniel.
“You saw a version of her we didn’t.”
He nodded.
That reduced some of his ignorance.
Not his responsibility to listen when Claire spoke.
Then Rebecca gave Claire an old message from Diane after Noah was born:
Claire treats motherhood like a medical degree.
Rebecca replied:
Let her parent her kid.
Diane:
She’ll learn.
Claire stared at the last line.
She’ll learn.
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Diane had not entered caregiving as support.
She had entered it as correction.
