Page 46 of You've Got Hate Mail
She sucks in a soft breath. “No. Surely they?—”
Her abrupt pause makes me feel more than a little shitty.
I shouldn’t do this.
I shouldn’t wreck the image she has of her parents.
Shatter the mirage of her reality.
But if her parents make her feel like shit, then someone needs to tell her she deserves better.
I stare at the ground too. “Didn’t say they did it consciously. Usually they don’t. But kids shouldn’t be compared to each other. They’re all unique. And they deserve to be loved for who they are, not for who their parents want them to be.”
Bragging rights were what my in-laws cared about.
The part I cared about was the part where Ava found a career that gave her purpose and helped pull her through her battle with postpartum depression.
But it was never enough for her parents, because sayingmy daughter is a social media influencer supporting her barely-graduated-high-school husbandwasn’t as impressive as sayingmy son-in-law is a doctor so that my daughter can be the same perfect stay-at-home mother that she was raised by.
And she bought into it too.
Kept saying when the sponsorships and endorsement deals dried up, she’d get a real job again, get back to her engineering roots, use that education that her parents paid so much money for.
They were still in her head, telling her she wasn’t worthy, and nothing I said or did ever changed that.
Worse?
Right up to the end, they blamed her for getting cancer.
If she’d had kids soonerorif she’d started eating better in her twenties instead of her thirtiesorif she hadn’t flown andinhaled all of those toxins in planes, she wouldn’t have gotten sick.
Reason after reason after reason that she’d done it to herself.
They blamed everything except for what doctors told us it was.
Her DNA. The very makeup of her genetics that was passed down on her father’s side.
The DNA that Lavender probably has.
Lav overheard them saying that Ava wouldn’t have gotten sick if she’d had Lav earlier during one of my calls with them and the mediators.
Thank fuck for my own parents.
They were there for us.
They’ve never asked that my sister or I be anyone beyond who we are, so long as we lead with kindness and good intentions.
They made it look so fucking easy.
But it’s not.
I missed that part of my own genetic code. The part where patience comes naturally.
Have to practice it. Work hard to find it and use it. Question if I’m being too lenient. If Ava would think I’m raising Lav to be wild, if I’m not giving her enough boundaries.
“The ladies here get it,” I tell Cricket. “They invited you here because they’ve gone viral too and they want to help. Let them help. This place—it’s magic. It’ll feed your soul. But only if you let it.”
I rise.
