Chapter 19 - CECELIA’S WORST DEFENSE
Family therapy happened four months after the red button.
Just Cecelia and me.
Not Maisie.
Dr. Ellis asked my mother:
“What do you wish Reid understood?”
She said:
“That I was trying to keep Caleb’s residents from losing their homes.”
“I understand that.”
She looked at me.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You act like I bought jewelry.”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“Because understanding why you did it does not make it yours to do.”
She looked away.
Then said:
“Hannah is dead. Caleb is alive.”
Silence.
Dr. Ellis stopped writing.
I felt my body go cold.
Cecelia realized.
“That came out wrong.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“It came out accurate.”
“I meant Hannah isn’t here to need the money.”
“The trust isn’t Hannah’s.”
“I know.”
“It’s Maisie’s.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She started crying.
“I was watching a facility fail.”
“And you made an eight-year-old pay for sixty adults without asking her.”
“She wouldn’t even notice the money!”
There.
Worst defense.
Not because she did not care.
Because she reduced harm to whether the victim could perceive the loss immediately.
I leaned forward.
“That is exactly why children have trustees.”
Cecelia stopped.
“To protect them when they cannot protect their own interests.”
She looked at me.
“And I failed too.”
That mattered.
I did not place myself outside.
“I was supposed to stop you.”
Her face softened.
Danger.
Mutual guilt could become mutual absolution.
I continued:
“But my failure to supervise is not permission for what you did.”
She nodded slowly.
Dr. Ellis said:
“Hold both.”
We did.
Cecelia whispered:
“I don’t know how.”
“Learn.”
For once I sounded like her.
May you like
Maybe that was fitting.
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