Aunt Carol, who had remained in contact with me, reported that my mother talked constantly about trying to make amends, about wanting a chance to explain herself properly.
“She is falling apart,” Carol told me during one of our occasional coffee meetings. “I know you have every right to hate her, but watching her destroy herself is hard. She is still my sister.”
“Then maybe you should tell her to get therapy,” I said. “And to stop drinking. And to take actual responsibility for what she did instead of wallowing in self-pity.”
“I have told her all those things. She does not listen to me, but she might listen to you.”
“I doubt that very much.”
But the seed was planted. I found myself thinking about my mother more than I wanted to, wondering if there was any satisfaction to be gained from watching her complete breakdown. The anger that had fueled me for three years was still there, but it had calcified into something colder and harder. I no longer fantasized about their suffering. I simply accepted it as the natural consequence of their actions.
Then my grandmother had a stroke. It was relatively mild, and she recovered quickly, but it reminded me forcefully that she would not be around forever. She was eighty-one now, still sharp and active, but mortal nonetheless.
After she came home from the hospital, I spent more time with her, helping manage her business affairs and learning everything I could about the empire she had built.
“I am proud of what you have become,” she told me one evening as we reviewed financial statements in her study. “You took a terrible situation and turned it into strength. You are going to be very successful, Maggie.”
“I learned from the best,” I said, as I always did.
“But there is something I want you to think about,” she continued, setting down her pen and looking at me directly. “Revenge is satisfying, and your parents deserved everything they got, but carrying that anger forever will poison you eventually. At some point, you have to decide if maintaining your rage is worth the energy it costs you.”
“Are you saying I should forgive them?”
“Absolutely not. Forgiveness is overrated and mostly benefits the person who did wrong. But you can put it down without forgiving them. You can decide that they are no longer worth your emotional investment. You can move forward without carrying them with you.”
I thought about her words for days afterward. My parents were already destroyed—their lives ruined, their reputations shattered. They would spend the next seven years making payments to me, a constant drain on their limited resources. Everyone who mattered knew what they had done. What more did I need?
