“All those emotions tied to Mom and Dad for one.”
He stopped and stared.
She nodded. “Didn’t expect that answer, did you?”
“No, that’s a subject that I don’t talk about either.”
“And because you don’t like to talk about it and because it’s something you avoid talking about…”
He groaned. “Then Ishouldbe talking about it.”
She smiled. “See? You already know how this works.”
“And that’s because it’s self-defeating talk and painful.”
“And so is that kind of process.”
“You know I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“I don’t either, but it’s still something I’m working on.”
“And what can someone else possibly do for you?” he asked. “Honestly, I always figured that you had it so together that you had nothing left to be worked on.”
She laughed. “And you’d have been so wrong because there’s always stuff to be worked on. In my case I need to go back through that door of Mom and Dad again and find some things that are still holding me back, just so I can let them go.”
“Do you think they ever really loved us?” Ryatt asked.
“I think so, at least in their own way. Mom loved you, and Dad loved me.”
“That’s kind of like giving them a free pass, isn’t it?Hey, I know you were a bad parent, but thanks for the job that you did.”
“Well, I mean, if you think about it, they did show up for the parenting job. Individually. So we have no example of a good working relationship in a marriage. Yet, even when they were together, we never saw one hit the other nor us. They weren’t addicts to smoking, drinking, or drugs. They may not have been emotionally and psychologically mature enough to be parents, but who among us really are, until we have a child of our own? Neither of us are in jail. Sure, we’re both injured and broken—from running away from them to our military careers,” she added, with a knowing smile. “But we aren’t into drugs or on the streets or, like I said originally, in jail. So maybe they didn’t do such a terrible job.”
“Neither one of us has…” And then Ryatt stopped and frowned.
“Neither one of us has what?” she prompted.
“I would say, neither one of us has a decent relationship, but I think you just fixed that, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know aboutfixed. However, I’m really grateful to have Stan in my life. Finding gratitude has been a huge change for me. I hadn’t realized how much I was driving myself into the ground because I was afraid. Afraid I wasn’t enough. Afraid that I was being treated differently or had to perform way more because of my missing leg,” she explained. “And stupid stuff like that. Because there’s absolutely no way that anybody at work knows about my leg. I wear pants for that reason every day.” She shook her head. “And why would that be something that I have to work harder for? I was hired for my brains, not my legs.”
“You already felt like you had to work harder as an attorney because you were female,” he reminded her.
She nodded. “Verytrue, so that’s something else that Mom and Dad are to blame for in many ways, or at least I feel like I have to work on some of those issues because of their obvious preference for their son.”
He gave her a flat stare.
She nodded. “That’s something we’ve never really talked about, but Mom left with you. You were her favorite, her pet.”
He winced at that. “Petis right. And since when is being a human pet in a household a good thing?”
She smiled. “It probably never is, but, in this case, it is the right word. Besides, you wanted Dad, and I needed Mom. Neither of us got what we wanted.”
“I know. That’s so sad too.”
“Agreed,” she murmured. Just then she looked behind him and smiled. “And here comes Shane.”
“Uh-oh,” Ryatt said, “now you got me in trouble.”