Chapter 33
Mom asked whether I wanted
some of Grandmother's old flowerpots.
I said yes.
And for the first time
in more years than I could remember,
we finished a family meal
without anyone making a joke
about my finances.
It was extraordinary
how peaceful something ordinary
could become.
The years that followed
didn't erase everything.
There were still difficult conversations.
There were moments
when Dad caught himself
assuming I needed advice
I hadn't requested.
There were times
when Mom apologized again,
even after I'd asked her
not to turn every visit
into another discussion of guilt.
And there were days
when I missed Ranata
with a force that surprised me.
I missed the sister
who taught me card games
on rainy afternoons.
The sister who once
stood between me
and a cruel girl at school.
The sister who used to know
how to make me laugh
when I was frightened.
I didn't miss her lies.
I didn't miss her manipulation.
I missed the possibility
of who we might have been
if she had chosen differently.
While Ranata served her sentence,
we exchanged a small number of letters.
At first,
hers were full of explanations.
The pressure.
The business losses.
The fear of disappointing Dad.
The humiliation of admitting failure.
I read them.
But I didn't answer immediately.
Eventually,
one letter arrived
that sounded different.
It was only two pages.
There were no excuses.
No requests for money.
No suggestion
that I should intervene
in the consequences she faced.
She wrote about a memory
from our childhood.
I was seven.
She was twelve.
We had planted sunflower seeds
behind our parents' garage.
I had watered mine too much.
Hers had grown tall.
Mine hadn't sprouted.
According to Ranata,
she had secretly replaced my seeds
so I wouldn't be disappointed.
I remembered the sunflowers.
I remembered believing
I had grown them myself.
But I had never known
what she'd done.
In the letter,
Ranata wrote something
that made me set it down.
\*I thought I was helping you.
But even then,
I wanted to decide
what your life should look like.\*
I read the sentence again.
Then the next.
\*I didn't know how to love you
without making myself important.\*
Tears blurred the paper.
She continued.
\*I spent years pretending
you needed me to save you.
The truth is,
I couldn't bear the possibility
that you might be happy
without my approval.\*
There was no demand