Janet continued, encouraged by my silence. “Tiffany has a real future to build. Socially. Personally. This marriage matters. You, on the other hand, are never even in Charleston anymore. You’re just playing soldier in Oklahoma.”
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The words landed exactly where she intended.
Or where she thought they would.
Years ago, that phrase might have cracked me open.
Playing soldier.
When my mother died, I was eighteen and still soft enough to believe grief made people honest. Janet arrived three months after the funeral with pound cake, sympathetic eyes, and funeral manners she wore like a black dress she knew fit well. She sat beside my father in the back garden, brought him tea, reminded him to eat, praised my mother delicately enough to seem respectful, and slowly moved into the spaces grief had hollowed out.
By the first anniversary of my mother’s death, Janet had learned where the silver was kept.
