“You always had this way of looking at people.”
“What way?”
“Like you knew better.”
Marisa whispered:
“Mom, she was a kid.”
Mom ignored her.
“Your grandmother fed that arrogance.
She made you believe independence was some great virtue.”
“No.
You made independence necessary.”
Mom went silent.
I stood.
“Grandma paid for things you refused to.
Conferences.
Books.
My first laptop.”
“Because you manipulated her.”
“I asked for six hundred dollars once.”
“And she gave it to you immediately.”
Something about the way she said it finally made me understand.
This had never been about money.
Not really.
My mother had spent her adult life competing with her mother-in-law for something she could never force.
Admiration.
Grandma respected curiosity.
Mom respected obedience.
Marisa gave Mom what she wanted.
I gave Grandma what she valued.
Neither of us had understood we were being assigned roles in a war that began before we were born.
