I thought things would become easier once Michael and Danny agreed to keep talking.
In some ways, they did.
There were fewer tense silences when Michael visited.
Danny no longer seemed to brace himself whenever his brother mentioned their father.
They were careful with each other, but they were still speaking.
I was grateful for that.
I had begun to understand that repairing a family did not mean returning to the way things had been before.
Sometimes, the old way was part of the problem.
For years, we had managed disagreements by waiting for them to pass.
If somebody was upset, we gave them time.
If a conversation became uncomfortable, we changed the subject.
If a question had no easy answer, we left it alone.
That approach had worked well enough when the problems were small.
But it had also taught us to live beside things we never discussed.
Now the questions were out in the open.
They could no longer be put away as easily as the dishes after Thanksgiving.
Michael continued to think about the letter.
I could see it whenever he visited.
Sometimes he would begin a conversation with Danny and stop halfway through a sentence.
Other times, he would ask me whether I remembered something their father had said years earlier.
I answered as honestly as I could.
If I remembered, I told him.
If I did not, I said so.
I no longer tried to make my memories sound more complete than they were.
That was a change for me.
I had always wanted to be helpful.
When my children asked questions, I felt responsible for giving them something useful in return.
I sometimes filled the gaps in my memory with what I believed must have happened.
I had not thought of that as dishonesty.
I had thought of it as trying to help.
But a guess could become a memory if you repeated it often enough.
And a memory could become a family story that nobody thought to question.
I did not want to add anything else to the confusion surrounding my husband's letter.
One afternoon, Michael came to see me.
Danny was busy with the boys, and Kayla was in the kitchen.
Michael asked if I had time to talk.
I told him I did.
We sat down at the table.
For a while, he spoke about ordinary things.
Then he brought up his father again.
"I keep thinking about how much I assumed I knew."
I listened.
Michael looked at his hands.
"I never thought there would be something important he hadn't told me."
I understood that feeling.
When somebody has been part of your life for as long as you can remember, you begin to believe that the important parts of them are familiar.
You know their habits.
You know their opinions.
You know the stories they tell about themselves.
You begin to think that what you know is the whole person.
Then something unexpected happens, and you discover that your understanding has limits.
I told Michael that I had experienced the same thing.
He looked surprised.
"With Dad?"
"Yes."
I explained that I had trusted his father, but trust had never meant I knew everything he thought or did.
There had been things he kept private.
There had been times when I wished he would explain himself more fully.
I had accepted those moments because I believed he was doing what he thought best.
Michael was quiet for a while.
"Did you ever ask him why?"
"Sometimes."
"And what did he say?"
I thought about the question.
"He usually said he would tell me if I needed to know."
Michael lowered his eyes.
I had not thought about that phrase in years.
It had seemed reasonable when my husband said it.
He had never used it to frighten me.
He had said it as though he were trying to spare me unnecessary worry.
But sitting with Michael, I could hear how the same words might sound different to someone who had been kept outside a decision.
I could not tell him that his father had been right.
I could not tell him that he had been wrong.
I could only explain how I had understood it at the time.
"I thought he was trying to protect us," I said.
Michael nodded slowly.
"Maybe."
He did not sound convinced.
I did not expect him to be.
The letter had raised questions that could not be settled by repeating the explanations we had accepted for years.
Michael needed to understand what his father had intended.
I wanted to help him, but I could not do that by turning my own assumptions into facts.
So I let the silence remain.
After a while, Michael asked whether I had ever felt that their father treated the children differently.
The question made me uncomfortable.
I knew every parent treated children differently in small ways.
We responded to their personalities.
We adjusted to their needs.
We made decisions based on what we believed would help them.
But Michael was asking about something more than ordinary differences.
I thought carefully before answering.
"I don't think your father loved any of you less."
Michael looked at me.
"That isn't what I asked."
He was right.
I had answered the question I wanted him to ask.
I had tried to reassure him instead of considering what he was actually trying to understand.
I took a breath.
"There were times when he expected different things from each of you," I said. "I noticed that."
Michael waited.
I explained that their father had often relied on Danny to manage things without much direction.
He had sometimes asked Michael to take responsibility for particular matters.
With the other child, he had approached things differently again.
Those differences had seemed ordinary at the time.
I had not believed they meant anything deeper.
Michael listened without interrupting.
"Did you ever think Danny knew something the rest of us didn't?"
I felt a familiar tension return.
I did not want to encourage his suspicion.
I also did not want to dismiss a question simply because it made me uncomfortable.
"I knew Danny and his father had their own conversations," I said. "Just as you did."
Michael looked down.
"That doesn't answer it."
"No," I admitted. "It doesn't."
I had reached the limit of what I could honestly tell him.
I had seen Danny speak with his father.
I had seen Michael speak with his father.
I had not been present for every conversation.
No parent could be.
I had no reason to believe Danny had been hiding something, but I could not claim to know every word that had passed between them.
I told Michael that.
He seemed disappointed.
Then he nodded.
"I suppose I need to accept that."
I hoped he would.
We spoke for a little longer.
Before he left, he thanked me for listening.
I watched him go with mixed feelings.
I was glad he had come to talk.
I was sorry that my answers had not given him what he wanted.
And I was relieved that I had not tried to invent certainty just to make the conversation easier.
That evening, I thought about my own habit of smoothing things over.
I had done it for years.
I had tried to make every difficult truth easier to swallow.
Sometimes that had been kindness.
Sometimes it had been fear.
I was beginning to see the difference.
Kindness meant telling the truth without using it to hurt somebody.
Fear meant hiding the truth because I was afraid of what might happen if people heard it.
I had confused the two more than once.
I could not change all the times I had done that.
But I could choose differently now.
The next morning, I found Danny in the kitchen.
He was getting things ready for the day.
I asked whether Michael had spoken to him about their father.
Danny said they had talked a little.
I did not ask what Michael had said.
Instead, I told Danny that I hoped the two of them could keep talking without feeling they had to settle everything immediately.
Danny nodded.
"I hope so, too."
Then he looked at me.
"Mom, you don't have to solve this for us."
I smiled sadly.
"I know."
But I was only beginning to learn what that meant.
For so long, I had believed my role as a mother was to keep the family connected.
If two children disagreed, I tried to help them understand each other.
If somebody was hurt, I tried to make the hurt smaller.
If a problem threatened to divide us, I looked for a way to bring everyone back to the same table.
Those instincts had not disappeared.
I still wanted to help.
But I was learning that helping did not mean carrying every person's feelings on my own shoulders.
Danny and Michael were adults.
They needed to decide what kind of relationship they wanted with one another.
I could encourage honesty.
I could refuse to spread suspicion.
I could listen when either of them needed to speak.
But I could not make their decisions for them.
That afternoon, I sat near the window and watched the boys playing.
One of them was building a tower with the plastic blocks.
The other kept trying to make the base wider.
They disagreed about how to build it, but neither seemed interested in abandoning the project.
They moved pieces around.
They tried again.
I watched them for a long time.
Perhaps families needed that kind of patience.
Not the patience that meant avoiding every disagreement.
The patience that allowed people to remain together while they worked through one.
I hoped my children could learn it.
I hoped I could, too.
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: The More I Tried to Understand My Husband’s Silence, the More I Realized That My Own Silence Had Helped Create the Distance Between Us
After My Husband Died, I Made One Decision That Would Show Me Which of My Three Children Still Considered Me Family
Part 13 of 20
