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Chapter Twelve
It doesn’t takea genius to understand the psychology behind what was going on here, the underlying family dynamics that drew me to Elyse, the subconscious reasons I chose to ignore the red flags waving in the distance, and then, increasingly, right in front of my eyes.
Unlike Tracy, I never had a lot of friends. Tracy was outgoing and self-assured, whereas I was shy and full of self-doubt. She was undeniably beautiful; I was, in our father’s words, “interesting-looking.” She was the proud beneficiary of our mother’s ballet-thin physique; I was, again according to my father, “sturdier.”
Tracy shone bright; I merely flickered.
That Tracy was our parents’ favorite was something I never questioned or even resented, there being no point to either. The fact that she was praised for bringing home mediocre marks in high school while my A’s were barely acknowledged is likely what drove me that much harder to succeed. I was the “workhorse”—another of my father’s favorite words. Tracy was the “artist.”
She was indulged; I was tolerated.
For a while, I suspected that I’d been adopted. Not only did I not resemble my parents or my sister in any significant way—I had my father’s brown eyes, but that was about it—but I wastheir opposite temperamentally as well. While they yearned for center stage, I was content to remain in the background. While they sought out starring roles, I was content to be part of the chorus.
Of course, all my mother had to do was point to the raised scar of her cesarean to disabuse me of the notion that I’d been adopted once and for all. There was no other family, norealfamily, out there somewhere, waiting to embrace my imperfections, to find me worthy, regardless of my faults.
“See this?” my mother asked me one day, when I was about the same age as my son is now, lifting her shirt and pulling her slacks down over her hips to show me the proof. “You did this.”
I promptly burst into tears and spent the rest of the day apologizing.
I’ve been apologizing ever since.
I’d always been a dutiful daughter, calling my mother daily just to say hi and inquire about her day, despite her rarely asking about mine. This pattern only increased after her Parkinson’s diagnosis. I was the one who filled her prescriptions, who did the grocery shopping every week, who visited on a regular basis, who called morning and night to check on her condition.
Deprive a child of parental approval, and they’ll spend their lives trying to get it. And the sad, undeniable fact is that I spent most of my formative years just trying to get my parents’attention,let alone their approval. The more they withheld it, the greater my attempts to attain it. It was obvious that I was never going to become a dancer, like my mother, so I became a Realtor, like my father. The reason I chose to join his agency, why I strove to be one of its top-earning representatives, was to win his respect. To prove to him that I was more than just an “interesting-looking workhorse.”
That I was a sleek and beautiful stallion.
Of course, whatever I did, it was never enough.
So, was it really a surprise that I fell so quickly and easily under Elyse’s spell?
She was warm, caring, considerate, even solicitous of my feelings. She asked me questions, sought my opinion, took my side, showered me with praise.
In short, she was the loving parent figure I’d been searching for all my life.
Like I said, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.
My father’s reaction to Elyse is a little harder to explain.
He’d been so dead set against having anyone invade his territory that I assumed it would take months for him to adapt to her presence, that his ingrained impulse to control everything and everyone around him wouldn’t allow for any form of compromise, that I’d be lucky if Elyse didn’t run screaming for the nearest exit before the first week was up. So I was shocked when my father’s initial resistance to her not only dissipated with surprising speed but soon disappeared altogether.
While he occasionally tried to goad her into an argument—the same technique he’d used so successfully with my mother—Elyse simply would not rise to the bait. She ignored or laughed off his attempts to engage her in verbal combat—“Oh, Vic,” she’d say. “You’re so funny.” That combined with her natural good looks and extreme competence was clearly more than enough to win him over.
And in the beginning, I couldn’t have been more grateful. For my parents’ sake.
For mine.
“It’s amazing,” I said to Harrison one night as I was crawling into bed. “Nothing fazes her. It’s been barely three months and already she has the house running like a well-oiled machine.”
Harrison said nothing. He was sitting in our king-size bed, surrounded by submissions for the latest assignment he’d given his creative writing class. Papers fanned out around him, covering the top of our billowy white duvet.
“My mother looks better than she has in ages,” I continued, trying to scoot beneath the covers without disturbing his work.
“Careful,” he warned without looking up.
“And my father,” I continued. “It’s like this ferocious lion has morphed into this harmless pussycat. It’s unbelievable. I’m telling you, the woman is a magician. Harrison?” I said when he failed to respond.
“Hmm?”
