Chapter 14 - The Past Incident
Before we left the office, the caseworker disclosed one more detail.
During her separate statement, Isolde had mentioned another incident from two summers earlier. Her older son had become separated from the family at a crowded county fair while under my mother’s supervision.
He had been found near a livestock exhibit approximately twenty minutes later.
Nobody had reported it. Nobody had told me.
When I asked Isolde why, she looked away. “Everything worked out.”
“That is the same phrase you used today.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I know.”
“Did Mom leave him on purpose?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“She got tired of waiting while he watched a demonstration. She told him we were moving on. She thought he would follow us.”
“He was seven.”
“I know.”
“And after that happened, you still allowed her to take your sons to Florida?”
My sister looked toward the floor. “We all agreed not to make it bigger than it was.”
There it was again. The family rule. Do not make anything bigger than it is.
May you like
In practice, that meant never describing an event accurately if the truth required someone to accept responsibility. It meant protecting the adult who made the decision instead of the child who experienced the consequences.
Rhett had not been the first child my mother treated as an obstacle. He was simply the first whose parent refused to let the incident disappear.
