Chapter 10 - CAROLINE
For almost two years after Caroline died, I had not entered her dressing room.
The estate was enormous enough that avoidance was easy.
One afternoon, Ethan wandered in.
He was nearly two.
He found a scarf.
Wrapped it around himself.
Laughed.
I sat on the floor and cried.
Lily found us.
She stopped at the doorway.
“I can leave.”
“No.”
She sat several feet away.
Not close.
That distance mattered.
I told her:
“I think I almost married Serena because I was tired of being the only adult responsible for everything.”
Lily said nothing.
“I wanted a mother for Ethan.”
She looked at me.
“He has a father.”
“I know.”
“Maybe that needed to be enough first.”
It hurt.
Because it was true.
I had outsourced emotional reconstruction.
Serena was supposed to turn grief into family again.
That was unfair to all of us.
Especially Ethan.
I entered therapy.
Not because I had caused Serena’s abuse.
May you like
Because my grief had shaped choices.
Healing meant understanding vulnerabilities without absorbing someone else’s wrongdoing.
