He spent my entire childhood isolating me.
At Thanksgiving, he whispered to aunts and uncles that I was cold, ungrateful, and difficult to love.
He told his golf partners I had behavioral problems.
He told our church pastor I was going through a rebellious phase that he was bravely managing alone.
When a cousin asked why I never came to Sunday dinners, he shrugged and said, “I preferred being alone.”
It was a calculated lie designed to make sure nobody checked on me.
His isolation was surgical.
One relationship at a time, he removed every potential witness and ally until I could stand among thirty relatives and still be completely invisible.
Lauren received catered birthday parties, new dresses every Easter, and a cherry-red convertible on her seventeenth birthday.
I received itemized grocery bills.
