But to have an honest conversation about what she’d witnessed, about character, about what it means to stand by the people in your life who need standing by.
Colton, to his credit, was horrified.
He had not known.
He came to see me personally 2 weeks after the wedding.
And the conversation we had was genuine in a way that Brooke’s apology hadn’t been.
He wasn’t performing.
He was just mortified and sad and trying to figure out who he’d married.
Their first year of marriage, from what Jolene tells me, is rocky in ways that have nothing to do with normal newlywed adjustment.
My mother, who had not been at the corner of the room when Brooke said what she said, found out through my aunt.
That conversation between my mother and Brooke is one I was not present for.
But my mother called me afterward and cried for 40 minutes on the phone.
Not performed crying.
Grief.
The grief of realizing that one of your children is capable of something you hadn’t believed they were capable of.
My mother now shows up to every single one of my doctor’s appointments.
She drives 90 minutes each way.
She has not missed one since September.
As for me, I started a blog in October.
Nothing fancy, just writing stories about living with MS, about navigating a world that wasn’t built with you in mind, about family and love, and what it means to keep choosing both, even when they hurt you.
By January, I had 60,000 readers.
A producer from a podcast network reached out in February.
We’re recording this month.
And Jolene, my Jolene, is moving to my city in the spring.