But fairness and wholeness are not the same thing. And I had spent enough years letting their limitations define what I was capable of. I wasn’t going to let their failures become mine.
I told my father I would take on their case, not as a family member, but as a professional. I would charge my standard rate, reduced by half as a one-time accommodation, and I would require them to follow every recommendation I made without negotiation. I would not be managing emotions or navigating family history during working sessions. We would meet here in this office on a professional basis.
He agreed. Then he looked at me, really looked at me in the way he had never quite managed when I was a child and said, “I should have done better by you.”
I nodded. I didn’t perform a reaction for him. I just nodded and said, “I know. Let’s get your paperwork in order.”
My mother came to the second meeting. She looked different to me in my office than she ever had anywhere else—smaller somehow without the architecture of our family home and our family history around her. She wore a nice blouse and her hair was done. And her expression was the very specific blend of pride and discomfort that people wear when they need something from someone they have underestimated.
She sat down across from me and said, “Before anything else, I want you to know I don’t regret raising you.”
It was the most she had ever offered me. It was not an apology. It was also, I realized, the closest she was capable of coming to one.
I looked at her for a moment. Then I said, “I know. Let’s talk about the restructuring plan.”