Division

I've been thinking back over my adult life at the division Mother has caused. It's been there ripe for the picking. I just didn't know it.

Comments that were frequently attributed to someone else.

Your grandmother even commented that your mother-in-law is going to be a handful.
Joe mentioned that he wondered why y'all had moved me out here and hadn't done more than you'd done.

She's got something else in mind, that little daughter-in-law of yours. You better watch out for her.

Those kinds of comments, looking back on them, were made for one purpose and one purpose only: to divide and conquer, to keep people from fully trusting one another, to create disharmony. She's a master of it.

Now, I want to let this go. I do. But I don't want to sweep it under the rug either. I don't want to excuse it or make it less than it is. I want to embrace it and understand who she is. I don't want to forget. I want to look her full in the face (or at least a photograph) and understand how she has manipulated our lives.