Chapter 18 - VANESSA WITHOUT AN AUDIENCE
Vanessa’s probation required financial counseling and community service.
She found work inside a department store.
At first, she considered the job humiliating.
Then she discovered most coworkers did not care about her old boutique.
They cared whether she arrived on time.
Whether she completed inventory.
Whether she treated customers respectfully.
Mark proceeded with the divorce.
They arranged shared custody of their son.
Vanessa blamed Emily for months.
Then something changed.
A customer threw a sweater across the counter and called Vanessa stupid.
Vanessa went into the stockroom and cried.
Her manager found her.
“She treated me like I was nothing,” Vanessa said.
The manager answered,
“Now decide whether being hurt makes you kinder or gives you permission to hurt someone else.”
Vanessa later told me that sentence.
She called to ask whether Emily would meet her.
I refused to answer for my wife.
“You need to ask her through Claire.”
“Do you think she will?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could you convince her?”
“No.”
Vanessa became silent.
Then she said,
“I used to think you refusing me meant Emily was controlling you.”
“What do you think now?”
“I think you never learned how to say no without blaming someone else.”
She was right.
Emily declined the meeting.
She accepted a written apology instead.
Vanessa wrote that she had used Emily’s poverty to make herself feel superior.
She admitted she enjoyed getting laughs.
She admitted the Christmas insult had been planned because her online audience responded well to family conflict.
Emily kept the letter.
May you like
She did not reply.
Forgiveness was not content Vanessa could post.
