‘You do,’ Toni repeated. ‘She makes you think you can only be loved if you do everything for her, so you do everything for her. You want to be loved.’
That sounded very blunt, she thought, but it had to be said. ‘I mean, we all want to be loved but in co-dependent relationships, one person is so desperate to be loved and approved of. It’s not good for you. Not healthy.’
The nausea was passing. She chanced sitting up on her towel and leaned against the bathtub. It was miraculous. The goddesses had obviously decided they would take the Pucci scarf and the mules. Toni didn’t care. Anything was worth sacrificing to feel better.
Plus, she had always had amazing powers of recovery.
‘I do,’ agreed Lou slowly.
‘Yes, you do,’ agreed Toni. ‘When she says “jump” you say “how high?” Or, even better, when she says someone was horrible to her or upset her, she sends you off to fix it. You’re like her guard dog. No wonder she never wanted a dog – she had you instead. You enable that behaviour because you like being needed.’
‘So it’s my fault?’ Lou said.
‘No. Lillian created the scenario. But it’s a self-perpetuating cycle. If you don’t do what she wants, she turns her love off, so you’re desperate for her approval again and you do whatever she wants—’
‘Stop!’ Lou sat on the edge of the bath. ‘Just stop.’
Toni fell silent and Lou allowed herself to breathe slowly, the way she did when the Barking Dog was at her. Slowly in and slowly out.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound cruel,’ Toni said. ‘like that. I hate to see Lillian take advantage of you, but I’ve grown used to it. I thought you didn’t mind it ...’
Toni paused. That wasn’t entirely true. She knew exactly what her mother was capable of. If she was honest, she’d simply accepted the family narrative and let it continue. Was she to blame for never intervening in their mother’s treatment of Lou?
‘I never realised she was treating me that way. Or that I was allowing her to do it,’ Lou said eventually. She was still trying to breathe slowly. It was working. She was able to think. Her mind hadn’t gone into meltdown.
‘The co-dependency thing – what else does it mean?’ she asked tentatively.
Toni closed her eyes as if seeing a research printout for a TV show.
‘It means you take care of other people but not yourself. You feel responsible for everything and everyone. You ...’ Toni paused. ‘You sure you want to hear this?’
‘Yes.’
‘’Kay. You are very self-critical and you absorb other people’s feelings.’ Toni stopped. She was glad she’d opened her sister’s eyes, but she didn’t want to keep going. Hearing self-truths was generally painful. Toni had had too many articles written about her television persona to think that other people’s analyses of one were fun to hear.
‘There’s more,’ said Lou, feeling the pain of self-recognition. ‘Isn’t there?’
‘I’m not Wikipedia,’ Toni insisted.
‘You remember everything. You know you do.’
‘Fine! After this you can look it up: you’re a people pleaser, OK? Happy now?’ Lou slid off the bath and sat on the bathroom’s marble floor with her sister.
People pleaser.
That described her perfectly. What sort of an idiot was she?
‘I’m really sorry,’ said Toni, clumsily patting her. ‘It’s like clubbing a baby seal.’
‘I’m a baby seal?’
‘You have very big eyes,’ Toni offered.
A people-pleasing baby seal. Was this what she was? Fifty years on the planet and this is what she amounted to? All her current problems filtered down to this. She was a woman who was such an easy-going wife that she let her husband basically ignore her. She was a daughter at the beck and call of a manipulative mother who used her. She was an employee who was so eager to be liked, so eager to be helpful, that she allowed her true value to be disregarded.
At least she still had Emily. Didn’t she? Or had she got that wrong too? On impulse, she turned away from Toni to send a quick WhatsApp to her daughter.
Can you talk?
