It’s the first time I’ve heard it said out loud like that.
Something in me wants to argue.He didn’t control me. I have a mind of my own.
But I’m sitting in a car in a borrowed shirt with a bag of clothes from a boutique and a giant stuffed penguin in the back seat, five days out from my own wedding, and I’m thinking about the blue dress and the music he hated and the notebook I fill with thoughts I couldn’t say to his face.
I don’t argue.
“He made everything feel like it was in your head,” Griffin points out. “Or like it was your fault, or like wanting something different was somehow unreasonable. That’s not love, Pipes. That’s management.”
I look out the window and fight the words that are eager to come out. I’ve never told anybody, but I’m so tired of feeling trapped, of my voice being locked away.
“He made me get tested,” I finally say.
Griffin goes very, very still. “What?”
“He suggested I see a psychiatrist. He said I was probably like my mom. That my mood swings weren’t normal. He said I was probably bipolar like my mother, and that’s why I was unhappy.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
Then Griffin’s hand comes down hard on the steering wheel. “Fuuuuuck.”
It comes out of him like something that’s been building pressure for years and finally found an exit. I watch his jaw work, watch the visible effort of a man who is choosing his next words with extreme care.
“Did he spend more than five minutes with your parents? Did he ever actually sit in that house and see—” He curses under his breath again. “Your parents love each other. That’s not performance. They’ve had hard times, more than most families, and yeah, you kids went through it with them. I know it wasn’t easy.” He’s gripping the wheel. “But your father never stopped showing up. Not once. And your mother—” I watch him take a breath. “Your mother is one of the bravest people I have ever known. Do you understand that? The courage it takes to keep showing up when your own mind is working against you? To keep trying to find the balance, to keep going through that process again and again and still be present for her family?”
My throat closes as a stray tear finally leaks past my defenses. I don’t bother to wipe it.
“He used her against you,” Griffin says. “He took something about the people who love you and turned it into a weapon and pointed it at you. That’s what he did.”
I feel more tears run down my cheek before I realize I’m crying.
“She’s not her diagnosis,” Griffin says. “That’s not the first thing that comes into my head when I think about Donna Callahan. You know what I think about?” He glances at me. “I think about a woman who sat with me for two days planning my grandmother’s funeral and didn’t leave until everything was sorted. I think about a woman who saved plates and asked questions and laughed at my terrible jokes before I knew how to make better ones.”
I make a sound that is mostly a sob and partly a laugh. “She does love a funeral.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “And she gave my grandmother a great one.”
I press the back of my hand against my mouth. It’s strange and disorienting to see my family from the outside. Through someone who loves them with no obligation or blood requirement, just a choice made again and again over twenty-three years.
How long have I been looking at it wrong? How long have I let one person’s framing of my history become the only lens I use?
“I’m sorry,” I whisper through a sob.
Griffin looks at me. “What are you apologizing for?”
“I didn’t mean to make you—you’re angry.”
“I am angry, but at a person who is not you.” He reaches over and takes my hand, wraps it in his, and settles both our hands on the center console. “I’m not angry at you, Pipes. I promise.”
I look at our hands.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
“Okay,” he says back.
I don’t let go of his hand, and he doesn’t take it back. I let myself be angry, too, just a little, at the edges where I’ve been keeping it back.
It’s mine. I’m allowed.
