Chapter 7 - PACKING UP THE MEMORIES
That night, sleep was impossible. I walked through our quiet house, looking at the family photos on the walls—pictures where my mother stood smiling in the center, framing herself as the matriarch of a loving clan. I realized those frames held nothing but fraudulent artifice. I spent the remainder of the night packing away every gift, every card, and every memento connected to my mother and the relatives who enabled her cruelty. If they wanted a matriarch who ruled through exclusion and cruelty, they could have each other. We were cutting the cord for good.
