This was not always our mother deliberately altering things. Sometimes it was just the imprecision of telephone. Sometimes I think our mother applied her own interpretation without meaning to. But the pattern — Elise doesn’t ask me directly, Elise gets the version of me that passes through our mother — had been there for years. The dress situation was the extreme version of something small and chronic.
‘I think I’ve been avoiding you when I want something,’ Elise said, in that later conversation. ‘Because I’m afraid you’ll say no.’
‘Have I said no to you in ways that were unfair?’ I asked.
She thought about it. ‘Not really. But I imagine you will. You’re very clear about what you’re okay with and what you’re not. It’s easier to ask Mom.’
‘Because Mom says yes.’
‘Usually.’
‘And then she says it’s from me.’
Pause. ‘Sometimes.’
This is not a new problem, in other words. It is a system that we have all been participating in, to different degrees and with different levels of awareness. Elise avoiding asking me directly because she’s afraid of my answer. My mother filling the gap because she wants to give Elise what she wants and she’s learned that I can be managed. Me not fully registering the pattern because each individual instance seemed small and I don’t like conflict and it was easier to come around than to call it out.
The dress was the place where the pattern produced a consequence I couldn’t come around to. And that — as much as the specific dress, the specific cut cuff — is what made it matter.