## The Other Conversations I Didn’t Have
There were conversations I decided not to have during the dispute months that I think are worth acknowledging, because the conversations I didn’t have shaped things as much as the ones I did.
I did not call my mother’s sister, my aunt, who knows my mother better than almost anyone and who has been, over the years, a person I have sometimes talked to about difficult family things. I thought about calling her. I decided not to, because what my mother had done was not a family story I owned in a way that made spreading it feel right. It was a story about my finances and my credit and my situation. It was mine to tell when I chose and to whom I chose, but it was not mine to weaponize.
I did not call my father. My father and I have a cordial but not close relationship — he lives in another state and we talk a few times a year and there is affection there but not intimacy. I thought briefly about calling him in the way you think about calling anyone who might be a resource or a witness when things are hard. I decided not to, partly because he and my mother have a difficult dynamic that I did not want to introduce into an already complicated situation, and partly because what he could offer was limited and the cost of involving him seemed higher than what I would get.