Christmas in Memphis: no funny rants this time.

[rivka]

I think some of my friends probably look forward to my lurid stories about Michael's stepmother. She's so awful that, on some level, she's entertaining; we've gotten quite a bit of conversational mileage out of her parenting advice, her decorating sense, her asparagus recipe. (Oh, my God...)

This time I don't have any fun Betty stories. Because she's moved on to direct attacks on Michael for not loving his dead mother enough.

Yeah. See? No entertainment potential there.

She blindsided him one morning in the kitchen, while he was giving Alex breakfast and I was still asleep.

"How come you didn't name her after your mother?"

Michael explained that he wasn't particularly fond of the name Nancy.

"Well, I think that Nancy Alexandra would have been really pretty. Your Dad was really disappointed - he was hoping you'd name her for your mother."

Later on, while we were all together, Michael was telling a sweet little anecdote about his relationship with his grandfather Crabtree, whom he called 'Big Crab.' (His grandfather called him 'Little Crab,' because Crabtree is Michael's middle name.)

Betty interrupted him. "Nancy? You don't call her Mom?"

We all looked at her in complete incomprehension. She spent the next several minutes insisting that Michael had referred to Big Crab as 'Nancy's father' - thereby referring to the woman who'd raised him, and whose deathbed he had faithfully attended, by her first name. Michael and I were united in our equally firm insistence that Michael hadn't said anything of the sort. Michael's father just looked nonplussed.

I can't think of any motive for this, except to try to drive a wedge between Michael and his father by implying that, because Michael is adopted, he doesn't really consider himself to be part of his father's family. (She also kept pushing Michael to talk about his birthmother.) Because Michael's relationship with his father is so loving and so solid, I guess she thought it would work best to tarnish the memory of his relationship with his mother.

So, yeah. No funny stories this time.

Comments

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

That's a perfect example of a "carriage retort" -- if I'd thought of it, I'd have gladly used it, but I didn't, so I had to make do with something else.

Instead, I just made sure that Betty got to come along and sit in the car watching while I brought Alex on a pilgrimage to her grandmother's graveside. Dad came along too, although he wasn't feeling well enough to get out of the car. Still, he saw that it was important enough to me to take time out to visit the gravesite with him, and to bring Alex along, too. Betty got to watch him watching us, and I feel certain that she had absolutely nothing to say during that time. If that was hard for her... tough fucking shit, I meant for it to be hard for her.

I went to the cemetery for me, and to bring Alex to her grandmother's grave, and to have a chance to go there with Dad. I'd have done it without Betty coming along, or without Dad... but having them both there, especially at the same time, was just icing on the cake. It was especially sweet to see the look on her face when I asked Dad when he'd like to arrange it for he and Alex and I to go, and when Betty squawked about him going out "in his condition", we opined that she could come along if she would like to.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Well done.