“That’s not what it looked like.”
She blinked at me.
“So when you cornered her today,” I said, “you weren’t punishing her for something she did. You were punishing her for something she didn’t do.”
“Oh, please.” She slammed the box down on the counter. “You’re making ordinary discipline sound like abuse. You have no idea what I was trying to accomplish.”
“She was crying, Jenna. You were insulting her body, and she was crying.”
“You have no idea what I was trying to accomplish.”
“Because she’s soft!” Her voice cracked up high. “Because nobody has ever made her hear a hard thing. Someone has to teach her how to be a woman, and you can’t do that, because you’re a man.”
“She had a mother.”
“Well.” Jenna folded her arms. “Clearly she didn’t teach her much, either.”
The kitchen went very still. The refrigerator hummed. I breathed in. I breathed out. Because if I let my anger take over now, Jenna would have something else to make this about.
“Clearly she didn’t teach her much, either.”
Jenna had never even known her, and she’d just dismissed the mother my daughter was still grieving.
Jenna must have seen something in my face, because she softened her voice. But the words kept coming.
