Dear Aunt Bea,
My husband’s boss recently transformed himself. Once stingy and snide, he is now generous and encouraging. On the practical level, this is life-changing. We now have money enough for full bellies and warm rooms, for specialists for my youngest, for all my children to return to school so they might not depend upon a rich man’s whims for their bread.
He could not be kinder, yet I am filled with rage. He constantly drops by with a ham or a toy for the children and stays for hours, cheerfully talking about himself the entire time. What he feels, what he was just saying the other day, what he thinks I should do in every situation…. And I am alone in my fury. Everyone around me seems to have forgotten the decades of poverty this man created, full of harsh words and irrational demands.
I need to write him a thank you note for yet another expensive gift, for which I am truly grateful. But I want nothing more than for him to see me, to truly understand the harm he caused. The damage he caused is healing, but it will never be unbroken. He will never understand, and I cannot try to make him, because despite everything he is still my husband’s boss, and we are still at his mercy.
Help me, Aunt Bea. What do I write? And how do I bear the burden of all that is left unsaid?
Sincerely,
Molly Cratchit
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