Chapter 11 - Antoinette Calls Me
Marjorie’s cousin called from Québec.
“I am horrified.”
“I saw your emails.”
“Then you know I told her no.”
“Yes.”
“I want to say this anyway.”
She did.
Antoinette had hosted family children for years.
Chores were normal.
Beds were normal.
No punishment sleeping.
No forced floor scrubbing.
No taking children without parents knowing.
She believed Marjorie had become obsessed with what she called:
“old Duvall discipline.”
“Was that a thing?”
Antoinette sighed.
“Your grandmother.”
My father’s mother.
Estelle Duvall.
Born in 1931.
Raised children with rigid rules.
At her house, grandchildren made beds with hospital corners.
Polished silver.
Folded laundry.
If they complained:
More work.
Marjorie married into that system at twenty-three.
And hated it.
That surprised me.
“She hated Grandma Estelle.”
“Of course.”
“Then why repeat it?”
“Because eventually your mother became good at it.”
There.
Marjorie learned that competence reduced humiliation.
She earned praise by becoming the woman who could:
run a house.
Host forty.
Remember every napkin.
Never appear tired.
Years later, she recast the system as character-building.
What once controlled her became proof of her superiority.
Again:
Painful traditions become tempting to defend if we built identity around surviving them.
May you like
Ione had become the next test subject.
────────────────────
