15 Years of War by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Military
ISBN: 9781611213492
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Published: 2017-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Once we made it home, Ryan was smitten with the new baby. He wanted to give George kisses and hold his hand all the time. My mom was a great help to have around, as was Ross. And just like before, Mom took care of the cooking and cleaning and Ross helped juggle both kids.

Then Trina came.

The RV, parked out in front of our house, was the perfect place for Trina to stay.

In hindsight, maybe we should have driven the RV several blocks away.

My mom had finally begun to see for herself what Trina was really like. I’d been open and honest with Mom about Trina’s unkindness to me, but these recent interactions after George’s birth gave her a front row seat to the guilting and manipulation that were part of Trina’s arsenal.

It was beyond awkward having the two of them together. I had to admit: it must have been difficult for my mom to witness her own child being treated so poorly and not be able to say or do anything about it.

Mom did her best to engage Trina in small talk and remain polite, but Trina was obsessed with one-upping her any time they discussed kids. Ross was always smarter, faster, more accomplished, or you name it. It didn’t take long before Mom stopped trying to engage Trina, and began avoiding her.

Then Trina pulled out what she called Grandma’s Brag Book to show off her collection of pictures of Ryan.

My mom was really quiet as she looked it over. Then she gave a pallid smile, and gingerly handed it on to me.

As I flipped through the pages, it wasn’t long before I realized why my mother hadn’t said much about Trina’s book. There were no pictures of me.

Not one freaking picture.

It was like I was trapped in a horror movie: I had been utterly cut out.

In Trina’s world, Kristine Schellhaas—Ryan’s mother—didn’t exist. It was as if Ross and I had divorced; every trace of me was gone. Of course there were plenty of pictures of Ryan with Trina’s siblings, Trina’s parents, and Trina’s husband Frank.

It occurred to me then that she had done something similar with our wedding pictures, too. I remember she had an album filled with photos of Ross; she even had a photo of Ross with my bridesmaids! She had cut me, her son’s wife, the mother of her grandchild, out of the picture quite literally. It didn’t matter that I made Ross happy, or that I had given birth to Ryan. In Trina’s fairy tale world, I didn’t exist.

I felt sick. I put the book down, excused myself, and went to talk to my husband. “Babe, have you seen your mom’s brag book?”

“No, why . . . what’s up?”

Where to begin, I thought. “Well . . . anyone looking at it would think . . . I mean, it’s fair to say they would think . . . that you and I are divorced. Out of the fifty-plus pictures in there, there’s not a single one of me.

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