No Reconciliation, No Regret

My estranged daughter suddenly appeared on a popular daytime talk show.
“Before I was fifteen, I was the happiest kid in the world,” she told the host, her voice trembling. “But then, my mother just… changed.”
“When I was so depressed I wanted to kill myself, my own mother told me to go ahead and die.”
“From that year on, she barely spoke to me. She didn't even come to my wedding, or see her own grandchild.”
“I don’t know why she did it,” she sobbed, looking directly into the camera. “But no matter what, I want to say, ‘Mom, I will always love you.’”
Later, the show’s producers contacted me, hoping to orchestrate a televised reconciliation.
I refused without a second thought.
Watching her fraudulent performance, I scoffed. “That piece of trash,” I muttered to the empty room. “She doesn’t deserve a mother.”
…
I had just gotten home when my old friend called.
“Sarah, your Jessie is on TV. It’s The Ashton Pierce Show. You need to see this.”
I turned on the television. I hadn’t seen my daughter, Jessica, in years. She was only twenty-eight, but she looked haggard, more like forty. What came out of her mouth next, however, was a fresh reminder of her bottomless capacity for deceit.
“I was fifteen, I was a teenager,” she wept to the host. “Isn’t it normal to be a little rebellious?”
“I just suddenly didn’t want to go to school anymore. There was no other reason. I wasn’t getting into any real trouble.”
“My mom is a teacher. She’s supposed to be the best at educating people, but with me… she had no patience at all.”
“I talked back to her a few times, and I joked that I didn’t want to live anymore. But she just looked at me, cold as ice, and told me to go die.”
I remembered that day. It was our first truly terrible fight. After I said those words, she had thrown on a jacket and run out. We lived on the fourth floor. She climbed out the hallway window and jumped.
There was a pile of junk the neighbors had put out for collection down below. She landed on it. There was blood everywhere, but she didn’t die. Her father had run down in a panic, calling an ambulance to rush her to the hospital.
Now, she recounted it with a tearful, wounded voice. “My own mother… while I was lying in a pool of my own blood, dying… she just walked past me without a word. She went to work like it was any other day.”
“I was in the hospital for over a month. My mother never visited me. Not once.”
The live comments on the screen exploded.
[How can anyone be that cold-blooded? That’s her own daughter.]
[Suddenly my mom seems like an angel, even when she grounds me for a month.]
[And she’s a teacher? Someone doxx this woman and get her fired!]
I trembled as I read the venomous comments. How did she have the audacity to say these things?
The host offered some comforting words. Jessica wiped her tears and continued. “When I finally came home, my mom just stopped talking to me completely. And because of her, my dad became distant, too.”
“Before I was fifteen, we went on a family vacation every year. After that, we didn't even go to the mall together on a weekend.”
She claimed she spent her entire high school life suffering under my silent, cold abuse.
“After graduation,” she went on, “I wanted a laptop for college. The only thing she said to me was that I didn’t deserve one.”
“Later, she told me I was an adult and she didn’t have to support me anymore. She threw me out of the house.”
“It’s been over a decade. My graduation, my wedding, the birth of my child… she wasn’t there for any of it. My dad gave me a check for a thousand dollars for my wedding, and that was it.”
She turned to the camera again, her eyes pleading. “Mom, I really do love you. It’s been so long. Can’t we let go of whatever grudge this is?”
“Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Can’t we please be a family again?” She sobbed so hard she could barely breathe.
The live feed went wild with a fresh wave of vitriol. The producers quickly disabled the comments.
It would be a lie to say the hateful words didn’t hurt. But if I had to do it all over again, I would make the same choice.
The pain of a toxic family has always been a hot-button issue. After the live broadcast, clips of her interview went viral. As expected, I, the heartless mother, was subjected to a brutal online mobbing. Netizens figured out which university I taught at, even though I was already retired. The school’s official website, forums, and alumni pages were flooded with condemnations and insults.
[This university is cursed to have a teacher like her.]
[You need to vet for character, not just academic credentials. Otherwise, you’re just producing garbage.]
[To give birth but not to raise is to be less than human!]
[She has a good public reputation, but she tortures her own child at home. She’s a monster.]
A few former colleagues and students tried to defend me, but their voices were drowned out in the deluge of hate.
The university called me in. In the president’s office, he looked pained. “Sarah, given the public outcry, we’re temporarily removing your profile from the distinguished faculty page. I hope you understand.”
“But rest assured,” he added quickly, “we’ve worked together for decades. We know the kind of person you are. The truth will come out eventually, and we will restore your honors.”
I told him I understood. But when I saw my name vanish from the school’s website, a career of over thirty years of hard work erased in an instant, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
When I got back to my apartment building, the scene outside my door made me freeze.
The door was covered in red spray paint. Words like MONSTER and TRASH were scrawled across it, with vile curses covering the entire wall. The floor was splattered with some foul-smelling, unknown liquid. I didn't dare go inside. I hid in the nearby stairwell, my hands shaking as I called my husband, Rob. He rushed home immediately.
Our next-door neighbor heard the commotion and peeked out. Seeing us, she let out a sigh of relief.
“Sarah, those people were awful. If I hadn’t threatened to call the police, they were going to wait for you.”
“I recorded them,” she said, handing me her phone. “If you want to report it, this is evidence.”
I looked at the video. The man leading the pack was horribly familiar. It was that troublemaker from years ago. My daughter’s husband, Kyle.
“I don’t know what happened between you and your daughter,” our neighbor said kindly, “but you two are good people. I know you’re not like that.”
After thanking her, I copied the video to my computer. My husband, Rob, a typically mild-mannered man, was seething. “Sarah, we have to call the police.”
Two days of online harassment had sent my blood pressure soaring. My head was spinning, but I knew it wasn’t time yet.
“Let’s just wait,” I said.
Rob hesitated. “Sarah… my office saw the interview. And some people showed up there, too.”
“The director… he suggested I take some time off. A leave of absence.”
“What?!” I cried out. “But you’re retiring in two months! A leave of absence now will affect your pension, your record!”

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