Before knowing my mother passed, the boys told me their dad had taken time off work to shop for something to wear to a funeral. They understood that a woman from his work had died and that he planned to take them with him.

I didn’t think much of it. Why would I?

Then, the day before the funeral, one of my mother’s caregivers contacted me.

My mother had died.

Her funeral was the next day.

When I arrived, the boys’ father was there.

We had been married for maybe seven years and had been navigating a high-conflict divorce for years by then, yet a female sibling chose to list him in my mother’s obituary as her son-in-law.

There had never been some independent relationship between my mother or my sister and my former husband that simply continued after our marriage ended. They knew him through me. My mother had consistently helped me financially through periods of instability surrounding child support, childcare, and the basic logistics of raising the boys. Her repeated, heroic financial rescue of us nullified his efforts to destabilize me, while what my sister may have regarded as her eventual inheritance was being used to help us. It stands to reason, then, that they may have shared an interest in dividing me from her.

I don’t know what conversations happened outside my presence. I don’t know who contacted whom or what anyone privately intended.

I know what happened.

Before I knew my mother was dead, my children knew their father was taking them to a funeral. They believed it was for a woman from his work.

The following day, I learned the truth.

And on that very day, I recorded myself talking about what I feared this developing alignment could eventually ask of my children.

I was afraid they were being placed in a structure in which belonging might eventually encourage choosing.

I cannot imagine a scenario in which children benefit from one parent being removed, erased, or diminished until favoring the other simply feels natural.

Years later, I find the video.

There I was, having already named what I feared was happening and what it might eventually ask of my children. When they wondered why I always imagined the worst, I remember saying:

I’m not imagining. I’m recalling.

Whatever else may be true, this also happened.