Pit Children – 33

There   are people who have the ability to comprehend the ‘how it looks’ paradigm.  That is, regardless of truth, the appearance carries a  significance.

When   Everett met Julie and learned her parents lived a distance away, but  her brothers lived in the next city, he assumed that she was estranged from them.

He  lived with his parents and his mother, especially, was part of his life.

The   lucky situation for Julie was that her brothers had tuned down their  interference in her life a bit as they were struggling to find and hold jobs, have some kind of life.   This   hiatus gave Julie a chance to meet Everett, to form a relationship,  and now to marry.

As  Everett and Julie had been caught up in their jobs and each other, Paul and John were side topics. He had no idea how much control they had over her.

At   the wedding, Everett  noted she was  bit divorced from her mother,  assuming  there was some obstacle between them, although he didn’t see it.

Julie  was close to her father, treated her mother as if she were someone  her father had met and married last year.

This is how it looked to Everett.

This is not how it was.

He had no idea that for nearly ten years her half brothers had worked to turn her against her mother.   That they had decided not to come, claiming all sorts of reasons, but making it clear that if she invited her mother they would be absent.   She had to invite her mother, or her father would not have come.