▸ Column · The walled cities of the Attack on Titan world — district life among soldiers and their garrisons
MIKASA ACKERMAN replies.
Replied to by Mikasa Ackerman, with a rebuttal from Naruto Uzumaki.
The letter
Last winter, in front of a dozen people at a holiday gathering, my mother made a joke of the child I lost. After that I declined to come to her birthday dinner. Her answer was to walk into my husband's garrison and tell his commanding officer that my husband "controls" me and that she fears for my safety — a lie that could have cost him his post and his name. I cut off contact entirely, and for the first time in my thirty-eight years I can breathe. But my younger brother keeps sending word that she weeps every day, has stopped eating, and is growing frail — he's even sent sketches of how thin she's gotten. I don't want her to suffer. I also don't want to go back to being the one who swallows whatever she throws and smiles through it. The field counselor says my boundary is sound but that I have to decide "what I can live with," which feels like no answer at all when my brother keeps showing me how she's wasting. Is there a version of this where I hold the line without becoming the villain of her story?
Mikasa Ackerman replies
Your mother didn't only hurt you. She went to the place your husband earns his bread and told a lie that could have ended him — after laughing at a loss that should have broken her own heart. That isn't a story. It's a record. I weigh people by what they do when the kind thing would cost them something, and twice now she chose cruelty. Believe that over any tears.
You spent thirty-eight years absorbing it and smiling. I know that shape. I built my whole self around one person and nearly vanished inside the doing of it. The breathing you feel now is you coming back. Don't trade it away because someone shows you a frail face and calls it your fault.
Let her cast you as the villain. People tell whatever story keeps them warm. You don't owe anyone a flattering part.
She's thin, not eating. If that's real danger, do the decent minimum — send word to a healer, to your brother, to someone who can see her safe. That's not the same door you closed. Keep her alive if it comes to that. Don't move back inside to do it. Two doors. Open only the first.
— Mikasa Ackerman
Naruto Uzumaki weighs in
Mikasa's right that you don't step back into the fire — don't. But can I point at the one person nobody in this letter is looking at? Your little brother. He's carrying every sketch, every "she won't eat," standing alone in the middle 'cause everyone else picked a side. That's a lonely spot, ya know? So crack a door — not for your mom yet, for HIM. Tell him you see what he's holding. And your mom — people hurting that bad are usually drowning in something old. Stay safe, keep the line clear, but don't bury her like she can't ever change. Nobody's a lost cause. Believe it.
— Naruto Uzumaki
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