Chapter 6 - AUBERON’S MOTHER BEFORE SHE BECAME MY JAILER
Fenella had not always been frightening.
That was one reason Auberon struggled.
She raised him after his father died when Auberon was fourteen.
Worked full-time at a school district office.
Kept the mortgage current.
Put him through community college before he transferred.
She was capable.
Organized.
Proud.
Auberon loved her.
He also knew she could be severe.
As a teenager, when he broke curfew, she removed his bedroom door for three weeks.
When he failed chemistry, she made him eat dinner alone at a folding table in the laundry room until grades improved.
When he lied about a damaged car, she took his phone and wallet for a month.
Auberon called those stories:
“Mom being intense.”
After the shed, he called them something else.
Control.
Fenella believed discomfort corrected behavior.
She said often:
“Consequences have to hurt or they are decorations.”
Auberon had rejected most of that as an adult.
But some assumptions remained.
When I told him Fenella had called me ungrateful, he said:
“She says that when she feels shut out.”
Translation.
Not confrontation.
When she entered without knocking:
“She has trouble adjusting.”
When she criticized my pregnancy diet:
“She thinks helping means managing.”
Explanations.
Not boundaries.
Then the postpartum plan.
That changed him.
He finally told her no.
May you like
Then left for five days.
Fenella apparently decided the wife was the problem.
