When Emily found out how much she would receive, she was shocked.
After paying taxes and legal fees, Emily’s settlement would allow her to pay off her student loans, permanently move out of her parents’ house, and start a new life from scratch.
However, the confidentiality agreement kept Emily from telling anyone, including her family, and precluded her from defending herself in the social media space, as well as from using any proof or evidence that backed up her account of events.While others thought she was unsuccessful, Emily needed to keep her thoughts inside her head.
After a few days of silence, she decided to rent a one-bedroom studio apartment that wasn’t too far away from where she lived. After moving into her new place, she bought all used furniture, and she scheduled her move to happen on Friday, hoping that she could do so without confrontation.
Then Linda made the Facebook post.
That night, Emily was ready to break her agreement. As she opened the settlement folder, her hands were shaking. She thought about taking a picture of the check. She thought about writing “You have no idea what I went through, baby.” But, as Marcus had told her over and over again, “You have to maintain your composure. Do not let emotions cloud your decisions. See this process to an end.” So Emily maintained her composure and waited.
Emily liked every post made about her being a “loser” to ensure each person associated with that post would understand at a later date:
She doesn’t just know about what you did.
She knows about what you did.
She is going to prove it to you.
Once the settlement was made public, every family member, who had spread the falsehood that Emily was unemployed and dependent, received a certified letter of warning from Marcus. The letters were not lawsuits.
Not yet.
They were warnings.
They included screenshots of the posts and highlighted every name.
Each post was printed word for word.
In just minutes, the family group chat went crazy.
Linda called Emily first, and she ignored the call.
Megan called Emily next, and she saw her phone ring silently while the call was coming in from Megan.
Then Aunt Patricia sent a message that said, “Honey, we were just messing around. You took it too far.”
Emily looked at Aunt Patricia for a very long time.
It’s amazing how fast people can become kind again once they see the consequences of their actions.
That night, Emily finally answered one of the calls.
Daniel.Although Emily did not understand it, she suspected that part of her confusion stemmed from the fact that Daniel had hurt her worse than anyone in her life. And by the way he simply hit “like” on his phone after she had humiliated herself.
Daniel began his apology to Emily in a soft voice: “I wasn’t aware it was that serious.”
As she stared out her apartment window, Emily saw a father and daughter walking from their car to their apartment carrying groceries. When the little girl accidentally dropped a bag filled with apples and they rolled all over the lot, she and her father laughed hysterically.
“You weren’t aware that mocking me in public was a serious offense?” Emily shot back.
Daniel was silent.
“I thought it was just some family drama,” he muttered at last.
“No,” Emily said calmly, “That’s what people call it when they don’t want to admit they watched cruelty happen.”
Daniel apologised twice and Emily figured he felt badly about getting caught.
Emily did not, however, think Daniel felt badly about what he had done to her.
So, Emily hung up the phone.
The next day, Emily made her own statement, which was short, well thought out, and given the stamp of approval from Marcus.
Emily said that her wrongful termination case had finally resolved after over a year of legal proceedings. Emily stated that she was terminated after she reported wrongdoings that affected vulnerable clients in the insurance industry. Emily did not mention the amount of money she received in the settlement and she did not insult anyone. Emily only stated: “For the past year, I have been perceived as a failure by many.””I was silently fighting my battles.”
She never posted any screenshots.
In other words, that is the way it was with her and the others.
But that did not stop what had already happened. Many people were familiar with Linda’s post; they could recall the joke(s), as well as the inquiry regarding why a parent would publicly humiliate their children. Others had reason to question why family members were laughing instead of offering assistance.
By the time dinner rolled around, Linda had pulled down her post.
Before midnight, Megan had eliminated all of her tags from the post.
Aunt Patricia put up an ambiguous quotation about forgiveness and then took it down when she received a negative reaction from those who saw it.
However, deleting the post does not change what actually happened. According to Marcus, the things that were said about Emily by several different individuals could be viewed as defamations; particularly as many of the comments alluded to the fact that she had” refused” to obtain employment and “was living off of her mother”. Those particular pieces of information have been presented to the public and are, therefore, considered to be false, as well as defamatory.
Elisabeth was seriously considering bringing a lawsuit against those individuals.
Elisabeth had three days to contemplate that.
She subsequently returned to Linda’s house to gather the rest of her belongings. Her previous bedroom appeared to be much smaller than she remembered. The same yellow draperies were still hanging next to the windows, and the dent in the wall from years past when Linda threw a hairbrush during a quarrel with Elisabeth and subsequently blamed Elisabeth for inciting Linda to become angry was still there.
Linda was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed.
“I never thought you would be this kind of person,” she stated, with an icy demeanor.
Elisabeth almost laughed.The type of individual who betrays family members also tends to be unhappy individuals; Emily felt that way about Linda, the former foster mother. Emily stopped being the person who “volunteered” to take on the entire family as a punchline, yet even after taking that step, Linda still presented herself as someone who would attack family members in the name of “love.”
After many years of pain, Emily wished to have the long-awaited apology. This would not be the standard “I’m sorry you feel this way, blah, blah, blah.” What Emily wanted was an apology that was truly sincere and showed acknowledgement of the pain caused by Linda, without any expectation of Linda providing any form of comfort in return.
That apology never came.
The only option Emily had was to take her suitcase outside.
Emily’s choice was to avoid using the legal system to go after Linda and also to avoid using the legal system to go after Megan and Aunt Patricia. The only recourse Emily had was that she requested they both put out corrections in public to indicate that their statements about Emily being unemployed and dependent had been incorrect. Marcus took care of the wording for Emily. Both Megan and Aunt Patricia did not want to post Corrections, but they did so anyway.
Daniel sent flowers to Emily’s apartment.
Emily threw the flowers away in the dumpster.
Three months after the flowers were thrown away, Emily accepted a position working with a nonprofit that assisted older adults in trying to collect on denied insurance claims. Emily’s studio apartment was still small and the radiator continued making noises at night, but for the first time in a long time, she felt at peace while she slept there.
Settlement money didn’t give Emily the life she wanted; nor did it provide her with the perfect family or the perfect future.
What it did do was provide Emily with distance.
Emily’s distance also allowed her to hear herself think without any other person laughing over her.
On her first Thanksgiving by herself, Emily prepared a meal of chicken, potatoes and green beans in her tiny kitchen. Emily set the table with one plate, muted her phone, and ate in silence.
For the first time in years, Emily did not feel lonely in her silence. Emily felt free!
