i think about josie and her mother every 2 business days, because i really do believe that esperanza didn’t intend to put the debilitating amount of pressure she does on josie. i think she knows it’s a lot, but she runs the gambit of excuses with the headliner of “well, it’s josephine. she can handle it.”
she can even recognize how josie fell into the mother role after timothée (youngest son/brother) died, but again, “josephine can handle it.”
when actually, esperanza, your 13 year old child shouldn’t have to step up as the mother to the rest of your children and also to both of her parents while everyone gets to grieve but her, babe, but you know.
josephine will tell anyone who asks that this is fine and nothing she can’t handle, that it’s her duty as the heir, even. i don’t know that josie will ever see what her parents did as wrong or emotional neglect.
then, you have laurien who takes out his grief on josephine; yvette who takes out her unresolved angst with having a sister for a mother / never having the parents the rest of her siblings had on josephine; and antoine who won’t even speak of anything at all ever.
the montilyets are fine.
