Accidental Proof
If my words mean something to you, and you’re in a position to give, it means a lot. Your kindness helps me keep showing up to create.I was sitting in the lounge at the Yale Club with my friend Steven. We were deep in philosophical conversation, bouncing ideas, caught in one of those rare creative flows. I was having a good day.
Then my phone buzzed.
"You are a problem.”
"You're a drunk."
"Your sister is embarrassed of you.”
"She’s already told all her friends not to hang out with you.”
Classic projecting.
My mom usually started drinking in the early afternoon, and by four o'clock, when those texts came in, she was just hitting her stride. What hurt the most wasn’t that I was having a good day. It wasn’t even the content of the texts, which arrived often. It was the thought that my sister might be saying these things to our mom instead of coming to me directly. We had just made a promise to work on our relationship.
For my 30th birthday, my sister took me to Joanne Trattoria, Lady Gaga’s family’s restaurant. After a couple of martinis, we wandered to Lincoln Center and sat beside the Metropolitan Opera House. Across the lawn, a group of girls were recording themselves dancing like the city belonged to them. In that moment, we looked at each other and made a decision. From then on, we would begin to build a relationship of our own. We hadn’t been close for years. Now we were both living in New York City, and it felt like a new beginning.
Two months later, our parents flew in from Michigan for Thanksgiving. For the most part, it was fine. But on Friday, the inevitable—a huge family blow-up. There’s way too much to unpack, but the fight ended with me storming out, carrying a giant box with a mini oven inside. I hauled it from 81st to 28th Street.
A week later, my sister and I scheduled time to talk. We sat down, named the old patterns, and apologized for things we didn't mean. Once I felt like we were in a better place, I brought up the texts from the Yale Club.
“I want to be honest about something,” I said. “A few weeks ago, Mom sent me messages saying you had said [these things] about me. It really hurt. I thought we were finally close enough that you’d come to me directly.”
Her face changed.
“Wait. What? Alexa. I swear on my life. I swear on yours. I swear on my dog’s life. I did not say those things.”
I pulled out my phone, scrolled back to that day at the Yale Club, and held it up to her face.
“You’re telling me you didn’t say any of this?”
“No… wait. That’s crazy. What time did those texts come in? Because I’m pretty sure Mom was texting me about you at the exact same time. Saying all this stuff you supposedly said about me. I didn’t respond. I just wrote ‘okay.’ But she was really pushing it.”
“Let me see.”
We compared phones. The timestamps lined up exactly. Our mother had sent messages to each of us in turn. Back and forth. Making things up. Rewriting the truth.
What would have happened if we hadn’t compared notes?
My sister took it in with more grace than I did. She shook her head and said, “Yeah. Not surprised. On brand.”
I was gutted. Why would our mother do this to us?
And then the veil lifted.
She had been dividing us our entire lives. Always the go-between. Always the translator.
She told me what my sister felt. She told my sister what I said. She stood in the middle and shaped the narrative. Every moment from our past came into question.
And at that moment, we made another decision. No more manipulation. We wrote a message to our parents, letting them know that from now on, our relationship would be private and just between us.
That night, I went home and cried harder than I ever had.
All the times my mother told me my sister judged me. All the ways she painted her as cold, distant, ashamed. I believed it. I believed my sister didn’t like me. That I was too much. That I wasn’t worth loving. But none of it was true. It was deliberate, and incredibly abusive. What kind of mother spends a lifetime dividing her daughters, lying to them about how they feel about each other?
I spent weeks grieving the version of my life I believed was real.
I mourned the sister I could have had. The relationship we never got to build. The laughter we never shared. The moments we never witnessed for each other. The big sister I never got to be.
I mourned the parents I thought I had. The life I thought I was living.
But for the first time, I trusted my sister. Together, we laid out the facts and found the truth. And we needed proof—desperately. Because why wouldn’t we have trusted our own mother?
So what now?
I don’t speak to my parents anymore. But I finally have the relationship with my sister I always wanted.
