When the Family Finds Out

I have been avoiding phone calls. For one reason, I don’t care to be available to assist the staff to cover my former job assignment.  Since I was fired, I can’t justify helping a former coworker locate files for example.  I don’t want to explain these events to anyone in the family.  I feel that my brother and his wife should have the first opportunity to defend their actions.  I expect my mother to stop in at the shop in the week or so.  Then, they can break the dreadful news to her.  She, in turn, will denounce their actions among the family, and I will no doubt picture the victim of their heinous treatment when she distributes the news.  And the ears will be in my favor, however she tells it. 

This will injure my brother, but I don't see how I can or should protect him from it.  He ought to exercise some control over his household, especially as it affects his business.  His wife has set things in motion to undo all the success my brother has made of their company (and not just by letting me go), and who will guard them from the consequences?  Even as a beloved sister, I can rightly say, "that is not my job."

I've also wondered that if she felt stifled in my presence, then what will be said and done without me there as a restraint?  Odd.  I have never involved myself in any conflict of theirs, marital or otherwise (although they divulged much in my company).  I've actually jealously guarded their secrets.  Early on, I determined to behave as an employee, not as a big sister.  The cause of her fear can only stem from a guilty conscience.  I certainly never gave her cause to fear being exposed. 

In some ways, I suspect that my sister-in-law has purposely maneuvered events to alienate the last member of my brother's family.  Nearly everyone has expressed concern over my employment with them over the course of the last year.  They wonder how I can tolerate her.  I did tolerate her--with some difficulty.  I even wanted to like her, but then I was motivated by a paycheck.  I know that she has poisoned my mother's relationship with my brother to such a degree that she is nearly forbidden to see her grandson.  This she did over trifling offenses committed by my mother (complaints about the grandson's failure to potty train and his consumption of sugar).  My sister has such an aversion to the sister-in-law's competitive nature that she lost interest in them both soon after they were married.  With Grandpa dead, Grandma is easy enough to ignore.  With my dismissal, she may have successfully cut every family member out of their lives.