Page 166 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

pair of reindeer antlers and a huge red nose wired to the grill. When I showed them the boxes, there were hugs all around. It was the happiest I’d felt in months.
When Sue, Russ, and David left, I was exhausted and relieved. It had been a head-spinning few weeks. I hadn’t fully grasped how much of a risk I was taking. If anybody in my family found out what I was doing, there would be repercussions—I knew how vindictive they were—but there was no way to gauge how serious the consequences might be. Anything would pale in comparison to what they’d already done. I finally felt as though I might be able to make a difference after all.
In the past, there had been nothing I could do that would be significant enough, so I hadn’t tried very hard. Because being good or doing good didn’t count for much; whatever you did had to be extraordinary. You couldn’t just be a prosecutor; you had to be the best prosecutor in the country, you had to be a federal judge. You couldn’t just fly planes; you had to be a professional pilot for a major carrier at the dawn of the jet age. For a long time, I blamed my grandfather for my feeling this way. But none of us realized that the expectation of being “the best” in my grandfather’s view had applied only to my father (who had failed) and Donald (who had wildly exceeded Fred’s expectations).
When I finally realized that my grandfather didn’t care what I accomplished or contributed and that my own unrealistic expectations were paralyzing me, I still felt that only a grand gesture would set it right. It wasn’t enough for me to volunteer at an organization helping Syrian refugees; I had to take Donald down.
After the election, Donald called his big sister, ostensibly to find out how he was doing. Of course, he thought he already knew the answer; otherwise he wouldn’t have made the call in the first place. He merely wanted her to confirm very strongly that he was doing a fantastic job.
When she said, “Not that good,” Donald immediately went on offense.
“That’s nasty,” he said. She could see the sneer on his face. Then, seemingly apropos of nothing, he asked her, “Maryanne, where would you be without me?” It was a smug reference to the fact that Maryanne owed her first federal judgeship to Donald because Roy Cohn had done him (and her) a favor all those years ago.