I had lost a mother-in-law I loved, and that was terrible, but I had at least lost a lie; the woman I grieved had never really existed.
Lucien had lost something worse.
He had lost a mother who was real, who had actually raised him, actually loved him in her twisted proprietary way, actually been the center of his childhood — and he had to hold that real love in one hand and, in the other, the video of that same woman calmly poisoning his wife, and somehow make them be the same person.
There is no clean way to do that.
A parent who is simply a monster is, in a terrible way, easier; you can hate them wholly.
Lucien’s mother was not simply a monster.