“You don’t even know what that means.”
“Mom taught literature and philosophy, she adored that bookstore, and she wanted to write one day when she was done teaching. I’m just trying to be like her…trying to be the person I really am.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why does it bother you so much?”
“Just shut up.”
I was surprised by the aggressiveness in his words. Something told me I should listen to him, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Is it so wrong for me to want to be like her, follow in her footsteps?”
“Harper, shut up.”
“My mother believed in dreams, believed that you didn’t have to see them clearly, that just feeling them was enough.”
“And what good did it do her?” he hissed, just as thunder rolled across the sky. “Dreams, longings, her pie in the sky… None of it was tangible or logical. None of it was real. If she’d been more reasonable, she’d still be here with me and not there, under the dirt.”
I blinked, unable to believe what I was hearing.
“What are you saying? What’s that supposed to mean?” I didn’t understand, and as he turned to go again, I screamed, “Why do you hate me this way? Just tell me for once, dammit!”
His back turned, I could see his shoulders rising and falling with his breath. His voice cut into me like a knife.
“You took her from me. You took the person I loved most. You took away the love of my life and left my children without a mother.”
“What?”
He turned, trembling.
“When she got pregnant, we found out something was wrong as soon as they did the first tests. She was very sick. The doctors said she needed to start cancer treatment immediately, but she didn’t want to because you were there inside her. I told her to get an abortion, to think about it, at least, to think of her children, to think of me. I begged her until my throat was raw to get rid of you, to get better. I told her we could have more children later. But she refused. She told me she couldn’t. And when you were born, it was too late. The cancer had spread. I don’t know how she managed to even hold out for the six years that she did.”
All of a sudden, it was as though I couldn’t hear his words, as though they were just meaningless sounds, grave, crackly. Nothing made sense. I saw the pain on his face and felt the air around me grow thin.
The truth doesn’t just hurt sometimes, it can break you inside like glass. I felt the solid earth beneath me give way, and sorrow and despair wrapped their hands around my neck.
“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?”
“She made us all promise, and I could never say no to her. But that’s over with. You want to know why I can hardly stand to look at you? Because she died so you could live. And I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for that.”
“Dad…”
“She left. You stayed.”
I was frozen as if in a block of concrete. The smallest movement was impossible. I closed my eyes, unable to take in what I was feeling, worried I might literally lose my mind.
“So it doesn’t matter what I do, and it never did. The problem isn’t my decisions; the problem is me.”
He didn’t answer.
“So what about Sophia? What did she do that was so wrong?”
“She supported your mother. She let her kill herself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry’s no good. She’s still there, under the ground. And no one can ever bring her back.”
