“Don’t we all?” I say back, my tone pleading. And I meanme,really. I mean that’s all anyone ever wants—love. We all want to be loved, and that’s all I ever wanted from her. But she never loved me. I reach for her but she pulls away.
“Don’t touch me!” she screams, and cries, and wails. And it’s pitiful, like that one time a few months back when I saw a group of teenagers kicking that cat in an alleyway. It sounded pitiful and yet full of anger as it cried out in pain.
I helped it then, and I’ll help her now. Even though she doesn’t want me to. She will when it soothes and calms her. Just like the cat that scratched and spat at me. When she starts to feel better. I’m a giver, not a taker. I won’t take from Carrie. I’ll give and give until I make her whole again. Because right now she is not whole. She is broken into fragments of herself, and they are all mismatched between this new Carrie, the old Carrie, and the Carrie she could have been.
You could have been so much more, Carrie. We both could have.
I reach for her again and she tries to pull away, but I don’t let go this time. This time I hold onto her with every ounce of strength I have. And I let her fight against me but I still won’t let go. And none of it seems to matter anymore. None of my anger or sadness, my grief or tears for a wasted life and a life wasted. None of it matters as her words slip into my soul and begin to make sense.
I’m not stupid, I want to say, but I have been. I see that now.
I’ve been so very stupid not to have seen it. But when I squeeze my eyes closed, I remember I did know after all. I just blotted it out. So fixated was I on making things right, that I forgot what was initially wrong.
Why, Dad, why?I want to say. Because I didn’t understand then, and I don’t understand now.
“How could you forget, Ethan?” she says angrily. “How could you forget what he did? Are you really that messed up inside that head of yours that you could forgive him?”
No, Carrie, it’s not like that,I think.
But I don’t say it, because I worry she may be right.
