26 Sometimes the Truth Hurts
26
Sometimes the Truth Hurts
I’ve wondered at times what happens to those magic moments that we push aside because they’re so sad. Those moments that are our truth, that tell us who we really are, with no masks, no disguises, no camouflage—just bare flesh. They’re so hard to get at, so hard to create, and then they vanish as soon as we lie down in bed.
But maybe they haven’t gone anywhere. Maybe they just turn vague in our minds, linked to some image or memory that will allow us to bring them to life again when we need them. Maybe they hide on purpose, offended because we didn’t hold them in high enough regard, because we took for granted that they’d last forever.
We always think when we find happiness, that it will never abandon us. But that’s vain, and often it’s not in our hands.
Anytime I got the chance, I liked to go to the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. The first time was for my mother’s funeral, and since then, I’ve visited her whenever I’ve had the opportunity.
The last time I went was for my grandmother’s funeral.
And now I was there again, at her grave. The mound of red earth had been covered by a granite slab and a tombstone. I laid the white tulips I’d bought for her down on the stone and sat on the blanket I’d brought with me so I could spend some time by her side.
It was strange: I thought the fear and pain would overwhelm me, but I felt calm, as if she really were there and there was no point in missing her. That wasn’t true, though. I did miss her. I missed her terribly.
I opened my purse and took out some chocolates. I unwrapped and chewed one as I stared at her name engraved on the tombstone. Then I lay back on the grass and enjoyed the silence I had always found so pleasant there, beneath the one ray of sun that had managed to penetrate the thin cloud cover. Time passed as I let my emotions roll over me. I imagined her appearing by my side to awaken me from a bad dream in which the world had gone on without her. I had always been able to count on her love: selfless, sweet, eternal. Learning to go on without it was going to be hard for me.
I savored my memories, then I stood up and kissed the tombstone and traced out the letters of her name with my index finger.
“Goodbye, Grandma. I’ll see you again soon.”
I didn’t bother drying my tears as I walked to the center of the cemetery, following one of the paths worn by visitors’ feet that zigzagged between the tombs and mausoleums.
It was a pretty place, in its way, almost an open-air museum, with sculptures that included copies of Michelangelo’s Pietà and William Wetmore’s Angel of Grief .
A light breeze shook the trees, bringing me the scent of damp leaves. The clouds were no longer white—they’d turned gray and were darkening by the minute. A raindrop fell on my forehead.
I hurried on to my mother’s grave. It lay amid blossoming trees under a statue of an angel praying. Dad was Catholic, but he hadn’t brought me up religious, and as far as I knew, his religious sentiments went no further than that statue. If he ever had believed in anything, it must have died with my mother and remained buried, along with his good intentions, inside that granite crypt.
“Hey, Mom,” I said, kneeling in front of her tomb. I pushed aside some dried leaves that had fallen there and laid down a bouquet of tulips. A fine rain was falling now from the dark sky, but the branches overhead protected me from the worst of it. “I’ve got a lot to tell you. I don’t even know where to start.”
“You could start by telling her how you’re going to ruin your life by becoming a goddamned cashier.”
I leapt up, terrified, and turned to see him there—my father, observing me with that contempt he had perfected over many years. He was holding a huge bouquet of wildflowers. He left it at the foot of the angel, kissed his hand, and touched the place where my mother’s name was engraved.
“How did you find out?”
“There’s nothing I don’t know, Harper.” His way of speaking made me feel exposed.
“Listen, you may not like the path I’ve chosen, but I’m an adult and this is what I want to do.”
He raised his arms in exasperation and let them fall to his sides.
“When are you going to learn? It’s not about what we want , it’s about what we ought to do. Our place in the world, who we are. Sometimes we’re obliged to do things whether or not we’re inclined to. You should know this by now.”
“But…you always said we should try to find something we could devote ourselves to one hundred percent, and that’s what I’m doing.”
“I wasn’t talking about running a bookstore. I meant—”
“The company, investing, the family name,” I finished for him.
“Exactly.”
“I’m no good for that.”
“Then what are you good for? What have you done to make up for the…?” He closed his mouth and struggled to swallow the words burning his lips. “It’s best if I go.”
He turned on his heels and walked away, seemingly indifferent to the rain.
“Has it ever occurred to you that you could try encouraging me instead of always talking down to me?” I shouted, full of anguish. He looked back with a grimace.
“So that’s what you think, that I talk down to you?”
“Never, not once have you said anything kind to me, or even anything pleasant. I know you can be nice, I know you can even be sweet and caring, because I’ve seen you do it with other people. But with me, you’re incapable of it. It’s as if you hate me, and I can’t figure out why.”
He turned and walked back, his hair and blazer soaked.
“Maybe if you would stop screwing up for once…”
“I am. I have.” I brought my hand to my heart. Raindrops dripped onto it from my hair, which was damp now and smelled strongly of my shampoo. “And you should feel proud of me. I’m living my dream. I’m happy.”
He clicked his tongue, disgusted.
“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.”
“Still, I’m sorry.”
I felt the world vanish around me.
I wished it would end.
Wished I could stop feeling what I felt.
Wished I’d never existed.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated a third time, unsure what else to say, because the words that could console the two of us hadn’t yet been invented.
“I’ll believe you when you show it.”
“How? I’ll do whatever you ask.”
“You already know. And you owe it to me.”
I nodded. Desperation twisted its knife in my heart, making the wound bigger and bigger.
It was true. I owed it to him.