by Paul Hina
would have the best opportunity to get out of there and have a fighting chance on your own.
"Of course, I was wrong. I had everything backwards. And so did my father and his father before him. It's not about money or status. Certainly those things are important, particularly when you live in a capitalist democracy—to what degree that's true is for another conversation. But I could've done so much more for you guys just by being around, by listening to your dreams and your interests, by discussing the world as it was, is, and what we hoped it might be. All these things would have been more valuable than the money and credibility of me getting a speaking spot at some writer's conference, or working longer hours to complete a poetry book a few months faster.
"But I was too selfish to see it then, and I learned it all too late.
"I've had this conversation with your sister, and I was amazed at how much your mother had been her prison, and how she set Maggie free only once she was gone—tragic as it was. But your sister is free now because she set herself free. She gave herself permission—not as effortless as it sounds—to be happy and free of those psychological prisons our parents can build for us."
"What's all this have to do with the library job?"
"Everything. I don't want you to take this job out of obligation, expectation, or even—since I'm sick—out of guilt. I don't want you to take this job because of me, or status, or my legacy, or any of that junk."
"Then why?"
"I want you to take it because you're unhappy."
"I'm not unhappy."
His dad stares at him, takes in a long, slow breath again. He closes his eyes. They both know that he doesn't have time for Simon to hide from him.
"Okay, things aren't great. But how would you know that?"
"Simon, as crazy as it sounds, even though we haven't talked, I feel like I've still known you all these years. And I've worried about you and your sister a lot. I always felt that you were in pain, that things weren't set right with you somehow. And I never knew how much of that was my doing, but I'd like to undo what I can, if I can.
"But I'm telling you now, I don't expect you to do this. I would like you to do it because I feel like we haven't had the relationship I've wanted us to have, and I'm dying. The only way I know of to have that relationship I've wanted—that healthier relationship, without prisons—is for you to continue a conversation with me after I'm gone. And I'm aware all this sounds contradictory, that it still sounds like I'm trying to guilt you into it, or that there are expectations implied. But there aren't. I only want you to do it if you think it might make you happy."
"It's not an easy decision."
"I understand that, and I don't need to know your answer. The contract is there if you want it, and Laura will be there either way," he says. "You did meet Laura, didn't you?"
"I did," he says, trying to hide how much more he'd like to learn about her.
"Just think about it, will you?"
"I will."
Once they were back at Maggie's house, he decided to spend some time walking around the old neighborhood. He doesn't have a lot of time to explore. Susannah invited him over for dinner this evening. He's not sure why he accepted. A dinner invite is not something he's accustomed to accepting. But when she asked him, he felt compelled to say yes. There was something in her eyes—a desperation, a pleading—that made turning her down seem needlessly cruel. It hadn't occurred to him until that moment that when someone lives with a truly ill person they tend to get a little sick as well—sick with fear, sick with loneliness.
And she was so pleased he'd accepted, he immediately saw a light come on in her, and even if it turned out to be a bad idea in the end to join her for dinner, seeing that light come on in her eyes would've made the experience worth it in the end.
At least, that's how he felt after they left. He's feeling less generous as the time to meet her grows closer and his anxiety about the dinner becomes more real.
Now though, as he walks down the street where he grew up, much of it indistinguishable from the neighborhood he remembers, his mind moves further and further back in time. Every block reveals brief glimpses into his past. And as he crosses these thresholds into the past, he's also reminded of all those old feelings.
He used to take these walks quite often, even in the bitter cold of their Midwestern winters. The cold never bothered him back then. It wasn't as if their house was a home of warmth. He never had that sense of relief once he got home. Maybe no one has that sense, but he always thought of a home as a place you could walk into and exhale, a place where you can leave the world outside behind you and relax. But their home always felt backwards in that way. He remembers the exhales, the sense of relief, coming only once he was out.
For the most part, his bedroom was his only sanctuary, but you could never escape the sense of unease in the house. It never seemed to fade. The mood of the place always seemed to vibrate with the low-level noise of panic.
It's hard to overstate how his mom's moods dictated the mood of the rest of the house, and though she was diagnosed as manic depressive, they rarely saw the supposed energetic side of the disorder. She was the consummate victim, and she created protectors of them all. Above all else, the ethos of the house seemed to be to look out for her mental wellbeing. To hell with everyone else. There was never a sense of being taken care of as a child as much as taking care not to upset her. But nothing they tried was ever enough.
Simon often does things for people to make them happy, to please them in some way, even at the expense of his own comfort sometimes. He worries that this eagerness to please could be the gravity that's pulling him to accept his dad's offer. This is probably why he stayed with Rachael far beyond their expiration date. It's probably why he accepted Susannah's dinner invite. And when he saw her relief at being freed from another fearful, lonely night, it made him feel good.
He never felt that gratification from his mother. Nothing was ever enough to please her. Nothing you did could ever make her happy, or convince her that she was truly loved. After awhile, a person starts to absorb the futility of their efforts, and the older Simon got, the more this sense of futility made him want to avoid her altogether.
Of course, this was especially unfair to Maggie. Since she was the youngest, she was left to live those final years with their mother mostly by herself—at least until Scott moved in toward the end. And that must have taken its toll.
It seems selfish that he abandoned them, and particularly that he left Maggie in such a horrible situation.
And he does feel bad. He feels guilty for not fulfilling his role as protector. And it was this guilt after his mom's death that he believes, in part, was the reason he was so angry with his dad.
And he has been angry.
But he has to acknowledge that he took the same selfish path his dad took. He could just as easily be angry with himself as he has been with his dad.
The last time Simon walked on these sidewalks, it was the day of his mother's funeral. He had flown out after Maggie broke the news that she'd killed herself, ended a life that was just waiting to end, a merciful goodbye—too soon, yet not soon enough.
He remembers the guilt of those days, feeling as though all the passive-aggressive kabuki his mom performed over the years was somehow justified. By worrying so much about him not loving her, worrying that she might push him away, she eventually did. Still, he shouldn't have left her, at least not in the way he did. She begged him not to move so far away for college. He went anyway. She begged him to come back home for graduate school. He stayed away. And when he took the library job at a faraway university, it seemed she had given up hope that he would protect her. And he resented her for all of this. Hated her for it, really. But she was the kind of person that was so steeped in weakness that whenever she did something wrong, and you tried to confront her about it, you were the one who ended up apologizing as if you were the one who was wrong.
In the end, he felt that he had escaped just like h
is dad did. But he rationalized this very easily. He was the son. He was supposed to grow and leave and make his own way. If his father had been a proper husband, if he would've been present and not left her in the end, Simon and Maggie wouldn't have been stuck with her sadness, hung with the guilt of not being the proper protectors to keep her from succumbing to the ultimate sadness.
And Simon—fairly or unfairly—laid his anger on Sy. And that's where he thought he had planted it all these years.
But it wasn't so.
His father was right about prisons. And his sister was right that he's a lot like their father. Hell, they share a name, and, according to everyone who's ever met them, they share a face. But it wasn't the genetics or the expectations of his father that imprisoned him. It was the anger at his father on his mother's behalf that kept him chained.
But Simon knew that he abandoned her, too. All those years of watching her sadness, her neediness, learning the futility of fulfilling those needs, made him too aware that he was a powerless protector—a useless son to his mother. It was all too much. And, so, he wasn't there. And this guilt, the weight of it, has caused him to put himself in chains. He's never felt that he's deserved love, never felt that he's deserved happiness—just like her.
When he looks in the mirror, others might see his father's face, but Simon has