you’d like for this to be the end of it. An end to beginnings, or at least, an end to endings. An end to the fear of the end, of endings, perpetual and continual, throughout the night, between breaths, in the long silence that falls between.
I’d like to have apologized to you because I had made such a demon out of you, but the truth of it is, holding my daughter, seeing her seeing me and knowing me, knowing that I am someone apart from anyone else and her mother is someone set even further apart from anyone else, seeing her smile when she first sees me in the morning…
No, I have no apologies for you and if I could, I’d let you die again and again without a word to me.
Three years ago tomorrow, the world changed. It is much more frightening and grim, unsure. The economy is faltering along, we are trying to buy a house. It’s a struggle: we found a home in an area that we really like and is convenient for both us, close to my parents, and just when we thought we were on our way, that our only problems were how we were to juggle the documentation of assets and debt to income ratios with the mortgage bank, the seller wants to uproot two trees.
Our lawyer says, well, people taking light fixtures is normal, but trees? Well, that’s certainly unique.
So, of course, your father’s reaction is pure spite. Sure you can have the trees, but knock off 2 grand off the price. And as a matter of fact, while we’re at it, why don’t you spend about another 10 grand on the repairs and replacements the engineer recommends and if you’re thinking of taking those swings that you’ve featured so prominently, well guess what, that’s another 2 grand.
The contract was supposed to be today as well.