I shakily got to my feet. “Dad, I’ve always wondered. Why do you hate me so much?”
That slap when I was ten was a thorn that had been lodged in my heart for my entire life.
The constant neglect, the psychological abuse, had conditioned me to erase myself, to please others in my work, my friendships,
my marriage.
I thought I had moved past it, built a core of my own, that I was finally on my way up.
But the fatherly love I never received could still tear me down so easily.
w
“Don’t you deserve to be hated?” my father looked at me, his face a cold mask. “So this is why you spent all this money on my party! To pull a stunt like this! You can’t blame Rosalie just because the man you couldn’t keep happens to like her!”
26
He slammed his cane on the table.
He was willing to ruin his own sixtieth birthday just to defend Rosalie’s honor.
The initial pain in my heart subsided, replaced by a cold calm. I called over the hotel manager.
I pointed at Rosalie. “Make sure she gets the bill.”
As the guests stared at each other in stunned silence, I turned to my father and bowed deeply. “No matter what I do, I will never earn your affection. Since that’s the case, please have your precious Rosalie handle the rest of this. Also, the health insurance I bought for you, the physicals I scheduled–they’re all canceled. From now on, if you need something, call Rosalie. Don’t call me.”
“Oh, and one more thing.” I turned to the older relatives in the room. “I couldn’t help but overhear you congratulating my father on raising two daughters and finally getting his reward. I’d like to correct the record. I stopped my education at seventeen. My father provided no support after that. The money I earned was taken by him to fund my sister’s studies abroad.”
“So, please, don’t ever say that my father ‘raised‘ me. I can’t bear the credit.”
“As for my marriage, the divorce was my choice. We both made mistakes. I have no desire to discuss it further.”
With that, I turned and walked away.
I would never again feel the pain of my father’s favoritism.
Shedding the old shackles, today I finally know who I am.
My life, I realized, was just one long process of demystifying the supposed sanctity of family and blood.
27
With this realization, my steps felt lighter.
Even standing alone in the darkness again, I didn’t feel a shred of sadness.
I looked up at the lush canopy of the old sycamore tree above me.
10:46
Chapter 2
As a child, when I was ignored, when my father forced me to quit school, I would hide here and cry. I had a vague sense that he resented me because my mother had betrayed him and abandoned our family.
Because I looked so much like her.
I had carried my mother’s sins on my own shoulders, terrified of not being loved by my father.
But now, having finally lost the things I had once been so afraid of losing, my heart felt steady.
My life was finally beginning to flourish.
The leaves of the sycamore rustled.
David’s voice came from behind me. “You always come here when you’re sad.”
I turned.
He was leaning against his car, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
Leo was asleep in the back seat, the tracks of dried tears still on his cheeks.
مر
I allowed myself another glance.
David’s voice was low and gravelly. “Rosalie’s not here.”
He was explaining himself. “Nothing physical ever happened between your sister and me.”
He watched me, his dark eyes quiet and intense.
I noticed that the decorations in his car had been changed back to the ones I had bought for him years ago.
”
But some things, once changed, can
be changed back.
“Is there really no chance for us anymore?”
28
He broke the silence, his deep voice trembling slightly. “I told our relatives that the divorce was my fault. That I didn’t care about your feelings, and that I let our son disrespect you. You were married to me for seven years, you gave me Leo, you managed our home perfectly, and I thought that was jus
just what you were supposed to do. So didn’t cherish it.”
“I didn’t cherish that you wanted nothing from me. I didn’t cherish that you truly loved me and Leo.”
“I regret it now.”
“Elara,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing, “I am truly willing to change now. I promise that Leg and I will never touch your plants
again. You won’t have to do all the housework. You can do whatever you want. I’ll keep my distance from other women. Can you
just give me and Leo one more chance?”
His gaze was sincere and earnest.
It reminded me, for a fleeting moment, of when I was nineteen, when we first started dating.
He had looked at me with those same eyes then.
He had said he loved me.
He had said he would never let me suffer the way my father had made me suffer.
But when I was twenty–seven, after he had spent the night at a bar with another woman, he had screamed at me, “No wonder your
own father can’t stand you.”
10,46
Chapter 2
10:46
Which of those statements wasn’t true?
The love and the hate both came from the heart.
That’s what made it all so much more painful.
“Let it go, David,” I said, shaking my head. “My life is good now. Better, even, than it was with you.”
I pointed up at the sycamore tree. “People on the internet always say that the sycamore stands tall, but its heart is hollow. I think
that’s strange.”
“Why would it be hollow?”
“This tree and I, we will always be full of life.”
