Inspirational quotes by Kaui Hart Hemmings.
That's how you know you love someone, I guess, when you can't experience anything without wishing the other person were there to see it, too.
Why is it so hard to articulate love yet so easy to express disappointment?
I'll never be ready. Yet at the same time, you always want to reach the end. You can't fly to a destination and linger in the air. I want to reach the end of this thing, and I feel terrible about it.
A sea of red lights, and I slow down. My job now is to gather everyone together and tell them we have to let her go. I won't tell anyone over the phone, because I didn't like hearing the news from the doctor that way. I have maybe a week to handle the arrangements, as the doctor said, but the arrangements are overwhelming. How do I learn how to run a family? How do I say goodbye to someone I love so much that I've forgotten just how much I love her?
You can't compare and rank heartache. Pain is pain is pain. There is no precise measurement. No quarter cup.
I think grief and fear are going to come to him suddenly. They'll be undiluted and words won't work. We're all going to get hit and won't know how to hit back. I wish I knew the answers, how to help myself and the people who will hurt all around me.
I picture Cully tromping through that high, deep snow. That's how I feel physically from all of this. Moving through grief like it's a thick drift, exhausting but enlivening. It makes your muscles ache. It makes you feel you've inhabited your body completely.
I like the way men cry. They're efficient.
We continue to eat, the conversation easy and flowing. I listen to everything everyone says, an urgency to pay attention, to not miss these moments you don't know are moments until they're gone. I narrow in, trying to hold it all in place, even though I think that if you document life this way, the moments will never set. We don't need to remember. Everything just becomes a part of you. And then it's over.
Perhaps I did nothing because I don't have enough fear to be a good parent.
I tell Esther she should ease up on lard. There's no need to mix lard in with Scottie's rice, chicken, and beans. I tell her she hasn't read the blogs. I've read the blogs. I know what Scottie should eat.
My God,” she says. “I feel like I’ve gone through a car wash.”I laugh, or force myself to, because it’s not something I’d normally laugh at.“What about you?” she says to Scottie. “How did you make out?”“I’m a boy,” Scottie says. “Look at me.”Sand has gotten into the bottom of her suit, creating a huge bulge. She scratches at the bulge. “I’m going to go to work now,” she says. I think she’s impersonating me and that Mrs. Speer is getting an unrealistic, humiliating glimpse.“Scottie,” I say. “Take that out.”“It must be fun to have girls,” Mrs. Speer says.She looks at the ocean, and I see that she’s looking at Alex sunbathing on the floating raft. Sid leans over Alex and puts his mouth to hers. She raises a hand to his head, and for a moment I forget it’s my daughter out there and think of how long it has been since I’ve been kissed or kissed like that.“Or maybe you have your hands full,” Mrs. Speer says.“No, no,” I say. “It’s great,” and it is, I suppose, though I feel like I’ve just acquired them and don’t know yet. “They’ve been together for ages.” I gesture to Alex and Sid. I don’t understand if they’re a couple or if this is how all kids in high school act these days.Mrs. Speer looks at me curiously, as if she’s about to say something, but she doesn’t.“And boys.” I gesture to her little dorks. “They must keep you busy.”“They’re a handful. But they’re at such a fun age. It’s such a joy.”She gazes out at her boys. Her expression does little to convince me that they’re such a joy. I wonder how many times parents have these dull conversations with one another and how much they must hide. They’re so goddamn hyper, I’d do anything to inject them with a horse tranquilizer. They keep insisting that I watch what they can do, but I truly don’t give a fuck. How hard is it to jump off a diving board?My girls are messed up, I want to say. One talks dirty to her own reflection. Did you do that when you were growing up?“Your girls seem great, too,” she says. “How old are they?”“Ten and eighteen. And yours?”“Ten and twelve.”“Oh,” I say. “Great.”“Your younger one sure is funny,” she says. “I mean, not funny. I meant entertaining.”“Oh, yeah. That’s Scottie. She’s a riot.
Do you guys have sunscreen?” I ask.“No,” Scottie says. “Do we have water?”“Did you bring any?” Alex asks.“No,” I say.Alex pops her head up. “Did you bring snacks for us?”“We can walk to town.”How do mothers manage to bring everything a child could need?
I had to ask Scottie what TYVM meant, because now that I’ve narrowed into her activities, I notice she is constantly text-messaging her friends, or at least I hope it’s her friends and not some perv in a bathrobe.“Thank you very much,” Scottie said, and for some reason, the fact that I didn’t get this made me feel completely besieged. It’s crazy how much fathers are supposed to know these days. I come from the school of thought where a dad’s absence is something to be counted on. Now I see all the men with camouflage diaper bags and babies hanging from their chests like little ship figureheads. When I was a young dad, I remember the girls sort of bothered me as babies, the way everyone raced around to accommodate them. The sight of Alex in her stroller would irritate me at times—she’d hang one of her toddler legs over the rim of the safety bar and slouch down in the seat. Joanie would bring her something and she’d shake her head, then Joanie would try again and again until an offering happened to work and Alex would snatch it from her hands. I’d look at Alex, finally complacent with her snack, convinced there was a grown person in there, fooling us all. Scottie would just point to things and grunt or scream. It felt like I was living with royalty. I told Joanie I’d wait until they were older to really get into them, and they grew and grew behind my back.
We walk until there aren't more houses, all the way to the part of the beach where the current makes the waves come in then rush back out so that the two waves clash, water casting up like a geyser. We watch that for a while and then Scottie says, "I wish Mom was here." I'm thinking the exact same thought. That's how you know you love someone, I guess, when you can't experience anything without wishing the other person were there to see it, too. Every day I kept track of anecdotes, occurrences, and gossip, bullet-pointing the news in my head and even rehearsing my stories before telling them to Joanie in bed at night.
I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't give you everything you wanted. I wasn't everything you wanted. You were everything I wanted.
I'm sorry, I say. I didn't give you everything you wanted. I wasn't everything you wanted. You were everything I wanted.
Say goodbye to your mom.”Scottie pauses, then keeps going.“Scottie.”“Bye!” she yells.I grab her arm. I could yell at her for wanting to leave, but I don’t. She pulls her arm out of my grasp. I look up to see if anyone is watching us, because I don’t think you’re supposed to aggressively hold children these days. Gone are the days of spanking, threats, and sugar. Now there are therapy, antidepressants, and Splenda.
I drift off for a while. I don't know how long, but when I open my eyes, the Oscars are still on and Alex tells me that Sid has gone and this makes me a little sad. Whatever the four of us had is over. He is my daughter's boyfriend now, and I am a father. A widower. No pot, no cigarettes, no sleeping over. They'll have to find inventive ways to conduct their business, most likely in uncomfortable places, just like the rest of them. I let him and my old ways go. We all let him go, as well as who we were before this, and now it's really just the three of us. I glance over at the girls, taking a good look at what's left.
I lean down so that my face is right in front of hers and whisper, ‘He doesn’t love you. I love you.
I look in the jewelry box where Joanie found the drugs. She showed me a miniature Ziploc bag filled with a clear, hard rock.“What is this?” I said. I never did drugs, so I had no idea. Heroin? Cocaine? Crack? Ice? “What is this?” I screamed at Alex, who screamed back, “It’s not like I shoot it!”A plastic ballerina pops up and slowly twirls to a tinkling song whose sound is discordant and deformed. The pink satin liner is dirty, and other than a black pearl necklace, the box holds only rusty paper clips and rubber bands noosed with Alex’s dark hair. I see a note stuck to the mirror and pick up the jewelry box and move the ballerina aside. She twirls against my finger. The note says, I wouldn’t hide them in the same place twice.I let out a short breath through my nose. Good one, Alex. I close the jewelry box and shake my head, missing her tremendously. I wish she never went back to boarding school, and I don’t understand her sudden change of plans. What did they fight about? What could have been so bad?
I hope she can’t tell that I’m appraising her and that I’m completely worried by what I see. She’s excitable and strange. She’s ten. What do people do during the day when they’re ten? She runs her fingers along the window and mumbles, “This could give me bird flu,” and then she forms a circle around her mouth with her hand and makes trumpet noises. She’s nuts. Who knows what’s going on in that head of hers, and speaking of her head, she most definitely could use a haircut or a brushing. There are small tumbleweeds of hair resting on the top of her head. Where does she get haircuts? I wonder. Has she ever had one before? She scratches her scalp, then looks at her nails. She wears a shirt that says I’M NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL. BUT I CAN BE! I’m grateful that she isn’t too pretty, but I realize this could change.
We need to get home and put some ointments and ice on the stings. Vinegar will make it worse, so if you thought Giraffe Boy could pee on you, you’re shit out of luck.”She agrees as if prepared for this—the punishment, the medication, the swelling, the pain that hurts her now and the pain that will hurt her later. She seems okay with my disapproval. She’s gotten her story, after all, and she’s beginning to see how much easier physical pain is to tolerate than emotional pain. I’m unhappy that she’s learning this at such a young age.“The hospital will have ointments and ice,” she says.
I’d like you to come to Kauai with me,” I say. “And Scottie. I think it would be good to get her away from the hospital for a day. We can leave in the morning, find him, and be home tomorrow night. If it takes us a day longer, that’s fine, but we won’t stay more than two nights. That’s our deadline. If we don’t find him, then at least we know we tried.”“And this will make you feel better somehow?”“It’s for her,” I say. “Not for him or me.”“What if he’s a wreck? What if he loses his shit?”“Then I’ll take care of him.” I imagine Brian Speer wailing on my shoulder. I imagine him and my daughters by Joanie’s bed, her lover and his loud sobs shaming us. “Just so you know, I am angry. I’m not this pure and noble guy. I want to do this for her, but I also want to see who he is. I want to ask him a few things.”“Just call him. Tell his office it’s an emergency. They’ll have him call you.”“I want to tell him in person. I haven’t told anyone over the phone, and I don’t want to start now.”“You told Troy.”“Troy doesn’t count. I just need to do this. On the phone he can escape. If I see him in person, he’ll have nowhere to go.”We both look away when our eyes meet. She hasn’t crossed the border into my room. She never does during her nighttime doorway chats.“Were you guys having trouble?” Alex asks. “Is that why she cheated?”“I didn’t think we were having trouble,” I say. “I mean, it was the same as always.”This was the problem, that our marriage was the same as always. Joanie needed bumps. She needed rough terrain. It’s funny that I can get lost in thoughts about her, but when she was right in front of me, I didn’t think much about her at all.“I wasn’t the best husband,” I say.Alex looks out the window to avoid my confession. “If we go on this trip, what will we tell Scottie?”“She’ll think we’re going on a trip of some sort. I want to get her away from here.
You’ve already said that,” Alex says. “Why should I go?”“You’re the only person I have,” I say. “And I want us all to be together. It will be good for us.”“Oh, so now I’m back in the picture again.”“Alex. Something bigger than you is occurring right now. I’m sorry about your unhappy childhood.”She glares at me in that special way of hers and Joanie’s that makes me feel worthless and foul-smelling.“So we’ll tell Scottie we’re going on a vacation while Mom is in the hospital?”“It’s for a day or two,” I say. “Scottie’s been in the hospital every day for almost a month now. She needs a break. It’s not good for her. I’d like you to be in charge of answering any questions she may have. She looks up to you. She’ll hang on whatever you say.”I’m hoping a leadership role, a specific chore, will make Alex act like an adult and treat Scottie well.“Can you do that?”She shrugs.“If you can’t handle things, let me know. I’ll help. I’m here for you.”Alex laughs. I wonder if there are parents who can say things to their kids like “I love you” or “I’m here for you” without being laughed at. I have to admit it’s a bit uncomfortable. Affection, in general, is unpleasant to me.“What if Mom doesn’t make it for two days?”“She will,” I say. “I’ll tell her what we’re doing.”Alex looks uncomfortable with this idea, that what I’ll say will make her mother want to live. “I’m bringing Sid,” she says. “If he doesn’t come, then I’m not going.”I’m about to protest, but I see the look in her eyes and know this is yet another battle that I’m bound to lose. Something about this guy is helping her. And Scottie seems to like him. He can keep her distracted. He can work for me.“Okay,” I say. “Deal.
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