"She says," my wife says, "that you kicked her out of your study just now. She says she came in here to talk to you and you wouldn't listen to her. She says you never want to listen to her. You made her get out before she could even say anything."
I hold my breath for a second or two and pretend to meditate.
"Did she?" I ask.
"Yes."
"Uh-huh."
"Didn't you?"
"He did."
"Uh-huh."
"Did he?"
"Why would I say so?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well?"
"Well?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"You just heard her, didn't you? You kicked her out."
"Is that right?" I ask my daughter tonelessly, staring at her with a look of frigid scorn.
"Didn't you?"
"And did she chance to tell you," I say to my wife, "what it was she wanted to talk to me about?"
"That isn't fair!" my daughter blurts out in alarm. Her startled gaze shoots to the doorway as though she wishes she could run out.
"No."
"Oh."
"What?"
"I kind of thought she might have been careless enough to leave that out. That she wouldn't mind very much, for example, if you got sick and died. She didn't tell you that?"
"That's not true!" my daughter cries.
"Or that she really doesn't think she would care very much if you or I got killed in an automobile or plane crash, like Alice whatever-the-hell-her-last-name-is Harmon's mother, or passed away from a stroke or a brain tumor."
"I didn't say that!"
"You could."
"I didn't."
"You have."
"That isn't what I wanted to talk about!"
"I know. What she does want to talk to me about is that she doesn't think you and I have anything in common and wonders why I continue to stick it out with you instead of getting a divorce. Is that it?"
"I only began that way."
"No? Then let's continue. What was it, then, that you did want to talk to me about?"
"Oh, never mind," my daughter mumbles in moping embarrassment and lowers her eyes.
"No, please," I persist. "I want to. I want to give you that chance to talk to me you always say I never do."
"Why can't you leave her alone now?" my wife demands.
"She's trying to tear us apart, my dear. Don't you see?"
"Why can't we all be nice to each other?" my wife wonders aloud imploringly out of the innate goodness of her heart.
"Must I listen to a sentence like that?"
"What's wrong with it?" my wife retorts sharply. "What's wrong with wishing we would all try to get along once in a while instead of picking on each other all the time?"
"We don't 'pick' on each other all the time," my daughter interjects condescendingly in a tone of sulky contempt (trying to insinuate herself back onto my side in opposition to my wife). I am familiar with this tactic of hers. She flicks her gaze to my face tentatively to see if I am going to let her succeed.
I ignore the overture.
(That's what my wife's innate goodness of heart gets her.)
"I'm tired," I remark deliberately with an exaggerated sigh.
"That's because you drink too much before —»
"I'm tired," I interrupt resolutely, letting my voice get louder in order to drown out my wife's, "of listening to you tell me I drink too much before I come home, and listening to her tell me over and over again how bad you and I are and how much she hates me. I've got better ways to spend my time. Let her hate me. Hate me if you want to, and if you think it solves your problems for you. You've got my permission. I don't care if she hates me. But I do mind, God dammit, if she comes in here to tell me about it every God-damned time I sit down in here and try to do some work."
"He was reading a magazine."
"That's my work."
"She doesn't hate you!" my wife declares.
"What do I care?" I answer. "It's a matter of supreme indifference to me whether she hates me or not."
"And you're supposed to be so intelligent!" my wife exclaims.
"What does that mean?"
"She wants you to pay some attention to her once in a while. Can't you see that? And you're supposed to be so intelligent."
"Will you stop that?"
"You think you're always so smart, don't you?"
"Stop."
"All right. But if you'd only take the trouble to look at her once in a while, and listen to her, you'd see she doesn't hate you. She loves you. You never even show you know."
"Okay."
"You make her feel like a nuisance."
"Okay, I said."
"She doesn't hate you."
"Okay!"
"Okay."
I turn to stare at my daughter searchingly, my face still hard and scornful and belligerent (my defenses are up until I can make certain hers are down). She is standing perfectly still, as though meekly awaiting a verdict. I am awaiting some sign from her. She looks humble and penitent. She is alone. Her downcast eyes are grave and moist, and her ashen lips are pinched together sadly and are twitching, as though, despite all the forces of will she has amassed to hold her poor self together, she is going to collapse into shambles before us and begin crying helplessly, without pride. She is tense. My feelings soften with a sensation of irremediable loss (of something precious gone forever, of someone dear destroyed) as I study her pale, drooping, vulnerable face. I am tense too. I am unable to speak (maybe I do love her), and for a second I am struck with the notion that my wife is right, that perhaps my daughter doesn't hate me and does love me, and perhaps does need to have me know it (and needs to know also, perhaps, that maybe I think well of her). And I begin to feel that maybe I do care very much whether she hates me or not! (I don't want her to!) She must matter to me, I think, for I am nearly overcome with grief and pity by her look of tearful misery (and I want to cry myself), and I want to put my arms out to her shoulders to hold her gently and console her and confess and apologize (even though I have a vivid premonition suddenly that this is all a typical trick, and she will pull away from me in a taunting, jubilant affront as soon as I do reach out to comfort her, leaving me standing there ridiculously with my empty hands outstretched in the air, abashed and infuriated). I decide to risk it anyway — she is so pathetic and forlorn: I know I can survive the rebuff if it comes. Smiling tenderly, stepping toward her repentently, I reach my hands out to take her in my arms, apologize, and hug her gently.
She pulls away from me with a vicious sneer.
And I find myself standing there stupidly with my empty hands in the air, feeling hurt and foolish.
And my wife picks exactly that moment to cry:
"I'm the one she hates! Not you! I'm the one she can't stand!"
And I turn around to gape at her incredulously. (I had forgotten she was even there.)
"Don't you ever hear her?" my wife continues stridently, and runs toward my daughter as though she intends to smack her. My daughter flinches, but holds her ground steadily, glaring insultingly up into my wife's eyes with stubborn defiance, daring her, with a small, cold smile, to do more. "What have I ever done to you?" my wife shouts af her. "What have I ever done to her that she should hate me so much? Look at her! Don't you see the way she's looking at me right now?"
"Christ, yes!" I shout back at my wife. "What the hell do you think I was talking about? Why the hell do you think I kick her out?"
"And you — you're no better!" my wife accuses me. "You don't care either, do you?"
"Oh, Jesus!" I wail.
"Nobody in this house gives a damn about me," my wife laments. "Nobody ever loved me. Not in my whole life. Not even my own mother. Am I so horrible? What did I ever do to you or anyone else that you should all hate me so much? What makes me so horrible that you should all feel you can treat me this way? Tell me."
"Oh, shit!" I groan disgustedly.
"Don't talk to me that way."
"Must I really spend the rest of my life in rotten conversation like this?"
"What's so rotten about me?"
"Nothing."
"What do I do that's so horrible?"