It doesn't really bother me so much anymore that my daughter hates me (I won't let it); by now, I expect it, I am inured to it, and I am willing to bow to her assertion that there is good reason for her hatred, although I don't know what that good reason is (except that I have grown inured to it, which is reason enough, I suppose).
Usually, she will come uninvited to my study to interrupt me when I'm working or reading a newsmagazine (or pretending to work or read) to tell me (in a tense, thin, childlike voice that she endeavors valorously to hold steady and self-assured) that she has arrived at the conclusion (never come to, but always arrived) that she doesn't have any real feelings for my wife or me any longer, thinks very little of her mother and of me too and finds it impossible to respect us, in fact, by now really dislikes us both very much; and that, terrible as she knows it must sound, and even though she will admit that she probably ought to be ashamed of herself — but isn't — for feeling the way she does, she is certain that she really wouldn't be sorry if Mommy (my wife) were killed in an automobile accident, like Alice Harmon's mother — Alice Harmon, in fact, can't make herself feel sorry about her mother at all — or if I were to get sick and die of a brain tumor, like Betsy Anderson's father; that she wouldn't actually take any pleasure in it, she wants me to know, and isn't actually wishing for that to happen, she wants me to understand, and might even regret it a little if it did, as she would regret it if it happened to anyone she knew, but she just doesn't think it would be the biggest tragedy in her life if I did get a stroke or a brain tumor, provided I died quickly and didn't need someone to take care of me for a long time, like some of those people who have brain tumors or strokes and go on living like vegetables, and is not saying all this just to start an argument with me or make me feel bad, but is only saying so because that just happens to be the way she feels, and she knows I want to know the way she really feels — don't I? — because I am her father and she is my daughter. And then, if I have let her progress that far (sometimes I cut her off gruffly as soon as she begins and kick her out right then), she might volunteer the information (again), with that same affected air of casual, unmotivated reflection (still struggling to keep her small voice from wavering and her trembling fingers from picking at things) that if my wife and I ever do get divorced, as she knows we have considered doing, and feels we should consider doing, since we are not so happy together anyway and are not very much alike, she doesn't think she would want to have to live with either one of us but would prefer to be sent away to boarding school, like Christine Murray, who is very happy now that she doesn't have to live with either one of her parents anymore, or even maybe to school in Switzerland, where she knows she will be content. In fact, she has arrived at the conclusion by now that she would be much better off living away from us, anyway, even if we don't get a divorce, and that we would probably be much happier without her too, since she can tell we don't really want her there. Wouldn't we?
Sometimes (with spiteful goals of my own) I will hear her through with the silence of a stone, letting her go on this way for as long as she is able, saying absolutely nothing and gazing at her all the while with a heavy expression that yields no flicker of emotion, forcing her to go on and on with increasing dismay and befuddlement (although I look at her, she must wonder if I am listening to her, if I hear her) as the smug, malevolent composure with which she entered crumbles away into terrified misgivings and she is left, at last, standing mute and foolishly before me, shivering and exhausted, bereft of all her former confidence and determination. (I can outfox her every time.) And then (when she has run out of all things to say and I know I have outfoxed her) if I maintain my silence and continue to stare at her oppressively with my dull, heavy, unresponsive look, she might stammer lamely, in a final, desperate attempt at bravado that fails:
"I'm only trying to be frank with you." And then, with victory palpably before me, I might decide to speak; I might decide to move in skillfully for my own attack, simulating an air of smug composure that seeks mockingly to impersonate her own.
"No," I will say enigmatically. (And this will confuse her.)
"No what?" she must ask.
"No, you're not."
"Not what?" she is forced to inquire, timid and suspicious now. "What do you mean?"
"You're not trying to be frank. You're trying to be anything but frank, so please don't use that as an excuse for your bad nature."
"What do you mean?"
"Aren't you?"
"I don't know. What do you mean?"
"Don't you know what I mean?" I inquire with cool, invigorating vengeance.
She shakes her head.
"What I mean is that you aren't trying to be frank and that you are trying to say the most shocking and outrageous things you can think of in order to hurt my feelings and make me angry at you."
"Why would I do that?"
"Angry enough to yell and begin punishing you."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because that's the way you are."
"Why would I want you to punish me?"
"Because that is the way you are. Don't you see? And that's the way you want me to feel. Don't you see that? Don't you think I can see it?"
"What do you mean?"
"That's what I mean."
"It's a matter of supreme indifference to me," she rejoins loftily, "how you feel."
"Then why bother," I mimic just as loftily, "to tell me at all?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that if how I feel is really a matter of such supreme indifference to you, why bother to ever talk to me at all?"
"What should I do?"
"Unless you want something."
"And you wonder why I bite my nails and can't sleep well and why I eat too much."
"Don't blame your eating too much on me."
"What about the rest?"
"I eat too much also."
"You don't think very much of me," she alleges. "Do you?"
"Not right now. How much do you think of yourself?"
"I was only trying to be honest."
"Bull."
"You want me to be honest, don't you?"
"No."
"You don't?"
"Of course not. Why should I?"
An unexpected answer like that always outfoxes her, strikes her speechless for a few moments, makes her stammer and regret even further that she came barging into my study so rashly in the first place to start up with me. If she tries to continue the contest, her voice will drop to a diffident murmur that is almost too faint to be heard (I will pretend not to hear any of it and make her repeat each remark); or she will explode suddenly in a snarling, unintelligible, dramatic outburst and storm away in total defeat, banging some furniture or slamming a door. (I can outfox her easily every time.) But she never seems to learn (or she has learned and is drawn self-destructively to repeat these same cheerless defeats), so we go through innumerable repetitions of these same annoying, time-wasting, belittling (she makes fun of me because I'm getting fat. And getting bald. And I strike back by being faster, keener, and better informed in my repartee) «frank» and «honest» disputes with each other (I manage to win them all, although I sometimes feel wounded afterward) over money, smoking, sex, marijuana, late hours, dirty words, schoolwork, drugs, Blacks, freedom (hers), yelling, bullying, and insults to my wife.
"What will you do," she will ask baitingly, "if I come home with a Black boyfriend?"
This is a peculiarly ingenious stroke of hers that requires lightning dexterity to counter and with which she does succeed in confounding and vanquishing my wife. There is no way out, and I am tempted to award her accolades: if I tell her I'd object, I'm a racist; if I tell her I wouldn't, I have no regard for her. My wife succumbs by taking her seriously. I survive by skirting the trap.
"I would still ask you to clean up your room," I reply nimbly. "And to stop reading my mail and showing my bank statements to your friends."