from The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen
She no longer remembers clearly when the visitants became rooted . . . became the host . . . stayed, but what she does know all too well is the guilt-ridden, heart-torn, angst-filled insistent (persistent) inner voice that forever upbraids yet silently wishes (oh so selfishly wishes) that they had not stayed, wishes, in fact, that they still traveled from afar leaving her innocently blithely free of the inevitable weighing decisions.
It is eating away at her—the waiting, the watching, the knowledge—the expectation that she, the first born, will step forward, take care, solve the unsolvable problem, provide the necessary relief. It is, after all, what she has always done. But this is Loyd's mystic square—impossible to resolve—the Manhattan distances insurmountable.
It is, she realizes, a love story; but this does not assuage her guilt. Her father unwilling (maybe even somehow unable) to get the diagnosis they all know is inevitable—unwilling to be sentenced. He, the survivor of three cancers—yet the caregiver, still the caregiver.
It is difficult for her to empathize with her mother. This saddens her. She does not feel she knows her mother and she wonders if she ever did. Ironically, soon her mother will not know her. Her mother is gentle, careful, kind—meek, in fact. But she feels indifferent. This is a true hard statement.
Try as she may, there is not a time when she can remember her mother as part of her life; which is odd as, apparently, her mother was always there. Her mother stayed-at-home abandoning the short-lived nursing career she had embarked on after high-school, in order to be with her children.
[When she was eight her mother said to her "I am afraid of you; you are more mature than I am." What kind of thing is that to say to your child? she thinks. And she imagines her mother envisioning the child "her" as some unblinking translucent-skinned girl-child in a horror movie.]
She is fairly sure that if her mother were not her mother, their lives would never intersect. She has tried (oh she is sure she has tried) to find a common bond, identify a thread, but it is not there: they share only blood. She thinks this is not a judgement, merely a fact.
[When she was seventeen, she had her heart set on studying philosophy (or perhaps archaeology) at college (in fact she had aced the SATs and had won scholarships and was not asking for financial assistance); her mother could not fathom this. "Did she not perhaps want to go to secretarial school?" her mother asked.]
Fleetingly it occurs to her, where was her father in this? but, she dismisses this thought. Her father is a saint.
It is, she realizes, a love story; but this does not assuage her guilt. Her father unwilling (maybe even somehow unable) to get the diagnosis they all know is inevitable—unwilling to be sentenced. He, the survivor of three cancers—yet the caregiver, still the caregiver.
It is difficult for her to empathize with her mother. This saddens her. She does not feel she knows her mother and she wonders if she ever did. Ironically, soon her mother will not know her. Her mother is gentle, careful, kind—meek, in fact. But she feels indifferent. This is a true hard statement.
Try as she may, there is not a time when she can remember her mother as part of her life; which is odd as, apparently, her mother was always there. Her mother stayed-at-home abandoning the short-lived nursing career she had embarked on after high-school, in order to be with her children.
[When she was eight her mother said to her "I am afraid of you; you are more mature than I am." What kind of thing is that to say to your child? she thinks. And she imagines her mother envisioning the child "her" as some unblinking translucent-skinned girl-child in a horror movie.]
She is fairly sure that if her mother were not her mother, their lives would never intersect. She has tried (oh she is sure she has tried) to find a common bond, identify a thread, but it is not there: they share only blood. She thinks this is not a judgement, merely a fact.
[When she was seventeen, she had her heart set on studying philosophy (or perhaps archaeology) at college (in fact she had aced the SATs and had won scholarships and was not asking for financial assistance); her mother could not fathom this. "Did she not perhaps want to go to secretarial school?" her mother asked.]
Fleetingly it occurs to her, where was her father in this? but, she dismisses this thought. Her father is a saint.
