Catharsis - for day four of @pynchweek
Adam looks down at the card in his hand, drawn on pink poster paper and covered in glitter and Opal’s drawings (a bee, and a deer with seven eyes and only three legs.)
I hatE you lEss than thE rEst
I am giving you my favouritE stick to ProvE it
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Shit. Opal is waiting, looking at him and Ronan expectantly, and Adam can’t think. He is abruptly on the verge of tears, fists clenched, thoughts boiling. Ronan looks at him, concerned. Adam forces a smile.
“That’s great, Opal. Nice capital letters.”
“Thanks,” she says, proud. “Also, can I have my stick back? I gave it on a borrow. A short borrow.”
Ronan snorts and untapes the stick, handing it back and ruffling her hair. “Go and visit chainsaw and her babies. They need feeding.”
Opal puts her stick in her mouth and marches off outside. Adam exhales shakily.
“I – give me a minute,” he says, sinking down onto the couch. Daddy. She called him Daddy. He… was a father. Adam couldn’t be a father. He didn’t know how. He only knew the opposite of how. The pink glitter card sent him back into his past, returning from kindergarten with his own card, pink paper and all, proudly presenting it to his father, heart beating with excitement.
His teacher said Dads liked father’s days cards. She said his dad would love it. She said he would be happy with Adam. And he believed her – he’d never made a card for his dad before, and maybe that was what he had been doing wrong – maybe he just didn’t know how to be a good son yet, but his teacher did, and now it was going to be OK and his dad would love the card and then they’d go outside and play football like his friends did with their dads on Sundays.
It’s like he is five years old again, holding out his hope in a cheap paper card, a drawing of himself and his father done in red crayon, I love you daddy written on the inside.
“Pink is gay,” his father says, looking at the card like he looks at Adam when he wets himself. “I’ve told you pink is gay, haven’t I? This is a stupid card. I can’t believe I pay tax to fund education like this.”
The card is ripped in half and thrown in the bin, flakes of silver glitter sticking to the lino of the floor. Adam doesn’t cry – his dad doesn’t like it when he cries (crying is for girls. Are you a girl?) (no daddy.) (what are you?) (stupid.)
He hasn’t made a card since. And he doesn’t trust teachers. But he remembers, and he wonders if Opal felt that hope handing him that card, and he wonders if she ever doubts his devotion to her, and he wonders if he says I love you enough for her to believe it.
A tear rolls down his cheek, dripping from his chin. Ronan catches it on his finger, kneeling on the floor in front of him. “Hey,” he whispers. “It’s OK. It’s OK – you’re here. Everything is fine.”
Adam looks at Ronan and sees what he didn’t have. Ronan knows how to be a father – Ronan knows how to joke without being cruel, knows how to encourage Opal without deluding her, knows when to make her eat vegetables and when to let her eat ice cream for breakfast. Ronan’s affection comes easily, naturally, warmly.
“I’m awful at this,” Adam says. It comes out as a sob. Ronan just waits. He knows when to listen. “I… I’m not qualified to be a father. I’ll mess her up. Break her. Ruin her.”
“Adam?” Ronan says, lifting his chin. It takes a lot of effort to meet Ronan’s eyes. “You are not ruining her. You are helping her to grow, every day. You are caring for her. You taught her to read.”
Adam sniffs, mind still jumping between past and present, to late nights and tear stained pillows, lost and longing for affection.
“Are you listening? You are doing well. You are not your father.”
“I just couldn’t bear it if… if I ever made her feel anything like he made me feel,” Adam says, and this is new ground, because Ronan knew all about the bruises but not about the tears. Ronan climbs onto the sofa beside him, letting Adam lean into his side.
“Tell me,” he says. “Let it out. If it’s still there, so much, even now – you have to let it out.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Adam whispers. “He’s stuck in me.”
“No. He doesn’t get to have that power.”
“He always had it. It’s like… his voice – that’s the voice I hear when I fuck up. And I can’t change it. It’s always there. The feelings he implanted in me are ALWAYS FUCKING THERE,” he bursts out, frustrated. There’s a rotten feeling in him, like a puss filled spot that needs to be squeezed, but it’s in an awkward place and he can’t reach and even if he cut it out he doesn’t think it would remove anything. “I hated him,” Adam whispers. “And I hated myself even more for wanting him to love me.”
Ronan runs gentle fingers across his back. “Don’t feel bad for that,” he says, “Never feel bad for wanting family.”
“Not that kind of family.”
“And did you know another family? Did you have another family to want?”
Adam shrugs. He used to think he didn’t deserve family, because if he deserved family, his parents would love him. “I don’t think… I don’t think I can love properly,” he says. “I love Opal. And I love you. But… I lie awake at night after we fight, and I run my words through my mind, and I match them to him.”
“You aren’t him. Did he ever say sorry?”
“Shouldn’t do anything I need to apologise for. I should be better. You deserve better. She deserves better.”
Ronan grips his hand. “Adam. I am not a liar. And I am telling you now that you are everything I want, and everything Opal wants. Do you know how she talks about you? On the way to school? Non stop. “Kerah, I think Cacti are my favorite kind of plant.” “Why’s that, Opal?” “Because Daddy says Cacti are cool, and they can live with hardly any water, and Daddy is always right, and when I grow up I’m going to be just like Daddy.”
Adam laughs, despite the sadness in his chest. “What high aspirations she has,” he says.
“Yes,” Ronan replies, serious. “She does.”
“Adam? You are an intelligent man. View this situation objectively. You are not your abuse.”
“But I still feel it,” he breathes, “I feel it every single day.”
Ronan is quiet, hand still clasped in Adam’s. “I can’t pretend to understand,” he says. “I only know the anger I felt for you, not what you felt. And – I know that me saying you shouldn’t feel the way you do, or that you don’t need to – well, it’s bullshit to you. You feel how you feel. But… we can talk about it. I can help you fight this… phantom of him.”
Adam closes his eyes, wonders what he did to deserve Ronan. “I’m OK. Mostly. Just… some things take me back, you know? When you shout, if you are angry. When you slam the dishes in the sink – that was my mother, after he hit me. I don’t know if she was mad at him or me or herself, but I hated that noise. Those things take me back. And specific things – someone yelling faggot in the street, a raised fist, a pink card – they take me back. And I get this… anxious feeling in my chest, how I used to feel, and … it itches, like my new life is a dream and I’m going to wake up in that trailer, shivering on the lino in the kitchen whilst my dad pants and my mother bites her nails in the corner,” he pauses, letting his thoughts gather. He’s never said this before; always held it bundled up in a tight little part of his chest, simmering. “I hate this power he still has – will always have. I broke free of so much and still… still you can’t wipe it all away.”
Ronan kisses him, ever so softly. Adam tastes the salt of Ronan’s tears on his tongue. “Don’t cry,” he whispers, “Don’t cry because I suffered. Laugh because I am free.”
“I won’t shout,” Ronan says.
“You can shout. If you are happy shouting.”
“She’ll cover the dishes with snail slime or something.”
Ronan snorts. “Seriously though… I’m proud of you. For everything you’ve achieved. And I’m proud of us, and our little family, even if it is really fucking weird.”
“Tell me,” Adam says, “Tell me if I’m ever cruel. If I ever, ever hurt you – make you feel guilty or worthless or ashamed – or if I hurt her. You have to swear to tell me and I’ll fix it. I… can’t lose you.”
“I’ll tell you,” Ronan says. “And now, shall we take Opal for ice cream?”
Adam whispers yes, kisses him quick, lighter from confession. He is tired, and his heart is heavy, but the darkness buried in him has unwound, loosened, lessened. Catharsis is tiring, but freeing, and all the hands in his life are gentle, even his own calloused palms touch with reverence and not hate.