The Prince of Tides

by Pat Conroy

I could not hear about Susan’s father without cringing at the thought of the harm I had caused the women of my own family. In happy times, love poured out of me like bright honey from a stolen hive. But in times of hurt and loss I withdrew into a self-made enclosure of impenetrable solitude, and the women who tried to touch me there—all of them—drew back in utter horror as I wounded them again and again for daring to love me when I knew my love was all corruption. I was one of those men who killed their women slowly. My love was a form of gangrene withering the soft tissues of the soul. I had a sister who had tried to kill herself and who did not wish to see me, a wife who had found a man who loved her, daughters who did not know a thing about me, and a mother who knew far too much. “Change it all,” I said to myself as I sat listening to Susan Lowenstein while she relaxed under the influence of the wine and the sedate ambiance of the Coach House. “Change everything about yourself and change it absolutely.”