The Strange

by Nathan Ballingrud

I remember standing there, small and angry and hurt. I can see myself as though I were watching someone else. I feel no sympathy for that child, roughly moved by the currents of adult motive, so mysterious and so callous to her needs. I could if it were a different person. I could hold her close and whisper the sweet lies adults tell children. But because it’s me, I feel ashamed of her for treating my mother so coldly.

“Because she’s my mother,” she said. “I want to say goodbye to her. I’m afraid it might be my only chance, and it would hurt me forever to miss it. The way you love me is exactly the way I love her.” That made sense to me, of course. But it also defeated me, because the love I felt in that moment was as terrifying and hungry as any starved dog. It left no room for anyone else, not even for my own father. And if it was true that there was no room in my heart for him, then it must also be true that there was no room in hers for me. I understood at last why it was so easy for her to leave me.

Whatever help was being offered, I wished that Father had taken it. It’s a peculiarity in some men that they cannot accept help without feeling compromised by it. It’s better to die alone, it would seem, than to live in the debt of another human being.

No one could think up an excuse for their own failure faster than an adult.