“
The woman's body twitched suddenly, as if remembering something, and she covered her mouth with a stiff mitten. Dara knew what it was. She'd felt it a dozen times that day already. The body remembering, contorting, -He's gone, he's gone.-
For a moment, only a moment, Dara felt sorry for her.
As if sensing it, the woman looked at her and reached for her sunglasses, removing them at last. Her eyes heavy, swollen.
'I wish I could explain,' she said. 'You build this family. And it's perfect. It's everything you wanted. And then something goes wrong. Slowly or all at once. It was good and now it's bad, and it's his fault. Or he started it. All the ripples from his bad behavior.'
Dara didn't say anything. The woman kept going.
'So, in some private part of your head, you start thinking up fantasies of escape. You tell yourself: If only he were gone, if only a heart attack, a lightning bolt, a car crash...'
'I have to go,' Dara said, turning.
'Sometimes,' the woman said suddenly, her voice choked. 'Sometimes, you think you'd do anything to get out to be free.'
They held glances a long moment....
'You're never free,' Dara said, realizing it as she said it.
-When something goes wrong in a family, it takes generations to wipe it out.- Those words came to Dara, something from a history book, a book about kings and queens she once found in the den long ago.
Marie, Charlie, they thought they could escape it, through leaving, or trying to. Through other people, lovers. But they both ended right back where they started. In their mother's house, her third-floor hideaway.
'I guess you're right,' the woman said. 'You blame everything on that one person.You think if that one person is gone, everything will be perfect and good.' She slid her sunglasses back on. 'But in the end, that person is you.
”
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