And I tend to feel that she and I have come by now to a point of tacit agreement, our modus vivendi, to the mutual understanding that each of us has already written the other off, that neither of us really belongs to the other any longer, and that we are both merely keeping up appearances, going through perfunctory routines (as I wrote my mother off a long time before I buried her, and, as I now believe, she did the same with me. She saw through me, I think, dim and old and speechless as she was, and indulged and babied me correctly by letting me indulge and baby her as she wasted away in that nursing home during those final months of awkward visits in which I did nothing more useful than bring her highly seasoned things to eat and sit by her bedside for almost an hour gazing stealthily at my watch and babbling blithe, patent nonsense in which she showed little interest. That was all the solace I could produce for each of us in those final moments we were to spend with each other in all eternity. What a chance I had; we had, to say something. Nothing came out. I'll bet, now, that these inconvenient, unproductive visits were no more pleasant for her than they were for me. I made them because she was my mother; she endured them, I think, because I was her son. She was always perceptive and would see into me), biding our time, my daughter and I, as we go through the formalities of pretending to be still related. She lives here, follows loose procedures, and has dinner with us; I talk to her, buy her things, and will continue to profess to be interested in her until she is old enough to go away to college or move away somewhere else, as she never ceases stressing she wishes to do.
"Someday soon," she says, "maybe this summer when school is over, I think I would like to live in a place of my own. An apartment or studio. In the city. Either by myself or with just one friend. And then in the fall, I think I would like to go away to boarding school. I don't really like any of my friends here."
"I will help you," I reply noncommittally (and know instantaneously that it is the wrong thing for me to say. I had not intended this time to be unkind. But the words themselves carry a sting of rejection that makes me smart with compunction). "Seriously. I will help you find a decent, safe place, and I'll give you the money you need to pay for it and live there."
"I meant it."
"So do I."
"You're making a joke out of it."
"You'll need my help. You'll need me to sign the lease. You're too young."
"I want to live my own life."
"Who's stopping you?" I retort. (And now I know we are contending with each other in another one of those abrasive battles of wits.) "It seems to me you can, now that I've offered to pay the bills and said I'd let you go."
I can outfox my daughter easily just about every time.
(Even when I don't want to. I can't keep my mouth shut.) I don't know what else to do when we spar like that and she tries to show me she is as good as I am. (She isn't. Should I let her win?) She hurts me, and I hurt her; she strikes me, and I strike back. She likes to browbeat my wife and me into spending excessive sums of money on her for things that have not much value to her once she owns them (it is one method she has found of exercising power over us); I permit her to succeed, without resistance, comment, or complaint (it's a method I have found of outfoxing her. And it is easier for me in the long run to let these really rather negligible amounts of money go than to keep quarreling with her over them in a series of emotional discussions that might not be concluded otherwise. I win victories over her, I have found, by giving in to just about everything nettlesome she proposes). She thinks I am immature. It galls me to hear her say so (even when she says it with approval, when I am succeeding in making her laugh, it irks me to hear her tell me that I never fully grew up and that I am, in her opinion, still as playful and childish as a little boy. My boy is frequently distressed and offended when I try to make him and my daughter laugh in public, by singing, walking funny, or making unexpected, loud wisecracks in elevators, drugstores, or supermarkets), and I have taken to wondering (wishing) bitterly now and then after the most disruptive of these sessions with her, as I sit stewing resentfully in discontent and suffering so much sympathy for myself, why she does not oblige me by running far away from home like so many other unhappy girls her age (I guess I might be sorry if she did. I wouldn't miss her, I think, since we don't actually have that much to do with each other anymore, but I would have to go through such elaborate efforts to find her and so many clumsy conversations with other people about her having run away) and make things easier for me by leaving me in peace. And it is my wife, of all people, who brings me to a halt on these occasions, who makes me stop and reflect when I am feeling most murderous and sour, when I am out of my mind with wrath and aboil with a blazing yen for revenge, my wife who utters the words that shed some light, and even hope, and make me remember what I ought never allow myself to forget. She calls me stupid; she tells me I am rotten, self-centered, insane; that I am "no good" (and I regret again that I ever confided to my wife the words I think my mother tried to say to me in the nursing home the last time she spoke). It is my wife, maudlin, discouraged, repetitious, often inane, who, abused by my daughter and oppressive to her in return, berates me with grief and compassion and makes the surprising observation that puts my daughter back into vivid focus suddenly. In tears, crying quietly (I have no patience anymore with women who cry, and my wife knows it and tries not to), it is my wife who remonstrates with me, defending her: "She's just a little girl."
My daughter is just a little girl, and I try to outfox her in argument. (I just can't help it.) I talk to her as I would to a grown-up, to Kagle, Green, Jane, or my wife, cleverly, cogently, glibly, bitingly. I react to her unpleasant moods as I would to some insulting adult my own age or older. I try to embarrass and defeat her in debate: I want to top her always when we trade taunts and wisecracks, and I usually succeed. (If I can't be funnier, I can always get angrier and grasp my victory that way.) I am ashamed; she makes me forget she is only a child. It is very important to me that I beat her in all our contests. When we discuss or dispute anything, I must be the one to deliver the most intelligent opinions. (I compete with her.) If my daughter criticizes me or complains about me or makes a disparaging joke (even a very humorous and lighthearted one), I can be as affronted, hurt, arid unnerved as though some stinging jibe had been inflicted upon me by Green. (I will hide my feelings from both of them, although I suspect Green sees into my skull and knows everything that takes place there. I may even want to cry.) I will sulk (and it is almost as though my daughter is the adult and I am the child). Our roles are reversed; and it is somewhat eerie. (I depend on her. I wanted security from her; I do not get it. Instead, she troubles me with her problems. She takes my time. I do get some of this security from my little boy — so far. "Who do you like?" I can fire at him almost any time with a grin. "I love you, Daddy," he will cry with joy, and hurl himself forward to embrace me with an ardor that jars us both. But he is afraid of spiders and bees — so am I — and of crumbling ankle bones, and I sense much trouble ahead for both of us. I have never felt only sadness at the death of a friend or relative or the departure to a faraway place of someone I like, or even perhaps love. Always there has been simultaneously a marked undercurrent of relief, a release, a secret, unabashed sigh of "Well, at least that's over with now, isn't it?" I wonder how I would feel about the death of a child.) She still has power to wound me; I have power to wound her (so maybe we have not really written each other off entirely yet. Maybe that's why we want to, we are dangerous to each other. My wife can't hurt me. My daughter can). I don't want to hurt her. I do not want her to hurt me. I want her to like me. (I want Green to like me, and everyone else I meet in the whole world to like me, except the people I've already met, handled, found inconsequential, and forgot about.) I want her to obey and admire me (and will hit back brutally at her when she is rude or disparaging). I can't bear defiance from any member of my family (or from waiters or other public servants who are supposed to be subordinate, although I often keep silent with these others and nurse my injuries covertly). I want respect from my daughter and continual kindness. I don't get it.