"What if they did?"
"Flush it down the toilet," he commanded. She did as she was told. She watched her tiny higher authority wave goodbye to her sadly as she was sucked into the whirlpool with her ship.
Chapter Thirty-One
15 years ago when receiving her graduate degree in criminology at Emporia State University Gabriele got cards of congratulations that were not at all palatable to her. Reading the writing on these weighty bits of paper should have been just more insipid clogging of one's time and shouldn't have made much of an impression on her unfavorably and yet she couldn't help resenting this intrusive attitude of "Read me! Read me! Take moments of your life and read me!" She believed that the factory produced clichZs contained therein were not congratulations of past academic accomplishments but more the prompting of those who advocated that post-graduates utilize ideas for pragmatic pursuits. These were mass produced clichZs of ignorant professionals in bondage to the idea that worth was wealth secured in slavish development of commodities or services, which were the means of affluence. Such people erroneously believed that, if well compensated financially, a life spent planning a product to develop an artificial and insatiable thirst or governing men so that they did not founder totally in their base instincts, as all earlier predecessors had done, was a constructive engagement of one's hours on the planet.
Among others, there was a card from her aunt and uncle and another one from her perfidious and mutinous parents. She opened and read the other rubbish before putting it in the rightful place but she let these particular envelopes lay on the counter, near her toaster, for a day or two before stabbing her foot against the ribbed lever and guiltlessly opening the trash can's jaws. "Saccharine for the alligator—gotta feed 'gator," she thought and then pitched the envelopes and their unopened content into the trash. It was such an American gesture, which was an alloy of a disposable culture and the independence by which one might extricate herself from the visceral, vitriolic virulence of a dysfunctional family.
And when she got her Master's degree in psychology in Houston there was a pleasant absence of this driest of sentimental tripe until one day Peggy sent a belated card and letter with "Urgent" marked on the envelope. Gabriele opened it begrudgingly. It was one of those half- hearted apologies of "If I've done anything that has made you wrongly perceive…" or "If I've done anything that has made you believe…" with something like "that you are unloved" or "that you weren't wanted." Now she couldn't remember the exact details even if there was that indelible impression of one who would never apologize or admit that there was anything to be sorry about.
Still, it wasn't an unpleasant letter (she had had worse) and her vantage point when she read it from a lawn chair on the deck brought a happy serenity even onto it. A humming bird was boldly drinking from its feeder of nectar, a butterfly was fluttering above a potted plant, a young boy who was running for his ball was casting such an elongated shadow in the morning sunlight, and this vertical shadow was appearing somewhat three dimensional from her aerial perspective.
Furthermore, while concentrating on this invisible bombardment of molecules rife in the verdant yard she was also trying to figure out how best to sketch the atoms of fragrance and how this burgeoning dotty texture of atomism, rather than impressionism, could be extended to the sketching of the boy, his shadow, the butterfly, the humming bird, and a pensive woman looking out of the window to avoid packing her things.
So, reading the letter and not being of a mood to demand contrition of one who had never been contrite, she was not disappointed even though as an undergraduate she had unwittingly expected a metamorphosis of contrition to manifest itself in her aunt's sloppy handwriting. A more salient fact was that this particular letter accompanied with a greeting card of congratulations was a pensive deliberation on their relationship. That being the case, she kept it for a couple weeks before at last passing it into the jaws of the trashcan. If not a tacit apology this less than insipid letter was a wistful yearning to reestablish the relationship and from it she felt deep sympathy for her aunt.
Hundreds of times anew from childhood, Gabriele was unable to even go back for a day under the roof of an uncle whom she had successfully fought off from attempted molestation countless selves ago. Gabriele never mentioned this incident to anyone. Although in early childhood she was able to pinpoint it as the catalyst of their vehemence toward her she never said a word. So her uncle and male cousins disparaged her for what time she got up, how she combed her hair, for being left- handed, how she held her fork, the amount of time that she spent in the bathroom, where she sat, the position she sat in, why she read so much, why she was spending so much time reading in her "cage," that she was probably shedding hair on the living room sofa, why she put her legs together so prim and proper at the supper table, and why she opened her legs like a tomboy or a lesbian cunt. She told herself that childhood would not last forever and that this was something that she would pass through without crumbling to pieces. "Matter of fact," said the voice within her, "you will get through it all unscathed." And throughout each day of each year she remained sangfroid, believing that a relentless cold stare would attenuate their cruelty, and yet no battles did she win with the Antarctic blasts that she sent their way unabatedly. And years later she never mentioned it in her letters to Peggy. Why would she with reality not being an external phenomenon but pictures rendered by the brain that were unavoidably reworked to justify certain ugly scenes ("Why don't you want to go with your uncle and cousins to the lake-really Gabriele, you need to work on your disposition - no man would have you the way you are becoming"). And yet her aunt sensed this absolute inability to return to Kansas in their communication so she wrote that she would fly in to see her. Gabriele agreed but looked at her coming with dread. Removed, reshaped, and orbiting around other things in the depths of space, Gabriele was a distant star. A connection back to Peggy, she then reasoned, would take enormous energy in a sustained sympathy and it was doubtful that even with the best effort, anything good could be gained from it.