dear fat kid : a paragraph from the bit i happen to be revising today.

In the absence of another party to keep [Gail, ie Mother] near sense, her taut emotional state stays linear, while any line of reason becomes a waver—a scribble of thought that runs in frantic circles and off the side of the page. And she, I don’t think, is ever the wiser. Example (from voicemail #3):

“And if you don't want to call and at least just tell us that you are all right, well. There's nothing I can do about that. But it's painful. Here I am burning up with worry and you can't even pick up the phone. I know you have been unhappy here lately. But we are not the happiest either, you know, and you don’t see us deserting you. I'm so sad, Hal. All I want is to help you. And if you are off with your fat-friend somewhere, if that's all this is and you can't pick up the phone to call—I don't know but it will be very hard to forgive you. But I will, because forgiveness is important. Just like trust is important. And right now you have not shown that you really deserve our trust. What's the word I'm looking for? Not flaky, but close to that. Flighty! There. You have just flighted and flitted away, like a little bird. Like a sparrow. Do you remember, as a boy, when the sparrows would come every spring and build a nest up under the peak of the barn roof? And the little chicklings would hatch and you’d jump up and down and beg to go out and look at them. We'd go out day after day and nothing would happen, just Mommy coming and going with mouthfuls of worms for the family. But one day the day would come! We'd get to see those little baby sparrows fly for the very first time! And it was always so great to watch them teeter and totter through the air. So exciting. And then summer would be here, and we'd pack up our basket and go down to the harbor. We would eat, and you would walk along the drift logs and play with the other boys who were there on the summer days. I'd bring my knitting. Sometimes that one bigger older boy would come down there, and I knew you didn't really like him but he had a new bike that was big and cool and so you’d let him boss you around. What on earth was that boy's name? ... Clarence! Ooo-oh, I did not like that Clarence, with his pudgy face. But you'd play with him anyway, no matter what I thought, and I wouldn't show it but inside I'd get so frustrated with you for not seeing…”

This is just a sample, a finger-snack drawn at random from the voicemail platter I had set before me. I’m not really complaining, though I am confused; my policy of avoidance coping, hitherto unblemished, is becoming entirely counterproductive.