Read Online Breakable You by Brian Morton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Brian Morton
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Psychological, Psychological fiction, Sagas, Family Life, Domestic Fiction, Novelists
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again, but eventually he'd called her and asked if she wanted to spend this Saturday afternoon together.
He didn't notice her until she was standing over him, casting her shadow over his face. He looked up and smiled at her, but with a touch of remoteness, and she could see that as far as he was concerned, they were back at square one. She didn't want to accept that, didn't want to allow things to go backward, so before he had a chance to stand up, she put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the mouth. But his kiss was stiff and held-back.
"Hello," he said.
"It's good to see you."
They were planning to go to an outdoor concert. The Singles, a band that she'd read about in
The Village Voice
, were playing that afternoon at the bandshell.
"Which way?" he said.
They began to walk. It was early November but it felt like the height of spring.
The park was filled with families. They had to walk slowly because of the stroller armadas heading in both directions on the path.
Maud was interested in every child they passed, but her closest scrutiny was reserved for the mothers. Trim, athletic, competent mothers, all of whom, doubtless, were also important figures in the worlds of law, entertainment, finance. The warrior-mothers of Manhattan.
Here in stroller heaven, on this warm afternoon, almost all the families they passed looked happy, and Maud experienced a dividedness that was familiar to her. When she was a girl she'd always assumed she'd be a mother someday. But her two trips to the snake pit had made her reconsider. On the female side of her family, there was a strain of… something. Something not quite right. Her mother was unimprovably solid, sane to a fault, but several of the women in the family past had fought losing struggles against a kind of darkness that would probably now be diagnosed as depression, but that had been called madness then. When Maud thought about having children, she worried that she wouldn't be able to hold on to her equilibrium long enough to usher them safely past infancy. She imagined herself sitting in a stunned stupor while her baby howled in its crib.
"Sometimes I feel really happy that my brothers have kids," she said. "They've taken care of the family obligation to bring children into the world. My parents already have all the heirs they need."
She'd said this spontaneously, in the flow of the moment, but it was also true that she'd been planning to mention at some point that she didn't intend to have children. She'd wanted him to know.
Sometimes she dated guys who didn't want children, and it put their minds at rest when she told them that she didn't either; and once in a blue moon she'd dated a guy who
did
want children, and it was only fair to let this kind of guy know that she was one of the rare women who didn't.
She didn't know what Samir made of this information. He didn't say anything.
A man was selling ice cream from a cart, and Maud stopped to buy a Popsicle.
"Seneca wouldn't approve of me," she said to Samir as she tore the wrapper off. "I've been reading him all week and I feel like I'm letting him down."
"You've been letting him down," Samir said. He said this as a flat statement. It was as if he wouldn't even commit himself to asking a question. But she decided to take it as a question.
"He's very severe," she said. "He was the father of Stoicism. I don't know what he'd say about the Popsicle." She started telling him about Seneca. It was easy, because she had been reading him with devotion for years. He wasn't among the two or three philosophers who were closest to her heart, because there was finally something life-denying about his asceticism, but even so, she admired the fierceness, the purity of his thought. The philosophers closest to her heart were those who wrote about how we can find a way to recognize one another, empathize with one another—Kant and Buber and Levinas. But she also needed philosophers like Seneca and Schopenhauer, thinkers with
He didn't notice her until she was standing over him, casting her shadow over his face. He looked up and smiled at her, but with a touch of remoteness, and she could see that as far as he was concerned, they were back at square one. She didn't want to accept that, didn't want to allow things to go backward, so before he had a chance to stand up, she put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the mouth. But his kiss was stiff and held-back.
"Hello," he said.
"It's good to see you."
They were planning to go to an outdoor concert. The Singles, a band that she'd read about in
The Village Voice
, were playing that afternoon at the bandshell.
"Which way?" he said.
They began to walk. It was early November but it felt like the height of spring.
The park was filled with families. They had to walk slowly because of the stroller armadas heading in both directions on the path.
Maud was interested in every child they passed, but her closest scrutiny was reserved for the mothers. Trim, athletic, competent mothers, all of whom, doubtless, were also important figures in the worlds of law, entertainment, finance. The warrior-mothers of Manhattan.
Here in stroller heaven, on this warm afternoon, almost all the families they passed looked happy, and Maud experienced a dividedness that was familiar to her. When she was a girl she'd always assumed she'd be a mother someday. But her two trips to the snake pit had made her reconsider. On the female side of her family, there was a strain of… something. Something not quite right. Her mother was unimprovably solid, sane to a fault, but several of the women in the family past had fought losing struggles against a kind of darkness that would probably now be diagnosed as depression, but that had been called madness then. When Maud thought about having children, she worried that she wouldn't be able to hold on to her equilibrium long enough to usher them safely past infancy. She imagined herself sitting in a stunned stupor while her baby howled in its crib.
"Sometimes I feel really happy that my brothers have kids," she said. "They've taken care of the family obligation to bring children into the world. My parents already have all the heirs they need."
She'd said this spontaneously, in the flow of the moment, but it was also true that she'd been planning to mention at some point that she didn't intend to have children. She'd wanted him to know.
Sometimes she dated guys who didn't want children, and it put their minds at rest when she told them that she didn't either; and once in a blue moon she'd dated a guy who
did
want children, and it was only fair to let this kind of guy know that she was one of the rare women who didn't.
She didn't know what Samir made of this information. He didn't say anything.
A man was selling ice cream from a cart, and Maud stopped to buy a Popsicle.
"Seneca wouldn't approve of me," she said to Samir as she tore the wrapper off. "I've been reading him all week and I feel like I'm letting him down."
"You've been letting him down," Samir said. He said this as a flat statement. It was as if he wouldn't even commit himself to asking a question. But she decided to take it as a question.
"He's very severe," she said. "He was the father of Stoicism. I don't know what he'd say about the Popsicle." She started telling him about Seneca. It was easy, because she had been reading him with devotion for years. He wasn't among the two or three philosophers who were closest to her heart, because there was finally something life-denying about his asceticism, but even so, she admired the fierceness, the purity of his thought. The philosophers closest to her heart were those who wrote about how we can find a way to recognize one another, empathize with one another—Kant and Buber and Levinas. But she also needed philosophers like Seneca and Schopenhauer, thinkers with
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