Read Online Olive Branches Don't Grow on Trees by Grace Mattioli - Free Book Online Page B

sense.
    “Did
you get anything out of it?”
    “What
do you mean by that?”  He squished up his face like a prune.
    “Could
you relate to any of the other little stories or the big story?”
    “Not
really.”
    “So,
what’s the chance of us going back next Wednesday?”  She said this
mustering up as much hopefulness as she could in her face.
    “I
don’t really see the need for it.  Look at that one woman with all the
problems.  The one with the dark lipstick. She
goes to meetings all the time, and they don’t seem to
be doing her any good.  In fact, they could be making her worse.” 
Then he said he had to go to the bathroom and left without giving his daughter
a chance to respond.  As soon as he came back, she said, “I doubt the meetings
are making her worse,” as if there had been no break in the conversation.
    “Making
who worse?”
    “Dark
Lipstick,” she said, making her father laugh at the nickname she had suddenly
adopted for the woman from the meeting.  His laughter was loud and mighty,
like the rest of him. It made Silvia remember that he was not always miserable,
that he liked to laugh, and that he had a good sense of humor when he was not
busy being angry.
    “Well,
do you think you might go back, Dad?” she asked again, taking advantage of his
current lighthearted state.
    “Yeah,
why not?”
    Silvia
accepted this reply and thought of her venture on this night as a great
achievement.  She was getting through to him when no one else could. 
She had a very quick miniature fantasy about him being a sober man, a good
father, winning Donna back, and them all living peacefully ever after.
 She was quite proficient at fantasizing.  Within twenty seconds, she
was able to have a complete vision of what her family would become thanks to
her amazing self.  She saw Frank and her sitting in the living room with
Vince and Cosmo and Angie.  He was talking about how grateful he was to
Silvia for saving him.  He was calm and still and not his usual jumpy self, and he sat all the way back in his chair instead of on
the edge.  He was apologetic for not being a better father and was
soliciting his children for ideas on how to get Donna back.  Angie may
have felt some slight jealousy towards Silvia for not being Frank’s favorite
for the first time in her life, but Silvia was, after all, the savior. 
    She
would be the one to save Frank, and he was someone worth saving.  He was,
in fact, a great person in terms of his abilities and past achievements, and to
have his greatness lost in a bottle of scotch was a terrible thing that affected
not only himself and his family, but the world at large, as he was the type of
person that had the potential to make a difference in the world.  He was
not the type of attorney that was just out to make a quick buck.  He was
the kind that was always on the side of the underdog-- the old, the poor, the
disabled-- the most unfortunate people who had been wronged by the system and,
therefore, by life.  Even for clients not wrongly accused, he could look
well beyond their rightful accusations and into the real cause of their
wrongdoings.  He was an empathic in every sense of the word. 
    He
eventually became disillusioned with the system, after seeing one too many good
people wronged by it.  His disillusionment edged its way in through his
spirit, little by little, until he turned into a broken man.  The final
culprit was an elderly client evicted from her apartment so that the new
landlord could convert her apartment building into condominiums.  She was
ruthlessly kicked out, and when Frank tried to fight for her rights, he was
smashed by a system that was too big to fight.  When he was asked to be a
judge in his town’s local courthouse, he accepted this honor with indifference.
 The part of him with hopes and dreams, the part that Vince had so
strongly inherited, had faded out of him.  Silvia could almost understand
how something, like a lost dream, could