Chapter 12 - Margaret Hears Daniel Say No
Margaret arrived at Daniel’s community center carrying three expensive
gifts.
Daniel looked at them.
“No.”
She stopped.
“No gifts?”
“No.”
Margaret left them with her driver.
They sat together.
She cried.
Daniel did not tell her to stop.
She apologized for allowing fear and shame to determine his childhood.
Daniel listened.
Then asked:
“Did you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Did you want me?”
Margaret struggled.
That was the harder question.
“I wanted the baby I imagined.”
Daniel nodded.
“And when I wasn’t him?”
Margaret cried harder.
“I failed you.”
“Yes.”
No softening.
No cruelty either.
Margaret asked whether they could build a relationship.
Daniel answered:
“Maybe.”
She nodded.
He added:
“But you don’t get to decide how fast.”
“I understand.”
For once, she did.
Over the next two years, they met occasionally.
Margaret learned about Daniel’s work repairing audio equipment.
His terrible jokes.
His love of baseball.
His dislike of lobster.
She discovered a son who had existed all along beyond the tragedy she
had assigned to him.
Daniel never called her Mom during those first years.
Then one afternoon he did accidentally.
Both noticed.
May you like
Neither commented.
Some moments were safer without being turned into symbols.
