“But you’re parent and child, right?” I pressed. “She’s right there.”
“Then it doesn’t have to be me. If this amount of distance between us works for them, then it’s best for the both of us. Still, to try and go through a child like you... That’s just disgraceful.”
“Paula didn’t ask me to do this,” I admitted.
“Oh, so you’re interfering in someone else’s family matters out of pure curiosity?”
I could tell the situation had taken a bad turn. Anyone would have known as much; it wasn’t a logical deduction, but more of an instinctual feeling that I had at that moment.
“That’s an unwise thing to do, don’t you think?”
“Right... I’m sorry,” I replied.
How many years had it been since I’d been scolded like this? I wasn’t being yelled at, but sternly scolded, and that made me feel all the more pathetic. Fago was right. The blame was all on me here.
“Honestly, I understand that you have time on your hands, but you should use it for something actually worthwhile.”
Even the gentle chiding she continued with just made me feel worse.
“You’re quite right...but I think that being here for this is worthwhile.”
Fago fixed me with a glare, and I got ready for another scolding. Then, abruptly, she relaxed, letting out a sigh through her nose.
“I doubt it will be... It’s not a fun story; nothing we old fools have to say ever is. Talking about it won’t change anything, either, so there’s little point in bringing up the past.”
Those words were proof that she’d accepted my prying, in her own way.
“Can I ask what happened?”
There was a long pause.
“Parents inevitably have expectations of and hopes for their children. When they’re just babbling babes, you simply hope they’ll be happy. Then, when they start being able to speak and reason, that’s when the expectations start. You want for them to grow into upstanding members of society, for them to succeed, and to be able to see yourself in them.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me.”
“It’s not. But when you pressure your child to meet those expectations, it’s not good either.”
Her eyes were turned to the surface of her tea, but I had little doubt that she wasn’t seeing the present at all.
“My husband and I did the best we could over the years. Even now, I can’t think of what exactly we did wrong. Maybe we were just wrong from the start,” she continued, a tired sigh of remembrance passing her lips. “Maybe it would have been better if we weren’t the parents, if there’d been better ones that weren’t as stuck in their ways and wouldn’t need decades to change their thinking.”
Fago’s eyes shot up and her gaze slid across the table to the embroidery frame resting at its edge.
“Unraveling a tangled thread is difficult. Usually you’d just cut it and throw the tangle away. You can’t do that with the threads that bind family, though. Try as you might to undo the tangle, you just make it worse and worse, until eventually it’s unsalvageable.”
I hesitated, before asking, “Did something cause the tangle?”
She laughed, probably because of how timidly—almost fearfully—I’d asked.
“It was simple. One day, our child told us, ‘I’m a woman and I want to become a dancer,’ and my husband answered with his fists. I couldn’t protect my child. I couldn’t accept what they’d said. Then they left, and that was that. That...was really that.”
I could barely guess at all the emotions contained in those last words. Simply because they couldn’t get past that one barrier, Paula and Fago were both suffering. Fago’s voice trembled as she continued.
“How can I call myself a mother when I couldn’t even accept and embrace my child? I can’t face them. However much I apologized, it wouldn’t be enough. When I think of how they’ve spent their life since then, I...”
Eventually she couldn’t go on any further. She pressed her lips tightly together, keeping her expression composed despite her distress. She wouldn’t allow herself to show grief or sadness, as if she felt she didn’t have the right to them.
“Would you be willing to meet with Paula if she said she wanted to?”
As I asked, I knew that it might not be something I should offer her. Even so, I felt like I had to. I wanted the thread between them untangled.
“I’d ask for forgiveness if we did meet again. I’m not a strong person.”
“Is that bad? If you apologize and she forgives you, what’s wrong with that?”
“I can’t forgive myself.”
People pray for forgiveness. I felt like I finally understood what Monty had meant.
They didn’t pray for forgiveness from someone else, but from themselves. It was a prayer doomed to never be granted. Someone that could forgive themselves that easily wouldn’t pray for it in the first place. Fago went to the temple every morning to pray, and as she did so, she was blaming herself. Even as the world fell apart, Fago continued her routine. Her child was right there, and yet she wouldn’t allow herself to see her.
I pressed my fist against my temple and ground it around. The dull pain cleared my head. Even so, I couldn’t find the magic words to persuade her. Of course, it was no surprise; hadn’t magic fallen to ruin as well?
The words must have existed once, somewhere. The nobles, the saint—one of them would have known some miraculous spell that could resolve all the pain and worries people had, and bridge the inevitable gaps that opened between them. After all, worlds like this one were almost fairy tales. Why couldn’t everything be solved neatly, then, just like in those fairy tales?