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Show (,23 My mother had described the new wife accurately, but had ot gpoken of her remarkable eyes. They were quick and i n t e l l i g e n t, howing a tendency to anger; and yet there was a contradictory longing, wish to be loved and accepted. I could read the worldly knowledge in them, a keenly cynical aspect that was a far cry from the slow, deliberate f a i th and sef^essness which characterized most of the uroup-women. Her a s s e r t i v e manner reminded me vaguely of some aspects of myself and my women friends who had grown up without fatherly affection because of Don Juanism or divorce or death. Perhaps her aggression - so t e r r i f y i n g to my mother - was born of paternal neglect, as with me. Perhaps her father hadn't been there when she needed him. Had i t also thwarted her l i f e ? And had she come here, as I had, to straighten her course, to find a place of personal l i b e r ty I and mutual belonging? an(j forgiven She had found a p a t r i a r c h y who had welcomed her. She had a chance to be whole, to fuse her i n d i v i d u a l i t y with the group. Even as I was now being given a chance to be whole. My father had forgiven me. If I was to be whole, I must also forgive him. But I must not hide myself, even knowing he might not approve of the person I had become. He was my father and he thought he saw what was best for me. But once time and circumstance carves a characteristic, once God has placed His finger upon i t , the t r a it is indelible. It cannot be glued or p u t t i e d to smoothness. The cleft itself must be honed and sanded and refined u n t i l design appears and gratifies the senses, u n t i l the a e s t h e t i c becomes ethic, truth and kauty merged. If my f a t h e r was to t r u l y accept me, he must know that part of what he loved and accepted was the 'hussy' who - eve* after V P ^ of nnnfn^on and s e l f - r e p r i s a l - s t i l l must speak Remind and feelings. |
