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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 114 water. He coughed up the banana he'd inhaled, and Cleo screamed her tiny life that once and for all had fought to stay. Patrick tried to give Cleo to Angie, but Angie would sooner cut her arm off than take that child from him. "Hold her," she told Patrick, "She wants you." Angie had feared what would happen if Patrick were suddenly gone. Would Cleo be destroyed? Had she come to think of Patrick as her father? That fear had passed, though. It was obvious Cleo thought of Patrick as hers, father or otherwise. A new fear descended on Angie: did Cleo know that Angie was her mother, that Angie was connected to her more than Patrick? Angie didn't think so, and was devastated. She realized it was for this reason she had developed the habit of pinching Cleo while she slept: Angie was convinced that if Cleo died, she would not feel her baby's last breath. Angie looked out the window from where she sat on the couch and imagined the mountains she could not see. The hours in the middle of the day while Cleo napped were lonely. The unusual quiet was often cruel to Angie and she invented daydreams to amuse herself in which Cleo despised her and accused Angie of being the reason she had no father. Angie would imagine that in years to come Cleo would denounce her, find her long lost father, and forge a loving relationship. She took a certain masochistic pleasure in these daydreams, and found in them an escape that is the primary function of fantasy. Angie had made Patrick promise last night not to tell anyone Cleo almost choked to death. She especially didn't want her parents to know. Angie felt responsible, like she should have known what to do But instead of acting, she'd just stared like an idiot. |