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Show dance floor, caught the moment before she hits the ground, her skirt fluttering like so many birds. What would it mean if my parents were indeed this happy? Perhaps, later, years later, when my father is short with my mother, biting even, I could remember the decades of happiness that preceded the meanness and do some kind of calculus that excuses him. Maybe such happiness would negate the kittens and pigs. Mostly, though, I think I want the fairy tale for the same reason my father watched Westerns. We prefer that version. To admit that the good guy might not be good, the princess not so very happy ever after, invites the kind of messiness where fathers might both save and hurt, grandfathers protect and abuse, and a daughter grows up confusing anger with love. 32 |
