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Show 4 natural intelligence, than most of the girls. But she was near the bottom of her class. Well, she could only do what she could do. But still it bothered her. To be getting D's on tests-even failing them- when a half hour of preparation would have earned an A. If she had not cared so much about school, if it had not meant so much, it would have been easier. In one way, though, being involved with the family, the children -there were six kids-was a good thing: it forced her into a present, daily life. There was not much time to dwell on herself. Her father and mother had died within six months of each other, from alcoholism, and in this loss, in her pain, was a great anger. She was confused because they were such failures in the eyes of the world, with the finality of death precluding any possibility of self-redemption in that quarter. But that-the failure-she could finally, she vaguely sensed, accept. Her real anger at them-it was totally irrational, she knew, but that didn't make it any less intense-was for leaving her. Within a few months of living at the house, however, of caring for the children, this anger began to gradually dissipate. To lessen, with its residue of pain submerging into her. She could not confront this pain directly. It was an open, a raw wound which would throb when she touched it with her mind. She could only forget it at times. And it was in this way that the family -the kids-helped. Her father had died in September and by Thanksgiving she began to lose weight, dropping below two hundred pounds for the first time |
