What binds families together is the bond of mutual torment

(Part I, The Wife's Perspective)

I killed myself. I know. I should say I tried to kill myself. But it's not exact. In fact, I'm already dead. You think I'm doing this to force you back? So under these circumstances, you're wary of me showing up at the hospital, even for a few minutes? Are you afraid of getting stuck in a rut that you can't escape? Or are you afraid to face the consequences of what you've done?

Oh, my gosh! You are really a weak, shallow man, no opinion, no sense of conscience, these twelve years I have been wrong about you. You are indifferent to other people and don't care what changes or developments they have. You just use them. You just care about people who raise you up. You only deal with people who acknowledge you and are worthy of your status, on the condition that they flatter you and please you so that you don't see your emptiness inside and your name. You're afraid to face your truth. And every time that doesn't work, every time people around you pull away and start growing, you destroy them and move on to new goals. You're never at peace. You always want to be the center of attention. You say it's because you want to be the protagonist of this era, and you call this craze participation. Oh, you were involved. You were responsible. You were so responsible.

In fact, you are a passive person. Most of your thoughts and words are taken from books, which are approved by most people, and you are just reading from a book. You're always following the crowd, you're just pandering to the real influencers, and you wish you could be one of them. You can't be yourself, you've never been yourself, you don't know what it is to be yourself. You just want to take the opportunities that come your way. When the opportunity to be a university teaching assistant comes up in Rome, you start as a teaching assistant. You meet the student movement, you dabble in politics. Your mother died, you lost the person you depended on the most, and I was your girlfriend, so you married me. You and I had a baby because you felt the need to be a father as well as a husband, as we all do. You happen to meet a nice girl, and in the name of sexual liberation and family overthrow, you become her lover. You will always be like this. You will never be what you want to be. You will just be a happy-go-lucky person.

For three years, during this terrible, torturous time, I tried to help you. I think about it day and night, and I hope you do the same, and you don't even know it. You didn't listen to me, and I'm almost sure you didn't read my letter. I admit that family can be suffocating, and that each person's role can kill them, so I try my best to get to the heart of the matter, to think things through. I've changed, totally changed, I'm improving, and you don't even notice it, and even if you do, you're bored. You will slip away, you with half a word, a look, a movement to destroy all my efforts. Honey, suicide is proof of that. You killed me a long time ago, not to destroy me as a wife, but to kill me as a person -- a person who was most sincere and wanted to live. But then I survived, and my ID showed that I was still alive, which was not a good thing for me, but it was important for the two children. In such difficult times, your absence, your indifference, proves to me that if I die, you will go on your way without looking back.

Now let me answer your question.

In the last two years, I have been working all the time. I have done a variety of jobs, sometimes for the company, sometimes for private people, and usually I don't make a lot of money. It was not until recently that I found a steady job.

Our divorce is a fact, and your signed support statement confirms it, so I don't think there's anything that needs to be resolved right now.

I have never asked you for money in my name or in the name of my two children, and I have always received your remittances on time. In view of my financial condition, I will try to economize and not use the money you sent. I saved the money and left it to Sandro and Anna.

The TV has been out of order for a long time and I haven't paid my cable bill.

You wrote that you wanted to re-establish a relationship with your two children. It's been four years, and you think you're gonna be okay with this? But then again, what is there to face? When you didn't want to take responsibility, when you walked out, abandoned them, ruined our lives, why didn't you bring up your need? Anyway, I read your wish to my two children, and they decided to meet you. In case you forget, I remind you that Sandro is now thirteen and Anna is nine. They are suffering from displacement and fear. Please don't make it harder for them.

(Part Two, from the husband's perspective)

'Sandro is thirteen now and Anna is nine.' Wanda's sarcastic warning prepared me, knowing that the child I would see would be different from what I remembered. Not only were they not the children they used to be, I felt like they were two strangers, and I was a stranger to them.

I took them to a cafe and ordered lots of delicious things: snacks and drinks. I tried to talk to them, and I ended up talking about myself most of the time. They never called me dad, and I kept calling them names out of guilt. I put them through a lot because I was afraid they would mention the "earthquake" I had brought to their lives, and I talked a little inappropriately about how I was a well-respected person with a good temper and a great job that they could be proud of at school and show off in front of their classmates. The attention in their eyes, the occasional smile, even Anna's laugh, made me think they had forgotten the past. I want them to ask me questions, like, what do I have to do to grow up to be like me. But Sandro didn't say anything. Anna pointed to her brother and asked me:

"Did you teach him to tie his shoes?"

I was embarrassed. Did I teach Sandro how to tie his shoes? I don't remember it anymore. But then I don't know why, the strangeness suddenly stopped surprising me. Maybe our previous relationship contained this feeling. I had been an inattentive father when I lived with them, and I was getting to know them again without thinking about my previous relationship. I focused desperately on them in order to make a good impression. I wanted to remember every detail about them -- as if I were looking at strangers -- and I wanted to remember exactly what they looked like in a few minutes. I said, yes, I taught him. I taught Sandro a lot of things, probably including tying his shoelaces. I know I'm lying. Then Sandro could not help saying, No one ties his shoes like me. Then Anna said to me: He ties his shoes in a funny way. I can't believe you tie your shoes like that.

I forced a smile and tried to be as amiable as possible. I'm pretty sure I tie my shoes like most people do. The two kids have totally different attitudes toward Sandro's way of tying his shoes. I think he learned it from somewhere else when he was young. I thought with some apprehension that he wanted to maintain a real relationship with me by tying his shoes the same way, but now he might find out he was wrong. What should I do?

Anna stared into my eyes. She looked excited and happy, but the slight twitching of her mouth gave away her true state of mind. She said, "Let's see how you tie your shoes." I realized that even though she was making fun of her brother, she was also using the shoelace thing to prove that I wasn't just some guy, that they were going to give me fatherhood, that we had a deeper relationship. I asked: Do you want to see it now? Am I supposed to show you how to tie my shoes here? Yes, Anna said. I untied one shoe and retied it my way. I straightened the ends of my shoelace, crossed them into a knot, and strained them tightly. I looked at them and they were both staring at my shoes with their mouths half open. Nervously, I tied a loop at each end of my shoelace. I paused, unsure. Sandro's eyes showed a faint smile; Anna muttered: Then what? I crossed the loops over my fingers, threaded one end through my fingers, and pulled it tight. That's it, I said to Sandro, is that how you tie your shoes? Yes, he replied. Anna said: Yes, you two are the only ones tying your shoes like this. I want to learn.

We spent the rest of the day untying Sandro's and mine, until finally Anna knelt in front of us and tied both pairs of shoes our way. 'It's a funny way to tie your shoes,' she says from time to time. Finally Sandro asked me: When did you teach me? Determined to be honest, I said: Maybe I didn't teach it to you. You watched me learn it. From then on, I felt very guilty, which I had never felt before.

Wanda wrote to me later, saying in a snarky tone that the children felt that I had been as quick to come and go as before, and that I had disappointed them. She didn't mention the shoelaces, and Sandro and Anna certainly didn't tell their mother about them. But I do know that the act of untying and tying our shoelaces has brought us closer together, or maybe we've never been closer since they were born. I hope that's the way it is, or at least I think it is. In that cafe, closer to my two children than I had ever been, I felt -- and every cell of my body felt -- the responsibility I should have had for them, and the hurt my desertion had caused them. There were days and nights of tears for a while, and I was careful not to let Lydia see them. So I COULDN'T believe THEM when THEY told WANDA THAT I had let them down. But I was sure Wanda wouldn't lie -- she never did -- and I thought maybe Sandro and Anna had lied. They tell lies out of all good intentions. They WERE AFRAID THAT IF THEY TOLD THEIR MOTHER THAT THEY WERE HAPPY TO SEE ME, SHE WOULD BE SAD, AND THEY WERE SO AFRAID THAT THEIR MOTHER WOULD BE SAD THAT THEY CHOSE NOT TO SAY THAT THEY WERE HAPPY TO SEE ME SO THAT WANDA WOULD NOT BE SAD.

It was during that time that I remembered my mother, the time she slit her wrists with my father's razor. Blood was running on the floor, and we children held her back so she wouldn't cut her other wrist. The kind of emotional barrier that I had built up as a child and teenager, and that I would normally act insensitive, suddenly collapsed. The pain that my mother had suffered so many years ago, her unhappiness, her anger, sometimes her hatred of her rival husband, came to me unfiltered, with an impact that had never been felt before. Where the barrier collapsed, Wanda's pain came to me. Not only did I feel for the first time that I had destroyed her, but I was acutely aware that I had been so careful to avoid the brunt of the pain, and that the two children had completely absorbed it and even spread it, and that was something I couldn't bear. Yet they still say something about the way I tie my shoes. Do you tie your shoes like me? You're so funny. Can you teach me?

(Part 3, A Child's Perspective)

I replied angrily that the only lesson I had learned from my parents was not to have children. Then I pretended to calm down and said with a choked voice: No matter what, you will hurt the child, so just wait for the child to bring you more damage. I knew he didn't like such extreme words, and I said them on purpose. He irresponsibly gave birth to four children in this world, and now let's see how he responds.

He bragged about himself and spoke eloquently as usual. He was certainly convinced that he was on the right track: having multiple wives, fathering multiple children, and dividing his emotional and sexual lives into several compartments. Roles and identities are confused. In a word, the traditional concept of husband and wife has been overturned: monogamy does not exist, a man can love many women, can love many children. I, he said, with his usual sweet arrogance, would take care of the children so that they would have everything. I would be both father and mother.

I tried not to contradict him and let him show off his avant-garde open-mindedness. I try not to be influenced by him, but he's such a pain in the ass. Then I suddenly said carelessly, and he never really get rid of those bad experience in childhood, his mother passed to our pain to a few children: man into a woman, a woman into a man, father become a mother, mother to dad, domestic role plays, all of this is secret, you're still before the boy is full of horror. The more I talked, the angrier I got, a rage I normally keep bottled up deep inside. I said, word for word, that I was in favor of outlawing childbirth, outlawing pregnancy and childbirth, absolutely outlawing it. I even wanted to erase the history of women giving birth, to erase all memories of it, and that sex organs should only be used for peeing and sex. I growled at him -- I don't know if even sex is worth it. We quarrelled loudly -- Rabes ran away -- and exchanged words. He defended his position with platitudes: cuddling a loved one late at night eases anxiety; Love is more useful than faith in God, like a prayer, to avoid the risk of death; Having a baby relieves anxiety. Ah! Children can really bring a lot of joy and sweetness, and it's gratifying to see how they grow. You discover that you are one of an infinite number of generations, that you connect the previous generation to the next, that this is the only way to be immortal, and so on.

I listened to him. What he said sounded like a charity sermon, but it was really meant to hurt me. He wants me to be jealous of him because they bring him so much joy. He wants me to regret not having children. He wants me to be miserable. You -- he stressed -- don't have children, and you can't understand what it's like, so you say things like that. Indeed, I do not understand -- I am thoroughly infuriated -- I do not understand that you leave seeds everywhere, that women who are in heat like mares, who are eager to have children because it is their biological instinct. The biological instinct -- what a tasteless expression, time passing silently, I never felt the call of this biological instinct, so much the better. It was unimaginable that I would give birth crying, be anesthetized and disembowelled, then wake up with nausea, facing depression and fear that I would never get rid of the baby.

Ah, well, live for the children. You gave birth to them anyway - paste and copy - and you have to take him with you no matter what happens. You have a great opportunity to work abroad, or you're going to work day and night towards a goal you're looking forward to, or you want to spend all your time with a man: but you can't do anything, and the kids are there to remind you that you can't do these things. They need you. They cling to you like vicious, cruel little snakes. You try your best to please them, but you always do too little. They want you for themselves, and the more anxious you are, the more they try to make things harder for you. Not only do you not belong to yourself -- what a silly, cliched slogan -- you can't be someone else entirely. You belong to them, of course. So -- I shouted -- to have a baby is to give up yourself. Look at you. You think about where you really are. Now, you run to Provence to find Colleen, return the baby to her, and then you go to see Carla's daughter, and then you go to see Gina's son. Oh, what a father. Oh, what a lover. But are you happy? Are they happy that you're here and gone?

I vaguely remember when Dad used to visit us on weekends. I don't remember exactly what it was like, but when I think about those moments, it's unbearable. It's really hard. It's definitely true, and it never goes away. I want my own dad, I want to take him away from mom and you, but he doesn't belong to any of us, he shows up at home, but really doesn't care about us, he gives up on you and me and Mom. It soon became clear to me that he was right. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. He thinks Mom is a wet blanket who has no fun in life, and so do you and I. He's not wrong. We are. It's a bummer. It's a bummer. His real mistake was that he could not cut us off completely. His mistake was that, having hurt someone deeply, put them on the verge of death, or completely destroyed them, you should not go back. You must do one thing for one, you must follow through, and you must not do evil by halves. But that's not who he is at all. He's a yes-man. He felt that he was right and that he could hold out for a while while those around him supported him. Then the pattern changed, the waves and turbulence subsided, the people around him were no longer so supportive, and he repented and retreated.

He came back and put himself at his mother's disposal. Mother thought: let's see what your heart is, I do not believe you, I will not believe you, I do not believe that you are for me and the child back; I'm not gonna believe you, because I know exactly what this decision is gonna cost you. Because I will test you every minute, every minute. I will test your patience and determination in front of your children, to show them what kind of person you are. Do you say yes or no: are you willing to give your whole life to us, as I have given to you, and will you always put the three of us first? This is not about them loving us, Sandro, and this is not about being a family. Our parents ruined us. They are embedded in our minds, and no matter what we say or do, we must continue to conform to them.

I was so stupid, and that's when I burst into tears. Ah, yes, I bawled, crying like an idiot for no reason. I was angry with myself for being vulnerable, and my brother knew how to take advantage of that, but he didn't. My monologue seemed to upset him, and he was trying to calm me down. I choked back sobs and wiped away tears in a plaintive voice as I complained that no one loved me, not even mom and dad. I said, they never loved me. Brother said, you have to be grateful, because they brought you into this world. Thanksgiving? I smiled and shouted: Our parents should compensate us. They hurt our feelings, they ruined our brains. Am I wrong? I blew my nose, patted the sofa and whispered, Rabes, come here.

Let me surprise is: the cat jumped, obediently lie down next to me.