“How do I make all this pain stop? It’s too much, and too unfair, for one person alone.”

It’s four in the morning, and she keeps me awake because she needs to lay her soul bare, spread it out, and look at it from the outside. She doesn’t do it often, but when she does I can’t breathe—because I know if she doesn’t find a way to make peace with it, she’ll get sick. By now, everyone knows. That’s just how it is.

She tries to accept the fate of the one she loves beyond measure, after having fled from her — the one who loved her fiercely — while every single day she clawed at life for more than it was willing to give, in a mad scramble for redemption from what she felt was an unbearable injustice. And she hated (hates? even now, lost in confusion, does she still fight? is she still herself?) injustice above all things.

To fight the wrong of having been born into a life she didn’t accept, didn’t believe she deserved, I saw her—through my child’s helpless, megalomaniac eyes—do everything a drowning person does, thrashing and dragging down even those trying to save her, in the frantic rush to breathe.

And when you can’t breathe, every act feels justified: not coming home to your children at night, hating those who blocked your path, even burning alive those who harmed you or humiliating those who begged for forgiveness. Believing that was justice. Believing justice — maybe mostly pride and vengeance and the urge to teach others how life should be lived — came before your own serenity, and your children’s too.

“How do I stop the pain? How do I grow back the skin? Walking away is just a patch, never enough—never enough. Her pain is inside me. Not only hers, but everyone’s. The tortured children, the powerless hungry old ones scavenging at the market’s end, the parents who lose a child. All the pain of the world. If I pretend not to feel it, it digs deeper, silently, until it kills me.

I need to find a way to stop feeling it all, without losing my mind the way she has. Or I’ll lose my sight because I refuse to see, my reason because I refuse to hear. There’s too much pain in this world. Maybe if I can gather fragments of joy, piece them together, expand them, I’ll be able to live without tearing off anxiety every day. To live immersed in the present, only the present.”

The cats scratch at the middle door to get in. I tell her we’ve just crossed the solstice, and from now on the days will begin to shorten. That I find it poetic.

“Why? It’s awful! You’re not normal.”

“It’s not awful. It mirrors life. Makes it bearable. It lets you feel part of the whole, gives meaning to aging, makes it possible. Don’t you ever think about that?”

“About what? Growing old? God, no! Not even dead.”

“Well, it puts you in a bad place. Your mother couldn’t age, and now she’s locked in an unreachable limbo.
Anyway, it’s inevitable. In the coming days there’ll be less and less light. That’s what summer is. A slow drift into darkness. It breaks your heart with its beauty.”

My eyes are closing, but lying down now would feel wrong, too selfish even for me. I hold her for a long time, wipe her tears, and tell her I’ll make chamomile tea. I dive into the net, swimming through PDFs about angels hidden in recurring numbers, people painting with red wine, and a brilliant blog about fermentation—which I bookmark, promising myself I’ll read tomorrow when I steal a moment.

How could anyone not love all this abundance? It’s my dream made real: invisible, in an infinite world of people talking to each other in every possible language, about everything that exists. An endless library of Babel.

It’s hard to step away from all this beauty, but I pour the tea, turn off the light, herd the cats out, and go back to her. She’s already slipping into an uneasy sleep. Tonight again she’ll wander through unknown places, lost in labyrinthine houses filling with water, rising higher and higher. She’s written something on a folded scrap of paper left on the nightstand. Of course, I read it.

You are like a setting sun
Confused, indignant, still resisting
Bursts of sudden light tear the horizon
Coloring the sea
Your beauty, your strength
Still shining through
The reflection of your energy floods me
It moves me, and I admire you
As I always have admired you
And loved you
And how you’ve torn my heart
Darkness falls
And there’s nothing you can do
Until tomorrow

I don’t understand those who avoid complications. I want them. Complications are the waiting room of truth.