I

I don't want to talk about it.
I don't want to tell this story.

But what choice do I have ?

II

It all ended the way it was supposed to end, the way it had to end. Inevitably, it did.
I am a mere observer, or at least that's what I've been telling myself for years, ever since it became clear that the road Tony Micelli and Angela Bower were travelling was leading straight to damnation.
Harsh words from someone who has been part of their life for such a long time. Devastating, yes. But true nevertheless. And truth is something which gains importance as life progresses. Not so much when you're a kid or a teenager; at fifteen nothing is less important than the truth.
Now, at thirty-five, nothing else matters.
It is impossible to arrange all those complex puzzle parts into something resembling coherent life without adhering to this mantra. It is all too easy to give in to the fallacious temptations of self-deception, negating the writing on the wall, stubbornly refusing to accept the obvious.
Until you have to pay the price. The receipt will say "Game Over".

III

The first time I saw Angela Bower was in 1984, a quarter of a century ago. I was something like ten or eleven years old, and all I knew was that this woman held the key to my and my father's future in her hand. If she had said "Njet", we would have been out on the street, homeless and all. Upon meeting her I decided I didn't like her, and I'm afraid it showed. I tried to make nice at Dad's request, exaggerating it to a terrifying degree, and felt appalled at my own mendacity.
Life goes on. You grow up. Perspectives change. Intellect conquers emotion. Or at least that's how it should be. Not the easiest thing to do for a girl, and an Italian girl at that.
I tried. Failed. His name was Hank. Period. Thanks for listening.
As far as Dad and Angela are concerned, they were subtly courting each other for years, and one of the reasons they didn't immediately give in to their very obvious feelings towards each other is yours truly. I asked Dad, a long time ago, why he had kept his feelings for Angela on the inside for so long. He answered that there were kids around, that there were previous marriages, bla bla bla.
The one and only reason that would have had value he didn't mention. Their boss-employee relationship. Dad never realised that, and neither did Angela. I did. Eventually.
But when I did, when intellect had conquered emotion, it was already too late. When they started dating, I was too busy messing up my own life and as things gained velocity I, being still too young and still way too idealistic, saw in the apparent fulfilment of their love story a blueprint for what I wanted my own life to look like.
They were perfect for one another.
How easily that statement comes out of my mind...incredible. And how stale it appears from this side of history.
The remains of the day.

IV

Just the other day Jonathan came home from work and found me on the couch, staring at the ceiling but not really seeing it. I have been contemplating at lot lately. Insanely, I offered to move out. There is an apartment for rent across the hall, and if there is but a chance of my presence becoming a liability for Jonathan, whom I have to thank for everything, then I will get out of his face. Even if it's just ten dysfunctional feet away.
And what's ten feet in this great city of New York, which has been our home ever since we left the suburbs together, because we were able to see so clearly what Dad and Angela stubbornly refused to accept ?
I remember Jonathan quipping he and I were going to spend our lives on an island when we broke the news to Fairfield's foremost non-couple. Well, Manhattan isn't exactly the Seychelles, but geographically it was correct. That, however, we only told them after they had threatened to hang themselves from a beam. So to speak.
Jonathan and I had planned to talk with Dad and Angela about our misgivings what with their dysfunctional relationship and all, but we dropped that. Confrontation wasn't to our liking, we wanted to get out of there ASAP and live and let live. We had reached a certain age, Jonathan was well into his college education, I had just gotten my first job after graduating, and the City was calling us. Neither of us was in a relationship, we had grown fond of each other's company and decided we could take an apartment together. We'd come a long way from the two kids who greeted each other scowling.
Fast forward: More than ten years later we're still living together, quite a dysfunctional non-couple ourselves. Some time ago, Jonathan came to visit me during lunchbreak at my place of work. My boss told me afterwards he had a shrewd suspicion Jonathan and I were more than friends but less than lovers. That man didn't win the Shamus of the Year Award for nothing.
Is the thing Jonathan and I have unnatural ? I couldn't care less. And what's unnatural in New York City ? Get real. Last week I met someone on 3rd Street who tried to sell me his well-used toothbrush. Regarding the fact he didn't have any teeth this simultaneously did and did not make sense.
I don't know why neither Jonathan nor I seem to be able to find the perfect relationship. Well, we are thirty-somethings and as such are idiots by default. What I think is more important, however, is the fact that Dad and Angela set a perfect example of how not to do it. We are afraid the same might happen to us, and still we keep trying.

What choice do we have ?

V

I heard the news the way news break these days. Through the grapevine of the twenty-first century called The Internet. It all happened at the other end of the continent, in Seattle.
I never really thought about it, because I didn't want to endanger my safe position as an innocent bystander, but in retrospect I would say Dad should have taken that job in Seattle without Angela having to force him. He never asked me about my opinion, mind you. That I left his life to pursue my own hurt him too much. La famiglia รจ tutto, as my mother always said, and as my father always unconditionally believed. We were like the Sopranos. Minus the contempt for federal law.
That Angela practically fired Dad's ass to make him see what's good for him must have been the straw that broke the camel's back. She didn't see the truth, I didn't see it, nobody saw it. Perhaps not even Dad himself saw it. But he knew. Deep down inside, he knew. That's why he did what he did, I'm sure of it.
He had lost everything. Losing was the story of his life. He gave so much and never won, just kept losing until everything was gone. He lost his wife, his career, then another career, his daughter, his faith, and eventually the woman he loved put him on a plane to the other end of the continent. That's when the story of Tony Micelli was over. He realised he'd had enough.
Angela took the news badly. She had to be hospitalised. Shock. Some cop from the Seattle PD called her and broke the news to her. Word has it, he used graphic language. And car crahes can be very graphic indeed. Poor Angela. She once fainted at the graphic description of a gallbladder, so what that cop had to tell her must have caused a system failure in no time.
Jonathan came back from the hospital, and for the first time in ages he yelled at me. I deserved it. I had snapped at him, who was worried for his mother's well-being, that she'll live. As opposed to my father.
Yelling. Doors slamming.
Two hours later we were crying in each other's arms. We both felt alive again. Suddenly human. So good to let emotion reign for a while when intellect is on lunch break.

VI

Responsibility. That's what Dad, successfully, tried to teach me. Admittedly, I learned from a veritable master of the craft. Side effect: I'm now searching my soul for the responsibility I bear for what happened. If, what, when, why...and eventually I find myself in front of an internal door, locked, but leading nowhere anyway. Still I'm desperately trying to open it, picking its lock that doesn't exist, beating on its surface that's neither solid nor liquid, screaming at the people who don't live on the other side.
An exercise in futility, a puzzle neither wit nor time have the skill to solve.
That's appropriate also for the root of all evil, Dad's and Angela's failed attempts at becoming a regular couple. Life is a gamble, Mona once told me, and there's always a chance you'll lose. Yes. And if it's a really, really unlucky day then the stakes happen to be so high that afterwards it's "Game Over".
Certainly, from the tenth floor of an apartment building on the Upper West Side with a view of the Park things never look as bleak as they otherwise would do. Particularly at sunrise, aka the here and now. I don't believe in destiny and don't buy from any of its associates. The world will keep on turning, life will go on, and tomorrow is another day.
Sorry. I just read "How To Become a Windbag in Thirty Days" cover to cover.
What hurts me the most is that it all doesn't hurt as much as I expected it would. I always knew Dad would be next, I used to cry very often about it when I was very young, but now that it actually happened I can count the times I cried in single digits. Strange. Perhaps that is because I knew something like this was bound to happen eventually, that playing the Damnation Game like Dad and Angela did could not be without its consequences.

VII

Dad told me once losing people does not warrant giving up believing in and loving other people. Wise words. I have always tried to cherish that. I did when I lost my dear maternal grandfather, I did when my husband disqualified himself from my life, I did when Dad and Angela broke up.
I'm doing it now. Because, just like Dad said, to stop loving others is to not really be alive anymore. Loving the memory of those who have left us for good keeps them alive. Again, wise words.
I'm doing it now, and I know intellectually and feel emotionally that he is here with me. The Italian version of Yin and Yang, so to speak. I am still not completely at peace with myself and with what transpired, but despite their intensity the nightmares have become more infrequent. That's a start. Every night when I feel that strange transition coming on from the realm of our world to the uncharted territory of dreams I hope to meet Dad there, making me feel like looking in the mirror, enjoying his company, his hand gestures, his energy, his honesty, hoping he will take me in his arms and say that it's okay. That he's proud of me and that he is still watching over me, because I'm his little girl and always will be his little girl, and that it's his job to protect me no matter what.
If he does say that I will tell him that I am proud to be his little girl. If he doesn't, I will tell him anyway.
I guess he will ask me why it wasn't right with him and Angela. Well, all I will be able to provide by way of an answer is my opinion: That it indeed was right, that they just played the game wrong.
But then again, can you play the Damnnation Game right ? Or is the consequence inevitable, the price you have to pay, just like Dr Faust had to pay ? Only that character's immortal soul was saved eventually, and I truly want to believe Dad enjoyed the same good fortune after his final bow.
They say nothing lasts forever, but I'd say a daughter's love comes pretty close to the definition of "forever".
In the dream I had last night I was standing under a rainbow that appeared to be solid. The sun began to melt it and from the red part of it molten drops fell into my open hand.
It was blood. Deep red blood.

When I woke up I could feel that my pillow was wet with tears.