It Makes Me Violent

“I know it puts you in a hell of a position, but I was hoping
that you’d stay and – kind of go through this with me, and – not
involve anybody else. I feel as though I couldn’t stand it. I don’t
want anybody else looking at me, I don’t want them feeling sorry
for me, I couldn’t stand their eyes. Every time I think about what
people would say and the way they’d look at me, it makes me want
to hit them. I mean it. It makes me violent. I have this terrible
picture of people trying to be sympathetic and me telling them to
go straight to hell. Or worse. Really trying to hurt them.”
Now she wouldn’t look up; she studied her hands, palms
and then backs, as if she hadn’t seen them before, and wouldn’t
meet my eyes.
“A hell of a thing to find out about yourself,” she said after a
minute.
“Are you going to do that to me?”
“I don’t think so. No. You’re the exception for some reason,
you always have been.”
Perhaps this was a privilege I didn’t want, but it was years
too late to think that. Hadn’t I come here without telling anyone
either – wasn’t I just as much a concealer of our private world? But
I hadn’t known I was bargaining for this. If the doctor came and
said to me, “You’re the next of kin, we must make a decision,” did
she really want to leave that to me?
“My mom’s going to be furious at both of us if we do this.”
“I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
Yes. No doubt she did. But my mother was already angry at
me, and if I didn’t tell her wouldn’t it be betrayal, telling her once
and for all that my loyalty was to Augusta? I could imagine her
voice when she would say the words, Why didn’t you tell me? And
all I would be able to answer would be, Augusta asked me not to. I
could do the whole tirade myself: You are my daughter and you let
me sit up here not knowing while my sister went through a major
operation – how do you know what could have gone wrong? She
could have died, and you didn’t even tell me – what do you think I
am? A casual acquaintance? Did you ever think at all about how I
might feel?
Yes, Mom, I did.
“I’m sorry to do this to you,” Augusta said.
“Oh, don’t,” I said, “don’t apologize, I can’t stand it,” and I
knew that meant I had agreed, that I was going to have to pay for
this somehow later on and that I was saying yes to nothing I was