UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☀☀☀The Price

...Then the Doctor continued:

"We, three men, ruined your life. Your father because he wanted to act like a young man and enjoy his life with his new young wife. He told me so himself. I know it is not good to talk behind a dead person, but I must take this load, this poisonous knot of my stomach. He said that he was only ashamed of you, that he needed to do something about it. Then it was Mansour; he realized he made a mistake, that Jalal's promises to him was his promises not yours. So he found some one else for himself when he was still married to you, when you were sick and pregnant." He stopped talking at this point, wiped his forehead and dropped his head on his chest.

"What about you? You said we, three men!" Neda finally broke her silence.

"I guess I made everything possible and easy for them. It was just like yesterday that three of us were sitting in this office and talking about you and your baby and drinking vodka and smoking." He began crying again. Neda did not rush him. She was like a detective that had stumbled upon solving an unsolved mystery. She knew that she was finally hearing the long awaited secret. She would give the old doctor all the time he needed to tell her the story. She would not leave that office until she knew everything.

After again the ceremony of taking off his glasses, wiping the tears, and blowing up his nose, the old man said:

"They paid me. Actually your father paid me. Mansour had no money. Your father gave a lot of money to alter everything when your baby was born, from the name of the mother, to making your baby older since Mitra was already four months pregnant. They bought me. I took the money. I ruined your life. Now I'm paying the price. That knot I told you, that poisonous knot , it's Pancreas Cancer, one of the worst. I can't take it anymore. I am certain I end my life before it ends in shame and pain. Yes, I did it..."

Neda stood up, shaking all over, yet managed to walk around the desk. She hugged the old, crying doctor. She was finally able to cry, too.

"If it wasn't you, they would find some other doctor. I know my father could be persuasive!"

The doctor stood up. She never knew how frail he had gotten. She stayed in his bosom for a while and then all of a sudden started laughing:

"So I am going through menopause at thirty seven. Think of it that I am special in every way!"

The doctor laughed, too.

"Neda, you got to take care of yourself. The stress of all these years in my opinion is the cause of this. I'm going to give you some vitamins to take home with you. Promise me to take them. Promise me to take care of yourself."

So that day, the old doctor faced what he was frightened to face for eighteen years. The way Neda had lived her life showed to others that she was not bothered by it. But now he knew that her entire life was affected so drastically because of it. She just had not talked to anyone about it.

The only one person, who knew some what of Neda's distressful life was her friend, Kasra; and that was because he was with her most of the time. The last thing the doctor said before Neda left, was:

"I hope you believe me. I've been suffering all these years for what I've done. I've done searches of my own, too, to find Mansour and his family. But it sounds as though they just have disappeared from earth. But now I know that your agony has been the greater than anyone else!"

"Tell me one more thing. I knew that my father bought you since Mansour had no money. Who was it that made the final decision; was it my father or Mansour, or both? I need to know. I don't think it matters any more. But I must know for my own sanity!"

"I can't talk behind a dead man!"

"That is enough for me. We've been talking behind him for a long time now..."

That was enough and satisfactory answer for Neda to know. "I can't talk behind a dead man!" So it was her father who had planned everything. She wanted to hate her dead father but she could not. The doctor suggested her to see a psychiatrist.

"What are you talking about? How can anyone help me, to unravel the eighteen years of absolute horror and condemning myself? Tell me how! Everyone thinks that I am an unfeeling, vain woman who is only after fame! Nobody knows that I am unfeeling and vain because of my fame!"

After Neda was done with two weeks of check up and finding out about her body and soul, she was again a changed woman. She continued with her work, her art, as her brother called it; she went on with her life, her dog, cat, nephew, brother, Maryam, Kasra and her poetry as usual; but the light and energy were gone from her. They all had disappeared after the death of her father, and the conversation she had had with the old doctor. One day she heard, before reading it in the news paper, that the old doctor had taken his life by hanging himself in his home. She knew this would happen. The last time she saw him, she knew it by looking at him, seeing his crying, and the pain in his stomach. She considered him an Honorable man.

The inevitable end of everything suddenly had confronted her for the first time; even though it was not the first time she had this extreme unhappiness. She did go to the old doctor's funeral; but her reason was mostly was a chance meeting with Mansour.

The word "Menopause" had such an ugly impact on her that she did not pick up pen for weeks to write. The force that had challenged her this time was irresistible and not reversible. What was this compulsory urge she had for death? She not only did not know, she had never even considered doing something about it! She had dared not to contemplate it!

Her family and Kasra, the one who were seeing her almost in daily basis, were extremely worried for her. Why now? She had not told anyone, not even Maryam or her mother that she was gone through menopause.

☉

"Dear self, close the door, for I no more

Desire to say hello, goodbye, or ignore.

A little part of night is still intact.

A nocturnal song is echoed in abstract.

And Glow worm in its hidden place

Twinkles to me and a star in space.

The look of its burning, promising eyes,

Sparkles in this dark house of whys!"

☉

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-✎✎✎✎✎The Price

Summer came with vengeance and then it was fall again. The trees lost their leaves. The leaves that were deprived of their shimmering green sheen first loosened up from their stems and then they flew to the ground. There had been a point in Neda's life that all the varieties, all the charms, all the beauties of life were made of light and shade for her. Now nothing made her to see the light or the shade; nothing made her happy. Everyday was another day, every season was another season. Her unruly dreams continued. The thinking about her father and his action continued. She was bored, tired, and extremely successful.

As she was only three years away from her fortieth birthday, she kept saying to everyone that she was forty. Sohrab would tell her:

"Don't say that little sis. You are making Maryam and me older, too!"

But it was more than the constant dreams, nightmares, unhappiness that were affecting her. She had always had an irregular period, but nowadays, she would not get one for months on end. She had constant, horrific headaches. Her physical condition was influencing the flow of her poetry. She finally listened to Kasra and went to see the old doctor she had so much history with. He had not retired yet; even though his cancer was progressing. His logic was: " What am I going to do in the home?"

She was frightened should the old doctor tell her that she was pregnant, even though it was many months that she had not had any intimacy with Kasra. But she knew in her heart that she was not, and the doctor did not say anything about pregnancy. He gave her some advice and a warning that she had not done a check up for many years. So he did a top to bottom examination and observation from her body. He sent her for a lot of lab work. The laboratory was next door to his office. He even did a chest x ray from her lungs, since she smoked a lot. "You should quit smoking!" the old doctor smoked in his office; and he had cancer for certain. Neda laughed up this advice.

It took two weeks for the result of all the lab work, x ray, and every other tests that the doctor had ordered to return. He called Neda and asked her to go and see him. She had already had forgotten all about those tests; and was just tolerating the headaches.

"It's strange; but you're going through menopause." The doctor told her.

"It's not very often a woman your age..." At this point he stopped and looked at her with true, genuine concern: "You're thirty seven, right?"

Neda shrugged her shoulders. "To everyone else I am forty, to you, only because you're a doctor, yes, I'm thirty seven. Besides you know it; you brought me to this world yourself. I am one of your handiwork!"

"Okay, okay, for a thirty seven years old woman, this is very unusual to stop completely. That is the reason of all the headache. Do you know when did your mother stop?"

"No, but I think she was passed fifty and still getting her periods."

"So strange!"

Neda smiled.

"Everything about me is strange!" Even though she always liked to show the old doctor her distaste of what he had done by cooperating with her father and Mansour, and switching the real mother of Ariana, at this point she thought that she liked the old man. He was much older than her father. How much older, she did not know. She had already forgiven him. The doctor mistook her smile for the bitterness she had always shown towards him.

"You never forget that, do you?"

"How can I? No one, not even Sohrab knows of my true feelings, of my searches. I have had no life. Everyone thinks that I've broken all barriers, that I'm so famous, that I'm this and that; but I'm nothing. I'll change all of those to have a glimpse of my daughter. Have I forgiven you? I think so, I'm not sure. Look at you, you're old, much older than my father. I know you have cancer, you're very sick. You're pathetic! How can I not forgive you? But tell me why are still working?"

The old doctor removed his glasses from his eyes and wiped his tears and then blew his nose. Then he put his glasses back on the bridge of his nose, stretched his hands from his side of the desk, where he was sitting, to the side that Neda was and tried to touch her fingers. Neda stretched her hands and allowed him to hold her both hands. Tears were rushing down her face, too.

"Why am I still working? It is because of you that I'm still working!"

"What? Because of me! What do you mean?"

"You know that my wife passed on for many years now. If I don't work and stay home, all I'm going to do is to think back to what I've done to you; how I've separated a mother and a child. How there is no trace left to find them. How much I've searched myself to find them. I know of all your searching, too. If I don't work, I'll die at home. I think about you a lot and all the time. I think about how we three men ruined your life; each of us for our own reason..." He stopped talking and repeated the ceremony of wiping his eyes and blowing his nose. Neda sat motionless, this time with dry eyes, dry throat. She wanted to say something but she did not know what... A few minutes of silence.. Then the doctor continued:

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-✍✍✍ The Price

Success followed Neda after her father's death even though her style of writing changed completely. Her publisher mentioned that to her once.

"Why? You don't like my writing anymore! As I change, my writing changes, too. I am not the same person. How do you expect my writing to stay the same!"

Her publisher did not want to anger her. She had stayed fateful to his publishing company all these years. He had made huge amount of money because of sales of her books. She could have gone to any publisher, and in fact she continuously was getting offer from other publishers. Others wanted her with delight.

When she wrapped her shawl around herself, it seemed as though she was wrapping her cold soul that was there and sometimes was not there. Her terror had gone. She told Kasra one day about that feeling of anxiety that she had had all these years from her father. As unbelievable as it sounded, Kasra understood her.

"You know, Kasra, I felt like an injured animal with a mental wound and a cut throat all these years; now suddenly I find myself without any injury, cut, or bruise and everything around me is without horror. They all have vanished."

One night she had a strange dream. She saw Ariana in her dream. In the dream Ariana was only eight years old. Her eyes were flashing. She looked Neda straight in the eyes. Neda touched both her shoulders. Ariana's face was filled with grief. Her lips were trembling violently.

"Why mother?" She cried.

Neda sat on her bed, shaking. She had sweat all over her body, yet she felt cold. She had to sit up in that position for a while to make sure that she was not asleep anymore; however, she remembered her dream fully and clearly. She recalled what Mansour had told her at her father's funeral. "You chose your poetry over your child!" She thought: "Had he influenced Ariana against me?" But she conjured up that her daughter did not even know that she existed. May be that was for best that she did not know about her real mother, or the switching in the hospital and all the other schemes that went along with it to hide the identity of the woman who gave birth to Ariana.

Now after the death of her father, she had more dreams about her daughter; as though her father was an obstacle or barrier to her dreams when he was alive; and now there was no impediment , no obstruction. As though her father had raised his hands from grave to help her, to tell her that it was okay to dream. But the dreams about her daughter were cruel, unfair, and they all were condemning her. They were all about her action, not her father's or Mansour's actions. In those dreams, her daughter was always blaming her, judging her, questioning her, and at the end disapproving of her.

"Oh, God, how could I know your will...? Who could have helped me, warned me about this? I was just a kid myself! I didn't know. Nobody told me anything! Who should I have asked for help? They took me out of school and put a wedding gown on me! Why wasn't anyone there to tell me to give up a child would become the greatest torture in my life? Why didn't my mother, or aunt said something to me? They are mothers. They knew how it would make me to suffer for ever! Did they think that I wouldn't care, I wouldn't suffer? How childish of them! Why do I have to ask all these empty questions from myself? Why did I have to marry so young and specially to a man that neither of us understood each other? Are these dreams telling me that there is something so terribly wrong loving poetry?"

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☪☪☪☪ The Price

After a week of mourning, a few fights with mom and Sima, who had no respect for the dead man, and were using the situation to laugh and catch up with the old friends, Neda returned to her normal life; if there would be a normalcy in losing one's father, who betrayed her all her adult life, yet at the end, she realized the love, the bonding, which was rooted so deep from early beginning, strong and passionate, which she had unconsciously carried deep inside with her even the days that she had thought she could not tolerate the betrayal anymore. She had had a chance to follow Mansour to find out where he lived, who knew him and his family, and from there perhaps to find her daughter, but she had not. She tried to convince herself that her father's death was without violence. She thought:

"He was dying for so long. He was ready. He was sick mentally, and nobody knew, nobody did anything about it; because everything for him was provided and prepared for. No one gave him a chance to know that he had double personality."

Neda's eyes were brimming with tears, but they were not blinding tears. She left her father's home, looking through the tears at the beauty of that spring day, at the glory of the nature. the sweetness of the violets fragrances. How was it some thing so magical be so cruel? She wanted to know how her father looked beneath all these beauty, wrapped in a white cloth! She said to herself at random something only to hear something; but that was not what she wanted. The world that day looked so large, so open around her. The sky was so close at hand, as if a big load weighting it down, down, so close to earth that she could reach it, touch it. She thought she could float in that divine sky as if it was a body of water.

Kasra and Maryam though that Neda's responsibility now ended. Did that mean that she had nothing else to do? The father, she knew now, she loved so much, was gone. Her mother and Sima shared the house. No one knew how the old man's will was drafted. Did he even have one? If he did not have a will, that meant that his wealth would go to his children, mostly to Sohrab and very little to the wives!

One day mother called. They had found the will. Everyone again was called to the house. Her father had a lawyer, the same man that Neda had seen in the court when he had sued her for her money. The lawyer recognized Neda. But he was respectful to her. He looked at her with admiration. Neda did not know why! He was there along with the family to read the will. The scene looked something from movies. It was drafted and signed only a few months before his death; just about and around the time he had gotten sick; and at the time that he had lost in the court of law the law suit against his own daughter. She wished, if she knew that her father would be dead soon, that he had won. So he knew that he was dying; or he was angry because he had sued Neda and had lost. They all sat in the living room, some like vultures, others just out of respect. As usual tea was served and the lawyer began reading, after a few coughs, the will. Neda later remembered bits and pieces of the will, the way bearded lawyer read it:

"I with clear mind...give everything I have equally to my wife, Sima and my daughter, Mina...Mehri, my first wife should stay in the house as long as she lives... Sima can never sell the house as long as Mehri is alive." Neda thought a good reason for Sima to poison her mother. "For the information of law, so they don't think I'm forgetful, I admit that I have a son, named Sohrab, a daughter, named Neda, and a grandson, named Aria; but with clear mind... and willingly... under no pressure, I cut then off from obtaining any of my belongings... The reason for it is the way they have treated me." "Should this bitter announcement be in the will?" Neda asked herself. " They cut me off from their will and I cut them out from..."

Sohrab was outrageous, not because that he was not getting anything, but because his name was dragged into mud by his own father. The old man had practically called him and Neda unruly children. Bitter to the end! Neda and Maryam tried to calm him. Neda hugged him for a long time and then said, almost whispering:

"What did you expect my sweet brother?"

"I did not want his money; but I did not want him to drag us in the dirt either!"

"Forget it Sohrab. Leave your life!" That was the last thing she said in her childhood house before leaving.

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☤☤☤ The Price

Neda got up from the bed. She looked at it. It seemed to her that she had a fight. Normally she did not move much in bed; but that was not the cast the night before. She noticed that she had slept with her skirt and camisole on. They were so wrinkled that she knew she had to either go home and change or iron them. While debating what she would decide, she straightened the bed; put on her stockings and shoes on and went down stairs.

After a week of mourning, mostly pretentious, Neda noticed that the ones who suffered truly and did not pretend, were old man's three children. She thought that she needed to do something for her little sister, who by her estimation was only eight months younger that her own child, however, she needed to be soothed herself. "I think about it later."

The last time she had seen her father's house this crowded with rented chairs and tables, food, people coming and going, was her wedding. But then they had the cherry tree. Now it was only a stump with a pot of plant on it. The strange thing, the season was the same, spring, in fact end of April. Wasn't that month that her Ariana was born, too. Why was it that every major event in her family happened in spring? Was that a coincidence or happenstance ? On the last day of mourning, the seventh day, she saw Mansour, who had come by himself to show his last respect to the old man. They just came face to face with each other on the hall way of the first floor. Oh, how he had changed! He was bald at the top of his head, he had lots of gray at sides; but his eyes were still the same. She knew the end too well to begin again. He knew where it all had gone. She knew what it would all become. He stepped out of the way, so she could pass. None said anything until Neda was about to lose her chance to ask about her daughter.

All the strong, blinding, and baffling first effect of forceful and distinct surprise were over with her almost at once. Still she had enough to feel; a feeling that was nothing but agitation, painful and misery; and somewhat delight in the mix.

"Tell me about my child!" She almost forced him to stop.

He looked at this mature woman, who did not look anything like a girl he had to give her wine to have intimacy with. He stepped aside for her to pass by; and only said:

"You chose your poetry over your child! Let me go!" And he walked out.

☭

"When I lie down on the bed of dreams,

I hear the melancholy, yet mellow sound of a bell.

The dawning day, in my heart gleams.

The sound of awakening children knell.

They slowly and solely sing my sorrow-

A dire but harmonious verses of sad eyes.

Should my fire of life last till tomorrow-

I worship that fire which in my heart lies.

At night when skies are lit by stars

And I listen intensely to hear

The war of planets which has lefts scars

The fading music in my ears is so dear.

☭

Years of tension have come, years of stone had gone.

And strangely for those years I long.

And lying on the bed of dreams, I have none.

Neither tension, nor stone; what have I done wrong?"

☭

To Be continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☯☯☯☯ The Price

Everyone was expecting Neda. Everyone wanted to see the celebrity relative and the daughter of the dead man. Many were there not because, or may be because of the death of the old man; but they wanted to see the most famous poetess of their country. She wanted to be left alone. But she knew that peace would not come to her at least for another week.

Sohrab had spent all morning to arrange the burial. Since four in the morning that he had left Neda in the hospital, besides going home, showering and changing to appropriate suit for funeral, he had been busy to buy a burial ground in Behsht e Zahra Cemetery, to arrange all the legal matters; and to set time for that afternoon to bury their father. Sohrab thought that Neda had done enough. He did not think that his mother or Sima were capable of doing anything. Maryam after dropping Aria at school, accompanied him everywhere. Her husband needed him then, so she would be with him. She did not care that people at the house would ask about her. Except the extraordinary circumstance, in Muslim Religion, the dead should be buried in twenty four hours after his death.

This time Neda let her brother to take charge; and she let Maryam to take her under her charge. She was too tired, too disturbed, too frustrated by the people around her that would not leave her alone. Maryam told her:

"These people are here to eat and gossip for a whole week. They don't care for the old man. They're here to take a glimpse of you and even talk to you, and then go spread rumors about you. Let me take care of you. You're too weak now!"

The news of her spending eight days in hospital with her father spread like a wild fire. Maryam took care of her as she had always been ready to do so. Neda followed Maryam, holding her arm, and did not remember anything else.

That night after burial, and a few more nights after that she slept in father's home. She mostly did this for her mother and for her half sister's sake. In a way it was expected of her and Sohrab. But Sohrab, Maryam and their son went to their home every night.

Late that night, exhausted both emotionally and physically, she removed her shoes and stockings. She stretched herself in the middle of the high bed with all white sheet, cover, and everything, that reminded her of her father's face before they had thrown dirt on him. They had made the fourth room on the second floor, which its door had always been closed, into a guest room. She did not seen it before. She did not known about it. This was the room that was always used as storage room. She guessed that perhaps this idea of making it to a guest room was Sima's.

How sensuous it felt to sleep in a strange, original and quaint bed with its odor of sweet newness, which lingered about the sheets and the room!

When she woke up in the morning, she asked herself:

"How many hours have I slept?" Her whole mood was changed.

"Where am I?" She looked around herself and for a moment or two could not remember anything. She looked at the clock on the night stand. It was a little before five in the morning. She had slept but a few hours; but she felt fresh like someone who had slept a long, restful sleep.

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☘☘ The Price

It was said that at one point earth was flat. Neda guessed that earth would stay flat in the grave for her father, with all the good or bad that he had done in his life. When she was a little girl, she hated the days that her father was not in a good mood; the days that Sohrab and she hid from him; and she loved his good days when he always wanted her at his side, compared her to himself for the love of poetry, and encouraged her to write. Those occasions, he was in his best attribute. She did not know then about double personality; but she knew it now. She realized suddenly that all the things that happened to her and all in the family were perhaps the result of her father's double personality. The man had no fault of his own. She recalled the last thing the old doctor told her in the hospital before she finally left:

"Don't be hard on the dead man! He had something wrong with his head!" She recalled that she had heard the same exact thing from the doctor a while back when she had visited him to quiz him about her daughter and how they had been able to change legal documents. That was the time that she studied about these kinds of psychological diseases. In fact she bought a book and read it twice from cover to cover.

The thought about her father that perhaps had some kind of illness in his head made her finally cry. She thought about the moments of his life, when he was young, when he was a boy, when he had become a father for the first time. Where was his boyhood house? Neda never knew her grandparents from father side that well. Somehow they were not connected or important like her grandparents from mother side! And then one day she heard that they were no more. She remembered that it was a small funeral; only father and mother went. They said that they both died in a car accident. However as young as she was, she had eavesdropped and heard the words suicide, murder. After their funeral, no body ever talked about them. Neda was only eleven years old.

Did her father know that he was dead? Did he know that he would be buried with a crushing retrospect? Would it be the customary funeral of days and days of mourning? She did not want that kind of noise to touch her!

There was a time that she loved God with passion. In her present situation, she feared him with the same kind of emotion.

She was still in the shower, letting the warm water flow over her aching body, and thinking all these. She heard Kasra knocking the door:

"Are you okay in there? It's been a long time you've been there!"

Neda, almost angry of being disturbed, said: "yes, I'm fine. What do you want?"

"You need to get ready and go. They keep calling for you. They all are expecting you to be there."

She closed the water. Duty before emotion, she thought to herself, before stepping out of the shower.

"What a long shower!" Kasra said while wrapping a big and warm towel around her. She let him to dry her out, to dry her long hair, one of her most beautiful attribute, with a smaller towel. She was too tired and too achy to do anything for herself. Kasra had all she needed laid on the bed for her. He had already done the bed from her short, disturbed, and disheartened sleep. There were a two piece, black skirt suit, a black shell so she could wear it under the jacket, black stockings and even a black, chiffon scarf were laid on the bed.

"Oh, Kasra, what would I do without you?" She murmured, but he heard it.

"Look at you, eight days without sleeping, perhaps eating junk! Look at you, you look so tired, so thin!" He was kind and genuine as always.

She was tired, so much so that she did not remember ever to be that way. By the time she got to her father's home, it was one o'clock in the afternoon. Everybody was there. In fact more than the immediate family, aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends... She had not seen them for many years.

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen- The Price

The apocalyptic nature Neda's childhood had been, appeared to be reborn. Father's death had somehow taken the animation, the glow, the meaning of everything. Her life in no way or shape had changed; however, her existence was wearisome, like an old dress that no longer worth wearing it but one kept on holding on it. Her face at that moment was an utter effigy of confusion which she never thought of hiding it.

She bit her lips convulsively, trying to hold back and to even hide from herself, as she would have done it from others the harsh reality, the emotion, the tearing. Now her eyes were brimming with tears.

She let her mind meander to her birth home, to her girlhood; and she tried to find out which spring was different than others in her life! Then she realized that she, herself, her present self was in every way different than her other- self in other springs.

She went home. It was seven in the morning. Kasra questioned her with his eyes. She looked thin, dirty. Her hair was oily. She had the type of hair that needed to be shampooed everyday. Now it was eight days without changing clothes, or bathing, or shampooing her hair, eating proper or enough food, and smoking three times more than normal time, if there would be any normalcy for her at all and ever! She did not speak a word to Kasra. She just went to her room and closed the door. She had not been home but once and only for ten minutes for the last eight days.

She lay on her bed with all her clothes on, shoes and everything. She lay at the top of the bedspread. She brought her knees to her chest. She slept but a few hours. Those hours were troubled and agitated; filled with disturbing dreams. Those dreams felt intangible and escaped her. They left very little impression. She was awakened by something unattainable. But her awakening felt like a renewal and it was done by Kasra, who was trying to make her to wake up. The family needed her for the funeral arrangement and some other things that Kasra was saying and she was not hearing. She finally sat up. The troubled and short sleep was over.

"Find me some black outfit." She told Kasra and then started shedding her clothes off in front of him until she had nothing on. She walked into the shower.Too many emotions had swept through her in that short, flustered sleep, she thought standing under the warm water. She did not comprehend most of it. She told herself: "What am I thinking? I'm just thinking aloud!" She said it to herself. Then she said again:

"Almost all my life, I've thought about father and Ariana. I've spent the long intervening period with people I didn't know, in a society of publishing and promoting and media that I've faintly cared for and hated ; and in a condition I never completely understood. I guess all these have gone by like the memory of my youth..."

To Be continued