“I became everything my father wanted me to be. But, not at first. Not until he showed me what happened when I dared disappoint him.”
His eyes met hers for a brief second, the same pain she carried inside herself reflected back at her as if she were looking into a mirror. Dragging his gaze away, he explained, “When I was ten or eleven, I’m not sure of the exact age, my nanny gave me a birthday present. I cherished that present because it was something secret between the two of us, a bit of whimsy in a life where childhood fantasies and interests were not allowed to exist. My nanny felt sorry for me, I assume. She was a silent witness to the hours of rigorous study I had to complete. From the minute I was conceived, I was shouldered with the responsibility of carrying on my father’s legacy in business, and there was no room for idle time. Math, literature, foreign language, economics and the like: those were the toys I was allowed to play with.”
He sighed, and Alice didn’t fail to notice the small hint of vulnerability she wouldn’t have thought possible in him.
“The present was a set of books. Something fun for me to play with when my father wasn’t lording over me ensuring that I was becoming a model image of the man he’d grown to become. Late at night, after he’d gone to bed, or whatever it was he did in the late evening hours, I would crawl out from beneath my covers and pull those books out from below a loose board in the floor. Hidden underneath that board were all the treasures I held secret, like a small part of me that had to remain hidden for fear it would reveal the truth that I wasn’t as interested in success as he had been. The first book was on magic. Parlor tricks, really, basic stuff that required a sleight of hand. They were tricks that were simple enough for a child to master if enough practice was given to the task. After learning those, I moved on to the second book. A book on the art of paper folding. Origami. Something that filled the time I had to myself.”
Dragging her eyes down to the paper he was working into a familiar form, she suddenly understood what he’d been doing all along. Whatever he was creating still hadn’t taken full shape. Her attention was drawn between the face of the man whispering his confession and the form that confession was taking on the paper he crafted into a beautiful thing.
“It was by accident that he discovered the talents I’d learned from those books. We were in the kitchen. My mother was preparing dinner on a gas burning stove and I sat at the small table where I tended to find myself when not at the formal dining table. I forget what subject I was studying at the time, but I’d grown bored of whatever nonsense I was reading and, without thinking, I started making folds in a piece of paper. Eventually those folds became something specific, and at the same time that piece of paper transformed into the image of something other than itself, my father walked into the room.”
Lifting his hand, he placed a paper crane on the table in front of her. Its beak pointed at where she sat, its wings perfectly formed at its sides. Small and plain white, with no ornamentation to speak of, the creation was beautiful for its simplicity alone. Reaching out to touch it, she’d almost put a finger against its surface, but pulled back at the last second. There was something sacred about the paper crane, something solemn that kept her from corrupting it with any part of herself.
Her gaze fixed to the inanimate bird, she didn’t look up when he spoke again.
“My father was livid when he saw the crane. To him, it was a betrayal of sorts. A fanciful interest that wouldn’t prepare me for the path he’d expected me to follow. It was a distraction and a curse, a symptom of a childhood he’d never allowed me to live.”
Alice closed her eyes when Max’ voice dropped to a dreadful whisper. She knew the ending before he spoke it, but didn’t stop him from telling the tale.
“In his anger, my father picked up a cast iron skillet my mother had been using to prepare the family meal. He normally hit me with objects, never with his hand because that was too personal – even that small amount of contact. The skillet was still steaming from where it had been sitting on the stovetop.”
She opened her eyes, slowly lifting her head to look up at the face of a man in pain.
“Needless to say, when the back of the skillet hit my cheek, it took off some of my skin with it. The smell…” He paused, his face wrinkling in disgust at the phantom of a memory.