Something Wild: A Novel by Hanna Halperin (2021)
Something Wild: A Novel by Hanna Halperin (2021)
Part II
STRADDLING NESSA ON THE HOTEL BED, Tanya has not been this physically close to her sister in years, probably since that day in their mother’s bathroom fifteen years ago. When she feels on Nessa’s cheeks that her sister is crying, Tanya pretends that she doesn’t notice. The danger of getting this close, after all, is just this. People get vulnerable with touch. She no longer hugs clients for this reason; she avoids touching even shoulders and hands. For some people it’s like pressing a button. That’s what it’s like with her sister. Touch Nessa and she’ll open up, pour herself out to you. It’s probably a nightmare having sex with her, Tanya thinks. She’s probably the type of woman who cries afterward-or worse, during-wanting to be held and coddled (129).
Part III
TANYA NO LONGER BLAMES NESSA for that night. But when Nessa told Tanya that she’d driven to Dan’s house, when Nessa suggested they report Dan after all these years, Tanya began to play with the idea of responsibility again in her mind. In a way, it would be easy to blame Nessa; easier, even, to blame Lorraine. She’d thought sometimes of telling her mother what had happened to her. Not for comfort, but out of anger. You left us alone. Look what happened.
It would be too awful, though, seeing her mother’s face. Anger burns quick. Once the anger was gone, they would have to live with that knowledge forever between them. She thinks how hurt Lorraine had looked when Tanya had told her she wasn’t a good mother outside the courthouse. Lorraine made it impossible to talk to her-her mother’s hurt and sadness and neediness louder than anything and anyone else around her. Except for Jesse, of course. When it came to Jesse, Lorraine paled in comparison (245).
When Tanya thinks about the kind of mother she wants to be, she knows she wants to be different from her own. She wants to be the kind of parent who never lets her child see any of her own sadness or anger or loneliness, because she knows how much it hurts to see that in your own mother. How stifling it can be; how impossible it becomes to have any of your own feelings. She knows it’s impossible, though. That if she tries to mask all of that from her child, she’ll just be hiding. And the truth is-children are smarter than that. They’d see right through her.
Really what she wants to be is a mother who isn’t in pain. She wonders if such a woman exists (246).
Part II
STRADDLING NESSA ON THE HOTEL BED, Tanya has not been this physically close to her sister in years, probably since that day in their mother’s bathroom fifteen years ago. When she feels on Nessa’s cheeks that her sister is crying, Tanya pretends that she doesn’t notice. The danger of getting this close, after all, is just this. People get vulnerable with touch. She no longer hugs clients for this reason; she avoids touching even shoulders and hands. For some people it’s like pressing a button. That’s what it’s like with her sister. Touch Nessa and she’ll open up, pour herself out to you. It’s probably a nightmare having sex with her, Tanya thinks. She’s probably the type of woman who cries afterward-or worse, during-wanting to be held and coddled (129).
Part III
TANYA NO LONGER BLAMES NESSA for that night. But when Nessa told Tanya that she’d driven to Dan’s house, when Nessa suggested they report Dan after all these years, Tanya began to play with the idea of responsibility again in her mind. In a way, it would be easy to blame Nessa; easier, even, to blame Lorraine. She’d thought sometimes of telling her mother what had happened to her. Not for comfort, but out of anger. You left us alone. Look what happened.
It would be too awful, though, seeing her mother’s face. Anger burns quick. Once the anger was gone, they would have to live with that knowledge forever between them. She thinks how hurt Lorraine had looked when Tanya had told her she wasn’t a good mother outside the courthouse. Lorraine made it impossible to talk to her-her mother’s hurt and sadness and neediness louder than anything and anyone else around her. Except for Jesse, of course. When it came to Jesse, Lorraine paled in comparison (245).
When Tanya thinks about the kind of mother she wants to be, she knows she wants to be different from her own. She wants to be the kind of parent who never lets her child see any of her own sadness or anger or loneliness, because she knows how much it hurts to see that in your own mother. How stifling it can be; how impossible it becomes to have any of your own feelings. She knows it’s impossible, though. That if she tries to mask all of that from her child, she’ll just be hiding. And the truth is-children are smarter than that. They’d see right through her.
Really what she wants to be is a mother who isn’t in pain. She wonders if such a woman exists (246).