The truth is I don’t feel the pain no more. The tears still come, though they’re more or less just water runnin’ down my face. It’s a strange feelin’, cryin’ when there ain’t no pain. I guess I can’t control it much though. I don’t know when it started, or why really, but the doc says I have depression. Major depressive disorder. Don’t know what that means, all I know is I cry even though there ain’t no pain. Ain’t gone back to see no doctor since he told me what I had neither. Don’t want him pumpin’ me full of pills.
My daughter gets the worst of it I guess. She still treats me like I’m her daddy, even though most days I wish I wasn’t. Says she wants to grow up big, own a briefcase, leave the house. Says she wants to think of ways to help me, though there’s nothin’ that can help if I won’t help myself. Some days I head out to the ole’ chicken coop. Don’t tell no one where I’m goin’, lock the door, and just sit there. If I’m gonna help myself someday, or if that’s what I’m s’pose to do anyway, I figure I oughta try to figure out my feelin’s once’n while. She can’t accept that though, my wife. She come runnin’ out to the coop screamin’ and hollerin’ and beggin’ me to open the door and let her in. Last thing I wanna do is let her in.
Last thing I wanna do is let anyone in. So I never let her in, just keep sittin’ there. She’ll sit outside the door, poundin’ on it and cryin’, beggin’ me to at least say somethin’, let her know I’m alive. Problem is I can’t talk, cause then people’ll want me to start tellin’ em’ what’s wrong.
So I just sit there, and eventually she cries herself unconscious. My wife, she was always tryin’ to make a breakthrough, whenever she wasn’t worryin’ about me killin’ myself any way. One day she asked me, “wanna go for a walk today Carl?” Don’t know why, but it sure set me off.
When I ran out to the chicken coop I took with me a rope this time. She came hollerin’ after me like I knew she would, and when I slammed that coop door in her face and locked it, she screamed that she weren’t never gonna forgive me, then she collapsed by the door and started sobbin’ like usual.
That’s how she was when Abby came home and found her. Boy that girl hated it when I made her momma cry. Don’t know how she did it, bein’ only ten years old and all, but when she saw her momma layin’ on the ground, holdin’ her knees and cryin’, that girl she slammed so hard into the chicken coop door it came tumblin’ down and wood chips went flyin’ all over the place. Once some of the dust settled she looked right at me with eyes I woulda sworn came from the devil, pointed her finger near an inch away from my face and told me when she was leavin’ this place to get her a real briefcase, she was takin’ her momma with her, and ain’t no one gonna be around no more to care if I ever cry again.
She said them words to me right then and there, and let me tell you—those words, they hurt.
What’s Been Said…