Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

He had not wept, not for years, so when he broke, it was as if a mountainside had cracked and slid down, carrying everything–trees, homes, lives–into the valley below. His rage and frustration burst through his controls with a power that surprised everyone, himself most of all.

She was silent, wide-eyed in the face of his despair.

“I try to be a good man,” he said, grimacing with torment. “I just want to be good. But nothing good comes from it.” He put his fists over his eyes. “I work. I help others. But what’s the fucking point? Nothing ever comes of it. You. The kids. Your family. My family. I’m always the one who picks up the slack, but it’s never good enough. I always have to do more.”

She managed to speak. “But you do help others.”

“But no one helps me!” he said, striking himself in the chest. He glared. “No one’s ever helped me! And I’m sick of it, can’t you see that? I’m sick of being the strong one, sick of working on everyone else’s problems.” He looked out the window, brow a scowl and lips parted in anguish. “Everything’s a push, a struggle. And I’m just sick of fighting everything all the time.”

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let it out slowly. The thud of his heartbeat slowed as he calmed himself, rebuilt his fortress and closed the gate on his fury.

But she had seen it. The kids had heard it. They had seen his limits, and more, had seen beyond them, to what he had kept contained, hidden for so long.

The next few days were treacherous. They crept around the house, keeping their distance, treating him like a wounded animal, unpredictable and dangerous. He felt them watching, wary of another outburst, ready to flee from the slightest hint of his displeasure. And it frustrated him all the more.

For his own part, patience gone and embarrassment at his own outburst eroding his reserves, he kept his demeanor flat. His answers were perfunctory, his opinions neutral. He saw in their glances and heard in their ill-concealed sighs that they were already tired of dealing with his emotions, and he hated it. He hated being treated like the lion in the living room, feared by everyone, but he didn’t know how not to be that. Not yet, anyway. There was too much rawness, too much exhaustion in his heart for him to handle it any other way.