The comment you cannot see, here, the one to me, those are the prayers for Barty. Because someone needed to say them. And because whatever else he was, he was your son, and he was Raz's friend, and I remember that, even if no one else wants to. People are so very complicated.
For all he killed so many people. Children. Utter innocents.
I will not set you aside from my thoughts, because I cannot. No more than I could set aside the stars. It would be easier, certainly, if I could. You are right I have spent all the influence I might have had on your behalf, and I do not regret that, but - it will not do any good, and I am sorry for that. Still. Always.
As to - as to what you made me, what keeping your promises made me, you are right. You did tell me. Warn me. And I chose. I have wrestled myself to some sort of detente about it in the days since. I can't regret it, because it mattered, in the end.
I'm still thinking about that. Will be, for the rest of my life, I'm sure.
There are a lot of things I'm thinking and can't say, don't have words for. But I will never stop listening to you.
I was rereading the notes I sent you, what feels like decades ago, on Kirkegaard's Fear and Trembling. I have been thinking about Troy, so much, the past two weeks, in the thoughts I can spare from other tasks, about walls and oceans and deaths and how we treat the dead, and how we treat the living, and what's left after a great war. About how you are like Odysseus. The questions of mutuality, of vows, of commitments, even when they turn out to be wrong. I don't have words, or even coherent thoughts, most of the time.
But I would not be here, now, but for you, and I thank you and I love you and you are still my chosen brother.
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The comment you cannot see, here, the one to me, those are the prayers for Barty. Because someone needed to say them. And because whatever else he was, he was your son, and he was Raz's friend, and I remember that, even if no one else wants to. People are so very complicated.
For all he killed so many people. Children. Utter innocents.I will not set you aside from my thoughts, because I cannot. No more than I could set aside the stars. It would be easier, certainly, if I could. You are right I have spent all the influence I might have had on your behalf, and I do not regret that, but - it will not do any good, and I am sorry for that. Still. Always.
As to - as to what you made me, what keeping your promises made me, you are right. You did tell me. Warn me. And I chose. I have wrestled myself to some sort of detente about it in the days since. I can't regret it, because it mattered, in the end.
I'm still thinking about that. Will be, for the rest of my life, I'm sure.
There are a lot of things I'm thinking and can't say, don't have words for. But I will never stop listening to you.
I was rereading the notes I sent you, what feels like decades ago, on Kirkegaard's Fear and Trembling. I have been thinking about Troy, so much, the past two weeks, in the thoughts I can spare from other tasks, about walls and oceans and deaths and how we treat the dead, and how we treat the living, and what's left after a great war.
About how you are like Odysseus. The questions of mutuality, of vows, of commitments, even when they turn out to be wrong. I don't have words, or even coherent thoughts, most of the time.But I would not be here, now, but for you, and I thank you and I love you and you are still my chosen brother.