Translated by Yulia K.

Let’s do it anyway

“Why don’t you just give up on her?” asked my son, a college student.

In the heat of the moment, I told him about texting with a friend of mine and getting another slap-in-the-face text back from her. It is a reply which I cannot accept; in fact, I can hardly believe she’d say something like that.

Yet somehow, I just can’t text her back, “What kind of a heartless creature are you, my dear?”

I just suffer through and say nothing.

She and I grew up together. Together we smoked our first cigarettes, covered each other up before our parents, kept secrets, got each other out of trouble; she remembers my grandmother; she is the one I would run to and crash at her house to calm down. One day, she came by when I could no longer stand the psychological abuse of my father and was about to take an overdose; she saw it and said calmly, “If you carry on, I’ll get overdosed, too.”

“Here’s the thing,” I reply my son. “She’s good to everyone, she’s a kind person, warm, empathic, supportive . . . ”

How come that in the matter of the utmost importance for the past year we run into a concrete wall of misapprehension? How can my closest, dearest friend approve, so cold-heartedly, of what is going on?

“Well, why don’t you just give up on her?” asks my son once again.

I look around the kitchen, at the things she bought to make our life easier, happier, more homey.

“Here’s the thing, kiddo. There are about four people in this world who give a damn about why my stomach hurts. Or whether my kids have their feet warm. Or whether I have a migraine medicine, or how my mom is doing.

“I cannot throw it away and out of my life.

“I can reject other people but not her.

“So I swallow my rage, push it as deep down as I can, keep silent for about eighteen days, and then calmly ask her, how’s life.”

My boy left, but I continued answering him in my head. Why indeed . . .

It’s not like I want something from her. She’s not a doctor and won’t save my life in an emergency. She’s not a dentist, or gynecologist, or pediatrician. She doesn’t have spare money to lend or useful connections to help me out in need.

All she got is empathy and support. But now even my texts annoy her, let alone my actions.

So, why don’t I give up?