Cleopatra and Frankenstein(95)

“I don’t believe this.” Frank spun away from her. “You want to know what surviving an abusive alcoholic looks like? It’s being raised by my mother. She used to fall asleep with a lit cigarette in her hand. She used to forget to pick me up from school—” He stopped himself and took a deep breath. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cleo looked around the room in mock surprise. “Could it be? Are we back here again? At the Frank pity party?”

“You’re hilarious,” murmured Frank. “No really, that’s hilarious.”

“I wish I was joking,” said Cleo. “How many times do I have to hear this? Poor little Frank wasn’t raised right. Nobody loved you the way you needed. Join the fucking club. So your mother was an asshole. Big deal! My mother killed herself.”

“I wished my mother would kill herself.”

Cleo snorted with disgust.

“Do you hear yourself?” she said.

“Do you hear yourself? Are we seriously fighting about who had the worst childhood?”

“We’re not fighting about it, because I know I did.”

Frank threw his hands up. “Fine, you win. You’re irrevocably damaged. Your life’s been hell, and mine’s been a cakewalk.”

Cleo grabbed the hair either side of her temples.

“I can’t talk to you! You’re impossible. No one is saying your life has been easy, although let’s be honest, it has. But at least you still have a mother.”

“And you know who your father is! Mine never even acknowledged my existence!”

“Oh, and it’s been such a blessing to have my father,” said Cleo. “You met him, Frank. You know what it was like for me.”

“And you know what it was like for me.”

They were at an impasse. Frank dropped himself to the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. “Do you have any idea how it’s felt to be married to you?” he said quietly. “I could feel your disappointment in me from ten blocks away.”

“No, you could feel your disappointment in you. Proximity to me just made you aware of it.”

“See, you state that like it’s a fact, like you have some higher knowledge of my psyche that I’m not privy to, but it’s just your interpretation.”

“It’s the interpretation of someone not drunk half the time, Frank.”

Frank shot up and stormed over to the fire to throw another log on it. Sparks flew back in his direction. He turned back toward her, his face flushed. She always managed to make him aware of how he was failing, how he came up short. It was demoralizing.

“I was never what you wanted,” he said. “Right from the very start.”

Cleo circled the coffee table so she could face him directly. She could see the machinations of his mind constructing this new narrative that he had been destined to fail. She was not going to let him let himself off the hook like that.

“Why would I have married you if that was true?” she asked.

“Because your visa—”

“Stop saying that! I could have married bloody Quentin for that. I wanted to be married to you. I wanted you to be enough. I wanted to be surprised by you every day.” She began counting on her fingers for emphasis. “But I never knew when you were coming home. You’re obsessed with your work and prioritize it over everything, over me. And you refuse to grow up and stop blaming your mother. Tell me, who would that be enough for? Who?”

Frank looked at her face, glowing amber in the firelight. Behind her, the sky through the window was deep blue-black. She seemed to delight in listing in his shortcomings. In that moment, he learned that he had the capacity to hate her.

“And you gave up on your dream when you met me,” he said. “You were an artist. What are you now?”

“What are you?” spat Cleo.

“I am who I’ve always been. Sure, I work hard, that’s how I made myself a success. And yes, sometimes I drink too much. But I never pretended to be anyone else. That’s just who I am.”

Cleo looked at him with pure contempt. “Those have to be the saddest words a person can utter.”

“What?”

“‘That’s just who I am.’”

“Why?”

“Because it shows a total unwillingness to change. That is not just who you are, Frank. It’s who you’ve become, who you choose to be. You just refuse to acknowledge the choice.”

Frank threw his hands up in the air. “Fine! Who do you want me to be, Cleo? Tell me who you want me to be.”

Cleo spun around and looked out the window. She could see tiny white stars beginning to appear, like salt spilled in the sky. In Manhattan, she forgot stars even existed. She wanted someone to tell her who to be. Frank was a forty-four-year-old man. Why was the onus on her to fix him? She turned to face him again and she felt emptied of all love for him.

“Do you know how easy it is to be you?” she said. “You live in the city you were born in. You’re surrounded by people who love you. Even your mum, in her own flawed way.”

“So are you!”

Cleo shook her head.

“I’m not from here,” she said.

“But you chose here,” he said. “It’s your home.”