The doctor asks, “Do you believe you were a bad daughter?”

“Yes.”

The truth, like a fist, hits you from the inside.

Yes. You were a bad daughter.

No one has asked this one simple question before. Your husband has reassured you that you were a good daughter, but he doesn’t know the whole story. Other people comfort you that he loved you, but that is not the point.

You were a bad daughter.

Lying in bed, forcing yourself to relax, forcing yourself to sleep, you realize that you don’t remember him. Not that you’ve forgotten him, but that you don’t allow yourself particular memories. A hint or flash will break through on occasion, but what you call remembering has more to do with a sense of him, his spirit or essence. You don’t allow yourself incidents or stories.  Those stories have love and anger and guilt and regret. They will bring you back to the realization: you were a bad daughter.

You will continue to be a bad daughter if you do not remember, if you do not etch these memories, the sound of his voice, the stories he told, the good things that he did or at least tried to do. Remembering has its own currents, riptides, waves, and squalls that require so many words, time to find the words, or time away from the words to just float in the feeling. Without the time, you hold off the memory and hate yourself more.

Yes. You were a bad daughter.