ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 77: That’s the Norm

I just read Mary Gordon’s short story Walt.

It contains these lines: Then I began to feel what I had always felt when I was with him. It was anger, anger that I could never feel only one thing with him, that it was always two, and always at the same time, and always exactly the opposite of each other.

This is what Ernie must have felt toward me. He cherished me and was deeply angry with me at the same time. It must have torn him in two, not being able to trust me fully or to reveal himself fully, yet not being able to leave me.

At the very end of Ernie’s novel Missing Faces, his mystery/thriller that also explores the mystery and thrill of Canyon and Rock’s relationship, Canyon thinks: How can I love him and hate him at the same time?

Guess what, Canyon? In co-dependent relationships, that’s the norm. Or, is it even love and hate? Perhaps it’s neediness, and hating ourselves for being so needy.