C’mon kid, now’s the time. Get this thing off your chest. Kostos can see it’s been there almost as long as you have!” How did he know? How had this man read into the deepest, most holy part of me as if my heart was an Essene scroll and he a scribe knowing exactly where to unfurl it to my most shrouded secrets?

So I told him. I told him about wanting to be a writer. Told him about thinking that I’d never enter practice. Told him, most of all, about the extreme tension between me and my father, how I couldn’t do anything without my father wanting me to do something else.

His voice suddenly became stern. “Boyo, let me tell you somethin’. Your parents? They’re the most important thing in the world to you. Do you hear me?” I nodded, not daring to speak.

“I got a son. That boy calls me from California three times a week! You hear, three! He don’t, he knows I come out there and I box his ears! And you know why?” I shook my head. “Of course you don’t, no kid knows. But ya know what?” I shook my head. “Every damned parent knows. Because I gave birth to that boy, that’s why, and for no other reason. I gave that boy life, and whatever there may be between us, I love that boy like nothin’ else in this world.”

I felt weak. “And you know what else, kid? Your daddy feels the same way ‘bout you. That’s why he’s always tryin’ tell you what to do. Understand?” I nodded, not comprehending why I suddenly was even afraid to blink. — Beliefnet.com