"All of the things you told me"

Eleanor: I am thinking about all of the things you told me when I didn’t know any better. I am thinking you knew better. I am thinking I thought for the longest time you thought that I was thinking these were lies, but I know they weren’t lies. You wanted to tell me what you knew I would need to understand someday but you didn’t want to wait that long or you were afraid of telling me when I would understand because I would have questions and I might get angry or upset and instead you only wanted me to smile like it was okay –- it was all okay, what you were telling me. Or it was going to be okay. I don’t blame you, I guess. I might have done the same thing, maybe I would have. Maybe. But I don’t think I would have, now that I think of it, because it’s a cowardly thing to do, to disguise your words and your stories and make the world -– our world –- seem so normal, that nothing –- nothing at all –- was out of the ordinary. That when I grew older and could understand, maybe I would forgive you. I suppose you were hoping for that, weren’t you? I suppose you thought you weren’t hurting me by telling me the truth when I believed everything, when anything you said was golden. I wish you had lied. Did you think I would forget? Did you really? See the thing is this. I haven’t forgotten a word you said. If you had told me lies and pretty stories, I would have remembered those instead. You can tell a seven-year-old girl bedtime stories that are all about magical places and you can make her fall asleep dreaming that she’s something special or something because of all of the attention and because of the magical places, but didn’t you for one split second one moment one breath of remembering you were my father and I was your little girl and you don’t confess things to your little girl and you don’t use her like that just because you need to get it all off your chest and that maybe it feels kind of good to be able to tell yourself that yes you told me, and perhaps I would never bring it up again. I just hate the idea of you doing this to me.

I want my bedtime stories. I want the lies. I want to remember things I know could never in a million years be true, but make me smile anyway just because.