They wanted me to say they are the exception to the rules. But I don’t know this. I don’t know their hearts or their deeds. I don’t know the socks they leave on the floor or the sex they refuse to give. But more important, I don’t want to be the arbiter of someone’s morality. I think of my father saying about my mother how she was so good, the best one out of the two of them. Better than he deserved. And I think of her brittle goodness in the face of their volatile marriage. I do not want this. I do not want a life so rigid and righteous that it has no room for my own failings and humanity. What I wanted was to be as fully human as these men are. Not to push the stone of moral goodness up a hill day after day.
They wanted me to say they are the exception to the rules. But I don’t know this. I don’t know their hearts or their deeds. I don’t know the socks they leave on the floor or the sex they refuse to give. But more important, I don’t want to be the arbiter of someone’s morality. I think of my father saying about my mother how she was so good, the best one out of the two of them. Better than he deserved. And I think of her brittle goodness in the face of their volatile marriage. I do not want this. I do not want a life so rigid and righteous that it has no room for my own failings and humanity. What I wanted was to be as fully human as these men are. Not to push the stone of moral goodness up a hill day after day.