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really wanted instead of what she claimed to want. With Quim, respecting the distance he wanted to keep. With Miro, with Ela, with Mother, with everybody."
"With you?"
"Making me part of his life. Connecting with me. Watching me jack into my eye and still talking to me like a person. Do you know what that meant to me?"
"I can guess."
"Not the part about me. I was a hungry little kid, I'll admit; the first kind person could have conned me, I'm sure. It's what he did about us all. It's how he treated us all differently, and yet remained himself. You've got to think about the men in my life. Marcao, who we thought was our father-- I had no idea who he was. All I ever saw was the liquor in him when he was drunk, and the thirst when he was sober. Thirst for alcohol but also a thirst for respect that he could never get. And then he dropped over dead. Things got better at once. Still not good, but better. I thought, the best father is the one who isn't there. Only that wasn't true, either, was it? Because my real father, Libo, the great scientist, the martyr, the hero of research, the love of my mother's life-- he had sired all these delightful children on my mother, he could see the family in torment, and yet he did nothing."
"Your mother didn't let him, Andrew said."
"That's right-- and one must always do things Mother's way, mustn't one?" "Novinha is a very imposing woman."
"She thinks she's the only one in the world ever to suffer," said Olhado. "I say that without rancor. I have simply observed that she is so full of pain, she's incapable of taking anyone else's pain seriously."
"Try saying something rancorous next time. It might be more kind."
Olhado looked surprised. "Oh, you're judging me? Is this motherhood solidarity or something? Children who speak ill of their mothers must be slapped down? But I assure you, Valentine, I meant it. No rancor. No grudges. I know my mother, that's all. You said you wanted me to tell you what I saw-- that's what I see. That's what Andrew saw, too. All that pain. He's drawn to it. Pain sucks him like a magnet. And Mother had so much she almost sucked him dry. Except that maybe you can't suck Andrew dry. Maybe the well of compassion inside him is bottomless."
His passionate speech about Andrew surprised her. And pleased her, too. "You say Quim turned to God for the perfect invisible father. Who did you turn to? Not someone invisible, I think."
"No, not someone invisible." Valentine studied his face in silence.