She took the dough off me. "I'm not mad at you any more," she said.
"I know. Hurry up--the thing's gonna start again."
Then all of a sudden she gave me a kiss. Then she held her hand out, and said, "It's raining. It's starting to rain."
"I know."
It's a tender little scene between between Holden and Phoebe at the end of the book. Holden has reached rock bottom. His little sister is his only anchor to life at the moment. A few paragraphs past this conversation, Salinger provides the happiest moment in The Catcher in the Rye. At this point, however, Holden has finally given up. He's letting go of his plans to run away, to live as a mute lumberjack (or whatever the hell it was) in Wyoming (or wherever the hell it was.). He's reaching a point of surrender.
Over the last day or so, my wife and I have been trying to arrange daycare for my son this summer. Yesterday, my wife was offered a part-time job. Three days a week, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The difficulty is childcare. All of the daycare providers we have used in the past are already full and have waiting lists. We've explored several avenues, but we are now at a dead end. My wife is going to call her would-be employer this morning to turn down the job.
She's upset. It would have been a great boost for her self esteem and confidence. Just getting the job offer has done wonders for her in the last 24 hours. However, she seems at peace with the way things have turned out. She called me a little while ago and said, "You know, it wasn't meant to be."
It was an almost job. The extra money would have been great, especially over the summer. But this isn't rock bottom. That will come about mid-July, when the tax return runs out. I'm upset for my wife. I'm upset she has to sit on the bench in the rain, watching Phoebe ride the carrousel. I will give her a kiss when I get home, tell her everything is going to be alright.
Saint Marty is letting go. He has no other choice.
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| Haven't gotten this bad yet |
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