cannibal; kendall roy

25

Louis Garnier ultimately, had not been impressed with his daughter's guest. He'd found Tom Wambsgans to be somewhat of an unclassy whore, unusually set onto anything by its cost, or the appearance that it might be worth something. He'd been vastly American in his interactions with him, whether it have been at the lunch table, or during their dinner time.

He didn't speak French.
He bumbled around in English.

But ultimately, his daughter was young. She would make mistakes. But as of late, he felt as if she was trying to kill him with these mistakes. Louis Garnier loved his daughter, just as much as he loved his wife. But this wasn't a fact he readily made known, as he figured it would've been assumed by his daughter.

That was one of his mistakes.

As well as pushing his daughter away for all these years, something he'd done believing it would save her from seeing his own grief and bastardly tall chronic depression. Something that might have helped her realize where her own came from, years later. Something that might have kept her off of substances.

Instead, Louis Garnier let her group him as the bad guy, to her friends and whoever else. He felt it was easier that way. Maim the old man. Blame the old man. Staying silent was easier than ever having to explain his complication decisions. There was only one place that ever seemed to know the truth.

His diary.

Which he took to in the late hours of night, on his patio, with a singular lantern on, while his daughter chatted in well thought out, unaccented English to her new "friend" in the distance.

It hurt him, yes. But what could he do? She didn't want him there, or in his conversation. His daughter had made that explicitly clear to him over the years. He'd pushed her to that conclusion, and it worked better.

So he wrote.

"Marguerite has brought back perhaps the worst, the absolute worst guest I have ever met.
This young man remains uncultured and without manners. Entirely without. I see the way he looks around my home, at my child—with dollar signs in his eyes. There is something strange, about watching someone flit around your home as if it is a museum. Their fingers running on your paintings, taking photos to send to someone, as if it was a dare.

Worst of all, I can't tell if my daughter is serious about him. She is unreadable. Stoic, even. Continuing on, I fear that delivering her to America was a mistake. One that I commonly think about, as the pages of this book knows. As she's matured, I feel guilty. She has lost almost everything of our home land. Barely speaking French. Relying on English boys, and the rumors? I would rather die than believe that my child engages in all things illicit and illegal.

Which is perhaps, a bit ironic to come from me. I'm sure my father worried of the same, when he flirted with death—and I flirted with my wife across the sea in New York. But now that Lou is here, I do indeed worry. She looks like a small, frail bird. Which makes me wonder, was it wrong? Was I wrong? Keeping your child away, to shield her from your own nightmares, is it not the right choice? I simply did not want my bane to be given such awful hope, or representation of what man is.

Considering that I am less of a man, and less of a being. More of a hide. Skinned and beaten by the systems that have perhaps made me. I do hope that did not appear to be the words of a deceiver, but rather how I truly characterize myself.
The Louis Garnier who writes now, is not the Louis Garnier who works and scorns, pushes his staff and former life around like a dog. The Louis Garnier that writes is merely a piece of what he once was, a shred. He will be gone by daylight, and replaced.