What we want to know

...She wants to know if I love her, that's all anyone wants from anyone else...

So says the book I'm reading. Well, specifically, the grandfather who is about to leave his wife, in a book he writes for the infant child he'll never see grow up, never teach to shave, fight or talk to girls.

Is it so?

Is that why she gets so angry about things that don't seem important to me? Why she talked over me on the phone? Why I watched the show we always watch together while she banged things in the kitchen, then upstairs, and seemed oblivious to me?

She said she'd be working late, and that she'd bring some home, and what I heard was ok so you can pop in and have a beer with your friend you haven't seen for 2 weeks and what she heard was I'll be there waiting at home for you baby with a glass of wine.

Neither of us said these things, yet that which wasn't said can lead to trouble. I generally don't get angry at people for things that aren't willful acts, so I find myself unable to comprehend anything.

I walk along the deserted streets in the dark, a sadness in me that's deep and cold like Gunlom.

Gunlom is a waterfall, in Kakadu, whose water is black and feels like liquid ice. We would try to guess how deep it got, what might be lurking at the bottom. We would swim as fast as we could to the other side, and it left our lips blue. Sometimes people drowned there.

What do we really want when we get angry at people over things that don't matter?