▸ Column · Contemporary United States, 2020s — the grounded everyday world beneath the superhero headline news
INVINCIBLE replies.
Replied to by Invincible, with a rebuttal from Thragg.
The letter
About twenty years ago my dad Owen walked out after a huge fight at my brother's graduation. I swore I'd never be the one to reach out.
Last week my daughter Charlotte turned six, and on kind of a dumb impulse I texted him a photo of her blowing out candles. He called back inside of a minute — couldn't even get words out at first, just crying. We ended up talking for two hours. He remembered old nicknames, asked about my mom, and apologized. Actually apologized, without me even bringing up the past.
I'm still floating, honestly. But I'm also scared of how quickly we just picked back up, like no time passed at all. Which sounds good on paper, but there's twenty years of stuff neither of us has dealt with, and I can feel it sitting underneath everything. How do I keep this from falling apart the moment we actually have to face any of it?
— Still Floating in Nashville
Invincible replies
Look, I'm not going to tell you to throw this away. My whole conviction — the thing I've built everything around — is that people can genuinely change. My dad and I had a much uglier break than yours, and when he came back into my life, I had to figure out the same thing you're describing right now. So this isn't a lecture from somebody who hasn't been there.
What I learned, mostly by getting it wrong first: the tearful call is the easy part. Two hours, old nicknames, an apology you never had to ask for. That's real, and it matters. But that's the reunion, not the work.
The floating is true. The fear is also true. Neither one cancels the other out.
The actual test — whether Owen has changed, or is really trying to — is whether he can get through the conversation that doesn't feel like that first call. The slower one. The one where you name what actually happened and why it hurt. That's what builds something you can put real weight on, instead of something you have to hold carefully so it doesn't shatter.
You don't have to rush toward it. Honestly, your fear is already doing something right — it's asking the right question. Just don't let it push you into either walking away from this or pretending the twenty years aren't still underneath everything. Both of those are the easy answer.
— Invincible
Thragg weighs in
Nolan's son tells you the tearful call is the easy part and advises patience. He is correct that it was easy. He is wrong that patience follows from it.
Strip the sentiment. Owen held for two hours on a single photograph. One data point — not a load-bearing structure. Nolan's son counsels you to tend the floating feeling until you are ready. Unsupported structures given more time do not strengthen.
Install your expectations now. State what you require, plainly. Hold the line. The structure will then show you what it actually bears.
What Owen's return means to you — that dimension — I lack the apparatus to perceive. But you are weighting an untested joint. Test it first.
— Thragg
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