"Fay knew about men who wouldn’t grow up, and she wished she could tell Lizzie [her daughter], warn her. But she knew Lizzie wouldn’t listen any more than she had listened.
A man like this is so wildly attractive, so maddeningly alive, that he is absolutely irresistible. In the Tarot deck, he is the Fool …
In the picture on the card, the Fool, like a hobo, carries a sack tied to a stick. They leave you, these men, but they never said they were staying, never said they were committed, or purposeful—or responsible, even. All they want is to have a good time. And what’s wrong with that? Nothing, except you begin to wonder how interested you are in just having a good time. …
The joy of being with these men is the giddy return, through them, to a child’s world, where there are no clocks and no claims on your time, no clothes to be kept clean, and no consequences to be considered. Days and nights are filled with the silliness, the spontaneity, the conspiratorial privacy, and all the breathless secret pleasures of life in a tree house. …
They don’t always come home, and they won’t even apologise for it. They won’t help around the house because they like it all messed up. They won’t work very hard because they don’t want to get trapped by success. And they won’t work at the relationship because it’s not supposed to be work, it’s supposed to be fun. If you don’t want to play with them, they don’t mind. But that isn’t going to stop them from playing.
Somehow, they make you feel very old, these men. They turn you into their mother."
~ Marsha Norman