This Is My Daughter

by Robinson, Roxana;

  “Maeve. When you write your mother, do you tell her about me?” Amanda’s head jerked with the strokes of the brush. Maeve wrote her mother once a week. Her mother lived in Abergavenny, with Susan, who worked for the school board. Maeve’s father was no longer on this earth.

  “What would I tell my mother about you?” Maeve’s voice was soft and fierce. “That you’re a scalawag, mainly. A waste of paper, that.” The brush snagged again on a tangle, and Maeve stopped brushing and began to work at the snarl with gentle fingers. Amanda said nothing. Her hands at her sides, she waited trustfully, suspended in the powerful current of Maeve.

  Maeve disentangled the last confusion in Amanda’s hair and gave her whole head a vigorous final round.

  “There,” she said, her voice full of satisfaction. She put her hands on Amanda’s shoulders and walked her like a doll to the big mirror on the closet door.

  Maeve’s hands still on her shoulders, her guardian presence close above her, Amanda regarded her own image in the mirror. Her hands were flat against her skirt, her feet neatly side by side. Her hair hung stiff and straight, dark in streaks from the water. Her face was solemn; below it was her too-big white blouse with the rounded white collar, her dark too-long jumper hanging over the tops of her kneesocks.

  “Now don’t you look nice,” Maeve said.

  It was not a question but a declaration. Amanda could hear that whatever she looked like in the mirror—this face, these clothes, this flattened hair—was exactly the right way to look. It was the way Maeve wanted her to look. Each morning, when Amanda heard Maeve say that, with such certainty, such approval, Amanda understood that she did, truly, look nice. She knew that Maeve, through her competence, had turned Amanda into something that was in accordance with the world. It was a process over which Amanda had no control, like growing into her clothes. In Maeve’s hands she became right. She felt as though she were in a great hammock in space, rocked, secure, sheltered, both swayed and anchored by powerful, benign forces.

  In the afternoon of that day, the day everything changed, when school was over, it was raining. The mothers and nannies waited inside the big front hall instead of out on the sidewalk. When Amanda came down the wide staircase with her class, she saw Maeve near the front door. Maeve wore a tan raincoat and a see-through plastic rain hat, which fanned across her head in transparent pleats. Maeve was watching her, and when Amanda met her eyes Maeve lifted her eyebrows and raised her chin in greeting. When Amanda reached her Maeve leaned over.

  “It’s cats and dogs out there,” she said. “You’re to put these on.” She held out Amanda’s yellow slicker, stiff and clammy, and her red boots.

  They walked home through the wet streets. Maeve carried the big umbrella, and it joggled with her steps, sometimes covering Amanda’s head, sometimes allowing a sudden drop to fall on her hair, her neck. Around them the city whispered, its noises muted and hissing in the rain. Amanda watched her boots as she walked. She liked the sound they made, a hollow rubbery knock. She liked sloshing them in the water, and at the wide rivulet at the curb on Park Avenue she stepped rapidly twice, stamping, to make a splash.

  “Amanda,” Maeve said, giving her hand a tug. The stamping had delayed them. When they were only halfway across Park Avenue the light changed, and they were caught on the island. “You see,” Maeve said. Cars sped heavily past them, hissing, spraying high glittering fans of water. Amanda stepped back, holding Maeve’s hand. Maeve always made Amanda take her hand, crossing the street.

  At home, Maeve set the dripping umbrella in the stand by the elevator. She unbuttoned her raincoat, then opened the front door. She moved inside slowly, and Amanda, impatient, jostled behind her. Pushing past, Amanda asked, “Can I come to your room?”

  She was not usually allowed in Maeve’s room, and never on Maeve’s days off. Amanda’s mother said, “Leave her alone. She’s got you in her hair the rest of the week. Leave her alone on Sunday.” Amanda was hurt by the way her mother said this, as though Maeve didn’t like spending her days with Amanda, as though this were not what they both wanted. Amanda said nothing to her mother. She knew the rules. She was not allowed even to stand in the hall outside of Maeve’s door, listening to see if she was there.

  She did this anyway, slipping through the door from the kitchen and along Maeve’s hallway. She tiptoed along the carpet, slower and slower as she approached Maeve’s door. Outside it she stopped and stood still, her head bent, her eyes squinted, her breath held, listening. She heard little. Sometimes footsteps, a faint rustling. A mysterious silence. What did Maeve do when she was alone? Without Amanda? It was unimaginable.

  But on rainy days Amanda was allowed in Maeve’s room, as a treat. Maeve would make her cinnamon toast, and sweet tea with milk in it, which was called cambric tea. Amanda would bring in her Archie comics and lie on her stomach on Maeve’s bed, reading and littering Maeve’s bedspread with cinnamon crumbs. Maeve would sew on Amanda’s buttons, or mend tears in her jumpers. Sometimes Maeve could be persuaded to play Go Fish.

  That day the front hall was filled with suitcases, stacked and leaning against each other: Amanda’s father, going on another business trip. Maeve knelt on the floor to help Amanda off with her boots.

  “Can I?” Amanda asked again.

  Maeve put one hand on Amanda’s calf, the other on the heel of the boot. “Settle down, Miss Wiggly,” Maeve said.

  “But can I?” Amanda asked. She leaned against the suitcases and surrendered her foot to Maeve.

  Maeve tugged. “We’ll see,” she said. “Hold still.”

  Amanda put her weight on her elbows, leaning back on her father’s suitcases as if they were a throne. She pretended to be sad when her father went away, though actually she liked it. He called every night to talk to her, and when he was away she was allowed to sleep with her mother, or at least to start off in her mother’s bed.

  Her parents’ bedroom was large, hushed. The thick carpet was gray, the ceiling distant and pearly. The wallpaper was covered with blue-gray shepherds and shepherdesses. At the high windows there were curtains with the same design, the blue-gray shepherdesses on them soft. Amanda was allowed to come in only if she was quiet. She was not allowed to bring anything to eat or drink, or anything that bounced. Sometimes her mother declared that Amanda herself was too bouncy, and then Caroline called Maeve to come and take Amanda away.

  But if Amanda was quiet, she was allowed to bring her comics and lie on her mother’s bed while her mother read her magazines, or talked to friends on the telephone, or watched TV. Amanda’s mother was beautiful too, but in a different way from Maeve. She had thick bouncy hair, dark underneath but with pale blond streaks, that was held back from her forehead by two curved tortoiseshell combs. It swept almost to the tops of her shoulders, where it curved slightly. Caroline always looked just right. Her hair was always smooth and her fingernails polished. Her clothes always looked new, and she did not have to grow into them. When Caroline was at home in the apartment she wore black turtlenecks and black pants. She always looked planned, composed, complete. Amanda understood that this was exactly the right way for a mother to look.

  When her father was away, often they both had supper in her parents’ room on trays, and they watched TV together, laughing with the sound track. When Amanda’s father was away, Caroline didn’t cook. They ordered out, or had greasy grilled cheese sandwiches with American cheese. “Don’t tell, Nanna,” her mother would say, “junk food junkies.” Sometimes, even when her father wasn’t away, her parents had dinner on trays. Peter had his in the library, where he sat in his big armchair with a book, and read while he ate. Caroline had hers in the bedroom, where she lay on the bed and watched TV. Sometimes when Amanda was finished with her dinner she went and lay across the bed with her mother.

  The bed was big, with a white bedspread and four long white pillows with lacy edges. The pillows were fat, and stacked two deep against the mahogany headboard. The bed was really two beds, pushed tightly together.
The white coverlet was spread across them both, as though they were one wide bed, but underneath they were made up as two. The sheets and blankets were tucked in separately, under each mattress, down the middle. On the nights when Amanda fell asleep there, lying on her father’s side of the bed, she could hear her mother’s breathing, she could hear the rustle of her movements, but she could not, asleep or awake, feel the warmth from her mother’s body, or the beating of her mother’s heart.

  In the evenings, while they were lying on the bed, her father would call home. Caroline picked up the volume control and turned down the TV. Amanda always talked first: she loved talking to her father when he was away. First she asked him where he was. It was always somewhere she had never been, and she asked what it was like.

  “I’m in Los Angeles,” Peter said. “It’s full of cars and pink signs.”

  “Cars and pink signs?” Amanda imagined a huge parking lot, like the one at the airport, jammed with rows and rows of parked cars, each one fluttering with Easter-colored announcements.

  “And what about you?” her asked. “What did you do today? What happened at school?”

  Amanda would tease her father, making things up. He believed everything she said. Once she told him a friend had learned to fly, and once that a dinosaur had gotten into their classroom at school.

  “A dinosaur!” her father said. “That’s really dangerous, Amanda. I hope that didn’t really happen.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” Amanda said happily, “but it did.”

  “Oh, no!” Peter said. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “It ate Miss Bernstein,” Amanda said, ruthless.

  “Oh, no!” her father said, in despair. “Oh, no!”

  At last Amanda relented, giggling.

  When Amanda had finished talking, her mother took the telephone. While she talked to Peter, Caroline went on watching the TV screen. She never talked long. As she hung up she turned the volume back up again.

  That day, standing by the suitcases, Amanda pulled her leg free from the second boot, Maeve holding it by the heel. Amanda kicked her foot in the air, ridding herself of the clammy boot chill.

  “Don’t jump around,” Maeve said tartly, setting the two boots side by side. “We’ll have the Great Lakes all over the floor. Hold still while I do your raincoat.” Her voice was surprisingly cool; she sounded cross at something. Subdued, Amanda stood motionless while Maeve undid the metal latches of her slicker.

  The voice behind her was completely unexpected. “Amanda.” It was her father’s voice, coming from the living room. Her father was never here when she came home from school, never. Amanda turned to look at him. He stood in the doorway, not smiling. “When you’ve got your coat off, would you come in here a moment? Thank you, Maeve.” His voice was somber.

  Maeve’s mouth, as she opened Amanda’s raincoat, was tight and puckered. She looked at what she was doing, frowning, fierce, and said nothing.

  Amanda, uneasy, nodded. Maeve finished with the raincoat and drew it off Amanda’s shoulders, holding it, dripping, between her thumb and forefinger. The short vertical line between her eyebrows had deepened. “Off you go,” she said to Amanda, nodding toward her father without looking at him. Then Maeve turned and left, carrying Amanda’s boots and slicker, heading down the hall toward the kitchen. Amanda watched, but Maeve closed the door behind her without looking back.

  Amanda was left alone with her father. She looked back at him: he stood tall and grave in the doorway. She was frightened.

  “Come on,” Peter said, holding out his hand to her. This was worse: why would he want to hold her hand to walk into the living room? Amanda took his hand and they went in.

  The living room was huge, dim, alarming, filled with fragile objects Amanda was not allowed to touch. The walls were violent with leopard spots, the heavy gleaming curtains oppressive. Gold tassels hung down at their sides like sacred bell pulls. Amanda was not expressly forbidden to come here, but whenever she did, Maeve or her mother told her to come back out.

  Now it was silent and shadowy. Peter, still holding her hand, walked with her to the big sofa, with its smooth rounded cushions. He sat down and patted the cushion next to him for Amanda. She sat carefully, feeling the soft down give way beneath her. She slid her hands underneath her thighs, for safety, and looked up at her father, waiting for him to begin this frightening thing.

  Peter leaned forward and folded his hands. He looked down at his hands, and then at Amanda. “First of all, I want you to know I love you,” he said, “and I’ll always love you.” Amanda felt a chill. “It’s not your fault,” her father said. Her heart began to pound.

  “I’m going to move away,” Peter told her. “It’s not your fault, and it’s not your mother’s fault. It’s no one’s fault. Your mother and I don’t make each other happy anymore.”

  Amanda stared at him. Behind him, across the room, in the background, was a huge swoop of green-gray curtain, hanging in smooth curved folds, fixed, immutable. After a long silence she heard herself ask, “Where will you live?”

  “I have a new apartment,” he said. “A small one,” he added, and Amanda understood that he felt bad about this, guilty. “You’ll come and see me there.”

  “But your things are here,” Amanda pointed out. He lived here, with her and Maeve. All his things, his books in the library, his special lamp to read by, the painting of the lake where he had gone when he was little, his coats in the closet, his pictures: everything was here. His life was here.

  “I’m taking some of them with me,” he said. “They’re in the suitcases in the hall. Some of them your mother will keep.”

  His coats? wondered Amanda. What?

  “We’ll still see each other a lot,” Peter said. He put his hand on Amanda’s wrist and stroked it, back and forth. His thumb felt rough on her skin. “I’ll call you all the time. You’ll come and see my new apartment. I’ll come and take you out to dinner.”

  Amanda looked at him. She did not want to see his new small apartment, where he wanted to live without her, and she did not want to go out somewhere strange for dinner.

  “Can I have sundaes?” she asked.

  “Sundays?” her father repeated. “For visits?”

  “For dessert,” Amanda said. It was like talking to a stranger.

  “Oh, for desserts,” her father said. He nodded, unsmiling. “Anything you like,” he said.

  This too was frightening: Amanda was rarely allowed to have sundaes.

  “But why are you leaving?” she asked.

  “I’ve told you, because your mother and I don’t make each other happy anymore.”

  She stared at him. On the mantel an ormolu clock ticked heavily in the silence. What her father said meant nothing. You didn’t decide whether you were happy or not: you lived your life, that was how it worked. She and her father and mother and Maeve all lived together. They were happy because that was their life. You didn’t make someone happy or not happy, you just lived your life. They were all happy, that was how it was. What could he mean? The people in your life were your people. You didn’t decide about them, they were there.

  Amanda looked down at her foot. She saw it was moving, a small urgent jiggle. She looked up again at her father. He was leaning forward, watching her. When he left for business trips he always hugged her, lifting her up and putting his arms around her so that she was close against his chest. She shut her eyes and hugged him back. She could smell him, warm and comforting, through his shirt.

  Now he did not hold her, he only watched her, and rubbed his rough thumb along her wrist, over the bump of bone. Her father wanted to leave them. Thinking of this made Amanda feel very small, a tiny figure against a melting dim landscape with a distant horizon. Against that landscape she was barely visible, a speck. There was something dark all around her; there was something dark inside her. Things were vanishing all around her. No one, now, would point her toward the mirror and say that she looked nice. She was hardly visible now, she was
hardly there at all.

  Amanda stared at her father. She felt sick. She felt a swift lurch in her stomach, and was afraid she would throw up. She heard herself breathing, a strange sound; she wanted Maeve. She did not move. She had sunk so deeply into the cushion; she felt its softness had swelled up around her, puffed, yielding, dangerous, as though it were something from which she might never be able to rise.

  Her father took her hand and gently pulled her up. Out in the hall he opened the closet door and took out his raincoat. She watched each thing he did. His face was fixed and terrible. Deliberately he put on his coat, settling the collar around his neck, without looking at her. Then he stooped down in front of her. He took her in his arms and pressed her against him. She felt something in his chest knock suddenly, like a sudden tight breath, then another. His arms were very close around her, he was so big, so close around her she couldn’t move. She didn’t hug him back: she was too small, enveloped by his embrace, to matter. Pressed against his chest she could smell him, but it no longer seemed the same. His smell no longer seemed hers.

  “Good-bye, Nanna, I’ll see you very soon. I love you,” he said. She did not answer, her voice was too small.

  In the foyer her father pushed the elevator button. All around him were his suitcases, loaded with his things that he was taking away. While he waited for the elevator he took the change from his pocket and played with it. He made a funnel with his fingers, and dropped each coin through it onto the next, making a chinking sound. Amanda watched him. She could still feel her heart beating, knocking around in her chest, hammering hard. She knew there was something she could say, some word, some sentence, that would stop him, make him take off his coat again. She could not think what it was.