This Is My Daughter

by Robinson, Roxana;

  The elevator door slid open, and Richie, the Irish elevator man, stood there, smiling. He was small and bald, with bold black eyes. “Hello, Mr. Chatfield, hello, Amanda.”

  “Hello, Richie,” said Peter. “Could you help me with these?”

  “Of course, Mr. Chatfield,” Richie said, jumping forward. “Lot of bags,” he said. “Long trip!” He winked at Amanda. She stared at him.

  Together Richie and her father slid the heavy bags into the little room of the elevator. Amanda watched her father get in after them; he turned to face her. Richie stepped into his place at the controls. He smiled at Amanda.

  “Bye now,” Richie said unctuously. He winked at her again.

  Behind him was her father, standing against the dark mahogany wall of the elevator. He was not smiling. “Bye, Nanna,”

  Amanda said nothing. She could not think of the word, the sentence. The elevator door slid closed, slid over her father’s dark unsmiling face, and then she heard its sudden smooth fall, the elevator’s swift descent, down the shaft.

  14

  Amanda was seven when she and her mother moved. The new apartment was uptown, and it was not on Park Avenue, but on Eighty-seventh Street. The lobby was smaller in the new building, it was only a long narrow hallway. To reach the new apartment you walked past the first elevator and down to the end of the hallway, to the back, to the elevator there. When Amanda heard Caroline describing the apartment, she said that they were on the back elevator. Her voice sounded different when she said that, so Amanda asked her about it.

  “Is it bad to be on the back elevator?”

  “No, of course not,” Caroline said right away, sharply, not looking at her. “It doesn’t matter at all.” So Amanda knew that it did matter, and that she and her mother were now in disgrace.

  Amanda’s new bedroom was smaller than her old one. There was still room for her twin beds, but there was really no room at the foot of them for her to play on the floor. Everything in the new bedroom was closer together, cramped. The checked curtains were too long for this window, and there was only one window here, not two. The curtains were hung anyway, drooping below the sill. “We’ll have them taken up later,” Caroline said, but in the meantime they drooped. Amanda’s old rug was too big for this room, and she had the rug from Maeve’s room. Amanda asked her mother where her own rug was. “In storage,” Caroline said. “In a warehouse.” Lots of things were in storage, it seemed, all the things they couldn’t fit into the new apartment. The way Caroline said it, it seemed as though everything there had moved to a new life. Everything was safe, but they would never see it again.

  Just before Caroline and Amanda moved to the new apartment, Maeve left them. When Maeve told Amanda she was leaving, Amanda did not ask her to stay. Amanda understood that if Maeve were leaving, like her father, it was because she wanted to leave, it was because she did not want to stay with Amanda and Caroline.

  When Maeve said good-bye to her, Amanda saw small tears trickling around the lower rims of Maeve’s glasses. Maeve took off her glasses and squeezed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. She blinked her eyes quickly several times. Then she looked up again. She said she would come and see Amanda often: she would be living nearby. She was going to work for another family on Park Avenue, looking after another little girl. Amanda thought of Maeve in someone else’s small bedroom, the folding leather picture frames spread out on another bureau. She imagined Maeve sitting in another armchair, the light falling on her hands as she sewed the buttons on someone else’s cardigan sweater.

  That night Amanda woke suddenly. Her room was dark. Urgently she climbed out of bed. She bolted for the bathroom. Barefoot, she stood on the cold tiles. Leaning over into the white porcelain bowl, Amanda retched over and over into the cold white basin. In between heaves she felt herself drooling slime, and her eyes teared. The smell was loathsome, and the retching was frightening. She could not stop. She felt as though she had been taken over by something. When she was finally through she was shaken and drained. She knelt in front of the toilet on the bath mat, shivering, one foot folded over the other for warmth, waiting for the shudders to pass. When it felt safe she wiped her dripping chin and slimy mouth on her towel. But still, when she went back to bed the smell hung sickeningly about her—it had somehow gotten into her hair—and she sank her nose in her pillow, trying to breathe through her mouth. Maeve was gone.

  They moved on a Friday. On the first school morning in the new apartment, Caroline came into Amanda’s room in the morning. She was not dressed yet; she was in her long quilted bathrobe with flowers on it. On her feet were blue fuzzy slippers, like pale blue lambs. “Amanda,” she said briskly, “it’s time to get up.” Amanda opened her eyes but did not move. Everything was in the wrong place. Caroline stood on the rug, her hands in the deep pockets of her robe. She did not turn on the light, or move to raise the window shade.

  “Nanna?” she said. “It’s time to get up. Come on, let’s go.”

  Amanda waited for her to open the shade, to come over to her bed, but her mother just stood with her hands in her pockets. Amanda looked over at the chair, but her school clothes were not there.

  “Where are my clothes?” she asked.

  Caroline looked blank. “What clothes?”

  “My school clothes.”

  “Well—” Caroline looked at the closet. “I guess they’re in your closet. Where did you put them when you took them off?”

  Amanda had last worn her school clothes on Friday, when the movers had come. She had gone home that afternoon to the new apartment, where everything was in boxes. They had spent the weekend unpacking, but nothing was neat yet. She had no idea where her school clothes were. Before, Maeve had always taken them from her.

  Caroline went over to the bureau, where there were two big square boxes, one on top of the other. “Well, let’s see. What do you need?” she asked. “Your blouse, your kneesocks, let’s see.”

  Amanda got out of bed, worried. “Where’s my jumper?” she asked.

  “Where does Maeve keep it?”

  “In the closet,” said Amanda anxiously. It didn’t matter where Maeve had put it before; Maeve was not here now. There was no chance of the jumper, now, hanging neatly in the closet with her other dresses. Together they looked in the closet; a line of cotton summer dresses hung there limply. There were no plaid jumpers.

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll find another one in your boxes. These have all your things,” Caroline said. She began to pry at the plastic tape sealing the box with her fingernails. Amanda watched. Caroline tore at it, frowning. She tugged at the reluctant tape, which was crisscrossed over itself, snarled and resistant. When she peeled the tape back from the top she lifted the two sides open and leaned in. Amanda was not tall enough to see inside; she watched her mother’s face as she put her hands in, ruffled through the contents, still frowning.

  “Shit,” Caroline said, not looking at Amanda.

  “What’s in that?” Amanda asked.

  “Towels,” Caroline said. On the outside the box said, “Amanda” in Magic Marker. Caroline lifted it to the floor and bent over the second one. She began tugging on the plastic tape. That box held Amanda’s sweaters. Caroline stood up.

  “What will I wear?” Amanda asked anxiously. “It’s a rule to wear the uniform.”

  “Well, you can skip one day,” Caroline said. “I’ll call them. I’ll give you a note.”

  “No,” Amanda said, alarmed. “I’m not skipping a day. No one goes to school without a uniform. It’s a rule.”

  Caroline looked again in the closet. “I know you have more than one,” she said. “Maybe we should call Maeve.”

  “Maeve always puts it out the night before,” Amanda said.

  “I know that,” Caroline said crossly, “but Maeve isn’t here.”

  Amanda waited.

  “Well, you go and brush your teeth while I look some more”. Amanda did not move. “Go on, Amanda, go on in and brush yo
ur teeth.”

  Amanda went in alone to the bathroom. She didn’t know exactly how to do this by herself. Maeve always put toothpaste on the toothbrush, and watched Amanda while she brushed. Then Maeve took a washcloth full of warm water, wrung it out, and put it over Amanda’s whole face. The washcloth was hot and rough. Amanda closed her eyes and let her face be taken over, scrubbed, polished like a jewel, like crystal.

  “Squeaky clean,” Maeve said, and Amanda felt her face emerge, pure and pristine. It tingled airily, as though it were sparkling, as it dried.

  But now, alone in her dark bathroom, Amanda did not want to brush her teeth or wash her face. She was worried about her uniform. She could feel the worry like a knot in her stomach. She wanted to move slowly, do as little as possible, do nothing to increase this. She turned the water on loudly, as thought she were brushing her teeth. She stood still, staring at herself in the mirror. She clenched her teeth and opened her lips. Her teeth looked white, no different from the way they would after brushing. She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, as far as she could. It looked mottled red, normal. She licked her lips and turned off the water. She came out of the bathroom again.

  “Did you find it?” she asked Caroline.

  “You can just wear a skirt,” her mother said. “For one day it will be all right.”

  “I’m not wearing a skirt,” Amanda said. “I’m not. Everyone else wears a uniform. It’s a rule.” She saw herself in class, the white blouse rustling, her chest achingly bright, the agonizing center of the classroom. She saw herself enduring the bright white snowfield of her blouse through each class, everyone else’s chest demurely covered by the plaid jumper. She thought of the wrongness of herself, the whole day. The questions she would receive from every teacher. The looks from the other girls.

  “I’m not,” Amanda repeated.

  Her mother opened up a bureau drawer. “Here’s your blouse,” she said, pulling it out. “Here’s a clean pair of socks.”

  “I’m not going to school in a skirt,” Amanda said. She folded her arms. She felt sick to her stomach.

  “Here, Amanda, put these on, anyway,” her mother said. “I’ll figure something out. What do you want for breakfast?”

  Maeve had never asked what she wanted for breakfast.

  “French toast,” Amanda said, angry about the uniform.

  “French toast?” her mother repeated. “That will take too long. We don’t have time.” She was in the closet again, going through Amanda’s dresses, hanger by hanger. “Maybe it’s underneath something else. I know you have more than one. It could be in any of the boxes.” The hall outside was stacked high with cardboard boxes, still sealed.

  “I’ll see if it’s in the laundry room, with the things that came back from the cleaners,” said Caroline. “Come in when you’re ready and I’ll make you some toast.” She left for the kitchen.

  Amanda slowly put on her socks. She didn’t know how she would decide she was ready, she could not be ready without her uniform. She pulled her socks tightly up to her knees, folding the tops over evenly. She put on her white blouse, starting at the bottom and buttoning it all the way up to the neck before she realized she had started wrong. She undid each button and started over. It seemed as though everything had changed. Now, simply putting on her clothes seemed fraught with peril. Every gesture seemed wrong, everything she did seemed a mistake.

  Amanda looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was not brushed. She never brushed her own hair: the handle of her hairbrush was too big for her hand, and the bristles hurt her scalp. Maeve knew how to brush without hurting. Now Amanda’s hair was still in sleep-pressed mats, and it was dirty: no one had washed it on Sunday night. She was wearing navy blue bloomers and her voluminous white blouse, without an undershirt, which her mother had not noticed. Her socks came neatly up to her knees, and she set her feet carefully side by side. She pressed her hands against the sides of her legs and looked at herself in the mirror the way she always used to. She stood up straight, but the picture was not the same. It was wrong, the picture was wrong. No one would look at her and say now that she looked nice. She could see she did not.

  After Maeve left, when Caroline went out at night she left Amanda with different baby-sitters. Maria still worked for them, coming twice a week to clean the new apartment, and sometimes she came back in the evenings to stay with Amanda. Maria was in her midtwenties. She was from El Salvador, and had narrow black eyes and thick inky hair. She had a broad, pale yellowish face, with wide smooth cheeks. She wore colored headbands and black tights, white blouses and cardigans—though she would not know what their proper name was, Amanda thought. Maria’s English was minimal. She was fierce and strange; Amanda was afraid of her.

  When Maria stayed, she spent her evenings on the telephone, speaking very fast in Spanish. For dinner she heated up a frozen pizza. There were no rules with Maria: Amanda took a bath alone if she felt like it, not if she didn’t. At nine o’clock Maria appeared in Amanda’s doorway and said, “Nine o’clock. Time for bed, okay?” Amanda would look up from her comic, or from the TV, and nod. Maria would come in a few minutes later to say good night. Amanda was by then under the covers. She needn’t have changed into her pajamas, her teeth could be unbrushed.

  “Okay, good night,” Maria said, and turned out the light. Amanda waited until the footsteps faded and then turned her light back on, or the TV. Maria never came back. She went to the kitchen and picked up the telephone. She shut the kitchen door.

  When Maeve put Amanda to bed she sat down with her for a moment, and smoothed the hair back from Amanda’s forehead. Then Amanda closed her eyes and lay still, and Maeve traced a slow figure-eight pattern on Amanda’s skin. Amanda could feel Maeve’s calm fingertips move lightly, back and forth across her face. It felt like a kind of magic, as though she were perfectly connected to Maeve then, through that steady pressure against her forehead, as though Maeve’s fingers were her connection to the rest of the world, the dark foreverness of space, and that Amanda was now a part of it, safe, whole, ready, because of her connection to Maeve.

  Now, after Maria had said good night and gone back to the kitchen, sometimes Amanda lay with her eyes shut and pretended that Maeve’s slow fingers were moving across her forehead. Sometimes she put her own hand up and traced the pattern on her face. It made her feel better, though it did not feel the same.

  One night when Amanda could not sleep she came into the kitchen, blinking in the harsh light. Maria was sitting at the counter with a mug of coffee. She was on the phone. Amanda stood in the doorway and waited until Maria saw her. Maria jerked her chin up at once.

  “What you want?” she asked, unsmiling. She still held the phone to her mouth.

  “I’m thirsty,” Amanda said finally.

  Maria eyed her. Amanda did not move.

  “Espèrate,” Maria rattled into the telephone. She turned again to Amanda. “What you want to drink? Want some water?”

  Amanda shook her head.

  “What you want?” Maria repeated.

  “Coke,” said Amanda, testing. Maeve would never have given her a Coke. Maeve would have scolded her back to bed at once. If Amanda were sick or upset, then Maeve would fix her a cup of warm milk, with a spoonful of honey dissolved in it. Then Maeve would come in and sit with her in the dark while Amanda drank it.

  Now Maria set down the phone and went rapidly to the refrigerator. Everything she did she did very fast. She pulled out a can of Coke and handed it to Amanda.

  “Okay?” she asked.

  Amanda took the Coke and nodded. “Thank you.”

  Maria picked up the telephone again. She sat down on the stool and drew herself close to the kitchen counter. Her back was turned to Amanda. She put her elbows down on the counter and leaned into the phone.

  “Oyeme,” Maria said, her voice low and urgent. She began again, rattling off a stream of unknown words, peppery and staccato, sending them out into an unknown world.

  Amanda
turned and left. The metal can of Coke was cold in her hand, its thin red sides springy and yielding. Drops of cold water formed on it and trickled uncomfortably over her fingers. Back in her room, Amanda shut the door and turned on her light. She snapped open the top of the Coke can: the dark liquid hissed, and dirty foam curled up out of the opening. She took a swallow, but the soda bubbled up too quickly in her mouth. It stung; it was too cold, too active in her throat. She felt it suddenly, alarmingly, in her nostrils.

  Amanda set the can down on her bedside table and sat down on her bed. She was wearing pajama bottoms, a white cotton turtleneck, which was torn around the cuffs, and a sweater. She reached down and pulled a stack of old comics from underneath the dust ruffle. When Maeve was there, she had always looked under Amanda’s bed. She hiked up the dust ruffle and dragged out whatever it was Amanda had stuffed there.

  “Are you storing up treasure under here, or what?” Maeve demanded sternly. “There’s a place for everything, and everything in its place,” she said. She always said things like that, bossy little rules about everything in life. Amanda felt as though they held her in place, they held her world in place. There were those rules, always, forever, running along next to her, showing her the boundaries.

  With Maria there were no rules. She never looked under the bed, and Amanda now kept all her comics there, in a bright slippery heap. Now, in bed, leaning on one elbow, Amanda flipped open a comic and began to read. Archies were her favorites. She loved reading about freckled, bright-eyed, ingenuous Archie himself, with his mysterious two-horned hairdo. And blond, ingenious Betty, just as pretty as dark-haired Veronica but inexplicably less successful. She liked hating the scheming and untrustworthy Reggie; she liked liking the eccentric Jughead with his duck-bill nose and hamburger habit. Amanda read all this soberly and with interest. She absorbed information about chocolate shops, senior proms, double dating, as though she was schooling herself for her own adolescence, though Riverdale—with its small, neat, separate houses; its quiet, unlittered streets; its public high school; its proms and football games—was utterly unlike the landscape Amanda knew. In Riverdale there were no strangers.