This Is My Daughter

by Robinson, Roxana;

  “Thanks,” Amanda said.

  “I hope you’re having a good time here,” Emma said. “I hope you like the other kids. I know it’s hard to move into a new place at your age.”

  “It’s fine,” Amanda said, and waited.

  The girls here were blond, lithe, cheerful, with thin thighs. When they smiled, their braces glittered, their smooth straight hair sliding off their shoulders. They had invited Amanda to the beach club for sandwiches. Amanda had refused. She had nothing to say to them, girls in neat bright clothes, girls who still believed that rules were there to protect their world. And the boys were jerks, horsing around goofily on their bikes, yelling. They did not talk to Amanda, none of them had even looked at her. She despised them. The kids here made Amanda feel somber, urban, heavy. They were from a different tribe, one without doubts. They were fools.

  She said nothing to Emma.

  Emma waited, her arms folded across her chest.

  Go, Amanda told her stepmother silently.

  “Well,” Emma said finally, “you can think about it.”

  “Okay,” said Amanda, forcing another smile.

  “Good night, Nanna,” Emma said.

  Nanna was the nickname her father used. Only he was to use it, and her mother.

  Emma bent down to kiss her, putting her hand on Amanda’s shoulder. Her touch was light and jittery. Amanda heard the sound of a kiss, in the air by her ear. Emma straightened, her hand still on Amanda’s shoulder. She gave Amanda two little pats.

  “Sleep tight,” Emma said, smiling.

  “I will,” said Amanda, smiling back. “Good night.” Go, she thought, go.

  Emma turned to leave, but at the door she stopped. “Shall I open the window for you?” She asked this each night.

  Amanda shook her head.

  “Do you want the door shut?” Emma now asked.

  “I don’t care,” Amanda said. Go.

  Emma smiled at her. “Am I driving you crazy?” she asked.

  “No,” Amanda said, giving her a vague smile. Yes.

  “Okay, well, good night,” said Emma. “I’m finally going to go.” She was still smiling, as though she and Amanda were having fun together.

  “Good night,” said Amanda. Two more weeks. Emma turned away, and Amanda raised her eyes. She heard her stepmother go down the hall, into her own room. She heard Emma’s door shut.

  The house finally silent around her, Amanda took a long breath. She settled herself comfortably against the bed. She still had to wait until Emma had finished reading and turned out her light, but she would wait in peace. No one would come into her room again. She read on in her novel, absorbed: the terrified woman, the chilling signs of pursuit, the growing horror.

  Toward eleven, Amanda heard Emma’s footsteps, then the rush of the plumbing. Amanda waited for a moment, then got up quietly. Standing in her doorway, looking down the hall, she watched the strip of light under Emma’s door. When it went dark, Amanda turned silently back into her room and closed her door. Her own night had finally begun.

  She knelt on the rug beside her bed and slid her arm deep between the box spring and the mattress, between the flowered blanket cover and the white dust ruffle. From this secret interior Amanda withdrew a plastic bag containing a flattened box of Marlboro Lights, a cheap yellow cigarette lighter, a metallic pink ashtray, and another, smaller plastic bag. This was folded over and over on itself, and held her stash, about a dozen limp hand-rolled joints. She smoked these sparingly; they had to last the month.

  Amanda now opened her window, though she hated the damp cellary air that crept in from the ocean, and the banging of the dry furry moths against the screen. She had to open it, because of the smoke. She sat on her bed and put on her Walkman, setting the charmed arch of metal over her head as though its deep sound would insulate her from the whole rest of the world. At least she wouldn’t hear the moths.

  Amanda kicked off her sneakers, set the ashtray down on the bedside table and lit a flattened Marlboro Light. She drew in a long breath of hot smoke and closed her eyes. She felt the burn, rough and delicious against her throat.

  Now, alone, Amanda was herself. Around her was silence. Safe in her own room, surrounded by her own music, her own smoke, her own breath, Amanda was living her own life. She leaned against the flowered headboard and blew out the first soothing bloom of smoke, a warm hazy current that drifted intricately, in silence, into the air of her room, like the slow fluid movements at the bottom of the ocean.

  Some nights, after the Marlboro, she smoked a joint, or part of one. Some nights she wanted that hot stoked feeling, of being secretly in charge of everything, or at least knowing secretly how funny everything was. Some nights she smoked only the Marlboros, sometimes putting the cigarette to her mouth and pulling that deep invasion inside her, sometimes just sitting with the cigarette burning between her fingers, letting it grow shorter and shorter as she turned the pages of her book. She liked letting the cigarette burn, letting the luxuriant smoke from it move softly through space.

  The nights were long, in her father’s house. Amanda could not sleep in this house; she did not try. She lay on her bed, smoking and reading, sometimes all night, until the outside light took over from the inside. Sometimes she finished a whole book in one night, the black hours passing unnoticed. Sometimes she listened to tape after tape, the plastic cases littering her bedspread as she moved from one musical world to another. Some nights she only wanted one tape, and played the same music over and over. The music and the night surrounded and sheltered her. She could feel the house silent. She could feel the whole island silent. She could feel the Atlantic Ocean, lapping along its shores, silent. It was four o’clock in the morning, and Amanda was the only person awake, real. She drew her own private smoke into her lungs, deep, and slowly blew it out, a peace.

  What she felt was sadness, and she let herself at last sink slowly into it. It was a relief. All during the bright excruciating day, with its jittering talk, its interference, she waited for this moment, at night, when she was alone, surrounded by darkness. Now she could let go, and descend into this deep space she yearned for, this place where she knew she belonged, silent, vast; this deep lake of sadness.

  In the morning Emma knocked on her door.

  “Eight o’clock.”

  Amanda did not answer. Her head was still dark and full of smoke, and her brain would not move.

  “Amanda?” Emma said. “Time to get up. It’s eight o’clock.”

  Amanda cleared her throat. She had to say something or Emma would come into the room.

  “Okay,” she said. Her voice was strange in her ears, low, and somehow split.

  “Amanda?” Emma said again.

  “Okay,” Amanda called, summoning all her energy.

  “See you downstairs,” Emma said.

  Amanda lay without moving. She had not yet opened her eyes. Her face was plowed deep into the core of her pillow. She had to get up. Her clinic was at nine, and she would have to leave at ten of, on her bike. If she was late Emma would drive her, which she could not risk.

  Amanda pulled herself up, her eyes still shut. Her limbs were dead. She still felt stoned, her mind sequestered in another place. She stood unsteadily, keeping her eyes shut against the room, which would now be garishly bright and full of salt air. She took a step, staggering slightly, and cracked her eyes open onto the unkind blare of yellow flower-sprigged wallpaper. She closed them again and groped her way to her bureau. She felt in the top drawer for socks, the heavy tennis underpants. She had no clean socks. She could not remember where anything was: her tennis shoes, her racquet, her skirt. She moved slowly, concentrating. She found things one by one: the skirt on the floor in the closet, under a T-shirt, a pair of dirty socks at the bottom of the wicker laundry hamper. Dressed, Amanda stared at herself in the mirror. There were dark half-moons under her eyes. She brushed her matte black hair briefly and shoved it behind her ears. The idea of water on her face seemed too challenging, an
d she decided against washing her face or brushing her teeth.

  Emma was down in the kitchen, dressed and cheerful. She was on the phone, leaning against the white counter. When she saw Amanda she smiled and blinked at her, then held up one finger to show how much longer she’d be. Amanda stood, waiting.

  “Now I have to go,” Emma said loudly, her voice warm. “Amanda has just come in and I have to get breakfast into her before she goes to tennis.” There was a pause and she smiled again at Amanda, nodding. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell her. Okay, bye.”

  Emma hung up and turned to Amanda. “Mrs. Cartwright says hi.”

  Amanda said nothing. Mrs. Cartwright was an old friend of her mother’s and father’s, who had now become a friend of Emma’s. Amanda didn’t like hearing her mother’s friend talking to Emma. It seemed to her as though Emma were greedily trying to take over everything, not just Amanda’s father but as much of his life as she could, including things that were really Caroline’s.

  “Now, you sit down and I’ll bring you what you want,” Emma said, and Amanda sat down at the scrubbed pine table. There were three places set, with oval straw mats, folded white napkins and deep blue glasses. The silverware had bamboo-shaped handles. Amanda knew the straw mats: they were from before. Maeve used to use them for Amanda’s breakfast. The mats were not Emma’s, she had no right to them, thought Amanda. There were other things here, too, that she remembered from before. These things belonged not to Emma but to Amanda’s mother. Even the new things, the things that had been bought just for this house, like the bamboo-handled silverware, all these things should really have been Caroline’s. Everything in the house should have been Caroline’s: everything in this life Peter was leading should have been Caroline’s, and Amanda’s. It should have been their life. Nothing at all should have been in this house, it should not exist.

  “Talley Cartwright is in the clinic with you, isn’t she?” Emma asked. She was at the sink, filling the kettle.

  “I don’t know,” Amanda said.

  Emma turned to look at her. “You don’t know?” She frowned, but Amanda shook her head indifferently. “Well, maybe Talley’s a bit younger. But I thought you were the same age. How do they divide you at the clinic, by age or by ability?”

  “Age,” said Amanda, guessing.

  “Well, then,” said Emma, “that’s why.” She began opening cupboards. “What would you like? Toast? Cereal? Grapefruit? I’ve just got some pink grapefruit for your father. Would you like one of those?”

  “I don’t like grapefruit,” Amanda said. She hated grapefruit. Her mother knew this. Maeve had known it. Peter knew it, and so did Tess.

  “Oh, you don’t?” Emma’s back was turned, she was peering into the refrigerator. “I thought you did.”

  “I hate it. I’ve always hated it,” said Amanda. The sour smell, the biting taste, the treacherous spurts from the little glistening wedges.

  At Amanda’s tone, Emma turned to look at her.

  “Have you?” Emma said. She closed the refrigerator. Now she talked fast. “I can’t keep everyone straight. Peter loves grapefruit, Tess hates strawberries, you hate grapefruit—I can’t keep it all in my head.”

  Amanda said nothing. Emma had no trouble keeping Tess’s tastes in her head, or Peter’s.

  “So, what would you like?” Emma asked. “Toast? Cereal? Yogurt?”

  At home, Amanda had whatever she felt like for breakfast. Often she had nothing. Here, Emma made her eat something, and it could never be anything sweet, like doughnuts or cinnamon rolls, which Amanda loved. Also Emma wouldn’t let her drink coffee. This was all supposedly for Amanda’s good, but if Emma was so concerned about Amanda and her good, why didn’t she remember what Amanda liked? Amanda had spent weekends with Emma since she was seven. Emma pretended to be such a great mother, but why did she remember everyone’s likes and dislikes except hers? Emma’s lapse, her nervous response to it, seemed revealing to Amanda, important. Amanda felt suddenly powerful.

  “Amanda? It’s twenty of nine. Tell me what you’d like.”

  “I don’t really want anything to eat,” said Amanda. “I think I’ll just have coffee.”

  Emma frowned. “Coffee! Don’t have coffee, Amanda.”

  Amanda shrugged and stood up. “Okay, then,” she said. “I won’t have anything. I’m not hungry. I’ll see you later.”

  “No, wait,” Emma said. “You should eat something, especially if you’re going to play tennis.”

  “All I want is coffee,” said Amanda.

  There was a silence.

  “Does your mother let you drink it?” asked Emma.

  “I drink it at school,” Amanda said, impassive.

  “Well,” Emma said, “you’re awfully young to get in the habit. It’s really not good for you.”

  “Whatever,” Amanda said. “I’m not hungry.”

  She turned to go before Emma could answer. Amanda wanted to be gone from here, really gone, elsewhere. She would have liked to twist a glowing dial and find herself three weeks from now.

  “I’ve got to go or I’ll be late. Bye,” Amanda said, her voice loud. She picked up her sweatshirt and left the kitchen. She went through the back way, the laundry and the mudroom. Speed was crucial, or Emma would say something, try to stop her.

  Amanda got out onto the back deck without stopping, the screen door slammed lightly behind her. She picked up her bike from where it lay on the driveway and swung her leg over the saddle, standing up on the pedals and pushing off hard. She bumped heavily along the driveway, the wheels grinding through the gravel, to the edge of the road. Still no voice from the house. One more push on the pedals and she had left the gravel. Now she was out of the shrubbery, onto the dark smooth paved road. She had made it.

  At first the road rose slowly in front of her, and Amanda stood up on the pedals with each push, feeling the bike sway lightly back and forth between her legs. At the top of the little rise the road curved to the right, and Amanda sat down on the saddle. She coasted silently through the long green tunnel: high privet on either side, summer-thick maples overhead. The landscape was summer lush; the fields were full of tall grass, and the trees shimmering with green. The lanes were overgrown, and the houses hidden from the road by trees and hedges. The island was full of small hills, and the roads twisted mildly up and down, revealing brief verdant views at each turn.

  Past the little store and the cluster of buildings around it, a few slow cars, past the small open green, and the road became emptier again. Amanda turned onto a smaller lane, then coasted down a brief wooded slope, pedaled fast through an S-turn. She turned off the road into a sandy farm track that led to an open field. There the bike slowed, and Amanda stood again with each push, the sand dragging at her tires. The field itself was long sweet grass, now in high feathery plumes. Around its circumference was a rose hedge, huge, impenetrable. Amanda had never found anyone else here. She rode bumpily along the edge of the field to the far corner, where she laid her bicycle on its side. As she set it down, she realized she had forgotten her tennis racquet. She wondered where it was, if Emma would notice. It was too late to go back; she would tell Emma she had borrowed someone else’s.

  Amanda had laid her bike down by a rough circle of flattened grass. Taking her sweatshirt from her basket, she folded it into a bundle. She lay down on the flattened grass, setting the sweatshirt under her head like a pillow. She pulled one sleeve loose and laid it over her eyes. It was still early, the sun was not yet hot. She would be able to sleep here for two hours, until the sun was overhead and blazing. She pulled her knees up close to her chest. Around her were the dim rustlings of the long grass in the wind, insects. The sunlight was blotted out, and a dark peace came over her. She was alone; she had vanished. No one in the world knew where she was at that moment. She was free.

  Amanda felt herself expand into the air, as though she had blissfully dissolved, like the curling gray smoke vanishing into the air of her room, only she was expanding int
o the warm summer sky. She slept.

  20

  As Amanda slammed out of the kitchen, Emma found herself leaning forward, her body tense and urgent, as though she were about to do something: to reach out and catch Amanda. Draw her back into the warmth of Emma’s arms. Hit her.

  But Emma did nothing, did not move or speak. She stood motionless, tilted forward in that odd way. She heard the quick hiss of the screen door opening, heard the tense light slam as it shut. The rapid footsteps down the wooden stairs. The kitchen now was silent, though not calm: it felt roughly abandoned. The violent departure left the air turbulent, as though a motorboat had just churned through it. Emma, caught in the wake of the girl’s flight, folded her arms and drew a breath. The breath caught, scalded, in her chest. Rage and shame: she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the refrigerator door. She pressed the tips of her fingers against the hard sockets of her eyes. She wept.

  I am your father’s wife, she thought.

  “‘A party?’” she thought. “‘A party?’”

  Light sloped through the window to lie in long brilliant rectangles on the white counter. A row of green glass canisters stood against the windowsill, their tops molten and fiery in the shaft of sunlight. A patch of light fell against Emma’s back, hot and insistent.

  Emma picked up a napkin from the counter and put it up to her eyes. She held it there for a moment, covering her eyes with both hands, her mouth open in a silent cry. She crumpled the napkin. It will never end, she thought. She drew a long breath.

  She pulled a tall canister out of the row, sliding it without sound across the counter. She poured granola into her bowl, and filled its dusty hollows with milk. She left the hot shaft of sun and sat down at the table, in cool blue shadow. She began to eat, looking out the window.

  Outside, along the house, were the lilacs Emma had planted. She had brought up the shrubs herself from a nursery in Connecticut. Wrapped in burlap, laid carefully on their sides, the rough scratchy gang of them had ridden in the back of the Volvo. It had been early spring then, mud season, cold and raw. The whole landscape had been dead, the wind unkind. Emma, in rubber boots and parka, had carried the heavy bundles to their places and pushed her spade into the chilled and gritty soil. She had set them along the side of the house. Now their heart-shaped leaves, matte green, brushed against the window.