This Is My Daughter

by Robinson, Roxana;

  Emma ate her cereal in silence, hearing again the screen door’s little slam, the clumsy thudding footsteps on the deck. Next to her was Amanda’s place setting. It was pristine: the clean circle of the blue-rimmed plate. The smooth white napkin, folded, corner matching corner. The dark lustrous glass, empty.

  She should have remembered that Amanda hated grapefruit. Now, of course, she did: she could see vividly Amanda’s familiar grimace at the very word. She should have remembered. And even if she hadn’t remembered, she should have been nicer about it. She had been unkind, her voice rough. Now, in the silent kitchen, Emma whispered, I’m sorry, Amanda, I’d forgotten you don’t like grapefruit. That was what she should have said, but she had not. She had been defensive, peremptory. She had been hateful. She had answered scornfully, as though she, Emma, could not be expected to remember what Amanda liked. As though the likes and dislikes of this child were insignificant. As though the life of this child, her whole being, the complex map of herself, made up of all her thoughts and interests and ideas, all was irrelevant to Emma, unwanted. She had treated Amanda like an outsider. Sitting at the table, out of the sun, Emma now felt chilled. Cold blue shame filled her. Desperate to get away, she thought, sickened. She had driven her husband’s child from his house. Her husband, who had trusted her with his only and beloved daughter.

  The kitchen reproached her: the row of handsome glowing canisters, the bright tiles above the sink, all the smooth surfaces, the points of color. The flowered pottery jugs, the checked pot holders, the striped dish towels. What was the point of this charm? She had driven her husband’s child from his house. That was the sort of mother she was, just this warm, this maternal, this kind. I will do better, she promised.

  Carrying her dishes to the sink, she heard a sound behind her and turned. Tess stood in the doorway, in her nightgown; her face was still sleep crumpled.

  “Hi, Tessie,” she said. Emma heard her own real voice. This was the person she really was. “Come have something to eat.”

  Tess rubbed her eyes and sat down without speaking. Emma fixed her cereal. Tess sat slumping, gazing out the window. Her fine honey-colored hair, unbrushed, hung in messy hanks. She was not fully awake, still dazed by dreams.

  “Mom,” she asked, “are there dogs around here that have rabies?”

  “No,” said Emma. “Dogs around here all have shots.” She poured milk into Tess’s cereal.

  “If they didn’t have shots would they get rabies?”

  “Probably not,” Emma said. “There isn’t much rabies around anymore to catch.” She paused. “Actually, that’s not true. There is some rabies around now, it’s killing the poor raccoons. But most dogs are inoculated, so even if a dog were bitten by a rabid wild animal he wouldn’t get it.” Emma carried the bowl to the table.

  “But if he hadn’t had a shot, and he was bitten by a raccoon, he would get it?”

  “If the raccoon had it.”

  Tess looked at her cereal. “I don’t like it when you put the milk in for me,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut, puckering her mouth. She was still too close to sleep to be rational, part of the real world.

  “I forgot, sorry,” said Emma.

  “I hate when you do that,” said Tess crossly.

  “I’m sorry,” Emma said again. “I forgot. Did I put too much?” She waited, watching Tess’s darkening face. She was ready to cry.

  There was a pause. “I don’t like it,” Tess said. She made a whimpering sound.

  “Tess,” Emma said. She threw her hands in the air. “Shall I throw the whole thing out?”

  Tess sat without moving, her head stubbornly bent.

  Two fights in one morning, Emma thought. What am I doing wrong? How does this happen so easily? Why do we find ourselves pitted against the wills of our children?

  Should I give way, throw the cereal out and start over? Would that be flexible and understanding? Or lax and indulgent? What signals do we send our children?

  They waited. Each felt the other’s will—powerful, stubborn, braced. The silence lengthened. Not looking at her mother, Tess picked up her spoon, her face stormy.

  “Okay, fine,” she said bitterly. “Fine.” Tess began to eat, sloppily, her mouth resentfully open. Under the table she kicked her feet against the chair leg.

  “Thanks, Tessie, for being a grown-up,” Emma said.

  Tess didn’t answer. She went on eating but closed her mouth. She stopped kicking her feet.

  Tess’s clinic started an hour later than Amanda’s, but by the time Tess had finished breakfast, gone back upstairs, washed her face, brushed her teeth and hair, and dressed in her tennis whites, it was too late for her to ride her bike. When she came down the second time, Emma was standing at the bottom of the stairs. She watched Tess descending toward her, her trim little-girl body barreling down, her neat tan limbs flying. Tess jumped down the last two steps holding out to her mother elastic bands and a hairbrush. Emma began to brush Tess’s hair into two ponytails.

  “It’s too late for you to ride,” she said. “I’ll drive you over.”

  “And my bike too,” Tess said.

  “And your bike too. And I love you,” Emma added.

  “I love you,” Tess said. The quarrel was over.

  She stood perfectly still before her mother, offering herself up trustfully. Emma stood over her, brushing her hair. This age was still perfect, the culmination of childhood, she thought. At ten there was a flowering, before the awkwardness of adolescence: Tess was still there. The limbs were long and smooth, the skin flawless. The hands and feet were still neat, diminutive. And the lovely candid gaze, the ingenuous sweetness: these children still love you without shame. The thought burned into Emma, and she closed her eyes for a moment, in gratitude, seized by love.

  “Mum,” Tess said impatiently.

  “Okay,” Emma said. She drew Tess’s hair into a smooth brown waterfall over her face, then made a neat line down the middle. The pale skin of Tess’s skull shone meekly through her hair. Emma pulled first one half of the hair into a ponytail, drawing it into a silky fountain behind Tess’s ear.

  “Mum,” Tess said, tilting her head up. “Why do you always get so mad at Amanda?”

  Emma said nothing, pulling Tess’s hair into the second ponytail. She slid the elastic off her wrist and over the slippery hair, and pulled the tail down behind Tess’s pink, whorled ear. She wondered if Tess had been awake that morning, if she had heard their raised voices. Had they raised their voices? She remembered rage, but not shouts.

  “I don’t always get so mad at Amanda,” Emma said.

  There was a pause.

  “You do a lot,” Tess said, diffident.

  “A party?” Emma thought, “A party?”

  “You’re all set,” she said, patting Tess’s collar. “Maybe I do,” she said. “Amanda has a hard time with the rules in this household. She’s not used to them.”

  Tess lifted her head and looked up. She looked now like a person, not a child: her features were small but finished. Her brow was clear, her gaze direct and candid. She was not yet self-conscious. She looked straight into her mother’s eyes. She waited.

  “I can’t explain everything to you,” Emma said. She turned away. “Get your racquet. Let’s go.”

  Outside, the morning was clear and fresh. The leaves were still dewy, and the air in the shaded driveway felt cool and mysterious. Emma breathed deeply, drawing the sweet calm air into her lungs. The wooden steps rang under her heels. She picked up Tess’s bicycle and wheeled it across the resistant gravel to the Volvo. The rear door rose with a brisk pneumatic whoosh, and she heaved the bicycle onto the carpeted plateau. As she slid it in, the front wheel doubled back on itself; the bike lay twisted, a jumble of metal parts. Emma’s push set the rear wheel unexpectedly spinning, and the spokes suddenly glittered, crisscrossing dizzyingly in the dark interior. The narrow angles met, meshed, dissolved, too fast to follow. The wheel’s swift motion, silent, hypnotic, was a small gift,
lovely, a vision. Tess appeared at her side, and Emma turned to her.

  “Look,” she said, making a peace offering of the silver shimmer.

  Now Tess, looking past Emma into the dark car, saw the silver spinning glitter, and slowly smiled.

  There were two clubs on Marten’s Island, the Big and the Little. At the western, ferry-dock end of the island was the Little Club. This was for tennis and children. It had ten red clay courts, a sheltered beach and an old rambling clubhouse. The Little Club was informal. Lunch there was a picnic down by the water, or a sandwich, ordered at the modest snack bar, and eaten standing on the porch among teenage boys in sweaty tennis clothes, lounging against the railing, wolfing down food and laughing raucously.

  At the other end of the island was the Big Club, for golf and grownups. It had an eighteen-hole course, a long ocean beach and a proper restaurant. Lunch at the Big Club was sit-down, with umbrella-shaded tables and flowered tablecloths. The men wore golf shoes and pink pants, the women sunglasses and expensive straw hats.

  The Little Club driveway led straight in at right angles from the road, past tennis courts on both sides. The clubhouse was to the left of the driveway, long, low and white shingled, with deep porches along two sides. Before it was a flagpole and a dusty circle. The driveway passed the circle and then continued down toward the water, and a long quiet beach on a sheltered cove.

  It was now midmorning, and the air was turning warm and light. A breeze drifted easily in off the water. The flag by the clubhouse lifted and rippled, dropped again. Tess’s clinic was at the upper courts, where a stand of honey locusts laid filigreed shade onto the scrubby lawn. Under the trees was a scattering of young girls, all in clean whites and sneakers, all holding racquets, all aimless, waiting for the clinic to start.

  Emma parked the car and turned off the engine. She put her hand on the door handle, and Tess spoke.

  “Mum,” she said.

  “What?”

  “When I go to Daddy’s can I take my bike?”

  Emma looked at Tess. Her face was troubled, the fragile eyebrows drawn together. It would be a nuisance, getting the bike off the island, sending it with Tess, but the more serious question was Warren. Would he be offended if Tess brought her own bicycle? Everything offended Warren now, since he had married the difficult Mimi. Mimi was from Greenwich, and was right about everything. She would not talk to Emma, but she talked to Warren about her. It turned out that Emma was wrong about everything.

  Emma stroked Tess’s face, smoothing her golden eyebrows.

  “Why do you want to take this one? Don’t you have one there?”

  “I do, but it’s a baby’s bike. It’s too small.” Tess made a face, delicately hideous. “It has pink plastic streamers on the handles.”

  Warren would definitely be offended. He would see this as a criticism, and he would accuse Emma of making trouble. He would light into Emma on the phone and then hang up on her. Then he would be too busy to take her calls. But why should Tess be the one to suffer?

  It would inevitably cause a fight. If Emma insisted on sending the bike, Warren might take it out on Tess. Which was worse, making Tess ride on the babyish bike, or making her bear the brunt of Warren’s anger? Why was Warren always, always angry at Emma? Why wouldn’t he simply, at last, subside, let go?

  “I’ll talk to your father about it,” Emma said. Tess looked worried, and Emma patted her knee. “We’ll work it out,” she said.

  Tess smiled and slid out the door, her attention gone. Her best friend, Sarah Rogers, was approaching. Sarah had a solemn oval face, with heavy eyelids and a high freckled forehead. Her hair was in tidy, red-blond pigtails, and her white shorts were pulled up high, above her waist.

  “Hi, Sarah,” Emma said.

  “Hi,” Sarah said, polite, preoccupied. She walked slowly and woodenly, her tennis racquet held in front of her at an angle, face-down. With each step, she gently kicked the taut strings. “Bonk,” she said, in an undertone, as her toe hit the strings, “bonk. Bonk.”

  Tess sped past Sarah, grabbing her friend by the arm, spinning her around and hustling her. Sarah swiveled unprotestingly, allowing herself to be carried off. Emma dragged Tess’s bicycle out of the back of the Volvo and laid it on the lawn.

  “I’m leaving your bike here,” she called. “Come home for lunch or call. Bring Sarah if you like.”

  Tess did not look back but called, “Okay,” as she and Sarah made their way across the lawn, into their own world.

  Emma walked back to the car. Beyond the low hill, stretching gradually down to the beach, the cove was spread out, green and glittering, in the morning light. The flag in front of the clubhouse snapped, dropped and rose slowly in a restless billow. Emma was liberated, the morning was hers. For the next several hours the girls were safe, industrious and someone else’s responsibility. Stretching out before Emma, luxuriously, was silence.

  Driving back out, now feeling calmer and kinder—guilty, actually—Emma slowed the car to wave at Amanda. She looked for her among the clusters of players, but the courts were at some distance, and each had its own shifting groups, teams playing out a doubles point, or a line of figures dashing singly up to the net. Emma, looking several times as she drove slowly past, had not found Amanda among the others by the time she reached the end of the driveway. She went on, turning out onto the road. She would say something conciliatory to Amanda later.

  At home, Emma stood again in the silent kitchen. The house no longer felt abandoned, it felt hers. The silence was now peaceful. She put on the kettle. She stood dreamily near the stove, waiting for the water to boil. Now the vicissitudes of the morning began to slide away. She began to forget the room, the girls, herself. Her mind, released, moved like a smooth wave unrolling across white sand, to her work.

  When Emma had decided to leave the magazine Robert had offered her a promotion.

  “I need a woman in a senior position,” he told her earnestly.

  “But you want a woman who will write like a man,” Emma answered. “You don’t want me to write anything nasty about the boys.”

  “Now, Emma,” Robert said, grinning, holding his bare elbows.

  Emma grinned too, but she meant it. Most of the successful women in the art world—painters and dealers and critics—acted like men. Particularly the artists: God forbid that a woman artist should paint like a woman, that she should paint tenderness, rapture, bliss, or babies, intimacy, family. All that was viewed as minor, secondary, while the subjects of men’s art—rage, war, politics—was seen as crucial and central.

  Emma was working now on her master’s degree. Her field was twentieth-century American art, and her thesis was on women painters of the nineteen thirties. There were a lot of them, but most were obscure, and part of her task was simply discovering them and their work.

  Emma loved this. She loved the research, sitting in the subaqueous gloom of a microfilm room, in the spinning silence of the machines, watching images and text slide past, each frame radiant as she focused her gaze on it. She loved the New York Public Library, with its vast, handsome rooms, the spaces dignifying their inhabitants by their beauty and symmetry. Here everyone spoke quietly, out of respect for scholarship. The hushed words seemed to rise up to the high ceilings and dissolve there into a dim comforting protective murmur. Emma loved the huge Public Reading Room, with its long oak tables, the heavy brass reading lamps. She loved the unknown colleagues, all silent, absorbed by their texts, each drawing private sustenance from words. She loved handing in her requests for books, the excitement of seeing her number appear in glowing numerals on the electronic board over the desk, announcing the arrival of her books from the stacks. She loved receiving them, the worn and tattered catalogs, the old dog-eared books, the bound magazines: they were treasures.

  For a year Emma had browsed, reading dealers’ records, exhibition catalogs, auction catalogs, newspaper reviews and correspondence. She had examined paintings; tracking down grimy canvases in the basemen
ts of museums, in the attics of descendants, in the warehouses of dealers. She loved the moment of discovery, as someone, an indifferent museum employee, an excited relative, held up to her eyes a picture ignored for decades. Here was the tangible reality of its dry scumbled surface, its dust-dulled colors. Here the artist was revealed at this particular moment, with all her strengths and shortcomings, struggling with her task. Emma loved this: the decoding of the efforts, the explication of the images. She loved bearing witness to the struggle itself.

  Emma particularly liked the extra layer of questions that came with women artists. There was always the issue of whether or not women’s art was intrinsically different from men’s. If you believed, as Emma did, that women’s sensibility was different and that therefore their work should be different from men’s, then their historical mediocrity made sense. For it was true that there were shamingly few great women artists. But if they had always labored under the handicap of trying to paint like someone else, this seemed inevitable. They had been instructed to assume an alien consciousness: they had tried to paint like men. The good ones, like Morisot and Cassatt, had painted very well indeed, and very much like the men of their circles, though they hadn’t offered much that was new. But a great one, like O’Keeffe, painted like no one else, no men of her time and no women before her. She was attacked for that, for not painting like the men of her era. She was accused of being obscure, arcane. But to Emma she was simply being female, painting from a different kind of sensibility. O’Keeffe was painting how it felt to be a woman. Emma thought that women were still trying to paint like men, just as big and bold and powerful, as political, as insulting and angry as men. As though that were all there was, as though there were nothing else worthwhile. Certainly those were the women who were encouraged by the art world, and not those who “painted like women,” no one who painted intimacy, or rapture, or babies. But why weren’t images of babies as important as those of guns?