This Is My Daughter

by Robinson, Roxana;

  “It’s quite all right,” Peter says, furious.

  Doctor Baxter pulls out the pencil-sized flashlight from his breast pocket. He turns it on, as though the light itself will reveal something. “Up to now, her pupils have been unfocused. But today I can see a shift. They have begun to draw together, toward the light, as eyes do normally.”

  “Good,” Peter says forcefully, nodding. This is marvelous. He wonders where the Kirklands are. Are they standing tactlessly right behind him, listening? Is the consultation over? Is Doctor Baxter about to leave? Is he leaving because there are too many people here? Should Peter tell Amanda to wait outside? What if Emma tells Amanda to wait outside? He will slap her face.

  Doctor Baxter nods solemnly at them both, pushing his lips outward slightly in a preoccupied pout. The front of his head gleams. Peter wonders if he does anything to make it gleam. What would you do to bald skin? Put lotion on it? Oil? Wax it, like a floor? Is it something Peter will have to learn? The doctor shifts deftly away from them, anxious to leave.

  “We’ll see how she is tomorrow,” he says. He lifts the flashlight to put it back in the breast pocket of his white jacket but misses. He frowns slightly, pouting again. On the second try he makes it, tucking it in neatly. He nods at Peter and Emma. “Good-bye,” he says, and slides past them.

  Peter stands facing Emma, who still does not look at him or Amanda. She follows the doctor out to the hall, where her parents are waiting.

  “Hello, Daddy, Mummy. Come on in,” Peter hears her say, and they all file back into the room. They stand awkwardly.

  “Hello, dear,” Mrs. Kirkland is saying. “How is she? Did the doctor give you good news?”

  “Yes,” says Emma. “Come and see her.”

  Emma leads them to the bed. She has still not yet looked at Amanda.

  Peter takes Amanda’s hand again. He glances at her: her eyebrows are raised, aloof, her eyelids lowered, as though she is bored. As he stands next to her he catches a faint whiff from her body. Has she not bothered to shower? Damn Caroline, he thinks, damn her, damn her.

  Emma leans over one side of the bed, her mother over the other. Mr. Kirkland stands stiffly beside his wife, looking at Tess, but not leaning over. Tess lies on her back, one arm flung across her stomach, the other down at her side. Today her face seems more swollen; is that possible? Maybe it’s just that he’s looking at her as an outsider, as these newcomers would see her for the first time. But she looks terrible. The battered nose, the cheeks. The greenish brown bruises. Christ.

  “You see,” Emma says, “you heard Doctor Baxter. The pupillary response is getting better. That means her eyes are beginning to focus.” Tess’s eyes are now closed, no one can see her pupils.

  The air-conditioning is on high, and it is too cold in the room. Amanda gives a sudden shiver. Peter squeezes her hand, to comfort her, and to keep her from pulling away.

  “That means,” Emma begins. She stops. “That means that the brain—” But the words are too terrible, and she cannot go on. Doctor Baxter’s coolness, his caution, his deliberate flight from them all, make this tiny glimmer of hope seem suddenly pathetic in the face of the reality—Tess’s battered features, her silence. Emma puts her hands to her face and hunches over, her head lowered onto her chest. Peter is at the foot of the bed, and can’t reach her unless he drops Amanda’s hand.

  Mrs. Kirkland leans across the bed, across Tess. “Dear,” she says. She touches Emma’s head. “I’m so sorry,” she says.

  Emma turns her head away from her mother’s hand, jerking as though she’d been bitten. She turns away from her parents, toward the window, and begins to cry. The others stand motionless while Emma weeps.

  Peter lets go of Amanda’s hand and steps around the bed to Emma. He puts his arm around her, taking hold of her shoulders, and for a moment he feels her lean against his arm, but at once she stiffens.

  “Get out,” Emma says, hissing.

  “Emma,” Peter says, warningly.

  She raises her head. “Get out of here.”

  “Emma,” Peter says, now angry.

  Emma turns to Amanda. Her face is distorted with grief, tears are running down her cheeks. Her eyes are red, like an animal’s. “You get out,” she says. “How dare you come here.”

  “Emma,” says Mrs. Kirkland.

  “Don’t say that,” Peter says. “This is my daughter.”

  Emma stares at him. She raises her arm, pointing at the bed. “This is my daughter,” she says.

  “Emma,” says Mrs. Kirkland again, nervous.

  “Get out,” Emma says.

  “Don’t tell me that,” Peter says. “I am Tess’s stepfather.”

  “I want you out of here,” Emma says, her eyes wild. “I want you out.” Her voice is rising.

  “Emma, look,” Peter says. He steps forward and puts his arms around her. She shakes him loose and turns away.

  “Please don’t touch me,” she says. “Please don’t ever touch me again.”

  “Don’t say that,” Mrs. Kirkland says.

  Emma turns to her father. “Tell him to leave.”

  Peter takes Amanda’s hand again. “Don’t go too far, Emma,” he says. “Maybe you already have.”

  Emma laughs terribly. “Maybe I already have?” she asked. “Look at my daughter.” She waves her hand again at Tess. “How dare you say things like that to me. How dare you bring her here.”

  “Emma,” Peter begins. He stops, and closes his eyes. There is nowhere left to go. “Okay, Amanda,” he says. “Good-bye,” he says to the Kirklands.

  “Don’t go,” says Mrs. Kirkland uneasily.

  “Go,” says Emma. She has crossed her arms on her chest.

  Peter leads Amanda into the hall. Outside the room he looks first left, then right. He can’t remember which way the elevator is.

  30

  As he steps out of the elevator downstairs, into the lobby, Peter’s eyes meet those of the middle-aged black woman behind the high square reception counter. Her hair is lacquered, and piled up on her head. Her heavy-lidded stare is steady and uncompromising. Under her scrutiny he realizes suddenly that he still has Amanda’s hand held tightly in his.

  Crossing the lobby toward the main door, he drops her hand, turning to her. “I’m not letting you go,” he says. “I just don’t want to be arrested for kidnapping.”

  Amanda looks startled, then smiles timidly. “Thanks,” she says.

  Her timidity strikes him, and her gratitude. I never do this, he thinks, I never explain things to her, simple things, the things I’m doing. I expect her to know things without being told, and then I’m impatient when she doesn’t.

  Outside on the front steps it is hot again. The lowering sun strikes powerfully at them from the sky over the West Side. The sluggish city air feels already breathed. Peter stands for a moment on the sidewalk.

  “Where are we going?” Amanda asks, and again Peter feels a pang. When was she ever given a choice? Children went where they were taken. All those weekends when Amanda was taken from her own home, taken from her room, her friends, her mother, to come to their strange apartment. At his request. His command.

  “Where would you like to go?” Peter asks. “What about a walk in the park? Then we could go to a movie, if you want.” Now he feels timid. Here is the risk: perhaps she will reject this, him.

  But Amanda says peaceably, “Okay.” She walks with him to the curb. They wait for the light, to cross toward the long low stone wall bordering the park. A tangle of forsythia clamors above the coping, its foliage dark now, at the end of the summer, the leaves hanging limp, but still green, still growing. It looks cooler on the other side of the street.

  Peter can feel sweat beginning at his temples. He would like to take Amanda’s hand again, just for openers, just to declare himself. But it is so hot, and he doesn’t want to attract stares. And she might not want him to hold her hand.

  The light changes and they cross the avenue. He wonders where to begin, with Am
anda. He wonders what he is going to say to her. He wonders where he is going to go that night, and what he has declared to Emma, by walking out.

  “What are you going to do?” Amanda asks, looking up at him.

  “Go to the club,” he says. Anywhere.

  “Oh,” she says, and turns away.

  He would have liked to reassure her. Always he has felt a responsibility to shield her from the world, to maintain a parental canopy over her, suggesting that adult behavior may be complicated and incomprehensible, but it is not something that should worry her. He has always felt his marriage to Emma, their behavior, should appear logical, orderly. That’s over. He has no idea what will happen now, between himself and Emma, so he can’t reassure Amanda about that. She can see for herself, she will have to make her own deductions. She can see that he is unhappy, helpless. She can see that he wouldn’t let Emma turn his daughter away. She can see that he thinks Emma has gone too far.

  “Is this because of me?” Amanda asks.

  “Because of you, yes,” says Peter. “But it’s not your fault.”

  They walk in silence. In front of them is a short, trim woman with a yellow Lab. The woman walks languidly in the heat, the Lab, his pink tongue out, shambles lazily along beside her.

  “It’s not acceptable to me that Emma should treat you like that,” Peter says. “I won’t let her.”

  Amanda looks at him, then turns away.

  Has he been too harsh toward Emma? He thinks again of the battered face. No. Even so, no. There are things she can’t expect of him, even though Tess is hurt. And she has rejected him over and over, coldly, relentlessly. He feels again rage.

  “You’re my daughter,” he says.

  “I didn’t think that mattered,” Amanda says.

  “What do you mean?” Peter asks.

  “I mean, you always used to tell me, when I said you did everything for Tess, you always said you’d treat us the same, you’d always treat us just the same. I thought you didn’t care that I was your daughter, I thought it didn’t make any difference.”

  “Amanda—” Peter begins. Anger is the emotion he was used to feeling toward her. Amanda created havoc: she upset Tess, upset Emma, she broke rules, broke her word, broke dishes. She has been like this for years, always. What he felt when he saw her was always anger and resentment, the need to protect Emma and Tess from her. Emma and Tess stood under the shelter of one arm, and Amanda arrived with weapons, ready to attack. It was up to him to prevent Amanda from doing damage. She always managed to; she was sulky, rebellious, intractable. Willfully destructive. Now he wonders what his own part has been in all this. How had she felt, arriving to find him always protecting this other wife, this other daughter, fending her off?

  “I love you,” he says earnestly.

  “I know you say that,” Amanda answers. She sounds resigned.

  “I do,” says Peter, but how has he shown it?

  “And you love Tess,” Amanda says.

  “I do, but not the way I love you.”

  She turns to look at him again, her face open, her eyes sorrowful. A cruel sight, sorrow in a child’s face.

  “You’re my daughter,” Peter says painfully. How can he make her understand this, know what it means? He is dependent on her, he realizes, for her life. Her life is the extension of his, he needs her to go on into the future, living on for him, better, more excitingly. She is his link, he wants her to carry on for him, to do things he had never dreamed of doing. She is his beloved connection to the world, she is his beloved daughter.

  But what has it meant for her? For years he has forced her to do what he wanted. He has insisted on her obedience, demanding her presence, on his terms, against her will. Her only hope, her only liberation would come with age. What if she never wants to see him again, when she is old enough to say so? The thought smites him. What if she blames him, as he has blamed her?

  In front of them, the woman stops for a moment to fix her shoe. The dog stops too, watching her. The woman takes off her shoe and shakes it out. She is wearing a loose bright shift. She is in her thirties, with short dark well-cut hair. She looks intellectual, like someone who works in a museum. Will I end up with someone like that? Peter wonders. Am I single? Is my marriage over? The thought so depresses him he puts it from him. They cross the cobbled walkway in silence.

  At Ninety-second Street the sidewalk flares into a semicircular plaza, curving into the park. A neoclassical statue stands in the center of the curve, facing the street. Stone steps lead on either side of it, up into the park.

  “Want to go in?” Amanda asks. “There’s a really nice path that goes in here.”

  “Okay,” Peter says, surprised by her knowledge of the park, surprised that she thinks a path is really nice, surprised to learn that she has a separate life, about which he knows nothing.

  She’s right. They walk along a wide beaten path, beneath high spreading branches. Above them, up a small bluff on their right, is the Reservoir. Every few moments a figure in running shorts passes, silhouetted against the sky, beating slowly forward through the sluggish air. Their footsteps form a quiet human rhythm against the harsh sounds of traffic below, on Fifth Avenue.

  “When do you come here?” Peter asks. “I didn’t know you knew all this about the park.”

  Amanda looks at him and smiles, looks away. “We used to come here after school.”

  And do drugs? Peter wonders. He knows nothing about her life, nothing.

  “How do you like school?” he asks. “Really.”

  “It’s okay,” Amanda says, shrugging her shoulders. There is such sadness in her voice. “It’s fine. I just can’t wait to go away to college, that’s all.”

  “Because of?”

  She shakes her bangs away from her face, frowning. “I don’t know. I just hate the way—” She stops. “You know, school is not a great experience for me.”

  “No,” Peter agrees. “I wonder why not?”

  “Was your school so great?” Amanda asks. “I mean, I just figure that everyone is miserable in school. Later it will get better, life, I mean.”

  “My school,” says Peter, thinking about it. They have reached the bottom of the Reservoir, and the path swerves inward.

  “We go this way,” says Amanda, and leads him west, toward the interior of the park. “To the Great Lawn. I always like the way that sounds. The Great Lawn.”

  He has never heard her say anything like that before, that she likes how words sound. That she likes anything. Peter feels tremulous with pleasure, with gratitude at her trust.

  “Was I happy at school?” Peter says. “I think I was, but I don’t really know. There were parts of it that were fun. I liked soccer. I liked track, I liked running cross-country.”

  “Was that what you did?”

  “Didn’t you know that? I loved cross-country. I’d get up really early, in the spring and fall. The dormitory was completely quiet. I’d go outside and the whole campus was empty, green and empty. I’d run for miles before breakfast. There was a field I’d pass. In the mornings it was still covered with mist.”

  Amanda looks at him and smiles. “I didn’t know that,” she says.

  “I loved running,” says Peter. “I didn’t have a lot of friends. A couple. There was only one teacher I liked, who taught history.” But they had been chaotic, those years at boarding school. What he remembers now is a sense of wild insurrection, a constant struggle against the rules, the institution, the place. A sense of continual containment, against the students’ collective wills.

  “I suppose I didn’t have a great time,” he says. “I never really asked myself that question.”

  “No,” says Amanda stoically. “You just wait for it to be over.”

  “What about drugs?” Peter asks tentatively. He wonders if he’s asking too much, too quickly.

  Amanda shrugs. They are walking now along the edge of the Great Lawn. It stretches, flat and tired looking, at the end of a dry summer, toward the fairy-t
ale spires of the West Side, rising above the trees.

  “Just grass,” Amanda says, uninterested. “Some kids do it all the time.”

  “Do you?” Peter feels anxious. Now is he going too far? But he needs to know.

  Amanda nods. “I guess so,” she says. “Most days.”

  Peter frowns: it sounds so dreary, children in these seedy furtive transactions. Hiding somewhere for the brief exhilarated high, the sad return to school, homework.

  “Where do you get it?” Peter asks. “Where do you do it?”

  “You can get it anywhere,” Amanda answers. “Just walk along the street and they offer it. I used to get it from a guy in the park at Seventy-second Street, but now I get it from someone on Ninety-sixth. Or from a girl at school. We do it at school in our rooms at night. We used to get high at my apartment in the afternoons.”

  “Wasn’t your mom ever around in the afternoons?” Peter asks gently.

  “If she was, we went someplace else,” Amanda says.

  On the Great Lawn a soccer game is going on. The players are all men, shirtless, in bright shorts. Their skins are tanned and glistening. Some wear bandannas knotted at their necks. They race back and forth, shouting. The ball scoots wildly over the scuffed grass, then hurtles back. Peter glances at them for a moment.

  “Nice pass,” he says.

  “I hate sports,” Amanda says, not looking up.

  “I know,” Peter says. “What do you like? What do you like best?”

  “I like my friends,” Amanda says. “I like music. I like movies. I like museums.”

  “Museums?” asks Peter, surprised, impressed. He has never heard this.

  “I really like museums,” Amanda says.

  “What kind?”

  “Any kind. There’s a really neat one way up on the West Side, of American Indians. We go there sometimes.”

  “I never knew that,” Peter says humbly.

  Amanda does not answer.

  A siren suddenly raises its voice on Fifth Avenue, shrilling impatiently. The sound does not move, whatever the vehicle is, it is stopped, trapped. He thinks of Tess, on the stretcher. Thank God she had gone straight, swiftly. Thank God it had been four in the morning. She had been flown directly to the helipad at Sixtieth Street, and the ambulance had taken her straight to the hospital. The pupillary response: thank God it was better.