This Is My Daughter

by Robinson, Roxana;

  Peter passes the squat Guggenheim, with its spiralling shout up toward the sky.

  He will call Emma. He will not wait. He can feel his heart pounding exultantly: he is stronger than she is, it doesn’t matter who makes the first move. She isn’t capable of this, and he is. He doesn’t hold it against her. They share their strengths, that’s how it should be. He finishes the long stretch, the long east side of the Reservoir, and turns the corner along the north side, holding the sweet pale shimmering stretch of the water at his side. His heart is thundering in his chest. He loves Emma. He knows she’s not capable of certain things. Why should he expect her to do everything? There were things that he couldn’t do, that she could. He sees Amanda’s face as it has always been in the past—sullen, closed, awful. He has forced that on Emma for years. He has insisted, he has never asked either Amanda or Emma how she felt.

  He hears another runner behind him, going much faster. He pounds alongside, a lean hungry man about twenty, gulping air. He wears a headband, and a runner’s gaping undershirt. He thuds on past Peter, snaking in and out among the runners, and is lost among them. On the black cindery path dark puddles appear; Peter jumps them, feeling his legs stretch and widen. He could take hurdles. He feels powerful, and kind. He wishes the twenty-year-old Godspeed. He himself is no longer lean and hungry: Peter is in his forties, and at last he is beginning to learn things. He feels grateful for that.

  He passes the small stone pumping station on the north side, like a tiny castle in a European forest. He loves these fanciful park buildings, the castellated pumping stations, the wonderful Belvedere, with its stone tower and ramparts, tucked deep into the woods.

  Peter turns the next corner, and begins the run along the west side of the Reservoir. He feels perilously close to his apartment, he feels the pull of its gravity. He wonders if Emma can tell he’s nearby. He has a sudden image of Tess’s face. He feels somehow surreptitious, as though he’s deliberately hiding from Emma. But he is not: he’s registered at the Knick, she could easily have thought of that. He’ll call her as soon as he gets back. He’ll call her at once. First he’ll call the hospital, in case she went back last night, in case she’s gone there early, then he’ll call her at home. Even if he wakes her up. He doesn’t care if he wakes her up. He especially doesn’t care if he wakes up her father.

  Though now, this morning, the sky turning clearer and bluer over his head, the wide water gleaming and open beside him, Peter finds himself feeling compassion even for Everett Kirkland. Trapped inside yourself, how could you get out? You might sense there was something else, something you were missing that other people had, but you could not reach it. Everett was trapped inside his own self-regard, caged, helpless. And he loved his children, loved his wife, in his crabbed, ungenerous way. The poor beast, Peter thinks. Emma is stubborn and self-righteous too, like her father, but Peter, with this power sweeping through him, is going to take care of that. His steps pound along the cinder path, like the beating of a drum, thoughtful, steady.

  Coming into the turn onto the southern edge of the Reservoir, he sees again the turreted pumping station where he started. But he’s hardly winded, he can run for miles more. He doesn’t want to stop here, and without thinking further he runs on past the station, making the turn again onto the eastern side, setting himself north once more. The mallards are further along now, out in the open water. The male’s glossy head, greenly iridescent, dabs swiftly at something in the waves. The female, brown, subdued, one paddle behind her mate, dabs eagerly at it as well. Once you’re mated you can’t discard someone because she isn’t perfect: she isn’t. You aren’t. You go on. He wonders if he could have gone on with Caroline. What if he had insisted on friendship, intimacy, a real alliance? This is the key. This is what he is going to insist on from Emma, no matter what she wanted, what she said. He sees that he has asked too much of her.

  At the northern end of that side he realizes why he is there: he’s going on to the hospital. At once he ducks off the soft cindery path and down the slope, running full tilt through the bushes and shrubs, his arms pin-wheeling as he hurtles through the August-limp foliage. He hears his footsteps, thundering on the bare ground: he’s running toward Tess.

  He runs to the edge of the park, and straight up the sidewalk along Fifth. At the hospital they’ll let him in, even in his running clothes. This will be his moment alone with Tess, no matter what happens later with Emma. At Ninety-sixth Street he waits at the light, jogging in place: he has more energy than he can use. His back is drenched in sweat, his legs are slick with it. He feel weightless, triumphant.

  The light changes; a gang of cars rushes by. A bus lumbers past, stinking, rocking heavily down the avenue. Peter crosses the street, still going north, heading for the hospital. When he reaches its street he waits again for the light, to cross Fifth. The hospital towers over him, a concrete grid. If he counted the floors he could find Tess’s room. He puts his hands on his hips, looking upward, counting. He feels sweat on his neck, running down his back, as he cranes upward. He hears his name.

  Emma is on the steps of the hospital. She comes down them stiffly, her arms folded tightly. Her face looks drawn, and he feels a sudden clench of fear. What has happened? She reaches the sidewalk; the light changes and she hurries across the avenue, toward him. By the time she reaches him she’s crying.

  Peter steps back, away from the street and cars, and opens his arms for her. She steps into them, weeping.

  Oh God, he thinks, it’s happened. It’s happened. He thinks of the terrible bruising inside her brain, the places he did not dare imagine, the blood seeping horribly into places that could not absorb it. The brain, the brain. He puts his arms tightly around Emma and rocks her. He pulls her further back, toward the trees, toward the park.

  “I’m so glad I found you,” Emma says, crying. “Where were you?”

  “I was at the Knick,” Peter says.

  “I wanted you,” Emma says, into his sweaty shirt.

  He pats her back. He will not ask what has happened, he doesn’t want to hear the words.

  “I missed you,” he says. He holds her while she cries against him.

  She pulls back and looks up at him. “I thought about you all night. I have to tell you something,” she says, crying. “I know I’m not a good person. I know you hoped I was, but I’m not. I’m not a good person. I know it.”

  Peter pushes the hair off her forehead. “You are a good person,” he says.

  Emma shakes her head. “I’m not.” She puts her head against his chest again. “I know how I was meant to behave toward Amanda. I wanted to be that way, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

  Peter pats her back, holding her. “It’s all right,” he says. “It was too much for you. I asked too much from you. You did the best you could.”

  Emma pulls away from him. “Let’s sit down,” she says, looking around. “We look like something out of the movies.”

  A wooden bench, damp with dew, stands by the stone wall. They sit side by side on the soaking planks. Peter puts his arm around her and takes her hand. Emma begins to talk, gazing straight ahead.

  “I didn’t know how to do it,” she says. “I did everything wrong. But she was mean to Tess. And she hated everything I said, everything I asked her to do, everything that was me. Everything I thought would be fun, she hated.”

  “I know she did,” Peter says remorsefully. Now he remembers Emma trying. He remembers Emma singing to Amanda, reading to her, taking her on walks. Amanda sulking, shrugging her shoulders, scowling. He squeezes Emma’s hand.

  “But I know that’s no excuse,” says Emma. “I know I’m the grown-up and she’s the child. I tried to be like her mother, but she was so angry,” says Emma. “And I didn’t love her.” She looks at Peter. The sound of it is painful. “I’m so sorry, but I didn’t. I know I should have, and I know you love Tess, and I felt so guilty because I didn’t love Amanda. At first I was ready to, but she was so angry, and she just got more and m
ore horrible to me. She was so hostile.”

  Peter squeezes her hand.

  “And I could never tell you anything,” Emma says. “I was always afraid to tell you. I was afraid you’d be angry. I was afraid you wouldn’t love me anymore.” She looks at him. Her eyes are pink and swollen, her cheeks smeared with tears. “I still am. I suppose you won’t love me now. How could you? I’ve let you down, I’ve failed you so badly.” She looks away again. “But I didn’t know what to do. Everything I wanted to do with Tess, Amanda would ruin.” She shakes her head. “I sound sorry for myself, I know. I should have been a bigger person than I am, but I’m not. It was partly because of Tess. If I hadn’t had Tess I’d have concentrated on Amanda. I’d have let her have her own rules, the ones she had at home, but how could I let Amanda break all Tess’s rules and make Tess keep them? Watch TV and not let Tess? How could I let Amanda eat junk food and not let Tess? How could I let Amanda be rude and sloppy and not let Tess?” Emma let out a long breath. “But I know how I should have done it. I was meant to act like a mother, and I didn’t. I acted like a stepmother, the worst. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t do it better. I wish I’d been able to but I couldn’t, I didn’t, and I’m sorry.” She bows her head, gazing straight ahead.

  Peter reaches up and touches her chin. He turns her head him and looks into her eyes. “Even so,” he says, “I love you.”

  “But why?” asks Emma, starting to cry again.

  “Because you’re part of me,” Peter says. He puts his arms around her. “Because we both made mistakes. I shouldn’t have forced her on you. You didn’t force Tess on me. You let me love her on my own. I’m grateful for that.”

  Emma says nothing. She’s warm and damp in his arms. The traffic, alongside them, is growing heavier. Three buses in a row rock precariously past, blowing out clouds of exhaust.

  Peter draws his head back and looks at her. He will not ask her about Tess. He will hold that off. He will believe that Emma would have told him by now if there were bad news. “I had dinner last night with Amanda.”

  Emma closes her eyes and puts her hands over her ears. “Don’t tell me what she said about me.”

  “No,” says Peter. “She didn’t say anything mean about you. But she wanted to go somewhere fancy, and she got all dressed up for it. She wore earrings and makeup, it was so sweet. I’d never seen her look like that, and I thought how seldom I’d taken her out alone. How little attention I pay to her alone. I was so determined to make us into a family that I wouldn’t see her unless she was with you and Tess.”

  “Tess,” says Emma.

  Peter hugs her again. She still hasn’t told him. It might be all right. He closes his eyes, preparing himself.

  “Did you spend the night there?” he asks.

  “Yes,” she says, and draws away from him. “I haven’t told you.”

  “What?” He holds his breath. This moment, before he hears, may be the last one in which he holds out hope, the last one in which he can think of Tess without pain.

  “She’s better,” says Emma; she smiles. “This morning I was awake when it got light. It was around five-fifteen. I got up and I was standing over her bed. She twitched, her knee jerked, her foot. I took her hand, and I felt her fingers twitch. I said, ‘Tess, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand.’ I was so sad, I was so unhappy about you and so miserable, I just said it as a sort of mantra, something to say, like a prayer, and her fingers moved again in my hand. I thought it was just another twitch, I couldn’t believe it. I waited for a moment, and then I said it again. ‘If you can hear me, Tessie, squeeze my hand.’ And she squeezed my hand. And I looked down at her, and she was looking up at me.”

  Now Emma starts to cry again, and Peter feels the rush of his own tears, feels himself open upward in gratitude, feels such a final silence inside him, of thanks, thanks, thanks, for this child’s return.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Dr. Susan Soeiro and Christine Foster for their patient responses to my inquiries. I would like to thank the National Humanities Center for giving me space and silence in which to work. I would like to thank my family for everything.

  About the Author

  Roxana Robinson (b. 1946) is the author of five novels, most recently Sparta; three short story collections; and the biography Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Best American Short Stories, among other publications. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Robinson teaches in Hunter College’s master of fine arts program and is president of the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest professional organization for writers.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1998 by Roxana Robinson

  Cover design by Julianna Lee

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-2561-4

  This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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