Read Online Don't Call Me Mother by Linda Joy Myers - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Linda Joy Myers
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train whistle always makes me feel sad.
I’m surprised that Gram is letting me spend the night with him here. I love being alone with him, like other girls who have a father spending time with them at night, at bedtime. Tomorrow we’ll go to Aunt Helen’s for one of her fried chicken dinners. Gram will be there, continuing the silent conversation between them. When they are together, I can sense the events of the past. I don’t know exactly what happened between Daddy and Gram, but I can feel it in the dropped words and glances between them.
All I know about Daddy and “the old days” is that he married my mother when she was twenty-nine and he was forty, and they had me the first year they were married. They divorced when I was eight months old. I know it in my stomach and heart. I have no memories of him from before the age of four. No feeling of his clothes or body on my skin. Only a blank space. I’m seven, and we’re alone together for the first time. When the man at the hotel counter took too long, I tapped my foot. He was stealing time from Daddy and me. I have only two days and a night to make up for the whole year, 363 days when Daddy lives only in my imagination.
The bathroom at the Oxford has a floor made of tiny black-and-white tiles, a pedestal sink, and a gleaming bathtub. If I can get Daddy and me into that tub, I’ll understand what makes him different from me. I’ll know what other girls know. I want to be in their club, not left out the way I am at school games—the skinny one, knock-kneed, pigeon toed, always dropping things.
I want to be like the other girls, whose lives are enriched somehow by the thick voices and grime of the males in their lives. They have daddies who fix faucets, repair cars, and mow lawns; wash the car and take out the garbage; come home every night to smooth out the bumps of life. They drive up in white shirts with rolled-up cuffs. The neighbor daddies grin and put their arms around their wives and kiss them on the cheek. The other girls’ daddies give them baths or even take baths with them, so I want that, too—to have the mystery of daddies revealed.
He has taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. He starts to tickle me and we roll around on the bed, rumpling the chenille bedspread. My stomach hurts from so much giggling, and my face is raw from his beard. I feel the imprint of his big arms and hands on my body. I feel his strength in me and ask him if we can take a bath. He seems surprised but rustles down the hall to check the tub. It’s even bigger than the tub at my house, with feet and great curved edges and long silver spigots like swans’ necks. I wonder if I was wrong to ask him, but all I want is wet hair and giggles with my father in the bath. The top of Daddy’s bald head shines as he bends down to inspect the bathtub, as if the quality of the tub will decide this question.
He murmurs nervously, “I’m not sure if a little girl should take a bath with her father. It’s not proper. It’s different for a mother, but for a father…” His face registers confusion.
“Oh well, if you don’t want to…” I say, wanting to smooth things out. “But my girlfriends, they see their daddies in the tub, they…” My cheeks grow hot with a shame I don’t fully understand.
“It’s okay,” Daddy says with a soft voice. “There’s room for you to sit behind me.”
My feet are cold on the tile floor as I undress. Daddy has agreed, but I still feel anxious, thinking maybe this is a bad thing.
“You get in first, and then I’ll get in,” Daddy says.
Bubbling water bursts out into the tub. I fit myself at the back of the tub, leaving room for Daddy. It will all be okay, I tell myself, but something doesn’t feel right. Daddy comes in wearing a towel and turns his back to slip in. I close my eyes after sneaking a look, but with a washcloth in a strategic position, he’s taking no chances. He is jittery and giggling, and I feel I have
I’m surprised that Gram is letting me spend the night with him here. I love being alone with him, like other girls who have a father spending time with them at night, at bedtime. Tomorrow we’ll go to Aunt Helen’s for one of her fried chicken dinners. Gram will be there, continuing the silent conversation between them. When they are together, I can sense the events of the past. I don’t know exactly what happened between Daddy and Gram, but I can feel it in the dropped words and glances between them.
All I know about Daddy and “the old days” is that he married my mother when she was twenty-nine and he was forty, and they had me the first year they were married. They divorced when I was eight months old. I know it in my stomach and heart. I have no memories of him from before the age of four. No feeling of his clothes or body on my skin. Only a blank space. I’m seven, and we’re alone together for the first time. When the man at the hotel counter took too long, I tapped my foot. He was stealing time from Daddy and me. I have only two days and a night to make up for the whole year, 363 days when Daddy lives only in my imagination.
The bathroom at the Oxford has a floor made of tiny black-and-white tiles, a pedestal sink, and a gleaming bathtub. If I can get Daddy and me into that tub, I’ll understand what makes him different from me. I’ll know what other girls know. I want to be in their club, not left out the way I am at school games—the skinny one, knock-kneed, pigeon toed, always dropping things.
I want to be like the other girls, whose lives are enriched somehow by the thick voices and grime of the males in their lives. They have daddies who fix faucets, repair cars, and mow lawns; wash the car and take out the garbage; come home every night to smooth out the bumps of life. They drive up in white shirts with rolled-up cuffs. The neighbor daddies grin and put their arms around their wives and kiss them on the cheek. The other girls’ daddies give them baths or even take baths with them, so I want that, too—to have the mystery of daddies revealed.
He has taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. He starts to tickle me and we roll around on the bed, rumpling the chenille bedspread. My stomach hurts from so much giggling, and my face is raw from his beard. I feel the imprint of his big arms and hands on my body. I feel his strength in me and ask him if we can take a bath. He seems surprised but rustles down the hall to check the tub. It’s even bigger than the tub at my house, with feet and great curved edges and long silver spigots like swans’ necks. I wonder if I was wrong to ask him, but all I want is wet hair and giggles with my father in the bath. The top of Daddy’s bald head shines as he bends down to inspect the bathtub, as if the quality of the tub will decide this question.
He murmurs nervously, “I’m not sure if a little girl should take a bath with her father. It’s not proper. It’s different for a mother, but for a father…” His face registers confusion.
“Oh well, if you don’t want to…” I say, wanting to smooth things out. “But my girlfriends, they see their daddies in the tub, they…” My cheeks grow hot with a shame I don’t fully understand.
“It’s okay,” Daddy says with a soft voice. “There’s room for you to sit behind me.”
My feet are cold on the tile floor as I undress. Daddy has agreed, but I still feel anxious, thinking maybe this is a bad thing.
“You get in first, and then I’ll get in,” Daddy says.
Bubbling water bursts out into the tub. I fit myself at the back of the tub, leaving room for Daddy. It will all be okay, I tell myself, but something doesn’t feel right. Daddy comes in wearing a towel and turns his back to slip in. I close my eyes after sneaking a look, but with a washcloth in a strategic position, he’s taking no chances. He is jittery and giggling, and I feel I have
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