Not yet. Her force of will is so strong she is convinced she can change things, and convinced she will turn Daniel into the man she knows he really is, the man she knows he can be.
Jessica settles back into her car seat and watches her father, who looks over at her from time to time and smiles, reaching out to squeeze her knee as he drives.
She loves him so much it sometimes hurts. He is, without question, the best daddy of all time, and even though she didn’t appreciate him so much when he and Mom lived together, since he’s been gone she feels she has truly come to understand him, and as her attachment to him has grown, so has her dislike of her mother.
It started as ambivalence. Even when her parents were still together her mother was starting to annoy her. Constantly nagging Jessica to tidy her room, or do her homework, or change her clothes, her hair. And then she forced her dad to leave, thereby ruining her life. What was ambivalence has turned very rapidly to hate.
Sure, there are times when they get on. Sometimes her mom will take her for a manicure, which is always fun—then they’re kind of like girlfriends, although it only lasts for a short time, and then her mom always ends up trying too hard and Jessica wants to scream at her.
Jessica knows her dad would never leave her, and the only reason he left is because of her mom. And how does she know this? Why, her dad told her, of course. He said, quite clearly, that he would never have left Jessica, that he loved her more than anything and that this wasn’t his choice to live in a small apartment in a different, less expensive neighborhood. He’d give anything, he said, to move back into their home, to be a family again, but it was her mother who had told him to leave, who was driving this.
Jessica wasn’t particularly surprised to hear that. She knew her father loved her too much to leave, knew it had to be something to do with her mother.
“I hate you!” she screamed at her mother soon after her dad left, daring to say those words out loud for the first time. “You’ve ruined my life and I hate you!” She ran up to her room, expecting her mother to come racing up the stairs after her to punish her, or shout at her, or something. But there was silence.
Jessica sobbed loudly into her pillow, then stopped after a while because no one was coming up to see if she was okay. She tiptoed to her door, cracked it open very gently, and heard her mother crying quietly downstairs.
Good. She felt a glimmer of remorse, quickly covered up by a smug sense of satisfaction. Her mother deserved to feel the pain that Jessica felt every second of every day since her mother had thrown her father out. There was nothing that he could have done that would have justified that, and so Jessica continues to blame her mother, trying to figure out how she can get to live with her dad full time.
“Can we go to Four Brothers?” Jessica asks, the amusement arcade having become one of her favorite places. When they had been living together, she had rarely been allowed to go there, only as a special treat once in a while, and once there her parents had never paid her that much attention. Like every other place they had gone to when they were a whole family, they had gone with other people, friends, so the grown-ups could hang out together and the kids could go off and do their own thing.
Jessica doesn’t ever remember her dad playing arcade games with her, for example. Doesn’t remember her parents sitting at the diner and talking to her as if she were an equal. She remembers them going out a lot at night while she stayed home with a babysitter, remembers them going away for weekends while she went to her grandma’s.
Now her dad does everything with her. Jessica is not old enough to understand about guilt, but she is old enough to reap the benefits, and old enough to know how to manipulate so she always gets what she wants.
“Daddy?” she will say breathlessly as they
Jessica settles back into her car seat and watches her father, who looks over at her from time to time and smiles, reaching out to squeeze her knee as he drives.
She loves him so much it sometimes hurts. He is, without question, the best daddy of all time, and even though she didn’t appreciate him so much when he and Mom lived together, since he’s been gone she feels she has truly come to understand him, and as her attachment to him has grown, so has her dislike of her mother.
It started as ambivalence. Even when her parents were still together her mother was starting to annoy her. Constantly nagging Jessica to tidy her room, or do her homework, or change her clothes, her hair. And then she forced her dad to leave, thereby ruining her life. What was ambivalence has turned very rapidly to hate.
Sure, there are times when they get on. Sometimes her mom will take her for a manicure, which is always fun—then they’re kind of like girlfriends, although it only lasts for a short time, and then her mom always ends up trying too hard and Jessica wants to scream at her.
Jessica knows her dad would never leave her, and the only reason he left is because of her mom. And how does she know this? Why, her dad told her, of course. He said, quite clearly, that he would never have left Jessica, that he loved her more than anything and that this wasn’t his choice to live in a small apartment in a different, less expensive neighborhood. He’d give anything, he said, to move back into their home, to be a family again, but it was her mother who had told him to leave, who was driving this.
Jessica wasn’t particularly surprised to hear that. She knew her father loved her too much to leave, knew it had to be something to do with her mother.
“I hate you!” she screamed at her mother soon after her dad left, daring to say those words out loud for the first time. “You’ve ruined my life and I hate you!” She ran up to her room, expecting her mother to come racing up the stairs after her to punish her, or shout at her, or something. But there was silence.
Jessica sobbed loudly into her pillow, then stopped after a while because no one was coming up to see if she was okay. She tiptoed to her door, cracked it open very gently, and heard her mother crying quietly downstairs.
Good. She felt a glimmer of remorse, quickly covered up by a smug sense of satisfaction. Her mother deserved to feel the pain that Jessica felt every second of every day since her mother had thrown her father out. There was nothing that he could have done that would have justified that, and so Jessica continues to blame her mother, trying to figure out how she can get to live with her dad full time.
“Can we go to Four Brothers?” Jessica asks, the amusement arcade having become one of her favorite places. When they had been living together, she had rarely been allowed to go there, only as a special treat once in a while, and once there her parents had never paid her that much attention. Like every other place they had gone to when they were a whole family, they had gone with other people, friends, so the grown-ups could hang out together and the kids could go off and do their own thing.
Jessica doesn’t ever remember her dad playing arcade games with her, for example. Doesn’t remember her parents sitting at the diner and talking to her as if she were an equal. She remembers them going out a lot at night while she stayed home with a babysitter, remembers them going away for weekends while she went to her grandma’s.
Now her dad does everything with her. Jessica is not old enough to understand about guilt, but she is old enough to reap the benefits, and old enough to know how to manipulate so she always gets what she wants.
“Daddy?” she will say breathlessly as they
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