“Daddy, Daddy come back. you forgot. You forgot the papers, you forgot.” I stood there in the doorway, afraid of my self at once afraid of you. For the first time in my life I am talking to you, I have talked to you. I showed you the picture of me when I was five. Sticking my tongue out at the camera and trying to be cute. Always a performer, I am always the performer.
Deanna called tonight. She was just here for dinner, and I wonder why they had her call. I am sure they wanted to see if I needed escape. But I do not need escape when I am meeting him for the first time. Too many vodka tonics and three glasses of wine later, we are talking about what is important. He wanted me. he loved me, he called me kiddo. It is all words and I wonder if words are all it’s going to take to heal the wounds to heal the hurt and I know now, they are. he thought of me then, he wanted me then. Then when I wondered why I was left behind, now I know that he wanted me.
“Daddy, come back, you forgot Robin’s writing’s. And I know he won’t come back. It is after midnight and he has to drive across the bay because I asked him to. I asked him not to spend the night, because I had only just met him. I am so full of feeling, yet I have convinced myself the tears are not real. Like I have for all of these years, believed the tears are not real. They are made up. They are something else, but they are not real.
Please come back, please give me one more chance to hear you say you love me. That you loved me then and you’ll love me now, and you’re sorry for the mistakes you’ve made. Not the mistakes I’ve made, or Mom made, but the mistakes you made. You are the only one in this who wants to admit their own sin. No one else will. Perhaps you, the betrayor, are the only one in the end who can be honest. The only one who can claim to have learned anything from all of this. You know it is you who needs to say I’m sorry.
In the picture, I am sticking my tongue out. My hands to my ears, my fingers mid-wiggle, I am sticking my tongue out at you. I am happy. But then it was you, and only you, who says now, “you were wistful. you were watching this fighting going on around you.” You are the one who took that photo. I did not know that. I am amazed now to discover that it was you all along who knew I was hurting. who knew so very much how much I hurt today. And your tears. Your own tears, when you told me you’d hurt me. I needed those. They are my lifeblood. I have been holding out for them for a long time now.
I drink more vodka to paralyze the fear, and I realize for the first time, that I actually could have had a home. I want to tell her what has happened. To tell her I have spoken with him. She would yell at me. Telling me what he did was wrong. It should not be so easy for him to come back. But still, I want to tell her. I miss her and I want her to know. I want to sit on a black leather couch, the children asleep upstairs, safely tucked in their beds, dreaming of adventures. I want to sip vodka and fall into the arms of friends who have forgiven me my faults, before they even know who I am, who I consider myself to be. Because they know it is no longer important. They will see me through their own eyes. They will determine everything I have already determined. That they love me, as I love myself.
I got my period today, of course I would.