I Left My Back Door Open (35 page)

The alarm didn't awaken me: Brianna did. Skylar had unlocked the bedroom door after we'd finished making love. Brianna came dragging into the bedroom before dawn. Luckily, I'd changed into my flannel p.j.'s in the middle of the night. I wasn't sure whether I should hide further under the covers or sheepishly reveal myself. It was too late to slide into the space between the wall and the bed.

Maybe if I just remained still, Brianna wouldn't notice me in the dark.

“Daddy, my tummy aches,” Brianna whined.

Skylar sat up in the queen-size bed. “You're not going to throw up, are you?”

“I don't know, Daddy, I might,” Brianna warned.

Skylar leapt out of the bed, grabbed his daughter and ushered her toward the bathroom.

I almost shouted, “Skylar, you're naked, put some clothes on!”

“I gave her some Pepto-Bismol, and put her back to bed. She'll be all right.” Skylar yawned, as he snuggled in beside me.

I sat up against the pine headboard. “Did she say anything about me?”

“No,” Skylar answered, burying his face in a pillow.

“Do you think she saw me?” I asked suspiciously.

“I don't think so,” he mumbled. “She didn't say anything. She probably ate too much junk yesterday. She'll be okay.” He yawned again. “There's no school today anyway because of the snow,” he added. “They said that on the news.”

Tummyache, my ass, I thought. That little girl wasn't fooling me. Brianna thought she was slick. And here I'd believed she was so sweet. She knew what was up with me and her father. I was hipped to her game.

“I think you should've put on some clothes,” I admonished Skylar as he tried to go back to sleep.

“Huh?”

“Do you realize that you ran outta here buck naked?” I said, shaking him.

He turned over and frowned. “I was concerned about Brianna.”

“Maybe you should be
concerned
about being more modest.”

“I don't make a habit out of walking around with no clothes on.” Skylar yawned. “But Allison and I didn't raise our daughter to see nudity as some big taboo.”

I cringed at the mention of Allison's name and the phrase, “our daughter.” In my fantasies, Allison didn't exist. “Our daughter” meant me and Skylar's child.

“I was just raised differently, that's all,” I replied. “I never saw my stepfather naked,” I snapped. And then I remembered that wasn't completely true. But the times that I
had
experienced my stepfather's nakedness, I wanted to forget.

A week or so later, Skylar and I fell back on being sneaky. We'd included Brianna on our dinner date at a Thai restaraunt. Everything had gone well and our little sugar plum was snug in her bed. And we were cuddling in ours.

In the middle of the night, we had another snowstorm. This time, the howling wind, blowing off the nearby lake, awakened me instead of the alarm. The Hawk was raging, causing the windows of Skylar's high-rise apartment building to rattle. Realizing that children and scary weather didn't mix well, I figured we might have a little visitor soon.

I took the wind's next howl as my cue to retreat to the couch. But before I could make a serious move, Brianna stumbled into the bedroom. Skylar had insisted on leaving the door unlocked, in case of an emergency. I rolled over toward the wall in my plaid flannel gown. I hoped I was invisible in the dark.

“Daddy, the lights are out,” Brianna announced in a distressed voice. She shook her father. “Daddy, I'm scared!”

Skylar sat up in the bed and mumbled, “Huh? What's wrong?”

“We're having a snowstorm,” I explained. “Don't you hear that wind? The power must've gone out.”

“Daddy, why is she in your bed?” Brianna demanded.

I was momentarily speechless. I felt like Goldilocks being discovered by Baby Bear.

“Come here, sweetie,” Skylar said soothingly. Brianna walked gingerly toward her father. Skylar sat up and hugged his daughter. “You don't have to be scared. Daddy's here's now. He'll protect you.”

“Can I get in the bed with you, Daddy?” she whimpered.

“I don't think that's such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Because your father doesn't have any clothes on, I almost blurted out.

“I wanna sleep with you, Daddy! I wanna sleep with you, Daddy!” Brianna shouted.

“Don't act like that, Brianna,” Skylar scolded. “You're a big girl now, remember. You're too big to sleep with Daddy.”

“Why's Dee Dee in your bed, then?” Brianna challenged. “She's a bigger girl. How come you let her sleep with you and you won't let me sleep with you?”

“It's different, honey. Dee Dee's a grown woman.”

“Mommy's a grown woman and you didn't sleep with her.”

“Your mother and I are divorced.”

“Even when you weren't divorced, you didn't sleep with Mommy. You didn't sleep with Mommy!” Brianna repeated.

“Huh,” I said aloud.

“The last year of our marriage, Allison and I slept apart,” Skylar explained. “You know how that is.”

I nodded.

“I want my mommy!” Brianna cried. “I want my mommy!”

“You can call her on the phone, a little later,” Skylar said, gently. “You know she's not a morning person.”

I felt awkward, like suddenly I didn't belong anywhere. Skylar reached for the flashlight on the nearby nightstand. “Brianna, I'm going to carry you back to your bed now. If you're afraid, I'll sit with you until you fall asleep.

“Dee Dee, would you please hand me my robe?” he asked, shining the flashlight on it.

I had a feeling that the honeymoon was over as I watched the two shadowy figures exit the room.

I became the enemy overnight. Brianna gave me dirty looks at the breakfast table. Her scowling face was crushing my dreams. I almost felt comforted by the howling wind.

After breakfast, I stood outside the bathroom door waiting for Brianna to emerge and resume watching her Saturday morning cartoons. I was anxious to collect my cosmetic bag and head for the radio station to do my afternoon show.

Skylar sneaked up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. “She'll adjust,” he whispered softly. “She's been through a lot, just give her a little time.”

“Okay,” I agreed. I pulled away from Skylar when I heard the door open. Brianna came out the bathroom wearing her nightie and with my red lipstick smeared all over her face.

She flung her arms open wide and shouted, passionately, “Kiss me all over! Kiss me all over!”

Skylar and I stood aghast.

“You shouldn't have gone into Dee Dee's lipstick!” Skylar finally said sternly. “You knew better than that.”

“It's okay, I have another tube of red,” I responded diplomatically. “I left the cosmetic bag open anyway.”

“That's not the issue.”

No, the issue is your daughter saying “Kiss me all over
,” I thought.
Your child is troubled. She has a problem with our relationship. And therefore we have a problem
.

“Daddy, I heard screaming last night,” Brianna interjected, before making a face at me.

Now I was starting to get pissed. Brianna was lying her ass off.

She hadn't heard any damn screaming.

“Screaming, what are you talking about?” Skylar asked, looking concerned.

“In your room last night,” Brianna answered matter-of-factly.

“What kind of screaming?” I demanded skeptically.

“Ahh … ahhha … ahhhh!” Brianna shouted, imitating a movie orgasm.

I felt a chill run down my spine. To think I'd imagined that Brianna was so sweet. Okay, fine, she wasn't going to be the daughter of my dreams. But was she going to wreck our relationship to boot?

Skylar and I had taken pains to conceal our love life. We'd waited until late into the night to have sex, and we'd been discreet. I'd even covered my mouth during our lovemaking. Neither of us had cried out, even when we came. We'd sneaked around like criminals, but now we'd gotten caught in Brianna's childish trap.

Even though I knew Brianna hadn't heard screaming, I couldn't help but feel guilty. Were we being selfish? I wondered. I didn't believe that our sleeping together was wrong. But maybe we were wrong for exposing Brianna to the truth of our relationship. But because we weren't married, did that make having sex a cardinal sin? I'd spent a lot of years working to get to the place where I felt good about my sexuality. And now an eight-year-old manipulator was trying to undermine my efforts.

“Brianna, there wasn't any screaming,” Skylar said firmly.

“That's right, there wasn't any screaming,” I echoed.

“Yes there was, too!” Brianna insisted. “I heard it.” She pointed accusingly. “It was her!”

“You didn't hear anything,” I protested. “You never heard my mouth,” I added, struggling to keep my cool. I'd never liked a liar. And this child was starting to remind me of the bad seed.

“Nobody was doing any screaming in here last night,” Skylar said decisively. “Brianna, you're just making that up. I don't want to hear another word from you about it, do you hear me?”

Brianna nodded.

“Brianna, you're just trying to upset us,” I said, feeling calmer now that Skylar had put his foot down. “If you want to talk to us about your feelings about your father and me being together, I'd be happy to do that. Right now, I have to go to the radio station and do my show. But we can set up a time.”

Brianna responded by making a face at me.

“I saw that face,” Skylar warned. “You're pushing your luck, Miss Brianna. You'd better straighten up.”

We decided that I would continue to “officially” sleep on the couch. We agreed that I should exit the bedroom earlier, to lessen the chances of being caught. This proved to be a winning strategy. The next weekend, I got fewer dirty looks from Brianna and I almost began to hope again.

On Valentine's Day, a dozen red roses were waiting for me at my desk when I arrived at my marketing job. Of course they were from Skylar. I really felt loved. Too bad we didn't have a babysitter tonight. When I called Skylar to thank him for the flowers, I insisted on treating him and Brianna to dinner that evening.

During our dinner date, Skylar and I kept the mushy stuff to a minimum. Everything had gone smoothly during the meal and now Brianna was skipping ahead of us in the cold night air, clutching her minature box of chocolates. Skylar had given us little identical boxes of candy. He was so sweet.

“You are my sunshine,” Skylar whispered in my ear as we hurried against the wind.

“I can't breathe,” Brianna panted a few minutes later, as I drove south on the outer drive.

“Dee Dee, open the windows!” Skylar shouted in alarm.

“It's freezing outside,” I answered, a little taken aback by the intensity in his voice.

“That doesn't matter, hurry up, press the button!”

I lowered Brianna's window.

“Brianna has asthma,” Skylar informed me. He leaned over his seat and observed his daughter.

“I didn't know that,” I exclaimed.

“I still can't get enough air!” Brianna gasped.

“Do you want me to go a hospital?” I asked. “We're almost at U. of C.”

“Are you getting more air now?” Skylar asked.

“A little bit.”

“I'd be happy to take her to a hospital,” I reiterated.

“No. I think we'll be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I think the worst is over.”

“Doesn't she have an inhaler?”

“No. I should've gotten her one just to be safe,” Skyar answered remorsefully.

“I can't believe she doesn't have an inhaler,” I said in astonishment. “My friends' son is asthmatic. But Jason doesn't go anywhere without his inhaler.”

“Brianna's only had two attacks in her entire life,” Skylar explained. “This is the first one she's had since we moved to Chicago. It's sort of a shock.”

“Daddy, you promised to get me an inhaler!” Brianna huffed and puffed. “Daddy, you promised! How can you ever expect me to trust you again?”

“Brianna take it easy, don't upset yourself. Daddy's sorry. Daddy thought you'd outgrown your asthma. But I'll get you an inhaler first thing tomorrow morning. I promise.”

When we reached their apartment, Brianna was doing better, but she was still struggling to breathe. She and Skylar crouched on the bathroom floor while hot water streamed from the shower and cold air rushed in through the open window.

“How's she doing?” I asked, peering into the bathroom.

“I think we're out of the woods now.” Skylar sighed. He looked down at his resting child. “Her breathing has almost returned to normal.”

“That's good,” I said, feeling relieved. I gazed down at Skylar in his wrinkled pinstriped suit, as he cradled his little girl. I'd never loved him more.

On Saturday night I sat in a denim-covered beanbag chair in Skylar's living room while he tucked Brianna into bed.

“I don't want
her
to spend the night!” Brianna shouted. “I don't want
her
to spend the night!”

I heard Skylar say, “Brianna, calm down. You just had an attack a few days ago. You don't need to upset yourself.”

“I want Dee Dee to leave us alone!” she yelled. “Why can't she go home to her cat!”

At that moment, I longed for Langston's soft fur. I was almost ready to throw the towel in here. I was afraid that I was fighting a losing battle. Skylar and Brianna were a package deal. And part of the package wasn't sold on me. Maybe it was just time to call it quits.

“You have a right to your feelings,” Skylar said, loudly enough for me to hear. “But I have a right to be in a relationship.”

“I want my mommy back!” Brianna yelled. “I don't want her to be my mommy!”