In My Father's Eyes (7 page)

The twin crosses had been a gift from their father one Christmas morning. Emily’s brow furrowed in thought. Stepping over to her dresser she rummaged through the top drawer fingering through ticket stubs, chewed pencils, costume jewelry and the odd detritus accumulated over the years.

Sandwiched under a tattered blue ribbon and the fir drawer bottom she found the tarnished chain; a delicate thin band of interwoven heart shaped links. Drawing it forth she held it to the light coming from the lamp on her desk.

Strange, she thought, to imagine the twin to this tiny cross sitting on her sister’s neck buried in her coffin. The cross itself, what it signified, meant little to Emily. What she remembered of the church her family went to when Emma was alive was nothing more than the memory of a memory. After the accident, her family hadn’t gone to church anymore.

Emily knew her mother had never been particularly religious, that it had been her father who was the driving force behind going to church at all. Over the years, she never gave it much thought, it was just something they did. Church to her was about seeing her friends, drinking punch and eating cookies in the youth room. She remembered enjoying the coloring books and the games they played.

She also remembered, after the accident, the minister from the church coming over; his voice smooth and kind holding a firmness and certainty that felt alien in the aftermath of Emma’s death where nothing was certain. He’d come over often in the days and weeks following. Then he stopped coming after her father threw him out, his voice a roar of anger and denial. He hadn’t come again after that.

Unclasping the latch on the chain, Emily turned back to the mirror and lifted the cross to her neck, adjusting it in the hollow of her neck. The silver felt warm between her fingers.
Learn to forgive her.

Harold’s words. Easy to say. Harder to accept.
Learn to forgive him.
Emily translated, lying back on her bed staring at the ceiling.
Learn to forgive myself.
She thought.
Can you forgive me, Emma?
She prayed into the stillness of the night.

I never needed to…
the thought whispered in her mind as she fell asleep.

Chapter Nine

Mathew and Roland were helping her unpack the boxes holding Thanksgiving decorations. Harold had said she could decorate the store for the holidays and Emily wanted to make it something special. The boxes holding the decorations were dusty from disuse. Stored in a closet off the stockroom, just getting to them had been a chore and Emily’s hands were dirty from the effort.

“Ughh…” Roland grunted, holding up an accordion fold of tissue paper that had once unfolded into a Pilgrim but now was little more than a mush of damp orange and black. “I think the closet has a leak,” he said, looking back into the box at the mess it held. “These are all ruined.”

“Hmmm,” Emily leaned over confirming his assessment. “Look through there and see if anything can be salvaged. I’ll walk over to the party store and pick up some decorations later.” She turned back to find Mathew juggle a bunch of rough cut wooden blocks in his arms.

“Just put those over there, Mathew,” she directed, motioning toward the empty display window she’d cleared earlier. It didn’t look like she was going to finish before Harold got back, especially if she had to find time to go shopping.

Reminded, she asked, “Did Harold say what his appointment was for?”

“No,” Roland answered grimacing at the soggy mess as he poked around in the box. “Said he’d be back before we closed.”

Kneeling on the floor Emily went back to work emptying the boxes of their contents until she was surrounded by a pile of decorations. Mathew and Roland gratefully excused themselves and let her get on with creating the holiday display.

Sorting through the material, Emily established two piles; one of useful items not beyond salvage and another of decorations too far gone to be rehabilitated. Luckily it was mostly streamers and papered items that wouldn’t be too expensive to replace.

Dumping the discards back into the box, she took it through the back and out to the dumpster kicking open the fire door with the heel of her pump and elbowing the steel door out of the way. With evening falling, the sky had turned dark and the weather had grown cooler as a cold front moved in threatening rain.

Propping open the dumpster lid, Emily hoisted the box and tossed it in. She made it back to the rear entrance just as the first drops began to fall thick and cold on her arms. Passing out of the storage area and into the main showroom, she paused long enough to grab her purse and let Mathew know she was going shopping.

This late in October, all the other stores had already decorated and the mall interior looked like a fantasyland of Halloween and Thanksgiving. Emily walked easily working her way through the crowds and ducked into the Party Palace that seemed to have exploded into the mall, its entrance festooned with every decoration known to man.

Grabbing a cart, she joined the queue of shoppers and began filling it with streamers, fake hay, foldout turkeys and a large cornucopia. Making her purchases, she hefted the bags and made her way back to the shop.

For the remainder of the evening she concentrated on creating the Thanksgiving display, only pausing to assist Mathew and Roland when the store filled with customers. By closing time she finished the exhibit. Stepping back, Emily admired her handiwork as Mathew showed the last straggling customer to the door and snapped the security lock into place.

“Harold’s not back,” Emily asked him, looking around.

“No.” Mathew informed, “He phoned to say he would probably go straight home after his appointment.”

“Oh,” Emily moaned, disappointed. She’d been looking forward to showing him her work and was growing curious about what had taken him away from the store all evening.

After straightening the shop, she, Mathew and Roland let themselves out the back. The rain had paused leaving the alley and parking wet and oily. Waving good-bye, Emily walked across the lot to the bus stop.

At this hour, the bus stop was meagerly attended with only a couple of other commuters waiting to make their way home and get out of the chilly, wet October evening. Setting her purse on the bench, Emily leaned back on the plastic enclosure. Lost in thought, she didn’t notice the man looking at her until he stood up and walked over, his boots coming into her sight first.

When she looked up the man seemed vaguely familiar to her but she couldn’t place him. “It is you,” he said. “I thought that was you when you walked up. Wow! You look so different in…you know…real clothes.”

Emily immediately realized where she’d met the man before. Glancing around at the old lady on the other end of the bench, she knew she couldn’t expect any help there.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Emily said, standing up and pushing past the bigger man’s shoulder.

“Sure, you do, sweetie…” the man grabbed her arm preventing her from leaving. “Charm…right? That was your name. Yeah. Yeah. I remember you.” Emily tried to shrug the man’s hand off her arm, but he held on tight.

The rain that had held off renewed with vigor clattering like stones landing on the plastic roof of the bus stop. Emily turned on the man, her eyes gone wild, face flushed and burning.

“Let go of me!” She shouted at the top of her lungs, stepping into the man, her chin coming within an inch of his stubbly cheek.

The man, stunned, dropped her arm.

“What’s the matter with you?” He shouted at her back as Emily turned and ran away into the rain.

Immediately she was soaked. She didn’t have a raincoat and no way was she going back to the bus stop with that man still there, still cursing at her, the sound of his voice receding as she kept running, her purse bouncing at her waist.

Stupid! She angrily thought.

Tears mingled with the rain on her cheeks.

Mortified and embarrassed at being recognized she ran. What had ever made her take that job? It had been a mistake. The money wasn’t worth the humiliation, the way she felt after spending the night letting those men ogle her, lust after her. She’d thought at the time it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if she was a prostitute. It was just dancing. But it wasn’t, she knew. It was more than that.

She could feel it, night after night, a part of her eroding, becoming soiled and degraded as she sold herself for their lust. And then, her father. Her father! She’d thought it couldn’t get any worse. Then he came in. He looked older than she remembered even with the dim light in the club erasing the lines on his face. She’d run, then, too. Before he spotted her.

It had been so long since she’d seen him, she wasn’t sure he’d even recognize her if he saw her. Not taking the chance, she’d run into the back, grabbed her clothes and purse and been out the back door in minutes. She hadn’t stopped, pausing only to pull on her jeans and boots, struggling into her jacket before taking off in earnest.

How could he? The father she remembered, the one before the accident, never would have been caught in a place like that! And of all the strip clubs in town, he had to come into hers. Meeting the man at the bus stop had only thrown it all back in her face; reminded her that no matter what, she could never forget what she’d been, what she’d seen and done.

Unmindful of her steps, Emily splashed through a puddle, her feet slid from beneath her and she went down hard on her knees scraping holes in her stockings and leaving red abrasions on her skin. Tottering to her feet, Emily limped into the street, dodging a honking sedan as it sped by, and emerged on the other side.

Shivering and soaked, she limped a quarter mile west along the well lit boulevard in front of the mall. Fumbling with her purse she tried to light a cigarette, but the rain and wind made that impossible.

“Aaagghhhh!” Emily shouted up at the sky, frustrated, cold, wet and angry. The shush of slick tires on pavement rolled up beside her and came to a stop.

“I know just how you feel,” Harold said from inside his car, his window coming down despite the rain.

“Where the hell have you been!?” Emily shouted at him, standing on the curb. The rain had welded her hair to her scalp in thin rivulets, her makeup ran down her cheeks and her knees oozed blood from the raw scrapes.

“Are you going to get in?” Harold asked ignoring her question.

“I was…” Emily stuttered, her bottom lip shivering, “I didn’t…aagghh!” She finished in frustration and made her way around the car. Slipping into the passenger seat mindless of how the wet stained the seat.

Reaching into the back, Harold pulled out the thermal blanket he kept in his winter-kit and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“What in the world made you try to walk home in this?” Harold admonished, rubbing the blanket on her shoulders. “Why didn’t you wait for the bus?”

“I couldn’t,” Emily said, beginning to shiver uncontrollably now that she was out of the rain and into the warmth of Harold’s car and the adrenaline that spurred her on drained away leaving her weary and fragile with emotion.

“Why not?” Harold asked pulling away from the curb.

Slicking back the hair from her forehead, Emily took a deep, shuddering breath before committing herself. She was tired of it, tired of denying it; needed to confess, to do something, anything.

“I was a stripper,” Emily stated bluntly. “Before I met you. Before I started working at your store.” Looking out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harold’s mouth open and shut as he processed the information.

“And?” He prompted finally. “Do they not let ex-strippers on buses?”

Emily’s bark of laughter caught her by surprise.

“No,” she said, “the guy at the bus stop recognized me. So…I ran away.”

“How’d that work out for you?” Harold asked.