Just Like Other Daughters (11 page)

It’s not
ever
appropriate!
I want to shout at her. I don’t want that man’s tongue in my daughter’s mouth. I don’t want Chloe having
feelings and desires
. I certainly don’t want Thomas having feelings and desires for my innocent little girl. “I . . . I’ll certainly talk with Chloe,” I manage to tell Minnie.

“Go easy on her,” Minnie says kindly. “This is her first boyfriend. We all know what that’s like. It’s a very exciting time.”

She says it as if it’s the most natural and normal of things. I want to respond, but I don’t know what to say. Obviously, Minnie thinks it’s okay that Chloe and Thomas are kissing; she just doesn’t want them doing it in
her
bathroom.

I take a deep breath and exhale. “Thank you for calling, Minnie. I’ll certainly speak with Chloe.” I lower the phone to my side. I hear Minnie’s voice—some form of good-bye—but I don’t hear what she’s saying.

I hang the phone up as Chloe shuffles into the kitchen. She’s changed into flannel pajamas with fluffy kittens all over them and is wearing her baby blue chenille robe. Old houses are always drafty.

“Did Thomas call me?” Chloe asks, her face bright. All evidence of her tears is gone. “Is the phone Thomas? I heard the phone. It rrrr-ringed,” she says, carefully pronouncing the
r
.

“It
rang
,” I say. “And no, it wasn’t Thomas. But I need to talk to you about Thomas.”

She shuffles to the refrigerator, opens it, and pulls out the carton of milk, then the plastic squirt bottle of chocolate syrup. She’s not supposed to have chocolate milk for dinner, but I don’t want to muddy the water. And honestly, I’ve got more important things to be concerned about than Chloe’s chocolate consumption.

“Thomas calls me. I’m going to his house to watch
Little Mermaid
.” She gets a glass out of the cupboard. “And
Aladdin
. At his house.”

“Chloe, that was Miss Minnie who called. Were you in the bathroom with Thomas at Miss Minnie’s today?”

She turns her back to me—her way of ignoring the conversation. She thinks if she ignores me, the subject matter will magically disappear. Which means . . . she’s guilty. I feel my heart tumble a little further.

But did I really think Minnie had made the whole thing up?

“Chloe?”

She pours three-quarters of a glass of milk and then tips the bottle of syrup and gives it a squirt.

“What were you doing in the bathroom with Thomas . . . with the door locked?”

She gives the chocolate bottle another squeeze.

“Were you kissing Thomas?”

More chocolate.

I reach over and gently take the bottle from her. “Chloe, I need you to tell me what happened in the bathroom today with Thomas.”

“You’re gonna be mad.” She shakes her head, keeping her eyes downcast, and opens the utensil drawer and takes out a spoon. She keeps shaking her head. “Mad. Don’t tell. Don’t tell.” She puts her finger to her lips. “A secret,” she whispers.

I raise my voice. “Thomas told you not to tell?” Now my heart is beating faster. This is just what I was afraid of. This man taking advantage of my daughter because she doesn’t know any better. “Chloe, what did Thomas tell you not to tell me?”

She slides the drawer closed and drops the spoon into her glass. The metal spoon clinks on the sides as she stirs. “Don’t tell. Don’t tell.” Then she giggles into the glass of milk. “I told Thomas my mom will be mad about kissing.” Satisfied by the number of times she’s stirred the milk, she puts the spoon in the sink and carries her glass to the table. I follow her.

“You want chocolate milk?” she asks me as she sets her glass down in front of her place at the table. “I can make you chocolate milk. It’s good.” She takes a big slurp.

“No, thank you. I don’t want chocolate milk.” I look at her round face and beautiful almond-shaped eyes. I use the
mommy voice
. “Chloe, whose idea was the kissing? Thomas’s?”

She smiles and puts her finger to her lips again. “A secret.”

“Not a secret! Absolutely not.” I follow her to the cabinet where she takes out two paper napkins. “We don’t keep secrets. Right? No secrets between you and me.”

She folds one of the napkins carefully in half. Now she won’t look at me.

“Did Thomas tell you not to tell that he kissed you in the bathroom?” I ask firmly.

She shakes her head and then carefully puts the napkin down at my seat. She’s still not looking at me.

“Chloe, please don’t lie to me. If Thomas told you not to tell, you’re not in trouble.” Now I’m shaking my head. “Kissing is not a nice secret.”

She begins folding her own napkin. She looks up at me, moving her mouth from side to side, thinking. Despite her stubborn streak, Chloe wants to please people. She wants to please me. “I told,” she whispers.

“You told what?”

She looks down at the napkin. “I told Thomas not to tell about the kissing,” she says, half-whispering. Her eyes immediately tear up. “That’s why I told him not to tell. Because you would get mad at me.”

I guess I should be relieved. If it was Chloe’s idea not to tell, Thomas isn’t a predator. “Did Thomas lock the bathroom door?”

She sets the napkin in its place and then lines it up just right. “I told him, ‘Lock the door, Thomas. Pri-vas-see. Kissing.’ ” She dares a giggle and I know very well we’re not talking about kissing a cheek.

“Chloe, honey.” I sit down, pressing my hands to the oak table. “You’re not supposed to be kissing Thomas in Minnie’s bathroom. You’re not supposed to be kissing Thomas at all.”

“Because we’re not married.” Chloe is still trying to line the napkin up just right.

“Because you’re not married,” I agree, thinking that’s as good an explanation as any.

Chloe nods with me. “Because we’re not married,” she repeats. It comes out
mar-wied
.

I smile. “I’m glad you understand. It’s okay to be friends with Thomas, but you can’t kiss him.”

“That’s what I told Thomas.” Chloe plops into her chair and begins to stir her chocolate milk again. “We have to get married.”

T
he next morning, I’m waiting for Randall at his office door, two cups of coffee in my hands, when he arrives. I stopped at the coffee shop and got them, his with cream, but no sugar, mine with plenty of artificial sweetener and enough half-and-half to make it a latte.

He doesn’t look pleased to see me.

I’m wearing my new black boots that I cleaned up the night before, and a calf-length skirt. The boots, even with their small heels, somehow make me feel stronger. More powerful. They gave me the confidence I needed to march down the hall this morning to Randall’s office.

“We need to talk,” I say.

“I have class in an hour. I have papers to grade.”

“I’m not in the mood for your nonsense this morning. You and I both know your TAs grade your papers, Randall. I wouldn’t imagine you’ve actually read a student’s paper in years.” I step up behind him as he slips his key in the door. “So I don’t want to hear your excuses. I need to talk to you about Chloe.”

He unlocks the door and walks in, briefcase in hand. It’s not until he sheds his coat and sits down behind the big cherry desk that I get a good look at his face. I’m startled by the unexpected realization that Randall is looking older these days. For years, the gray in his beard and dark brown hair was distinguishing, but now . . . it just makes him look old. He turned sixty-six in January. The sixties are supposed to be the new fifties, but Randall’s not going to be a poster child for the idea.

I frown, sliding his cup of coffee across the desk toward him. “Are you all right, Randall? You look . . . tired.”

He rubs his temples. “Things at home . . . there have been . . . some . . . difficulties.”

I take a sip of my coffee. It’s perfect: just the right temperature, just the right sweetness and creaminess. “The usual cycles in a marriage, or difficulties like you’re cheating on your wife with one of your students and she caught you?” I ask.

Randall looks up. “Alicia, that’s uncalled for,” he deadpans. “I think you should look into seeing a therapist. It’s unhealthy to still be carrying so much anger after all these years.”

I exhale. “I see a therapist.”

“You see a
family
therapist. For you and Chloe.” As he speaks, he moves objects around on his desk. Randall has some OCD tendencies. I’m sure he arranged his letter opener, day diary, and leather cup of pencils last night before he left the office, but now, he moves them out of place and then back into place. Jin insists we all develop small neuroses with age, but Randall’s had his for years. “I mean for yourself,” he says.

I think about reminding him that I have a right to my deep-seated anger, as do wives number one and three. He cheated on Elaine with me, then on me with Ann, and then on Ann with Kelly; we were all grad students. But I didn’t come here to point out his shortcomings . . . or have him point out mine. I came here to talk about Chloe.

“Chloe’s met a young man.”

Randall looks at me for the first time this morning. “Has she now?” He reaches for the coffee I set on his desk. “A mentally challenged young man?”

“No, Randall,” I say tartly. “A brain surgeon has asked our daughter out.”

His bushy eyebrows with their little gray spiky hairs knit together, and he takes a sip of the coffee. He used to tweeze them; he needs to tweeze them.

I exhale, taking one of the two leather chairs positioned just so in front of his desk. I don’t usually sit in his office when he’s sitting because I feel like I have an edge with him if I remain standing. Today that doesn’t seem all that important. I’m not here to win an argument. I’m here because I genuinely want to hear what he thinks. And I know it’s my duty as Chloe’s mother to give her father’s input some consideration.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. That was definitely expressing deeply seated anger I still hold for you.” I take another sip of coffee. “Chloe met a young man at Minnie’s. Thomas is new. He moved here from Ohio with his family. He doesn’t have Down’s. I think he falls under the general retardation category. Chloe really likes him.”

“How nice for Chloe.”

“She didn’t mention him to you?”

They’ve had three Chick-fil-A outings since she first met Thomas. I’m surprised she hasn’t said anything to her father. At the grocery store the night before, she told the woman passing out samples of cheese all about Thomas and the Thomas the Tank Engine socks he had worn to Minnie’s that day.

Randall smiles, but it’s not a real smile. It’s tight at the corners of his lips. A perfunctory smile. “I’m so pleased Chloe’s found a friend. Aren’t you’re happy for her, Alicia? I know she’s been hoping to make friends.”

“I’m afraid he’s more than a friend. They locked themselves in the bathroom at Minnie’s and were making out. Chloe decided it should be a secret, because she knew I’d be angry if I found out.”

“You do appear to be angry,” Randall points out. The
making out
part doesn’t seem to have registered.

I’m tempted to take his coffee back. “You’re missing the point, Randall. I’m concerned. If this boy could convince Chloe that kissing is okay, who knows what could be next?”

“But you said it was Chloe’s idea to keep the incident a secret. Maybe the kissing was Chloe’s idea, as well.”

I set my coffee on his desk. “Randall, I don’t care whose idea it was. My concern is that Chloe is locking herself in the bathroom and kissing this man. My concern is that she might allow inappropriate touching.”

“What does the therapist say?”

“We have an appointment Friday.”

He sets his coffee on his desk and tents his fingers, letting a long pause settle between us. Randall does this—pauses for long periods of time. He thinks it makes him appear more cerebral. There was a time when I thought it did. Now it just annoys the crap out of me.

But I play his game. I wait.

“Alicia, it’s only natural that Chloe be exploring her sexuality at this point in her life. She’s a young woman with dreams and desires like all women her age. You were married and had a child by the time you were twenty-six.”

“She has an IQ of 48, Randall.” I’m getting loud. There’s no point in getting loud. There was probably no point in coming here or wasting my money on his cup of coffee, either. I know Randall will have no advice to give me. He never does. I take another sip of coffee.

He waits to respond. “Can you tell me your concerns in relation to Chloe’s awakening sexuality?”

I look up at him. “I’m concerned that your daughter doesn’t understand what kissing means or where these
feelings
she has might lead.”

“Have you talked to her about sex?”

“No, I haven’t talked to her about . . .
sex
, Randall. She can’t put batteries in a flashlight; she can’t remember the difference between red and yellow. She still calls your wife by your previous wife’s name.”

“I think she does that on purpose,” he says.

I almost laugh out loud. She probably does. “You understand what I’m saying. You know Chloe. I think sexuality is a subject beyond her comprehension.”

He adjusts the lid on his coffee. “And I disagree. I think you should talk with her therapist first, but I think we need to accept that our daughter is maturing and she needs to be taught the aspects of adult sexuality.”

“So, when are you going to explain to your daughter the finer points of male genitalia in relationship to her female genitalia? When are you going to tell her where Thomas would like to put his penis?”

Randall closes his eyes, then opens them, looking at me as if I’m an idiot for even suggesting such a thing. I wish he’d holler. Maybe throw something. But Randall never loses control. Ever. This is his way of demeaning us, demoralizing us, his women. It’s his way of raising himself high on a pedestal above us.

I get to my feet. “I didn’t think so.” I make it all the way to his door before he speaks.

“You’re too controlling,” he says, in his stuffy voice from behind his stuffy desk. “You’re not allowing her to grow up. You’re not allowing her to spread her wings.”

“That’s not it.” I defend myself, turning to face him. “I want her to be happy. I’m willing to let her spread her wings,” I say. “But it’s my job, Randall, to make sure she doesn’t fly too close to the sun.” I walk out the door, leaving Randall to contemplate my reference to Icarus.

But in my haste to make my literary exit, I leave my coffee, too.

 

“I hear what you’re saying, Dr. Tamara,” I say, leaning back in the comfortable leather chair. “But I think I
have
encouraged Chloe’s independence. She’s attending the church group on Saturdays. That’s a big step . . . for both of us.”

“But, Alicia, you’re sitting in the parking lot.”

I study him for a moment. Dr. Anthony Tamara is a small, slender man with dark hair and serious eyes behind wire-framed glasses. He has skinny wrists. I don’t know why, but they’ve always annoyed me. I don’t like men with skinny wrists.

Dr. Tamara reminds me of a male version of Dr. Malfi, the psychiatrist on
The Sopranos
. I can’t decide if Jennifer Malfi is just one of the few other psychiatrists I know, or if it’s the Italian psychiatrist connection. Although, technically, Dr. Tamara isn’t a psychiatrist; he has a doctorate in family psychology, specializing in parents of special needs children. I’m not sure Dr. Tamara has been all that helpful over the years, but Chloe and I have visited him monthly because I felt it was the right thing for me to do. It was my duty, as a parent, to see that Chloe got counseling.

Chloe’s out in the waiting room; the receptionist is keeping an eye on her. I can hear Chloe singing. I brought my iPad for her to watch a movie because I knew Dr. Tamara would want to see me alone. Chloe’s using earbuds, but she forgets that just because the receptionist can’t hear
The Lion King
, that doesn’t mean Mrs. Marples can’t hear Chloe singing “Hakuna Matata.”

“Alicia?” Dr. Tamara says. “Do you think you’re truly offering Chloe independence when you drop her off at the church and then follow the van she’s riding in to the arcade?”

“My job, as her mother”—I touch my hand to my heart—“is to protect Chloe. My most important job, as her mother, as the one who brought her into this world, is to keep her safe.”

“You said yourself that the pastor and the volunteers at the church have experience with mentally challenged young adults. Didn’t you?”

I nod. “True.”

“So why not let them have the responsibility for Chloe’s safety for a few hours . . . the way you do with Minnie?”

I look at my nails. “And you think I should let her go to Thomas’s house alone, too?”

“I think that if her relationship with Thomas continues to progress, that would be the next logical step. You said Margaret gave you no reason to believe she would put Chloe’s safety at risk.”

I clench my hands into fists and slowly relax them. “This just goes against everything I’ve done all these years. I’ve kept her close to me to protect her.”

“And perhaps to protect yourself?”

I look at him.

“You don’t have time for a relationship because work and Chloe take up all of your time.”

“I have a
relationship
with Jin,” I defend. “An excellent relationship.”

“I meant a
romantic
relationship.”

I think about the online dating idea. I
would
like to find a nice guy, just to have someone to go to the movies with. To have someone who cares about me . . . who wants to spend time with me. Is it really time to try it? “How am I using Chloe as a way to keep from having a relationship with a man?”

“You tell me.”

I groan. I hate this about therapy. I don’t want to come up with my own conclusions. I want him to tell me what to do! Just once, I don’t want to make all the life-and-death decisions by myself. Okay, so maybe whether or not to let Chloe go for pizza without me isn’t a life-or-death decision, but it certainly feels that way.

I look at Dr. Tamara. “I spend so much time, so much energy on Chloe that I don’t have time for a romantic relationship,” I say.

He smiles. “Maybe it’s time for both of you to have a boyfriend.”

Again I groan. I look away. “You don’t have children,” I say. “You don’t understand what this is like. To know she’ll never be able to live alone. Know she should never even cross the street alone.”

“I think I do understand. I see many families like yours, Alicia. Dealing with the same issues.”

I look back at him. “You think I’m being overprotective. You think I should let Chloe date.”

“I think that if she has the desire, she might have the ability. I think you should let her explore relationships with people beyond you, her father, and Jin. I think you can help her find the tools to be able to have a relationship with Thomas. With other men.”

Other men?
There will be
others?
I don’t want to contemplate that idea for even a second. Thomas is enough to worry about.

“The mentally challenged are doing far more, becoming far more than what we thought possible in previous generations. The mentally challenged are holding down jobs, dating, living independently or semi-independently, even having families,” he goes on. “There’s no reason why they can’t do what those of average mentality can do. They just have to do it differently. They just need the support and guidance of their loved ones.”

I feel as if my brain is about to explode. I can’t think about this anymore. Not today.

“So my advice to you,” Dr. Tamara is saying as I try to listen again, “is to talk to Chloe about acceptable and unacceptable behavior in public. And about private time. About what’s appropriate when she and Thomas are alone.”

“You mean talk to her about sex?”