Something Happened (25 page)

“You never like to talk to me, do you?” my daughter says to me softly and earnestly, speaking this time not merely for effect.

“Yes, I do,” I reply, avoiding her eyes guiltily. (She is vulnerable in her candor. I do not want to hurt her.)

“You don’t even like to look at me.”

“I’m looking at you now.”

“Only because I just said so. You were looking over my shoulder, like you always do, until I just said so.”

“I was watching a fly. I thought I saw one. When I do look at you, you want to know why I’m staring
at you. You do the same thing with Mommy.
You
yell.”

“If I come in here to talk to you, you always look annoyed because I’m interrupting you, even when you’re not doing anything but reading a magazine or writing on a pad.”

“Sometimes you keep saying good night to me for an hour or two and keep coming back in with something else you want to take up with me. Five or six times. I keep thinking you’ve gone to bed and I can concentrate and you keep coming back in and interrupting me. Sometimes I think you do it for spite, just to keep interrupting me.”

“I keep thinking of other things to say.”

“I’m not always that way.”

“I’m the only one who ever comes in here.”

“Am I always that way?”

“Everybody else is afraid to.”

“Except the maid,” I say, trying a mild joke.

“I’m not counting her.”

“I do come in here to work, or to get away from all of you for a little while and relax. I don’t know why everyone around here is so afraid of me when I never do anything to anybody or even threaten to. Just because I like to be alone every now and then. I know
I
certainly don’t get the impression that people around here are afraid to come in here and interrupt me when they want to, or do or say anything else to me, for that matter. Everybody always is.”

“You spend nearly all your time at home in here. We have to come in here when we want to talk to you.”

“I have a lot of work to do. I make a lot of money. Even though it may not seem like much to you. My work is hard.”

“You keep saying it’s easy.”

“Sometimes it’s hard. You know I do a lot of work in here. Sometimes when I just seem to be scribbling things on a pad or reading I’m actually thinking or doing work that I’ll need in the morning the next day. It isn’t always easy to do it at the office.”

“If you ever do say you want to speak to me, it’s
only to criticize me or warn me or yell at me for something you think I did.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.”

“Is it?”

“You never come into my room.”

“Is
that
true?”

“When do you?”

“You told us not to come in. You don’t want me to. You keep the door closed all the time and you ask me to please get out if I do knock and come in.”

“That’s because you never come in.”

“That doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“Yes, it does. Mommy would know what I mean. You never want to come in.”

“I thought you didn’t like Mommy.”

“Sometimes I do. She knows what I mean. All you ever do when you come into my room is tell me to open a window and pick my clothes up off the floor.”

“Somebody has to.”

“Mommy does.”

“But they’re still always on the floor.”

“Sooner or later they get picked up. Don’t they? I don’t think that’s so important. I don’t think that’s the most important thing you have to talk to me about Is it?”

“I’ll try never to say that to you again. What is important?”

“I’ve got posters on my wall and some funny lampshades that I painted myself and some funny collages that I made out of magazine advertisements. And I’m reading a book by D. H. Lawrence that I’m really enjoying very much. I think it’s the best book I ever read.”

“I’m interested in all that,” I tell her. “I’d like to see your posters and your funny lampshades and collages. What’s the book by D. H. Lawrence?”

“You don’t like D. H. Lawrence.”

“My own taste isn’t too good. I’d like to see what you’ve done with your room.”

“Now?”

“If you’d let me.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t want to. You’d only pretend to look around for a second and then tell me to pick my clothes up off the floor.”

“Are they on the floor?”

“You see? You’re only interested in joking. You’re not really interested in anything I do. You’re only interested in yourself. You’re not interested in me.”

“You’re not interested in me,” I retaliate gently. “When I do start to ask you questions about yourself, you think I’m snooping into your affairs or trying to trap you in a lie or something.”

“You usually are.”

“Not always. You do tell lies. You do have things you try to hide.”

“You won’t let me hide them. You want to know everything. Mommy too.”

“Sometimes they’re things we should know.”

“Sometimes they’ve got nothing to do with you.”

“How can I tell until I find out what they are?”

“You could take my word.”

“I can’t. You know that.”

“That’s very flattering.”

“You do lie a lot.”

“You don’t enjoy talking with me. You never want to discuss things with me or tell me anything. Unless it’s to make me do my homework. Mommy spends more time talking to me than you do.”

“Then why don’t you like her more?”

“I don’t like what she says.”

“You aren’t being fair. If I do try to tell you something about the company or my work, you usually sneer and make snotty wisecracks. You don’t think the work I do is important.”

“You don’t think it’s important, either. You just do it to make money.”

“I think making money for you and the rest of the family is important. And doing my work well enough to maintain my self-respect is important, even though the work itself isn’t. You know, it’s not always so pleasant for me to have the work I do at the company ridiculed by you and your brother. Even though
you’re joking, and I’m not always sure you are. I spend so much of my life at it.”

(
Why
must I win this argument? And why must I use this whining plea for pity to do it? Why must I show off for her and myself and exult in my fine logic and more expert command of language and details—in a battle of wits with a fifteen-year-old child, my own? I could just as easily say, “You’re right. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” Even though
I’m
right and not really sorry. I could say so anyway. But I can’t. And I
am
winning, for her look of resolution is failing, her hesitations are growing, and now it is her gaze that is shiftily avoiding mine. I relax complacently, with a momentary tingle of scorn for my inferior adversary, my teen-age daughter. I am a shit But at least I am a successful one.)

My daughter replies apologetically. “I’m interested in your work,” she tries to defend herself. “Sometimes I ask you questions.”

“I always answer them.”

“With a wisecrack.”

“I know you’re going to sneer.”

“If you didn’t wisecrack, maybe I wouldn’t sneer.”

“I promise never to wisecrack again,” I wisecrack.

“
That’s
a wisecrack,” she says. (She is bright, and I am pleased with her alertness.)

“So is that,” I retort (before I can restrain myself, for I suppose I have to show her that I am at least as good).

My daughter doesn’t return my smile. “See? You’re grinning already,” she charges in a low, accusing tone. “You’re turning it into a joke. Even now, when we’re supposed to be serious.”

I turn my eyes from her face and look past her shoulder uneasily at the bookcase on the wall. “I’m sorry. I was only trying to make you feel better. I was trying to make you laugh.”

“I don’t think there’s anything funny.”

“No, I’m not. I’m sorry if you thought so.”

“You like to turn everything into a joke.”

“I don’t. Now don’t get rude. Or I’ll have to.”

“You start making fun of me. You never want to talk seriously to any of us.”

“That isn’t true. That’s the third time you’ve made me deny it.”

“You always try to laugh and joke your way out whenever something serious comes up.”

“That’s the fourth.”

“Or you get angry and bossy and begin yelling, like you’re starting to do now.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, and pause to lower my voice. “It’s my personality, I guess. And my nerves. I’m not really proud of it. What you have to try to remember, honey, and nobody seems to, is that I’ve got feelings too, that I get headaches, that I can’t always control my own moods even though I seem to be the one in charge. I’m not always happy either. Please go on talking to me.”

“Why should I?”

“Don’t you want to?”

“You don’t enjoy talking to me.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Tell me what you want to. That’s how I’ll know. Please. Otherwise I always have to guess.”

“Was Derek born the way he is?”

“Yes. Of course. We think so.”

“Or was it caused by something one of us did?”

“He was born that way.”

“Why?”

“Nobody knows. We all think he was. That’s part of the problem. Nobody knows what happened to him.”

“Maybe that’s what I’ll be when I go to college. An anthropologist.”

“Geneticist.”

“Did you have to say that now?”

“You want to learn, don’t you?”

“Not always.”

“I thought you’d like to know the difference when you make a mistake.”

“Not now. You knew what I meant. You didn’t have to stop me just to show you’re smarter. Did you?”

“You’re very smart. You’re very bright and very clever. Maybe you should be a lawyer. That’s a compliment. I don’t pay you compliments often.”

“I’ll say.”

“You like to force people into a corner. I’m the same way.”

“I think I try to be like you.”

“I was happier.”

“Was your family disappointed in you?”

“I can’t remember. Is yours?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think my mother was. But later on, not when I was a child. When I was older and moved away.”

“You never kiss me,” my daughter says. “Or hug me. Or kid with me. Like other fathers.”

She has black, large shadows under her eyes, which are swollen, gummy, and red suddenly, and she looks more wretched than any other human being I have ever stared at before. (I want to wrench my gaze away.)

“You stopped wanting me to kiss you,” I explained softly with tenderness, feeling enormous pity for her (and for myself. Whenever I feel sorry for someone, I find that I also feel sorry for myself). “I used to. I used to want to hug you and kiss you. Then you began to pull away from me or draw your face back with a funny expression and make a disgusted sound. And laugh. As a joke at first, I thought. But then it became a habit, and you pulled away from me every time and made that same face and disgusted sound every time I tried to kiss you.”

“So now you’ve stopped trying.”

“It wasn’t pleasant for me to be insulted that way.”

“Were you hurt?” There is that glitter of too much eagerness in her expression. “Did it make you unhappy?”

“Yes.” We are talking in monotones. (I don’t remember when it really did begin to hurt me deeply each time she pulled away from my demonstrations of affection with signs of mock revulsion; and I also don’t remember when it stopped bothering me at all.) “I was very unhappy. My feelings were hurt.”

“You never said so.”

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.”

“I was little then.”

“It was still very painful.”

“I was just a little girl then. Wouldn’t you give up just a little bit of your pride to satisfy me, if that’s what I wanted?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Would you do it now?”

“I’m not.”

“You won’t?”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ll ever let you get any satisfaction out of me that way.”

“You must be very disappointed in me?”

“Why?”

“I’ll bet you are. You and Mommy both.”

“Why should we be?”

“I know
she
is. I’m not good at anything.”

“Like what? Neither am I.”

“I’ve got a greasy scalp and skin. And pimples. I’m not pretty.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m too tall and fat.”

“For what?”

“I’m not even sure I want to be. I don’t know what I’d do even if I was good at anything.”

“Like what?”

“Like art. I can’t paint or sculpt. I’m not very smart. I’m not good at music. I don’t study ballet.”

“I don’t study ballet either.”

“It’s not funny!”

“I’m not trying to be.” (I
was
trying to be.) “We’re not good at those things either.”

“I’m not even rich.”

“That’s my fault, not yours.”

“At least that would be something. I could be proud of that. Are we ever going to be? I mean really rich, like Jean’s father, or Grace.”

“No. Unless you do it.”

“I can’t do anything. Should I be ashamed?”

“Of what?”

“Because we’re poor.”

“We aren’t poor.”

“Of you.”

“At least you’re frank.”

“Should I be?”

“What would you expect me to say?”

“The truth.”

“Of me? I hope not. Being ashamed is something you either are or aren’t, not something you do because you should or shouldn’t. I do well enough. Jean is ashamed of her father because he’s mean and stupid, and thinks I’m better. Isn’t she? So is Grace. I think Grace likes me a lot more than she does her father.”

“I’m never going to be anything.”

“Everybody is something.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Like what?”

“Famous.”

“Few of us are.”

“I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you for being disappointed in me.”

“We’re not. Do you think we’d be disappointed in you just because you aren’t good at anything?”

“Then you never even expected anything of me, did you?” she accuses, with a sudden surge of emotion that catches me by surprise.

“Now you’re not being fair!” I insist.

“It’s not funny.”

“Honey, I—”

But she is gone, disappearing intransigently with a look of mournful loathing as I put my arms out to comfort her (and I am left again by myself in my study with my empty hands outstretched in the air, reaching out toward nothing that is there).