“Hush, hush, missus. Don’t talk like that in front of the child, even if it is the God’s truth.”
Maggie pulled off the little hat with one hand as she rubbed her hair around impatiently with the other. “It was better when he was in Korea. Janet shouldn’t be subjected to this,” she said, sitting down abruptly on a white loveseat against the wall, which ordinarily was never used, and patting an empty space next her.
“Come here, Janet, come sit,” she said.
I shook my head. I couldn’t bear to let anyone see me like this. Everybody’s parents in my second grade class were divorced—well, practically everybody—but the other kids’ fathers made a big fuss about their visitation rights. Sometimes, someone might not even be able to attend a birthday party because that was the father’s day. I knew how it was supposed to go.
Bridget appeared again, framed in the large entrance to the living room. She was carrying an ice bucket in both hands. “They’ve announced Mr. Rayfield on the house phone. They want to know if he’s expected.”
Maggie looked at her watch again. “It’s after five. He’s got a hell of a nerve.”
“What should I say?” Bridget asked.
Josephine took the ice bucket and set it on a shelf with interior running lights, next to the empty fireplace. “Tell him to send him up. Better late than never.”
“But, Josie,” Maggie said, sounding very young to me then, “do you think it’s wise?”
“Janet has been waiting all day. Better she see it than blame you,” Josephine spoke matter-of-factly.
“But I don’t care!” I said. “I don’t really.” Tears flew out of my eyes like flecks of spit from an angry mouth. “Tell him to go to hell.”
“Shame on you. He’ll hear you all the way in the elevator,” my nurse said.
The bell rang. Josephine was there before Bridget could arrive.
“At last,” she said as she pulled it open, “at last. Come in.”
But the tall young man, still in his thirties, stood outside, his wrinkled raincoat hanging off him as if he had not been able to make up his mind whether or not to wear it.
“Are you sure, Josie?” His mouth dropped in that self-deprecating smile. “I thought I might be too late to be welcome.”
“You’re always welcome, Mr. Ray,” Josephine said. “Now in, in.” She shooed him past her as if she were corralling a truant rooster back into the yard.
“Hello, Daddy,” I said, and went over to meet him.
He scooped me up and began to stagger. Together we fell onto the carpeted stairs, adjacent to the door, where he continued to hold me, burying his head in my hair. “Oh, baby, baby, you OK?”
I ran my hand across his chin.
He pulled his face. “Seems like it’s growing,” he said. His skin was pale and fine underneath the stubble. His green eyes were dull and misted over as if his mind were traveling great distances without him, hovering over the refracted lights of the city outside the living room window. He had a high forehead framed by a mass of dark hair, which he combed straight back, but which now fell forward in looping waves over his heavy eyebrows. He began to run his hand through it, but then abandoned the gesture, as if he had been distracted, this time by the front door that Josephine had just closed behind him. Something or someone on the other side of it grabbed his attention. The white turtleneck (the kind he always wore; he had an aversion to ties), which was still tucked into his pleated pants, may have been clean earlier that day. Now it advertised his afternoon. Vague brown spots, possibly spilled coffee, covered the front of it. I watched my mother screw her face up in disgust.
She got up from the white sofa and marched over on her high heels to where my father sat on the stairs. “Why did you have to do this today? Why? Just one day you could’ve laid off it. For Janet’s sake. You know the problems I’ve been having with her. She’s totally withdrawn. The teachers say she won’t respond. She mopes around the apartment. Is it always going to be like this with you, Rayfield? Is this what I have to look forward to? What gives you the right to turn your back on her when she needs you?”
I broke in, yelling, “Stop it, stop it!”
I stood up in front of him, facing my mother, to protect him.
Then he reached up and took my hand and turned me around. Our eyes, the same slanted green ones, met. “Maybe I should leave, princess. I’m a mess. I’m sorry.” He put his elbows on his knees and covered his face.
I continued to look at him, memorizing his hairline, the grooves on the sides of his square mouth, the way his eyebrows arched, the Adam’s apple. He was the handsomest man that I had ever seen and I did not know when I would see him again.
“OK, go,” I said, without moving, the hot penthouse air ringing in my ears.
“That’s not very kind,” Josephine said. The big nurse took my father by his other hand, pulling him to his feet. “Have some black coffee first.”
Maggie pushed past her ex-husband. “Well, I can’t stand it. I’m going upstairs. Josie, don’t leave Janet alone with him.”
“Not to worry, missus,” Josephine said. “We’ll have a little black coffee. Janet, kiss your father. Tell him how much you love him, how much you missed him. Go on, now.”
I shook my head. Pride, the price we sometimes pay for survival, had suddenly taken over. ‘It’s not my turn anymore, it’s his,’ was all I could think about. ‘I held my end up for a long time, but now it’s his turn.’ He moved a few steps until he could just reach out and touch my small shoulders covered in velvet. Cautiously at first, he began to massage them with his palms. I could smell his stale whiskey breath as he leaned over and kissed me gently on the cheek.
“Janet, darling Janet. You’re all grown up. Did you miss me?”
What I wanted to know was: Did he miss me? He had to say so first. I kept my mouth shut. My father dropped his arms and shrugged. “Josie, I’m sorry. I tried, but the kid’s too smart for her old dad. She’s through with me, too, fed up. And she’s right, she’s right. I’m going.”
He pulled me to him, clutching me like a small belonging that someone else had tried to steal away. Frightened by the abruptness of it, I let out a little scream. Grandpa Abram came to the door of his study at the far end of the apartment wearing a silk smoking jacket, his black eyeshade pushed over his forehead.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, his watery blue eyes raw and blinking without his glasses.
“Hello, Sam. It’s Rayfield here. Sorry to have missed you, just leaving.” My father pulled his dirty raincoat around him. “Janet,” he said, his hand on the brass doorknob, “I know I’m a no-good bum of an old man, but I’ll always love you. No matter what. Remember, darling, love is just like a rubber band. You can stretch it, but it never breaks.”
Then he was gone, the thick metal door thudding shut behind him. I ran, pulling it open with both hands. “Daddy, I’ll wait. I’ll wait.”
He looked at me as if I were a stranger, or as if he had forgotten why he was there.
“That’s my pet, that’s my Janet,” he finally said, just as the elevator arrived. He slipped past me behind Jake, the operator, turning inside where he continued to wave and smile that doleful smile until Jake heaved the car door shut.
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