Sometimes he looked at me as though he really understood. I so wanted him to be looking at me when he said "Mama." I repeated it many times, and even though he wasn't looking directly at me. I thought he was making the connection and would someday just start calling me Mama, and then my mother would surrender him.
It didn't happen that way, and I cried at night thinking about it. Sometimes I cried myself to sleep. I went from one kind of darkness into another. Time began to lose meaning altogether for me. There were weeks on end when I didn't know what day it was. What difference would it have made anyway? I told myself.
"You should be thinking of returning to school now. Grace." Mommy would say morning after morning. "We have a little money for that. I'm not telling you to pick some fancy college, but you have to get back out there, otherwise why did I make this great sacrifice."
The more she pressured me to leave, the more terrified of it I became. We had long ago sold my car. I hadn't been on Worth Avenue or in a supermarket or &pal [merit store for more than a
year, much less mingle with people my age., but I couldn't ignore the way she was pressuring me to go. It was almost as if she wanted to be alone with Linden, and as long as I was around she couldn't be his real mother.
I really didn't know what to do. It all made me more nervous, more unsure of myself Sometimes I would wander for hours on the beach, traipsing back and forth, walking through the edge of the incoming tide, sitting for hours and hours and looking out at the ships, moving like someone in a daze. Whom could I ask to help me? Whom could I trust?
And then, one night, he was just there.
I was standing on the dock, embracing myself and staring at a luxury liner that was close enough far me to hear the sounds of music and laughter. To me it seemed more like a ship full of people who had escaped every dark moment, every second of sadness, every worry and trouble in their lives, and now drifted in a perpetual state of happiness and excitement, drunk on the stars above them.
"I bet you wish you were on that ship. Sailor Girl," I heard, and turned to see Daddy standing there. He was in full-dress uniform, his medals gleaming in the starlight.
"Daddy!"
"Hey," he said.
I ran to him, and he held me just the way he always did. "I'm so alone. Daddy, and so lost."
"I know," he said. "Don't worry, I'll be here for you when you need me."
"I gave birth to a little boy, Daddy. but Mommy is so possessive she won't let me be his mother even in secret."
"Give her time," he said in his usual confident manner. "We all need time."
"Why did you go, Daddy? Why did you leave us?"
"Hey, you know what it's like for an officer. When he's called, he's called. You don't question orders, Sailor Girl. You do your duty as you swore you would. You wouldn't have wanted me to go AWOL, would you? Well?"
"No, but I missed you so much, and I needed you so much. I'm tired. Daddy, tired, and I'm too young to be this tired."
He laughed. "You'll catch your breath and be strong again," he said. "Tell me about the little boy."
"He's so beautiful and clever. You should see him draw shapes in the sand. He looks at things, and then he draws them with his little finger."
"That's wonderful." Daddy said.
The luxury liner was moving farther and farther away, the laughter and the music becoming too distant to hear. The ship seemed to slip right into the darkness and take all the stars with it. I watched it disappear, and then I turned back to Daddy, but he wasn't there.
"Daddy?" I called. I started dawn the dock toward shore. "Daddy?"
I moved faster and called for him louder, and then I stopped at the shoreline and looked to my right and to my left and screamed for him.
"What do you think you're doing, screaming like that. Grace?"
Mommy was out on the rear loggia. She was in her robe and had her hair pinned up. The facial cream she put on her skin every night to keep it soft and youthful gleamed in the weak glow of the outside ceiling fixture just like Daddy's medals had gleamed in the starlight.
"I..."
"What, Grace? Well?" she demanded.
"I saw Daddy," I said "He was right here. We spoke to each other."