“Thanks.”
“I’ll do it every night if I can do it in here,” he said.
He stood back as I rinsed, and then he began to work on his own hair. He remained in the shower after I got out. I dried myself, slipped into my panties, paused to catch my breath and let my heart stop pounding. And then, quite contented, I stepped out of the bathroom.
I started for the clothes I had chosen and then stopped. I could feel something different, and not because of what had just happened in the shower.
It was my bedroom door, I realized. We hadn’t closed it when we entered.
But it was closed now.
* * *
How do your parents adjust to the new you once you’ve crossed over from dolls and toy teacups, from cartoon shows and picture books, once you’ve lost your childhood faiths, including all the make-believe you cherished, like waiting for the tooth fairy after you lost one of your teeth? How long does it take them to realize you are your own person, more and more responsible for all you do, for what you think and what you say?
All parents must fool themselves for a while into believing their children would remain young and innocent longer. Perhaps out of fear of what really lay in wait for their children, parents surely cling to the belief that the children’s world was somehow safer. There was all that protection they could layer over it, making sure that they knew exactly where their children were going all the time, filtering out what they heard and saw, locking them safely under wing when curfews came. With a kiss and a hug, they could always drive away goblins and ghosts, monsters and creatures invading their children’s dreams. They could tuck them in securely and watch them fall asleep in the bubble of security they created. Every day for as long as they could do it, they could advise and counsel, demand and receive the obedience that helped tie their children to them.
“Time to go to sleep. You don’t want to be tired and sick.”
“Who’s taking you home from the party?”
“Are any of your friends doing that? Has anyone suggested it?”
“No, you can’t go.”
“You’re not old enough yet.”
/> “I’ll tell you when.”
Layer after layer of orders ensured that sanctuary with only a moan or two in protest. In the morning, the rules and demands they made firmly still resonated. The little protests were forgotten, at least until the next time.
Gradually, all this began to fall away. It fell in small ways at first, but soon every rule they set down, every demand they made, was challenged more vigorously and bravely. Defiance crept in alongside anger and self-pity. In how many households could we hear, “Everyone else’s parents let them do it! Why can’t you trust me?”
Slowly, their grip weakened. They relented in more ways, and before they knew it, certainly before they wanted it to happen, their children were out there, vulnerable to all the dangers they had somehow escaped. Other parents, psychologists, and advice columns in magazines all warned them that clamping down too hard, tightening the restrictions, forbidding things, would drive their children to be defiant and perhaps even to do something they wouldn’t have done if they hadn’t prohibited it so inflexibly.
My father liked to joke whenever anyone commented on how grown-up I was now, “Yeah. Little kid, little problems, big kid . . .”
Whoever heard it laughed, but behind the laughter, you could see the belief that there was more truth in jest than anyone wanted to admit openly. Who wanted to be a bigger problem? Certainly not me, not now, not for my father, who was already afraid he wasn’t doing all he could to ensure my safety and who felt a bigger burden and obligation to my mother’s memory. To fail in any way with me would have a resounding, deep effect on him, twice as resounding as it was for parents who shared the responsibility with a spouse.
I knew all this, I felt it, but I was also a young adult now. Because of my mother’s unexpected early death, I had been hurried along in so many ways my friends had not been. How many nights did I choose to stay home with my father rather than do something with them? My father thought I was just being very picky about whom I associated with and when I would join them for some event. I let him believe that was true, because I knew how much it would bother him if he thought I had declined something because I felt sorry for him or thought he’d be too lonely.
I was older and surely more mature than everyone with whom I associated. I could see it in how casually they treated the risks they took, whether it was drinking and driving, recreational drugs, curfews, or, yes, sex. But I tried desperately not to preach or make anyone else feel guilty. I knew I wouldn’t hold on to any friends if I said what I thought. Ironically, there were many times when I wished I didn’t have these thoughts, when I wished I was more like them, when I longed to take those risks and fly without a parachute. There was an excitement just beyond me, something I never had tasted, something I never had felt. Despite all I knew was right, I resented my own self-control.
So now, when I left this room and confronted my father, I knew he would be looking at me differently. He would do his best to disguise it; he might even make one of his silly jokes or try to ignore what he had just witnessed. Surely, with the bathroom door open, he had heard our laughter in the shower. I hoped he hadn’t stepped up to the door and looked in, but I couldn’t be sure.
The thing was, I didn’t want to feel ashamed or guilty. I wanted the way he and I had often conducted ourselves, like two equal adults and not always a father and a young daughter, to carry over into this. I wanted him to trust me, but I knew in my heart that even if he wanted to do that, he couldn’t. As he would say, it was not in a father’s DNA.
Before I started down, I looked in on Kane, who was dressing in the bathroom, and said, “My father’s home. He’s been home a while.”
He paused. All the possibilities began to flash before him like trailers for an upcoming movie. He knew, of course, how close my father and I were. Was he going to face a man in a rage? Would he have to deny and lie? Was it better for him to somehow slip away? Would my father forbid us ever to see each other socially again? Would my father call his father and mother to complain? Would the turmoil spread quickly to his house, and would it leak out to the community, our friends? Some would ridicule us, some would joke about it, and some would actually envy us, but it would all make us uncomfortable, especially if our teachers found out. How bad was this?
“Did he . . .”
“I think so,” I said. “Let me go down first. Wait a few minutes and follow.”
He nodded.
I practically tiptoed down the stairway. He wasn’t in the living room, and he wasn’t in the kitchen, but I saw a note taped to the refrigerator door: Just stopped in to get an important invoice I needed. See you later. Dad.