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Dutiful Daughter(ing)
By Stephanie Kemp
Dutiful Daughter(ing)
By Stephanie Kemp
This is not going to be easy.
If I don’t handle it perfectly, my life will be ruined.
If I do handle it perfectly, her life could be ruined.
I don’t know who to choose.
I have been in this position a million times.
I mean this only literally, the rest is new.
I am sitting on the edge of her bed, watching her get dressed to go out for the night. It is my favorite thing. I am so glad my sisters never want to join. (I pretend we talk about school. Or that she is sad. None of us like school at the moment, and none of us can bear the idea that she could ever be sad.)
I (think I) am angry that she does not appear to be sad.
I watch her put on her earrings. She is standing in the middle of the mirrored closet doors that make her look infinite. She has already put on her nude L’Eggs (I collect the shells) and has her full slip on. Her cocktail is next to her ashtray. At 10, I still love the smell of her smoke. My mom is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. On this Friday evening she has the added advantage of a particularly nice blow out.
She is deciding between the blue and the gray.
“Blue,” I advise, because it is ugly.
And because Clay is not my Dad.
I need to help her see the real Clay. And there is an urgency to my mission.
She thinks he’s Fun! (He lets us sit in the cars at his dealership).
Wild! (He wears leopard shirts that need more buttons).
Good With Kids! (I hate his kids. Tanya always has food - or fingernails - in her teeth and Johnny makes me sad because I like him and he is her brother.)
Different! (He is 6 foot 5 with “legs that look like Betty Grable!” I only know what this means because Betty Grable is my friend, Phil’s, grandma).
My sisters are trying to give Clay a chance. They are nicer than me and they just want Mom to be happy.
Our dad is already happy.
If there is anyone on this planet who deserves to be happy, it is our (real) mom.
But this mom is wily. She still looks the same and makes us breakfast, but there is no way the real mom would like Clay.
He lives in a little town 2 hours away. His “lake house” is dark with low ceilings. I don’t even like Clay and I am still afraid he is going to hit his head in every room and at every turn. Or that his neck will stay like that.
There is also the problem of his belly. I don’t understand what happened.
And why no-one talks about it.
Is that rude?
Like if you think a lady is pregnant but you should never ever ask her?
He is very fit except for his belly. And I worry for and about his belt buckles. They are shiny and very nice, when you can actually see them. But they look dangerous, like they might pierce him and he could ooze out from the holes they would make. I don’t think I would care that much if Clay oozed away, but I worry that it might happen while he is driving my mom around town and that he could crash the car (always a new one from his dealership) and hurt her.
I am unable to bring myself to think of anything beyond “hurt.”
I am ashamed to admit that I did like the red convertible.
I worry that at some point (especially if she wears the gray dress) I will have to explain all of this to my friends. My real friends - like Phil - not the ones I would have to pretend to make in the tiny town with a dirty lake.
Did I mention that you can’t see the bottom of the lake?
Ever?
As my mom asks me to zip up her (gray!) dress, I make my move.
It is 7:15 and Clay usually picks her up at 7:30. Sometimes he stays while we are having our TV dinners, but tonight they have a reservation at Peabody’s, which is particularly alarming, because everyone we know from (our real) town goes there.
And she used to go there with our dad.
“Mom? Do you think we could go back to that place Clay took us last time we had that super fun weekend with Tanya and Johnny?”
“The bar where they weren’t supposed to let kids in, but Clay knew the owner?”
“I hope that band will be there again. The husband with the white pants and his wife with the tambourine who sang the songs about “Peeeeeee-nusssssssss Party Party Parrrrtttts!!!!” and “The MeanMeanMan and the GoodTimeGal who Got Together and made a KoolKoolKid?”
“Remember that weekend? When Ginny fell through the plate glass door and we had to look for that chunk of arm in the grass? And then the next day I took her down to the dock to make her feel better and the dock collapsed and we fell into the water and her arm got wet and you had to take her back to the hospital and they had to redo her stitches?”
“No. Wait.What were they again? Not stitches. A graft, or something?”
“Remember? It got infected? I think it was the same weekend that you bought us tickets to see Annie at the Fisher Theatre but we had to leave early because Johnny threw up during Easy Street and so I never got to meet Andrea McArdle?”
Remember?
What happens next is shocking and wildly exciting.
My moms (the real one and the wily one) sit down next to me on the bed and put their hands on my cheeks.
“Honey. I am going to break up with Clay tonight. He is a nice man, but it just doesn’t feel right.”
I love everything about my moms in this moment.
I even love everything about Clay and miss him already and sincerely.
But then this:
“I can’t wait for you to meet Bob.”
If I don’t handle it perfectly, my life will be ruined.
If I do handle it perfectly, her life could be ruined.
I don’t know who to choose.
I have been in this position a million times.
I mean this only literally, the rest is new.
I am sitting on the edge of her bed, watching her get dressed to go out for the night. It is my favorite thing. I am so glad my sisters never want to join. (I pretend we talk about school. Or that she is sad. None of us like school at the moment, and none of us can bear the idea that she could ever be sad.)
I (think I) am angry that she does not appear to be sad.
I watch her put on her earrings. She is standing in the middle of the mirrored closet doors that make her look infinite. She has already put on her nude L’Eggs (I collect the shells) and has her full slip on. Her cocktail is next to her ashtray. At 10, I still love the smell of her smoke. My mom is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. On this Friday evening she has the added advantage of a particularly nice blow out.
She is deciding between the blue and the gray.
“Blue,” I advise, because it is ugly.
And because Clay is not my Dad.
I need to help her see the real Clay. And there is an urgency to my mission.
She thinks he’s Fun! (He lets us sit in the cars at his dealership).
Wild! (He wears leopard shirts that need more buttons).
Good With Kids! (I hate his kids. Tanya always has food - or fingernails - in her teeth and Johnny makes me sad because I like him and he is her brother.)
Different! (He is 6 foot 5 with “legs that look like Betty Grable!” I only know what this means because Betty Grable is my friend, Phil’s, grandma).
My sisters are trying to give Clay a chance. They are nicer than me and they just want Mom to be happy.
Our dad is already happy.
If there is anyone on this planet who deserves to be happy, it is our (real) mom.
But this mom is wily. She still looks the same and makes us breakfast, but there is no way the real mom would like Clay.
He lives in a little town 2 hours away. His “lake house” is dark with low ceilings. I don’t even like Clay and I am still afraid he is going to hit his head in every room and at every turn. Or that his neck will stay like that.
There is also the problem of his belly. I don’t understand what happened.
And why no-one talks about it.
Is that rude?
Like if you think a lady is pregnant but you should never ever ask her?
He is very fit except for his belly. And I worry for and about his belt buckles. They are shiny and very nice, when you can actually see them. But they look dangerous, like they might pierce him and he could ooze out from the holes they would make. I don’t think I would care that much if Clay oozed away, but I worry that it might happen while he is driving my mom around town and that he could crash the car (always a new one from his dealership) and hurt her.
I am unable to bring myself to think of anything beyond “hurt.”
I am ashamed to admit that I did like the red convertible.
I worry that at some point (especially if she wears the gray dress) I will have to explain all of this to my friends. My real friends - like Phil - not the ones I would have to pretend to make in the tiny town with a dirty lake.
Did I mention that you can’t see the bottom of the lake?
Ever?
As my mom asks me to zip up her (gray!) dress, I make my move.
It is 7:15 and Clay usually picks her up at 7:30. Sometimes he stays while we are having our TV dinners, but tonight they have a reservation at Peabody’s, which is particularly alarming, because everyone we know from (our real) town goes there.
And she used to go there with our dad.
“Mom? Do you think we could go back to that place Clay took us last time we had that super fun weekend with Tanya and Johnny?”
“The bar where they weren’t supposed to let kids in, but Clay knew the owner?”
“I hope that band will be there again. The husband with the white pants and his wife with the tambourine who sang the songs about “Peeeeeee-nusssssssss Party Party Parrrrtttts!!!!” and “The MeanMeanMan and the GoodTimeGal who Got Together and made a KoolKoolKid?”
“Remember that weekend? When Ginny fell through the plate glass door and we had to look for that chunk of arm in the grass? And then the next day I took her down to the dock to make her feel better and the dock collapsed and we fell into the water and her arm got wet and you had to take her back to the hospital and they had to redo her stitches?”
“No. Wait.What were they again? Not stitches. A graft, or something?”
“Remember? It got infected? I think it was the same weekend that you bought us tickets to see Annie at the Fisher Theatre but we had to leave early because Johnny threw up during Easy Street and so I never got to meet Andrea McArdle?”
Remember?
What happens next is shocking and wildly exciting.
My moms (the real one and the wily one) sit down next to me on the bed and put their hands on my cheeks.
“Honey. I am going to break up with Clay tonight. He is a nice man, but it just doesn’t feel right.”
I love everything about my moms in this moment.
I even love everything about Clay and miss him already and sincerely.
But then this:
“I can’t wait for you to meet Bob.”