Somebody Else's Daughter

by Elizabeth Brundage

  On the way up to bed, the DVD in the trash caught her eye. In the interest of parental surveillance, she decided to have a look. She took it from the trash and went upstairs to her room. She studied the box, the picture on the cover, noting, with amazement, that the actress bore a striking resemblance to Joe’s wife. In illegibly small print, the credits revealed it as a J & H Production. “As in Joe and Harold,” she announced to the room. “Well, what do you know?”

  Joe had failed to mention that his wife was an—ahem—actress. Claire felt an irritable mixture of feelings, one of which, regrettably, was jealousy. Because even though a certain part of her hated Joe Golding, and regretted sleeping with him, it could not be disputed that, with his lovely peasant hands, he had vigorously turned her on.

  Mustering an open mind, she pushed the disc into the machine and watched the film, trying to imagine how the images translated in Teddy’s teenaged brain. The fact that the actress was indeed Candace Golding thirty years younger was highly disconcerting. Claire felt clammy and a little strange, feverish. Did people really do this stuff? As the men entered all three of her orifices at once, Claire tried to comprehend the physical ramifications of such a position. It made her feel terribly sorry for Candace, it made tears spring to her eyes. How was it possible that she’d ever done this? No wonder Joe hadn’t wanted her to watch it. Yet still, she couldn’t take her eyes away. It was like watching some kind of bizarre circus act. She sat there, her heart pounding in her chest. Was this normal behavior, she asked herself, or was it abnormal? Was it instinctual, stirred up from some primal place? No, she thought emphatically. She couldn’t help remembering Joe’s words, We’re bigger, stronger.

  What was it about men that made them like this?

  Claire had taken her share of Women’s Studies classes in college and she’d learned that feminists were divided on the issue of pornography. Some were ardently opposed to it. Others categorized porn as an aspect of freedom that was protected by the first amendment and therefore permissible. It was better to allow it than censor it, they argued, because censorship was a tactic of repression, but it seemed to Claire a stupid rationale. Yeah, she didn’t like the idea of censorship either, but no matter how you sliced it, getting fucked three ways at once was getting fucked. No matter what sort of free speech you used to describe it.

  32

  It was an honest mistake. After his mother had gone to bed that night, he’d gone down to the kitchen and retrieved the disc from its plastic box, then put the box back into the wastebasket. In the morning, she’d emptied the wastebasket into the large plastic bag in the kitchen, which in turn went out to the curb for the garbage trucks to take away. She never suspected that he’d taken back the disc.

  He’d put it in a ziplock bag in his backpack, fully intending to return it to Rudy that afternoon, but during study hall Willa had asked to borrow a pencil, and she’d gone digging around in his backpack. She’d pulled out the disc, examining it in her hands, curious about the title, “What’s this?” she’d said, wide-eyed. “Is it contraband?” Then Marco had grabbed it, announced the title, and started making fun of him, and then Monica took it and wouldn’t give it back. A huge ruckus ensued, one that Teddy could do little about, and everyone was laughing and accusing him of being a pervert. After school, Willa came up to him and asked him about the film. “I want to see it,” she said.

  “No you don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, you won’t like it. It’s not for girls.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous.”

  He shook his head. “You won’t. Trust me.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  He started walking.

  “Answer me!”

  “Rudy, all right? I got it from Rudy. And I’m bringing it back.” They rode the bus together, as usual. He got off at her stop and walked over to the barn. She barged into Rudy’s place and said, “Show me that film or I’ll tell my father.”

  “Tell him what?” Rudy said. “I don’t really give a fuck.” But then he said, “Show it to her, then. She’s going to find out someday. May as well be now.”

  “Find out what?”

  Rudy took the disc and put it into the machine. Willa sat there and watched it. “Is that—?”

  But before they could answer she ran out.

  33

  She ran for a long time. She ran into town. The sun was sharp. She found her reflection in the dark window of a shop. There were two of her looking back, identical outlines of a girl in a stupid uniform, someone she was supposed to know yet who seemed like a stranger. The lines could not contain her, she thought. She was spilling over into someone else.

  Who am I? she thought.

  She had some money. She bought a pack of cigarettes. She didn’t care. She went into the park and sat on the swings. She smoked. The sun was falling down behind her back. Time passed, an hour, maybe more. It was getting cold.

  She felt something wrap around her shoulders, a coat. She looked up. Her father was standing there. She ignored him, but he said, “Let’s go home.”

  In the car, he told her what he did for a living. “It’s a business,” he said. “Like anything else.” He told her how he’d met her mother when she was only eighteen. “It was a hard time for her. She didn’t have many options.”

  “That’s so gross,” she said. “I can’t believe she did that. What’s wrong with her? I would never do that.”

  Her dad squinted into the setting sun. “We all have things that we regret, Willa. That’s one of your mother’s.”

  “I don’t,” she snapped. “I won’t. I won’t ever. I won’t make mistakes like that.”

  “I hope you don’t, honey,” he said. “But you might. Sometimes you get into a situation. Sometimes things just happen. You open a door and walk through it and suddenly there’s no getting back. I’m not trying to make excuses. It’s just the way it is in life. It’s just how things turn out.”

  She thought about Mr. Heath and started to cry.

  “I don’t like what you do,” she said finally.

  “I don’t like it either.”

  She looked over at him and felt her heart breaking a little bit. He’s my daddy, she thought, and touched his arm. His eyes were teary, she realized he was crying.

  “It’s okay, Dad. I’m not mad anymore.”

  But he kept on crying, mopping his eyes with a handkerchief. “I just want you to be happy,” he said. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “I know.”

  “I would do anything for you, Willa. I want you to know that. Your mother too. She loves you very much.”

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. The road was getting dark. He pulled up in front of the house.

  “I’m not going to say anything to her about this,” she said. “It’s in the past. It should stay there.”

  “Okay.” He touched her cheek, gently, and kissed her forehead. Then they got out of the car and went in for dinner.

  34

  Candace’s husband was like a man under a spell. It was as if he’d been struck by lightning or, as in a Shakespearean play, had drunk some intoxicating potion, and when he’d woken up from a murky sleep, it was her, once again, that he loved. When he looked at her, she saw desire in his eyes, and it made her shy sometimes and uncertain. Often, when they made love, her eyes would tear. Her love for him had been buried for a long time. It had languished under layers of dirt and now he was digging into her, grasping what was left and blowing off the dust. There it was, their love, it shone in his hands like some archaeological treasure.

  On the one hand, she was grateful that he still loved her, on the other, she trusted none of it.

  The trees were black and bare, the fields the color of cornmeal. That morning, Willa had woken her to ride. Together, they rode the trails in silence as the sky came to light. The sky was pink, the blush of carnations. It was almost winter. Steam flowed out of the horses’ mouths. Her daughter’s skin w
as flushed with health.

  Over breakfast, Willa told her about a girl she’d met at Sunrise House. “She’s a prostitute,” she informed her, darkly. She seemed to be watching for her reaction.

  Candace shifted in her chair. “I’m all for community service, Willa, but I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with you having a friend like that.”

  “Why?” she said, her voice verging on antagonism. “She’s just a person like you or me. She made a bad choice, that’s all. She opened a door and walked through it.”

  “Okay,” Candace said, sensing some subtext to the conversation. That was one of Joe’s lines, about the door.

  “She needs some money,” Willa continued. “I told her I’d give her some.”

  “How much money?”

  “Not very much. She’s in a bad situation. I want to help her. She doesn’t have anyone else.”

  “What will she do with the money?”

  “She wants to go home. She’s from Poland.”

  “Ah, she’s from Poland,” Candace said, as if that made a difference. “Well, of course I’ll give you some money.” She reached for her purse and gave her a hundred dollars. “But be careful. You don’t want her to think there’s more where that came from. You never know with these people.”

  “Yeah,” Willa said. “You never know.”

  “Just don’t forget that she’s a stranger, that’s all I’m saying. You have to be careful.”

  “I know, Mom,” she said, but Candace wasn’t so sure. She looked across the table at her daughter, wanting to tell her about her own life when she was her age, but she couldn’t push the words out. “It’s sad,” she said finally. “The things people do, women, to get by.”

  Willa met her eyes. Candace took a deep breath, trying not to cry. Sunlight filled the windows. The trees moved in the wind. The kitchen gleamed and sparkled. “We’re so lucky,” she nearly gasped.

  “We are.” Willa came over and put her arms around her and gave her a kiss. “I’m the luckiest girl in the whole world.”

  They could hear the bus coming up the hill, its squealing gears. Willa grabbed her backpack and ran out. Through the window, Candace watched her running down the driveway, remembering her little girl in her various stages of growth. Now she was tall and gangly and her feet were too big for the rest of her and her hair was long, down to her hips. She was a woman now, Candace thought almost mournfully. It was only a matter of time before the world rushed in and had its way with her.

  Joe had flown to California that morning. It was parent/teacher conference day and Candace wasn’t looking forward to going alone. Not that she had anything to worry about. Willa was a good student; they always had good things to say about her. But it was hard for Candace going down to the school. In truth, she felt intimidated. Just pulling down the long driveway made her nervous, finding a place to park on the field of expensive cars, many of which had the names of colleges affixed to their rear windows. Bates, Colgate, Princeton. Today, the school was all dressed up for the occasion. The dead mums had been replaced with holly bushes and there were pretty wreaths on all the doors. Inside, humble Hanukkah and Kwanzaa decorations had been placed strategically on the walls. In the auditorium, there was a special meeting about college taking place for the parents of juniors; Greer Harding was already on the stage. Candace slipped inside as silently as possible and sat off to the side. In her usual supercilious twang, Greer Harding detailed the horrors of the application process. “Applications are at a record high,” she warned. “It will be a sincere challenge for your children to get into their first-choice schools.”

  Candace had not gone to college. Although Joe had offered to send her, she had declined. She had never been much of a student. This whole college thing was out of her league. And it was one of the reasons she kept quiet when they had company, often other Pioneer parents, who would launch into lengthy discussions about government and politics, subjects that she did not fully understand— usually she’d clear the plates. Of course, Willa was going to college, it was simply assumed she would go and would want to go, but Candace could offer her daughter little guidance. Already, Willa had long surpassed Candace in academic terms.

  She looked around the room at the other parents. Some of them were taking notes. Claire Squire was sitting across the room, slouching in her chair with her knees up, rather rudely, on the back of the seat in front her. She seemed to be half-listening, sketching on her appointment schedule. Based on what Willa had told her, Claire’s son didn’t have much of a chance of getting into college. He had academic issues, Willa had said. Rumor had it that the only reason he was at Pioneer in the first place was because his grandfather had built the gymnasium, and it was the only reason he hadn’t gotten kicked out. For several months, Candace had been under the impression that her husband had fallen in love with Claire Squire. She would see them at parties, all wound up with a kind of electricity, as if someone had tied them up in Christmas lights. Claire had a certain sloppy beauty that appealed to her husband and that Candace almost envied. She supposed it made him feel younger, being with a woman like her as opposed to with his wife, who’d taken on middle age with a certain anguished diligence. For years, her husband had betrayed her with other women, she knew it, she had known it all along, yet she had done nothing to stop him. When she thought about it now, she came to the conclusion that her husband cheated because it reinforced his contention that sex could be casual, especially for men, and that, because of what he did for a living, he was entitled to casual sex as one of the recreational perks of his industry. Unlike other heterosexual men, whose sexual habits were about as daring as painting by numbers, he could enjoy sex without any hang-ups. “Men need sex more than women,” he had told her once. “It’s in our DNA.”

  At first, she’d been hurt by his philandering. She’d threaten to leave, he’d promise to stop. But he didn’t; he only got cleverer about hiding it. In truth, she didn’t really want to leave him. She saw no point. When she was young, her body had been used for sex, with little regard for her feelings on the subject. She had shoved all those memories into the darkest, deepest parts of her. And even now when Joe made love to her she couldn’t completely let go.

  For a long time in the marriage, she too had been under a kind of spell. She’d pulled away from him; she’d retreated, as if in defeat. Defeat was like an instinct to her, a place to rest. Yet now, after all this time together, the world was suddenly brighter, her senses sharper. It was as though she had been lost, for years, in a shameful foreign city and had finally, at long last, found her way out.

  “The word packaging comes to mind.” Greer was answering another parent’s question about what to do if your child was a mediocre student. “Try to find a way to make your child stand out, a certain trait or talent you can emphasize.” More hands went up. People were fixated on the SATs. Candace recalled taking the test in high school at St. Theresa’s—she’d gone to the lavatory and when she came back she found her pencil broken in two, the girl behind her snickering. It had upset her so she could barely finish the test. “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have,” Greer said. Parents began to file out of the auditorium, judiciously holding their schedules. Mr. Heath was standing on the side, greeting people as the group came out, a kind of impromptu receiving line. Whenever Candace saw Heath she found herself fumbling, nervously, as if he were the president. He seemed like a perfect man, she thought, if that were possible. His good, clean looks, his impeccable clothes. The way he’d take his wife’s hand whenever she came near, or whisper in her ear, or guide her gently from room to room, his hand perched on her back. He spoke gently, in the sort of voice people used with very young children. The Heaths were an ideal couple, it seemed, and very much in love. Candace wondered what it would be like to have a husband like him, so devoted, a true partner.

  It had been Joe’s idea to send Willa here. On the day he’d taken Candace to see the school for the first time, she’d been impressed with the campus, the
buildings, the lush green playing fields and the woods beyond. There was the lake, on which the crew team competed, and the fully equipped boat house. It was spring at the time and the dogwoods had been in bloom, sugaring the air with their blossoms. In the Main House, on an antique table in the oversized foyer, there was something called The Kindness Jar. The enormous glass jar was the sort of thing you’d find at Costco with pretzels in it, and it was filled with little cards on which the students had recorded their routine “acts of kindness.”

  “Our first goal is to produce good citizens,” Jack Heath had told them on their tour. Candace remembered feeling particularly warmed by the idea—it was a far cry from the tirelessly evil antics of her old classmates. And unlike the somber, punitive atmosphere she’d endured in high school, the teachers at Pioneer actually seemed happy to be there. Everyone walked around with a dazed and pleasant expression on their face, as though they were all members of an exclusive cult.

  She found herself wondering if her life would have turned out differently if she’d gone to a school like Pioneer, if an education like the one their daughter was getting would have made her into someone better, someone more confident, smarter. But she couldn’t imagine it without recasting the other people in her childhood, her ineffectual foster parents, and her mother, who could think of no better solution than to leave her in a bus station locker and throw away the key. If she had her druthers to do it over again, she’d choose a father like Joe, who stopped at nothing to give his daughter everything he could. After years of therapy, Candace had finally come to terms with her childhood. Joe had taken her away from all that. Like two thieves, they’d fled the city. Joe had brought her up here to get away from her past. And she had; they both had. She’d gone from having nothing to having more than she’d ever dreamed of, no questions asked. And yet, after all these years, she couldn’t fully relax. The truth was, she’d never felt like she’d deserved it. Even now, she walked with the unsettled gait of a fugitive, as though, at any moment, a hand would come down on her shoulder and proclaim her guilt.