The Sometimes Daughter

by Sherri Wood Emmons

  “And she’s living with an Indian or something? What’s his name?”

  “Navid. I don’t know if he’s Indian. It sounds Indian, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s something foreign, that’s for sure.” Lee Ann pursed her lips and pouted at the mirror.

  “Can I see that eyeliner?” she asked the lady behind the counter, as she slipped the lipstick into her pocket.

  “And she’s gonna have a baby. Wow, that’s ... I don’t know, that’s weird.”

  I nodded, glancing around to see if anyone was watching while I shoved a bottle of perfume into my jacket.

  “So, does she think you’re gonna come live with her and Navid and the baby?”

  I laughed. “Well, if she does, then she’s crazier than we thought.”

  We wandered down the mall to the Orange Julius and bought drinks, then sat down to watch the crowds of shoppers.

  “Judy?” she asked, staring intently at something on the other side of the mall.

  “What?”

  “Do you miss her still?”

  I took a long drink and thought about it.

  “Sometimes,” I said. “When I think about how she was when I was little, how she used to dance and build cardboard castles, then I miss her. But when I think about how she was last time she was here ... not really. I don’t really miss her at all.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without my mom,” she said.

  “Well, that’s different. Your mom is great. I mean, I know she nags at you sometimes, but, God, she’s great.”

  Mrs. Dawson was my idea of the perfect mom. She came to all of Lee Ann’s activities, cooked good food, volunteered at school. She did all the things my Grandma did, but she was an actual mom. She looked like a mom. She didn’t stand out like Grandma. And she wasn’t crazy like Mama. She was just a normal, good mom.

  Sometimes she yelled at Lee Ann and me, but she was always there when Lee Ann needed her. And when I needed her, she was there, too.

  The year before when a boy in my class kept grabbing my butt and pinching me, it was Mrs. Dawson I told. I just couldn’t talk to Grandma about something like that.

  Mrs. Dawson marched into the principal’s office and told him exactly what had happened. And Mark Meyers got suspended for three days. He hadn’t bothered me since then.

  “I wish your mom was great, too,” Lee Ann said, squeezing my hand.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I kind of miss the idea of her more than I miss her, you know? I mean, I wish I had a mom like yours. I miss that, even though I never really had it.”

  “You can always come live with us,” Lee Ann said. “Mom would be okay with that.”

  “Yeah, but what would my dad do then?” I asked.

  And then I wondered, what would Daddy do without me? Would he be lonely? Or would he just be free to get on with his life? When he looked at me, did he see me, or just a reminder of Mama?

  “Come on,” I said, throwing the last of my drink in the trash. “Let’s go to Spencer’s and get some earrings.”

  Later that night, I lay awake for a long time, wondering what it would be like to have a mother like Lee Ann’s. What it would be like if Mama was normal. I thought about the birthday parties she’d thrown when I was little and how we used to make bread together and how she ran behind me, holding the seat of my bike when I learned to ride without training wheels, her hair streaming behind her as she called out encouragement. Had Mama been happy then? Or did she know, even then, that she would leave?

  What if she wanted me to go with her to Los Angeles? She couldn’t make me go. I was twelve now. She couldn’t just take me away like she’d done before. But what if she asked me to go with her? Would I want to go?

  Definitely not if she was the Mama who’d come home after Jonestown. But what if Mama was really back? The Mama who had played with me and brushed my hair and did fun things—what if that Mama wanted me back? Would I go then?

  What would Daddy do without me?

  It gave me a headache just wondering about it all.

  I put on my slippers and went downstairs to get some aspirin, walking softly so I wouldn’t wake Daddy. But he was already awake, sitting in the kitchen, his head in his hands.

  “Daddy?”

  “Oh, hey, peanut.” He smiled at me. “What are you doing up?”

  “I have a headache.”

  He poured me some water and handed me two aspirins, then sat back down at the table.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. Probably it was the first time I’d ever asked him that. At least it’s the first time I remember.

  He shrugged and smiled at me. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Do you miss her?” I asked, sitting down beside him.

  “Yeah, honey, I do. Sometimes I miss her like hell.”

  “Are you sad she’s going to have a baby with someone else?”

  He looked at me for a minute, then reached out and touched my cheek.

  “I guess it makes me a little bit sad,” he said. “And it worries me.”

  I nodded. It worried me, too. What if she loved the baby like she’d never loved me? Worse, what if she left the baby like she’d left me?

  “Do you think she’s happy now?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know, Judy. I don’t know if your mother will ever be really happy.”

  “Do you think she’ll leave that man and the baby like she did us?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I hope not, but ... I just don’t know.”

  We sat in silence for a while. I wished I could say something to make him happy. But there was nothing to say.

  Finally, he looked at the clock and said, “Okay, it’s past eleven and it’s a school night. You need to be in bed.”

  I kissed his cheek and put my glass in the sink.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think I should see her while she’s here?”

  “If you want to, then yeah, you should. But you don’t have to.”

  “I don’t know if I want to or not.”

  “That’s okay, Judy. You don’t have to decide right this minute. Get some sleep and see how you feel tomorrow.”

  I lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling and thinking about my dad missing her. I hadn’t ever thought about that. I’d never even thought about how it must have hurt him when she left. And then left again. And now, here she was, back ... and pregnant. Poor Daddy.

  I heard the clock downstairs chime midnight, but I wasn’t sleepy at all. I wanted something to make Daddy feel better. But what would that be?

  And then I remembered what Grandma had said the night we heard about the congressman being shot in Guyana. That praying was the best thing we could do. I hadn’t prayed in a long time. But I knelt by my bed and prayed as hard as I could. I prayed that Daddy would be happy again and that he would stop missing Mama so much. Finally, I crawled back into bed and fell asleep.

  20

  The next morning the phone rang while I was eating breakfast. Daddy answered it, then called to me.

  “It’s your mother,” he said, covering the receiver with his hand. “She wants to see you after school, to take you out for dinner. Do you want to do that?”

  “Are you coming, too?”

  He shook his head. “No, honey. It will be you and your mom and her ... friend.”

  I sat down on the stairs, trying to decide.

  “Judy, it’s okay if you want to go. She’s your mom. If you want to spend some time with her, that’s okay.”

  “But why can’t you go with us?”

  He smiled. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t really want to. But you can go if you want to.”

  He watched me for a minute, then said, “I promise you, Judy, it won’t hurt my feelings if you want to see your mother.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay, what?” he asked.

  “Okay, I’ll go with her for dinner.” />
  “You sure?”

  I nodded. I wasn’t really sure. I wasn’t sure at all. But part of me wanted to see her again, to ask her some things I needed to know.

  Daddy told Mama she could pick me up at five. That would give me time to come home and do homework before dinner.

  He kissed me on the forehead when I left for school.

  “I think it’s a good thing for you to spend some time with her,” he said. I’m not sure he meant it.

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  “I love you, too.”

  The day dragged on for what seemed like forever. I watched the clock in every class, wishing I could just go home and crawl into bed.

  At lunch, Lee Ann and I sat with Vernita, and Lee Ann told her about Mama coming back and being pregnant. Vernita squeezed my hand.

  “My dad has kids with his new wife,” she said. “Two girls. They’re five and three.”

  “Do you like them?” I asked.

  “They’re okay,” she said. “I don’t see them very much.”

  “But ... does it feel like they’re your sisters?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. More like cousins or something, I guess.”

  It was hard to imagine having a brother or sister. For most of my life it had been just Daddy and me.

  “I wish I had a sister,” Lee Ann said. “Or even a brother, maybe.”

  Lee Ann’s mother couldn’t have any more babies after Lee Ann was born.

  “My brothers are pretty cool,” Vernita said. “Malcolm’s kind of a pain, but Mike drives me places sometimes. He’s okay.”

  “Well,” I said, “I probably won’t even know this baby. Mama lives in Los Angeles now.”

  “Maybe you can go visit her,” Vernita said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think Daddy would let me go out there. And ... and I don’t know if I would go, even if I could.”

  “But she’s your mother,” Vernita said. “Don’t you miss her at all?”

  I shrugged. “Not really.”

  Lee Ann caught my eye and smiled. She knew me better than anyone else, and she knew when I was lying.

  When Daddy brought me back from the farm in Kentucky all those years before, Lee Ann had simply accepted me back into the group, no questions asked. Carol had been kind of mean at first, because she said Mama was a bad person and maybe I was, too. But Lee Ann had overruled her then and many times after.

  When Mama had come back and everyone thought she was crazy and brainwashed, Lee Ann stood up for me again, daring anyone to say something bad about me or about Mama. After Carol said those nasty things about Mama sleeping with black men and going to hell, Lee Ann cut her off completely. In fact, we never saw Carol after that.

  When Mama left again, Lee Ann held my hand while I cried and listened while I talked and nodded while I spewed about how awful Mama was and how glad I was that she’d gone. She never argued with me about it, even when I went from crying sad to spitting angry in a heartbeat. She just let me talk or cry or rage as much as I wanted to.

  And she shared her mom with me. Sometimes I wondered if she resented sharing her mom, especially when Mrs. Dawson bought me things—little things like a silver frame for a picture she had taken years before of Mama and me, or a funny music box that played Arlo Guthrie’s “Garden Song,” after I told her once that Mama used to sing it to me.

  If Lee Ann ever did resent it, she never said so. She just loved me like I loved her. She was my best friend.

  After school I sat in my room, watching the clock. At four, Daddy came home. It surprised me; usually he didn’t get home until after five.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  He handed me a quarter. “If you want to come home, you just call me and I’ll come get you.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it. If you feel uncomfortable or scared or your mother ... does anything that upsets you, you find a pay phone and call me.”

  “I will.”

  The doorbell rang and Daddy went to answer the door.

  I stared at myself in the mirror, willing my stomach to settle down.

  When I walked downstairs, Daddy was standing in the hallway with Mama and a tall, olive-skinned man.

  “Where are you going to eat?” he asked.

  “Wherever Judy wants to go,” she said.

  “Hey, you!” She turned to me and pulled me into a hug. “You look beautiful.”

  I pulled away, not wanting to feel her belly against me.

  She smiled and turned to the man standing behind her.

  “Navid, this is my Sweet Judy.”

  The man extended his hand to me. I hesitated, then shook hands with him.

  “I’m glad to finally meet you, Judy,” he said. His eyes were the darkest I’d ever seen, darker even than Vernita’s. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I hadn’t heard hardly anything about him, after all.

  “Where do you want to go for dinner?” Mama took my hand.

  “I don’t know. Wherever.”

  “Well, it’s up to you,” she said, smiling brightly. “Just choose a place.”

  “She likes the Oriental Inn,” Daddy said.

  “Oh, that place on Arlington? That sounds good. Is that where you want to go, Judy?”

  Daddy nodded at me. We knew all the waiters at the Oriental Inn. We ate there a lot. We even knew the owner. I would be safe there.

  “Yeah, I like that place.”

  Mama chattered in the car, her hand resting on Navid’s shoulder as he drove.

  “Honestly, Judy, I can’t believe how much you’ve grown. You’re as tall as I am.”

  I nodded.

  “And you’re so beautiful. Navid, isn’t Judy just beautiful?”

  “She is,” he said, smiling at me in the rearview mirror. “Just like her mother.”

  I looked out the window. I didn’t look anything like Mama. She was blond and pretty and graceful. I was brown-haired like Daddy. My eyes were brown like his. I was his daughter.

  “Hello, Judy.” Mr. Tan, the owner of the Oriental Inn, smiled at me as we came in. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Tan.”

  “And this is your mother?”

  Mama looked surprised, but she smiled at him. “Yes, I’m Judy’s mama. I’m Cassie.”

  “Okay,” he said, ignoring Navid’s outstretched hand. “I have a good table for you right here.”

  We sat in the booth Daddy and I always sat in, by the wall with a huge silk painting of a tiger.

  “This is nice,” Mama said. “Don’t you think so?”

  “Very nice,” Navid said. “Do you come here a lot?” he asked me.

  “Daddy and I come almost every week,” I said.

  Navid smiled and nodded.

  “What do you like to eat?” Mama asked.

  “I like the kung pao chicken. Daddy always gets mu shu pork.”

  “That sounds good. Let’s order both of those.”

  Mama smiled and smiled at me.

  When the waiter came to take our order, he grinned at me. “You have the usual?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you?” He turned to Mama.

  “Oh, I’ll have whatever she has.”

  “Okay. You?”

  Navid looked at the menu for a long time, then ordered the seafood deluxe.

  We sat there looking at each other for an awkward minute, and then Mama said, “Judy is in the seventh grade now. Imagine ... she’s so grown up.”

  Navid smiled at me. “Do you like school?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “She likes history,” Mama said.

  Navid nodded.

  “Navid is a teacher,” Mama said. “He teaches at a college in Pasadena. It’s called CalTech, the California Institute of Technology. It’s one of the best science schools in the country.”

  “Cool,” I said, watching for the waiter to bring ou
r soup.

  “He teaches political science,” Mama said. “There’s a lot about history in that, isn’t there?” She turned to Navid.

  “Well, you have to understand history to understand where we are now. So yes, I’d say there is.”

  “There.” Mama looked at me expectantly, as if this should mean something.

  “Oh,” I said.

  The waiter brought our soup and I started eating mine immediately. I didn’t know how to talk to these people, Navid and my mother. What was there to say?

  “Once the baby is born, you have to come see us in LA,” Mama said. “I really want you to be part of the baby’s life.”

  “I don’t know if Daddy will let me go to California.”

  “Well, he can always come with you. That would be fine, wouldn’t it, Navid?”

  “Sure.” He nodded. “That would be fine.”

  “It’s such a beautiful place. You’ll just love it. We can go to the beach and the mountains. And there’s a really good zoo in San Diego. And the desert is close by, so we could go hiking. Would you like that?” She smiled at me, almost like she was begging me to say yes.

  “Sure,” I said. “That sounds okay.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’ll talk to your dad about it. Maybe you can come in July. We have an extra room and it’s all made up and ready for you.”

  “What about Daddy?”

  “Oh, well ... I guess your dad can sleep on the couch.”

  “Or he could get a hotel room,” Navid said.

  “Yes, he could do that,” Mama agreed. “We’ll have so much fun, Judy. I just can’t wait for you to see our house and the city ... and your new little brother or sister.” She patted her tummy.

  “What are you naming it?” I asked.

  “Well, if it’s a boy, we’ll call him Kamran. That’s a Persian name that means lucky. And if it’s a girl, her name will be Parvaneh. That means butterfly. Don’t you love it?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  “You don’t sound like you like it.” She looked disappointed.

  “Well, it’s kind of a different name. And she might not like it once she gets to school. Other kids might tease her about it.”

  “Why on earth would they tease her about a beautiful name like Parvaneh?”

  “The same reason they used to tease me about being Sweet Judy—it’s just weird.”