"Yes
Daddy I remember You."
After
a suffocating silence his question needed an
answer. She whispered into the mouthpiece of the
phone,
Yes Dad. I remember you.
Had she laughed out loud when he said he needed
her?
The organ that houses emotion contracted, or was
it just a gripey stomach? One too many homemade
taco’s the night before.
“You’re my daughter. I miss you.”
I’m the product of your watery sperm.
“How are you? Are you happy? Have you done all
right for yourself?
Oh you’d be proud daddy. I’m just like you.
“Say something damn you. I’m begging
here.”
Are you on your knees daddy? Or better yet your
belly? Speak to you? But daddy I wasn’t
brought up to tell you to…
Her fingers must have pressed the bar to
disconnect the call. She hadn’t spoken a
single word. The phone purred in her ear, the
voice of her nightmares was gone. A single tear
rolled half way down her cheek and then stopped,
frozen in place, as though she had willed it to
halt as she remembered her vow, never to waste
her salt on him, as he had once wasted his salty
discharge to produce her. She wiped angrily at
the treacherous tear.
Her nightmare wore slippers and had two blankets
over his knees. Yet he still stomped through her
sleep with a stamp of dread. This huddled husk
was surely a clever disguise. She stood over
him. For the first time in her life, she
didn’t flinch or cower; neither did she make
any effort to conceal her contempt. He flinched.
She smirked, revelling in her new-found power
over him.
Some would say she answered his call for help
out of a strong sense of duty. She was a good
girl and would never cause hurt or suffering to
another living thing. Not her.
An eye for an eye was not an issue. It was a
burn for a burn, a kick for a match, A punch for
a pair, abuse for a duce, and maybe a drowning
to even the score.
Why daddy! You look shocked. Can you see
yourself etched in my hatred? They say I have my
mother’s face, but I got your warped mind.
I’ve got my mothers hair, but I have your
twisted nature. You’re my mentor; you’re my
guru; Daddy.
I’ve grown up and I’m going to do all the
things that you taught me to do. I’ve come to
kill you. Daddy. But first I want to play with
you awhile.
She swallowed her revulsion and saw to his
needs. Coldly. Neither gentle, nor harsh.
Mechanically. Following the guidelines of her
profession to the letter. Doing no less and
certainly no more. She fed him when his hands
were too unstable to hold the spoon, fighting
the urge to cram his mouth, so that she could
have the pleasure of watching him drown in a
pond of liquidated food. When he asked for a
snack. She brought it for him. She didn’t lock
him in his room for thirty hours and then beat
him savagely if he wet himself.
She had become a nurse, a good nurse. A
professional nurse. Fighting with her lack of
education, learning, taking exams and clawing
her way through four years of training. Can you
learn compassion? When had she first come to
care about those under her care? She had
witnessed so much suffering, so many people in
pain and confusion. She had seen so many eyes
scanning her gaze. Searching for warmth, or
empathy. The bindings of thorn, that had cut
into her psyche for so many years, withered and
fell to the ground and the stems slackened their
hold and sheathed to the floor like a silk
stocking down an oiled calf.
Want to know a secret daddy? It won’t be my
first attempt to kill you. I’ve already tried
three times. If you could hear that you’d
think I was a failure wouldn’t you? Well I was
only a child, ten years old I think. The first
time was a roller skate on the stairs. I know,
it was unimaginative. A cliché attempted
murder. I read it in a book, or saw it on
Television … or something. You found the skate
before you trod on it. Do you remember that
beating daddy? Despite my first failure, I was
already a creature of habit. I had my M.O. I
just figured that maybe the skate was too
noticeable. My next attempt was to substitute
the wheels with a bar of Pears soap. I love the
smell of pears soap, don’t you? The luck of
the devil was with you that night, or maybe the
luck belonged to you, whichever. You somehow
stepped over the soap and never noticed that it
was there. My third attempt was identical to the
second, only this time you did see it. Do you
remember that beating? After that I !
filed my plan under’flawed thinking’ I did
not dare make another attempt in case you
discovered it once again and realised what I had
in mind. Cowardice drove me back to my scheming.
The first time she had assisted in a childbirth
she thought she was perspiring in sympathy with
the mother, She rolled that first tear between
her forefinger and thumb, astounded that it was
part of her. She had long before forgotten how
to cry. She never did learn how to prevent her
tears, at the wonder of childbirth. And she
never stopped being amazed and awed by the
beauty of it.
Life had taught her to have a level head in an
emergency. Coping with pain, suffering and death
were sometimes rewarded with a smile of
gratitude or one of genuine pleasure. She
learned patience and discovered tenderness.
Twice daily she saw to his needs. In those early
days he was able to use the bath, as long as she
was by his side to support him. On that first
occasion she sat him on the hoist, making sure
all the buckles were fastened. The slip mat was
in the bath, the safety guards were raised.
Checking and rechecking that every thing was in
order and that he wouldn’t slip. She lowered
him into foamy water of just the right
temperature.
Just think Daddy, if the water was boiling hot,
you would have no means of escape. Remember the
pan of boiling soup? I do. Oh the physical scars
are almost imperceptible now, over the years the
grafts have merged with the soft skin of my
breast, Only the eyes or probing tenderness of
an attentive lover would notice them now.
Her skin crawled as she washed his withered
body. The suds feeling like venom between her
fingers. The sponge a welcome barrier between
her skin and his. She had to wash him there.
Kneeling down being careful to keep her eyes
averted from it she began. That was when she saw
his mocking realisation of her terror. Meeting
his gaze firmly and with new resolve, she washed
him thoroughly, professionally. Four seeded
beads of perspiration on her upper lip the only
indication of her disgust and revulsion. She
washed his back, and stopped with a hand on each
of his shoulders.
Was this the position you were in when you tried
to drown me daddy? Did you think of me in that
cold water as you made your weak, but
serviceable alibi in the local pub? You did
commit murder though didn’t you?
Circumstantial evidence, insufficient evidence,
not guilty. These words all begged allegiance
with you. Fawned to you, clung to you like
strips of rotting meat to a damned corpse. And I
was returned to your loving embrace. How much
pressure on these slack old shoulders would it
take to submerge you daddy? Should we find out?
Did it take a lot of force to drown my Mother
that day?
For two years she went morning and night to
attend to him. One day she walked in to see him
contemplating his gnarled, arthritic hands.
Tears streamed down his face, a broken man and
his broken body. She smirked, a jolt of pure joy
passing through her, but it was to be short
lived. Suddenly she was gripped by a spasm of
pity for this man that was so intense it all but
brought her to her knees. She had never said one
unkind word to him in all the months she had
been caring for him. Neither had she ever said a
kind word. She spoke only when she had to, said
no more than needed to be said.
She made milky coffee for them both and
remembered for the first time, all the milky
coffees he had made for her. She used common
sense words to talk him down from his
melancholy, and remembered that he had issued
many words of wisdom, words which she would
always live by.
Sometimes she had to take her son with her.
Throughout those two years the child was never
left alone with him for so much as one second.
He had never given her a single reason to doubt
his clean love for the boy. It hurt her to
punish his wonderful grandparenting skills with
such distrust. The pain in his eyes was mirrored
in hers, as she would take the child gently from
his knee and trail the toddler through to the
kitchen or bathroom with her. He never once
raised his voice to the child, let alone his
fist. He never caressed the child as anything
other than a Granddad. His volatile temper had
been replaced with an endless patience and
wonder with his grandson. The baby loved him.
She never did. Not once did she have the
slightest temptation to trust him.
A grudging friendship built between the father
and daughter. They talked about anything but the
past. She had so many questions, that she would
one day ask, but his final betrayal of her was
to die before she got the chance. She washed him
a final time, and dressed him with meticulous
care. He couldn’t help much normally, but dead
he couldn’t help at all. Some would say she
laid him out, through a sense of duty. But she
prepared him for his travels through a sense of
friendship, and respect for the man that he had
become.
She
never loved him, she doesn’t love him. She
learned to like him, and likes him still. She
misses him.
I’m your daughter. Daddy! But I’m not like
you. You see I am my mother’s daughter too. |