It had been different once, but there was no way to make it that way again. When Mom died, so did Daddy's affection for me. The last four years I'd been an orphan in every way that really counted, and I'd be an orphan the rest of mylife as far as Daddy was concerned. The handwriting was on the wall. I looked at him standing there, and I wanted so much to hate him. If I'd found a sort of primeval, innocent, sensual Garden of Eden with the Banks family, then Daddy was the snake who was about to fuck it all up.
Alan was still talking. "Our daughter, Dierdre," he said as she stepped forward and did a little curtsy in greeting, "Met Barbara at school during the orientation program for new students. And when she heard that Barbara was going to stay at school for the holiday, Dierdre invited her to come visit us."
"Yes," Dierdre said, "it seemed like such a lonely way to spend Labor Day."
"Barbara," my father said, "knows that she had no business accepting without my consent."
I felt it was time to speak. "Well, you told me you were going to be in Canada over the holiday, and I don't remember you leaving a number where you could be reached."
"I'm not in Canada, as you can see," Daddy replied.
"Oh, please, Mr. Gifford," Connie put in, "Barbara is very welcome here. She didn't hurt anything by coming, and I hope this hasn't inconvenienced you…"
"It's not a matter of conveniences," Daddy replied. "As it turned out, I didn't have to go to Canada, after all. And late last night I had a call from the school wondering if Barbara had come home for the holiday break. She hadn't, of course, and there was no indication at school just where she had gone. My daughter is rather careless, it seems. Not only did she forget to tell me, she also forgot to sign the school's checkout book, which is a violation of student rules. I imagine the headmistress will want to discuss that with her when she gets back this evening. Anyway, after some checking and cross checking, we found a girl who remembered seeing Barbara get into a car yesterday noon your daughter's car."
Bloody shit! I thought angrily. I'd forgotten about the stupid sign out regulations.
"I called your house," Daddy went on, "but there was a recording answer device on the line that said you'd gone up to your camp. So I did a little more checking, and here I am. Barbara, I believe you've imposed on the Bankses long enough. If you'll get your things together, I'll drive you back to school."
I saw red for a moment. Lucidly, Dierdre filled in the gap just before I could tell Daddy to go take a flying fuck at a moving Concorde. "Oh, please, Mr. Gifford, I'll tell the headmistress whose fault it really was! I should have reminded Barbara about signing out. And if it's a matter of staying here or going back to school, God, how can you want her to stay there all by herself during the holidays? And we were having so much fun." Her voice dropped wistfully away and she hung her head to one side. Those liquid peon eyes of hen had won my heart. Could they do the same to Daddy?
No. He wasn't even looking at her. His stare was fixed on me.
I frowned. Not only, it seemed, did he want nothing to do with me, he wanted me to have nothing to do with other people either.
"Barbara…" he started.
"No! Let's not talk about it here! I'm so embarrassed I could die, right now, right here, so if you want to humiliate me any more, let's go off and discuss it in private. If that means anything to you – how I feel, that is!" And I turned around and started up the hill we'd just come down. Behind me, Daddy said "Barbara!" in a sharp, drilled voice. I wasn't listening. At least, I wasn't obeying. I marched up the hill, and in a moment I heard the tramp of his footsteps, coming through the grass after me. The Bankses must have been staring at us, too, and I felt even more miserable than I'd ever thought I could. Mortification was the pleasantest word to describe the workings inside my head, and I think I was almost wishing that Daddy would have a coronary and die while he was trying to catch up with me. That would have solved everything. The Bankses could have adopted me and I could have been their child by law as well as love. Oh, God, that's horrible! I reminded myself. You can't feel that way about your own father, for chrissake!
By the time I'd reached the top of the hill overlooking the river, Daddy was almost up to me. He reached for my arm, but I eluded him and started down the slope. "Barbara, listen to me," he was saying, coming up behind. "I was very worried about you. When the school called and said you weren't there, that they didn't know where you were, I…"
"Don't, Daddy," I said coldly. "It's way too late for anything like that. You stopped caring about me when Mom died, and I can't believe that you've started caring now. The Bankses love me. Not because somebody puts them on the spot and they have to seem to care a little, but because they love me. For myself. And I love them. They're the only real family I've had in a long, long time. If you want me to go with you, if you want me to go back to the school so I can spend the weekend staring at the walls of my room and wishing I could hear a friendly voice, see an eye that looks at me with love and affection, then I'll do it. But I'll never speak to you again, as long as either of us lives. Never."
"Barbara," he said again, "you don't understand – there's so much you can't understand – and the worst of it is, I don't think I can tell you – the way you think it is, that isn't the truth at all…"
"I don't want to hear it. If you can't talk to me, then don't even bother trying. I want to take one last swim before I go. Daddy, and that's what I'm going to do. And then we'll get my stuff and we'll drive back up to the school and you can tell me goodbye the same way I plan to tell you goodbye. For real. For good."
I stepped down to the river's edge, where water lapped gently on the pebbly beach. Without looking back, I took off my long-tailed shirt. Under it, I was wearing my bikini. While Daddy tried to speak from the bank, I stepped into the water, making a lot of splashes so I wouldn't have to listen to his lame excuses.
I looked at him, standing on the shore, and I wished I could swim off, down the river, and never have to come back. Maybe I could drown instead. Open my mouth, shut my eyes, and just sink beneath the rippling waters of the Ohio River, never to come up again. I tried, but I was too good a swimmer. Each time I went under, I popped up again, spitting out water and healthy to a disgusting degree. Oh damn it, Barbara, I told myself, you have to go ashore eventually. Why not do it now and get the Goddamned fucking business over with? But I meant what I said. If he insisted that I go back to school simply because my neglect had inconvenienced him a little, then it was definite. We were finished. I wanted nothing more to do with him or the life he'd chosen for me. I summed up all my determination and swam for shore.
I had trouble thinking of him as human while I neared the shore. Sometimes I wanted to shrivel up inside, remembering how I used to idolize the man. Oh, he was handsome, I guess, in his way Dierdre had called him a "viking" type, which was pushing it a little, but I'd shown her an old picture of him. He was tall, reasonably well built, with sandy blonde hair layer cut, and his clothes were tailored to his body so they fit perfectly. From the neck down he was a decent figure of a man, from the chin up, he was all iceberg, with the coldest, most unyielding eyes I had ever seen or wanted to see.
He stood like a statue as I waded into the shallows and came ashore, water dripping down my lithe, tanned body. I looked at him, found no surrender in the set of his expression.