All of us felt -- at least I did -- that our effort at creating a sympathetic, wise and supportive father was pretty dorky. No one had a father who talked to his daughter like this or called her “chipmunk.” But they would have LIKED to have a father who did stuff like that. This version just wasn’t very believable.
So the next chapter is over on Che’s side -- we were sort of alternating -- and we tried another category of extended family: aunties. We knew a lot more about aunties, many of them women just like this.
The kids had one agenda with this plot line -- they clearly wanted Heather to have baby -- and I had another, or several. I wanted them to look at realities instead of fantasies. (Their favorite movie was “Pretty Woman,” and I let them watch it with the proviso that I talked to them all through it. I pointed out every trick in lighting and costuming and soundtrack, all the lapses of logic, the jumps in plot line. They said, as they often did in my class, “You just killed it.”
“Good.” But I didn’t really. They went right back to their fantasies.
This chapter was also meant to be about dialogue, how to punctuate it, whether it sounded like real people talking, how to use bits of gesture and action mixed in.
Chapter IV
SURPRISES
Che's aunt wore her hair in braids down her back. She had on a fresh plaid cowboy shirt over clean, pressed jeans, but she was barefoot. She always said she liked to feel the ground under her feet. "Morning, Che," she said. "Want some breakfast?"
Che nodded. He was so glad to be there he could hardly say anything. Once he had tried to move in and live with his aunt, but it had not worked because he fought with his uncle. But now his uncle seemed to have sort of left the scene for some reason. Che wasn't sure if there had been trouble between them or if it was temporary or what-- and it wasn't clear whether he should ask.
His aunt put a plate of eggs in front of him and sat down across from him with a sandwich and a cup of coffee. "Rough night?" she asked.
"Yup." When she turned her coffee cup, he saw that she was still wearing her wedding ring on her slender hand. The eggs tasted better than he thought they would.
"Your mom is in jail. It won't hurt her to be in for a while. Let her dry out. No one will post bail, I think. I'm sure I won't." She bit into her sandwich as though the trouble were its fault. Half to herself she muttered, "Let her just sit and think it over for a while. Damn drunks."
"Hmmrph," agreed Che. He never knew what to say about his mother. On the one hand he dimly remembered when she had been a real mother and he knew he should be loyal to her, but on the other hand,for a long time she had been just repulsive and he only wished to be free of her. If her own sister felt the same way about her, then why should he defend her?
Sunshine fell across the neat kitchen and glanced off the polished counters. As they ate slowly, the edge of it moved almost imperceptibly over the salt shaker, the silverware, the ketchup bottle-- creeping along as the sun crossed the sky. The radio was playing softly.
"Che?"
"Yeah?"
"Your uncle’s been drinking."
"Yeah?"
"I'm not gonna put up with it. I'm just not."
"Yeah."
"So I'm gonna tell him tonight, either he goes to treatment or he's out of my life. He used to drink a long time ago but he stopped and I thought he was through with all that. Now... I don't know. Maybe it's midlife crisis or something. I thought we were doing all right-- even getting ahead a little bit-- but now it's all falling apart."
There was a long silence. Both Che and his aunt watched the sun's blade move ever so slowly across the pepper shaker. Che had no idea what to say, but it seemed as though he ought to say something. Finally he tried to sound adult, but he ended up saying what he really felt. "Isn't that kind of drastic? I mean, will they do bad stuff to him?"
"What can get worse? I mean, the last time he beat me up because he was drunk, I just swore I wouldn't let that happen again, no matter what."
"Don't you love him anymore?"
"He beats me up."
"Well... Lots of guys beat up their women and nothing happens."
"Che, can you honestly say it's all right for someone to beat his wife up?"
"I know he loves you."
"Yeah. When he's sober. But when he's drunk-- " She stopped and took a gulp of coffee. "I just can't stand it anymore, Che. I won't live like that. It's no good for anyone, the kids, me-- or him, either. He's just GOT to get sober and stay that way.
Che couldn't eat any more. If his aunt was ready to throw her own husband out--the father of her children-- maybe she would throw him out next. Maybe he would have no place to go at all. What would he do? He felt desolate, abandoned, left all alone.
And then what rose up in him was anger, a rage to cover up his hurt and fear. "Well, go ahead then! Double-cross the guy! He's right to beat you up. You deserve it for taking his home and his own children away! You've probably got your eye on someone else-- yeah, that's it. There's someone else, isn't there? No wonder he beats you up!"
His aunt looked at him, her dark eyes sad and shadowed. "It's time for you to go back home, Che."
The day was bright and not so windy as Heather and her dad worked at building a little shed around the door of the trailer. She had really needed this day off from school, even though it was putting her even farther behind than she was. But she couldn't concentrate sitting in a classroom. It gave her claustrophobia and sometimes she just felt like bursting into tears for no reason. It took a lot of energy to pretend everything was just normal and that she was thinking about school work or even her friends. Instead, she just kept feeling around inside her own head to try to figure out what was bugging her. Everything was all right, wasn't it? But why did she feel like crying then? Was this just hormones, like they talked about in health class, or was she weird some way, a nut case?
"Hand me that level, Heather. No, not the HAMMER! I'm already HOLDING a hammer! See? Hey! Are you in there?"
"Yeah, sorry, Dad. Just spaced out, I guess."
"You seem to be that way a lot these days."
"I know." She began to pick up the nails that had been dropped and to arrange them on a scrap of two-by-four with all the heads at the same end and spaced just exactly the same and...
"HEY! Am I talking to myself?"
"Sorry, Dad." She shook herself and smiled up into his face.
"Hold the end of this board, will you? I was saying maybe you might be lonesome. Since the ... accident... since your brother..."
"No, Dad. I'm fine, honest!" She didn't want him to talk about her brother. If she just didn't think about her brother, it was much better.
Her father put down his tools and sat down on the steps of the front door. It was warm now and the little roof they had made overhead --too small to shade them with the sun coming in at this angle-- nevertheless gave a feeling of shelter. "Let's just sit here for a little while. It must be time for a break."
"Okay." Heather sat one step lower and leaned comfortably against her dad's strong blue-jeaned legs.
"Heather, there's something I probably should have told you earlier. Or maybe I should never tell you at all. I don't know. I never know about this kind of stuff. It's not really up to your mom to help me on this one, so I may be making a mistake."
She hardly listened, but she heard the tone of his voice and that got through to her. He'd never sounded quite like this before.
"Years ago when I wasn't much older than you, I had this girl friend, see..." He stopped, but now Heather was interested.
"Well, part of the reason I got so angry about you and Che is that I know what can happen and I know about it first-hand."
"Was this someone I know?"
"No, she moved away after that. After that baby."
"WHAT!!!???"
"I'm trying to tell you. It isn't easy. I worked so hard not to tell anybody that I almost managed to forget about it."
"You had a BABY?"
"Well, not me, exactly." He smiled weakly. "But she did and it was my baby. I knew it was."
Heather was completely stunned. They sat staring side-by-side and then Heather found that she was not leaning anymore. She had picked up a nail and was scraping the point across the palm of her hand. The scratching helped make her feel real. "Was this a girl baby or a boy baby?"
"Girl."
"Where is she now? Did she die?"
"No. She's with her mother."
"This was before you met Mom."
"Well, of course." Her father was indignant. Then he smiled and shrugged. "I was young and I had no money or job or school or any way to contribute and her family was pretty mad. They wouldn't let me be around her any more."
"Why didn't she give it--I mean her--up for adoption?"
"I don't know."
"Do you still love that girl?"
"No. I don't think we really even knew each other. What's to know when you're that young?"
A lot, thought Heather. But she only said, "I have a half sister then."
"Yup."
"You know where she is?"
"Yup." A long silence then.
"Does Mom know about this?"
"Yup."
"But you never told ME? I had a half-sister all this time and you never TOLD me?"
"Would you have really wanted to know? Do you want to know now? I hope you aren't hurt. You're still my chipmunk." He tried to pull her against his side and to hold her, but she stiffened up and leaned away.
"What's her name?"
"I don't know."
"You don't KNOW your own daughter's name?"
"I told you. Her family would let me be around her. They just closed me out and then they moved away before the baby was even born. I was just a kid. There was nothing I could do."
Heather thought to herself, my father deserted that girl. He made her and then he deserted her. Will he desert me, too? Does she need him like I do?
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