Brigit's Flame, Week 3 (October) post.
Compulsory Prompt: "Prejudice"
Additional Prompt: "Homemade"
Title: "Dependent"
“I. Don’t. Like. Her.”
Emer is nothing if not persistent. Her arms are crossed over her chest in resolute defiance, her bubblegum-pink lips scrunched into a tiny point on her face.
“Oh, come on, Emmie, you barely know her,” I say as I button the last two buttons on my shirt. “Won’t you at least give her a chance?”
My eight-year-old daughter scrunches her forehead menacingly. Her golden eyebrows have descended so much that they almost touch. Though she thinks she’s menacing when she puts on the tough face, I see nothing but pure innocence and beauty in her. “Daddy. I. Don’t. Like. Her.”
This is the usual story when it came to my dating. Since Emer was three years old it’s just been she and I. Emer doesn’t talk or ask about her mother much, and the psychologist says I should encourage her to do so more often. Dr. Sparkman says that talking about her mother and understanding why she left will help Emer come to terms with her life and may ease her issues with trust, security, and abandonment.
But honestly, I never want to talk about Amanda, either.
I button the top button on my shirt and flip up the collar so I can put on my tie. “What’s wrong with her, honey?”
Emer lowers her eyes. “Her name is Charlotte, daddy. That’s not a name. That’s a city.”
School is a struggle. I’m there when the bell rings to start the day and there when she comes running out of her classroom at three-thirty, but any longer separated from me and my little girl is a nervous wreck. “I think it’s a nice name.”
She looks up to me like I’ve just stepped on her heart. “Not as nice as Emer, right?”
Without bothering to flip my collar down I kneel and scoop my little girl into my arms. “Of course not. If I thought Charlotte was a prettier name, I would have named you Charlotte. But your name is Emer, because that’s that prettiest name in the whole world.”
Dr. Sparkman says that when I do things like this I’m not helping her, because it encourages her to believe that we can continue to be the center of each others’ worlds, and that doesn’t allow for independent growth.
But what does that psychologist know? I’m her daddy. Of course she’s the center of my world.
“I don’t like her, daddy,” Emer whispers in my ear again.
I don’t date much. Between my hours spent and work in the day and being with Emer every evening, I don’t have a lot of time for it. When I do get time for the occasional date, they’re never very long; Emer gets extremely nervous if I’m gone for longer than a couple of hours. So it’s always dinner or a movie, but never both. And I never, ever bring a woman home. Emer and I still sleep in the same bed.
Emer was only eight years old, and she’d had a harder childhood than me by far. It was no surprise that she saw every woman I might want to become involved with as a threat to our relationship.
Still holding my baby, I sit on the bed and place her on my knee. She refuses to remove her arms from around my neck.
“Do you like homemade pizza?” I ask her. She nods into my shoulder. “There’s some in the fridge. I made it today while you were at school. When Mrs. Wallace comes over to stay with you, she’s going to heat it up and eat it with you, and you’re going to watch My Little Pony together. Does that sound like fun?”
After a moment of silence, Emer whispers, “Don’t go, daddy.”
And just like that, a fifty-eight-pound girl shatters a one-hundred-and-eighty-pound man like a piece of balsa wood. For just a moment I consider caving, because I would love to spend my evening eating homemade pizza and watching My Little Pony with my baby girl. But I need this evening out, and, whether she realizes it or not, Emer needs an evening without me.
The doorbell rings. It’s Mrs. Wallace, right on time, and Emer knows it. She clings tighter around my neck. I bite my lip to keep in tears that appeared when Emer broke my heart as I slip my arms under her bottom and carry her through the house. Mrs. Wallace is Emer’s usual babysitter, and after raising four sons of her own, I couldn’t ask for a more maternal woman. She smiles at me when I answer the door and gently strokes Emer’s back.
“Hello, Emmie! I’ve missed you!” Mrs. Wallace says cheerily.
“Hi,” Emer peeps.
“Emmie, I’m going to finish getting dressed while Mrs. Wallace heats up the pizza. How about I watch the first part of an episode of My Little Pony with you before I go?” I tell her.
For the first time in a few minutes Emer loosens her grip and looks me in the face. “Will you eat some pizza with me, too?”
I’m going to have to explain to Charlotte why I pass on appetizers. “Of course, honey.”
In the bedroom I finish tying my tie and pick out a jacket to match my pants. With the bedroom door open so Emer can see me, I can hear the whirr of the microwave as the pizza is warmed. As I find my wallet and cell phone I look at the tangle of covers that my little girl hogged the night before and her pillow case with Twilight Sparkle, the magical unicorn, on it.
Even on the best of days, my life is complicated. It would take a special woman to understand and accept Emer. And Emer would accept nothing less than an extremely special woman. If Charlotte understood why I had no room for appetizers and why my shirt was wrinkled from the grasping arms of an angel, then maybe she was that woman.
And if not, I just happen to love homemade pizza. And My Little Pony is growing on me.
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