Janice Johnson - The Daughter Merger

She hugged her pillow and remained silent.

His hand itched to whack her bottom, although he’d never believed in spanking.

“We’ve talked about this, Claire. You live here now. If you’d made it to San Francisco, your mother would have shipped you right back to me.”

“No, she wouldn’t!” In a flash, the thirteen-year-old launched herself to her knees and faced him furiously. Her face was wet and swollen with tears. “Mom wants me!” she sobbed. “And you don’t! I can tell you don’t! Why won’t you let me go?”

“I do want you.” Hell, no, he didn’t, not anymore. But he loved her. Or at least the memory of the sweet sprite who had adored her daddy. It was that child he was determined to save from the alcoholic mother who used her as a crutch.

“You don’t!” Claire’s face crumpled and she flung herself back onto her belly. Her shoulders shook with sobs.

David made himself sit on the edge of the bed. He’d forgotten how to say I love you. She wouldn’t have believed him anyway. His hand made an abortive move toward her, but he knew damn well she would have knocked it away.

“I’m sorry you miss your mother.” His every word sounded wooden, and he swore inwardly. “She’s an alcoholic. She can’t take care of you. She can’t even take care of herself.”

“We were doing fine!”

“You weren’t doing fine.” He knew he was wasting his breath. Logic never penetrated with her. But he had no other weapon, so he tried, anyway. “You were missing school, getting Ds on your report card. You were terrified of being alone at night.” And her mother didn’t want to stay home with her.

“So what if I’m not good at school!” she flared. “Mom says she wasn’t, either!”

“You have the ability to do fine,” he said grimly. “If you’d turn in all your assignments.”

She threw one miserable, furious look at him over her shoulder. “That’s all you care about! That I be some perfect daughter. Well, I’m not!”

He’d thought enviously of Grace Blanchet’s daughter today. The memory stung. Did he resent Claire, because she wasn’t a model daughter he could brag about?

Wearily he said, “All I ask is that we be able to hold conversations without them blowing up in my face. That I not be dragged away from work because you’ve taken off again. Is that too much to hope for?”

“I hate you!” she screamed, though the words were muffled in her pillow.

David jerked. Pain engulfed his chest. He stood and started to leave the room, forcing himself to stop in the doorway. “Fine. But you will live with me, like it or not.” He didn’t—quite—slam the door when he left the room.

“I HATE HIM,” Claire repeated gloomily.

She and her best friend, Linnet Blanchet, ignored their school lunches. The salad bar wasn’t that good, anyway. Linnet had wanted to know everything about yesterday. About Claire running away, and whether it had been scary, and what had happened. Claire told her the truth except for the scary part. She’d shrugged and said it was no big deal when really she hated hitchhiking. The cars and trucks would rush by, the wind sucking her toward the tires, and sometimes gravel would pepper her painfully. She’d be there praying someone would stop, but afraid at the same time of who it might be. She was always hoping some nice old couple would pull up, and then they’d offer to drive her all the way to her mother’s front door even if it was two states away, because they felt sorry for her.

Linnet’s brow crinkled. “Why can’t you live with your mom if you want?”

She gave her pat answer. She didn’t want to tell even Linnet the truth. “Because Mom couldn’t afford really good lawyers. Not like Dad’s.”

Linnet was stubborn. “But why does he want you so much?”

“I don’t know!” Seeing the way Linnet flinched at her quick, furious response, Claire touched her arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just, he’s never home. When he is, all we do is fight. I think he got custody just so Mom couldn’t have me. You know?”

“That’s really mean,” her friend marveled.

She nodded. Her misery burst out of her. “I won’t stay with him. I won’t!”

“But even if you get to your mom, he’ll know where to find you and then you’ll have to come back anyway. Unless your mom is willing to go into hiding with you.” Her face brightened. “She could. If you moved to, like, Idaho or Missouri or something, and she was really careful and didn’t use credit cards or anything, he’d never find you.”

Linnet was used to thinking practically. “Mom is talking about getting married. It’s this guy who I think is really rich. He’d have to come with us, and then how could he get to his money? If you use a bank machine or something, they find you.”

Linnet had seen the same movies. She nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe your mom could forget about him. If she knew how unhappy you are.” The gaze she gave Claire held a hint of a question.

The bell rang, making both girls jump. Claire hadn’t noticed how the cafeteria was emptying out. She stood with Linnet and they carried their untouched trays to the busing station, where they dumped the food and put the utensils in the right tubs.

On the way out, Claire said reluctantly, “My mom isn’t that good at taking care of herself. I do a lot of stuff for her. She gets alimony from my dad, and child support when I lived with her.” Claire knew, because she’d gotten her mother to sign the checks, her hand wavering when she’d had too much to drink, and then Claire had deposited them and bought groceries with the cash. “She’d lose all that money.”

“But she’d have you,” Linnet pointed out inescapably.

Claire didn’t want to say that she had asked her mother. Just a couple of weeks ago. She’d called on a Saturday, about noon, which was the best time. Her mom would be up, but she wouldn’t have had her first drink yet.

“Clairabelle!” Mom had cried, her voice lilting with pleasure. “Oh, I miss you so much.”

“I hate it here,” Claire said with quiet intensity. “I want to come home.”

“Just a minute, honey.” A few clicks and thumps later, her mother sighed. “Coffee. I desperately need that first cup.”

Just as she desperately needed that first drink a few hours later. She was always saying she’d quit, or cut back, but it was hard. At school, Claire had learned that alcoholism was a disease. Her mother couldn’t help herself.

“Now, what were you saying?” Mom asked.

Claire repeated herself.

“You know your father has custody now. The judge decided you have to live with him. I tried.”

“What if we ran away?” Claire had been thinking about it. “If we just moved, and didn’t tell him. You could get a job, and I could baby-sit, and we could start all over.”

“Honey…” Her mother paused. “What would I do for a living?”

“Well…” That took her aback. “What you do now.” Mom was a bookkeeper. Wouldn’t it be easy to do that anywhere?

“I’d need references. About the only kind of job you can get without any is to be waitress or work at a fast-food restaurant. Can you picture me behind the counter at The Burger Quickie?”

“I could help! Besides baby-sitting, I could maybe mow lawns or clean houses or something.” She’d trailed off, knowing already that her mother wouldn’t do it.

“I love you, too,” Mom said sadly. “But what you’re suggesting is impossible. Maybe, if your father was abusive, but he’s not a bad man. I know he’ll take good care of you.”

“But I hate it here!” she’d said again. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she was hunched around the telephone as if it were a magic talisman, her only hope.