Stephen Dixon - Long Made Short

Next morning she screams when he tells her to get in the car to go to camp, cries when he leaves her, won’t look at him when he picks her up or do anything later but complain to him at home. Same thing the next two days but worse. It’s the freezing lake water, rough games, competitive sports, smelly outhouses, baby stuff they do in arts and crafts, a sort of open shed the girls have to undress in and which the boys are always peeking into, no drinking water anywhere so you have to lug around your heavy thermos everyplace or die of thirst, scavenger hunts that take hours in the woods or hot sun and turn out to mean nothing — either they disqualify half the things you find or the prize is a piece of old bubble gum.

She’s sullen most of the weekend. He works a couple of hours both mornings but they do a few things after that — go to the ocean, eat in a restaurant, climb halfway up a big hill but what the locals call a mountain, pick blueberries that aren’t ready yet, but he can tell that camp on Monday’s usually on her mind. “All right,” he says at dinner Sunday night, “list everything that’s good and bad about camp, but be honest. First of all, from what I can see the girls are darn nice. One of them — Laurie or Lauren, I think — when we got to camp late Friday, ran up to you and said ‘Debbie, where were you? I missed you. I thought you weren’t coming today, and then you’d have missed the field trip to Goose Cove,’ and took your hand and you both walked happily away.” “I wasn’t happy. And except for the rougher boys, it’s not the kids at all.” She enumerates what she hates most about camp. When she gets to “Eight, the mosquitoes, I get so many bites, I itch all day even with the scallion you rub on,” he says “Listen, enough already, will you? You’re just trying to fortify your argument with anything you can think against camp. Next it’ll be horse flies, then poison ivy, then poisonous snakes you hear are around, though I don’t think there are any in all of Maine. I’m sorry, sweetie, but after everything you’ve said so far, I don’t buy your argument.” Tears appear; “I hate you, Daddy,” and she runs outside, minute later the kitchen door slams and she runs to her room. “All I’m asking,” he shouts, “is for you to give it another week and then decide; what the heck’s that?” Then thinks: How’s he supposed to take what she said to him? She was never that harsh before. Well, just a kid her age having a tantrum, not getting what she wants, thinking he’s not being completely fair, and maybe he isn’t, but the hell with it. Later he’ll call her in for dessert, act as if nothing happened, and she’ll be fine, or almost, and probably even apologize without his prompting.

Calls her later and she doesn’t come. Goes to her room. She’s in bed, asleep or pretending. “Deborah, if you want to continue with the numbers where you left off, we can; I won’t butt in till you’re finished. I mean, no butting in; say what you want, and I’ll listen and consider it seriously tonight.” No response. Takes her glasses off, feels around under the covers for a book but doesn’t find any, she didn’t brush her teeth or get in her pajamas but he’s not going to start putting them on her — hasn’t for a couple of years at least — kisses her, turns the night light on and shuts off the overhead.

She gets in his bed around three. “What do you think you’re doing?” “I can’t sleep, and my pillow’s all wet.” “What are you, sweating?” “No.” “Just turn it over.” “Please, Dada.” He doesn’t like her sleeping with him but her voice is so sad, and after what happened before, so he says okay, “Tonight only, now go to sleep without another word.” He gets out of bed. “Where are you going?” “The bathroom,” and he takes his T-shirt and underpants with him and puts them on outside the room.

Morning, she’s snuggled up to him. He gets out of bed, does his exercises in the living room, and later when he wakes her she says “Please don’t send me to camp today.” “Oh come on now.” “Please, I only want to stay home with you, and I promise not to be a bother.” “Okay, today will be the exceptional day off, but you have to leave me the entire morning free, take care of your own needs, all that stuff, and then if I want the afternoon to work to at least the time I would have left to pick you up at camp, that too.” She reads, draws, sets up her easel outside and paints, swings on the swing set, jumps rope, goes down the road several times for mail and when she gets it — he sees all this through his second-floor studio window — knocks on his door. “Want me to leave your mail outside or give it to you by person?” and he says “Just leave it, sweetie, I’m in the middle of something, and thanks.” Makes her lunch and sits opposite her with a coffee and yesterday’s Times , which came in the mail today, and she says “Your cut doesn’t look so ugly anymore; even if it needed a Band-Aid up to last night, you don’t need one now,” and he says “Yeah, seems to be healing nice, and I don’t feel so dopey anymore. That’s what happens when you don’t do anything about it.” After lunch she says “You don’t have to, of course, but if you want can we go to Carter Pond to swim? I’ve been thinking of it all winter,” and he says “Sure, I’ve done enough already, two pages, and I haven’t swum since we got here.”

Swim, diner for fish burgers, play checkers that night. Later: “What do you want for lunch tomorrow?” and she says “When I’m ready to eat it, I’ll tell you.” “I mean for camp.” “Dada, I’m not going to camp.” “You’re going, now don’t give me another argument. We took off one day, it was very nice, but not two.” “You can’t make me,” and he says “Oh, I’ll make you, all right. And I’ll prepare whatever I want you to have for lunch, if you’re not going to help me, now get ready for bed.” When he comes into her room for a mosquito check and to say good night, she says “A story?” He says, looking at something on the wall he thinks is a mosquito but turns out to be the head of a nail, “No story, nothing for you tonight, just go to sleep,” checks some more and turns off the light.

She tries to get in his bed early that morning. “No; you’re not going to camp, you don’t sleep in my bed.” She goes back to her room. Wrong thing to say, he thinks, and wrongly worded. He doesn’t want her in his bed, period. That wouldn’t be how to say it either. How then? “Listen, you sleep in your bed, I sleep in mine, that’s the way life is.” No. Just: “We sleep in our own beds, period.” Maybe he’ll come up with something better later, or maybe he won’t have to, for she might not try again.

At eight he goes to her room to wake her. “Deborah, Deborah dear,” but she pretends to be asleep. He knows she’s pretending. She had plenty of sleep last night, and she’s a light sleeper. Feels her forehead. She’s okay. Raises the shade, opens the window more, “Rise and shine, sweetheart,” shakes her shoulder. She opens her eyes. “I’m not going, you can’t force me.” “Then I’ll have to dress you and drag you there.” No, wrong move and words again, and she’s crying. “Okay, don’t go, what the hell do I care? But don’t bother me till three. You know how to read time?” “You know I do. You don’t have to act sarcastic.” “Good. Then don’t bother me till then.” “Why would I want to?”

She makes herself breakfast and lunch and a snack. He can tell by the sounds in the kitchen, dishes left in the wash pan and food spills on the tablecloth. She reads and plays in the living room and behind the house. They bump into each other a couple of times when he comes downstairs for coffee or to go to the bathroom, and he says “So how’s it going?” and she says “Fine, why?” and he says “I’m glad,” and quickly finishes or does what he came down for and goes upstairs. Later he’s at his desk typing and sees her in her garden, her mother’s sun hat on. His ex-wife left it in one of the houses they rented for the summer around here — last time they were together for a summer and when Deborah was three — and he carried it with him from house to house since, along with her duck boots and garden tools. Hair flows over her shoulders, like her mother’s did and same color, and it’ll be bleached the same color by the sun. She looks so beautiful and busy. Is so beautiful. Really, she doesn’t want to go to camp — seems to be occupying herself okay — he shouldn’t force her. Why break her will or try to? He should be subtly encouraging her to strengthen it. That the right wording? She’s a shy kid, most of the time meek, and he wants her stronger, standing up to people — himself, everyone — when she thinks she’s right and even when she only sort of thinks she is, but to keep an open mind while she’s doing it. That’s so hackneyed, he knows it, but what’s the use of a more original way of saying it? What’s important is what he means. Force her to go, it’ll be like raping her, then, with her will busted, she’ll let herself get raped again and again. Maybe it could turn out like that. And raping her mind, he means, and why that word? Because it’s strong. He has no sexual feelings for her, though feels deeply for her in every other way. Parentally, the rest. Feels like crying. In the throat, a feeling she must have had first day he left her at camp, probably the other days too. His for his love for her, hers for what? Deserted, hurt, and that if he loves her, why’s he doing this? On one knee now, digging, maybe weeding or replanting, garden started for her by the owner before they came up. Hell with his work — he should be spending more time with her here, little to a lot, and giving in to her more. What’s his work mean anyway in comparison to her? Can’t be compared, but he can find time to do it when he wants to. Before she’s up, after she’s asleep, or maybe not, since he doesn’t want to wake her with his typing. Here and there though, silently on a pad, mornings if she lets him, and she will. She understands and actually likes being by herself to play and read, or he thinks she does. Wishes the marriage had worked out. Wasn’t him. And why’d they have a child if it was as bad from the start as she said? Or maybe just was ten to twenty percent him. But of course glad they had her. Ecstatic, everything like that. Nobody could love his kid more, or close to it, even if he isn’t such a great father. He can also work the few weeks a year his ex-wife takes her, though if she doesn’t, as she didn’t last Christmas and won’t the end of this summer, he’s happy to have her. No, he is; he’s not just saying it. Wouldn’t care — might even prefer, though it wouldn’t be good for Deborah — if his ex-wife didn’t spend another sustained period with her.