Apple of His Eye

Apple of His Eye

After a suffocating silence his question needed an answer.

Yes, I remember you.

Had she laughed out loud when he’d said that he needed her? The organ that houses emotion contracted, or was it just a gripey stomach? One too many homemade taco's last night.

‘You're my daughter. I miss you’

I'm the product of your watery sperm.

‘How are you? Are you happy? Have you done all right for yourself?

Why do you ask? Need money? Oh you'd be proud, Daddy. I'm just like you.

‘Say something, you bastard, damn you. I'm begging here.’

Are you on your knees, Daddy? Or better yet your belly? Speak to you? But Daddy, you told me not to talk to strangers.

Her fingers pressed the bar and disconnected.

She hadn't spoken.

The phone purred in her ear, the voice of her nightmares, gone. A tear rolled down her cheek and stopped, frozen in place. She’d willed it to stop, remembering her vow not to waste her salt on him, as he’d once wasted his salty discharge to produce her. She wiped angrily at the treacherous tear.

He’d called three times, begging, pathetic. What was she doing here?

Her nightmare wore slippers and had two blankets over his knees. Yet he still stomped through her sleep with the stamp of dread. This huddled husk was a wiley disguise. She stood over him and didn't flinch or cower; neither did she make an effort to conceal her contempt.

He flinched.

She smirked, revelling in her new-found power.

They’d say she came out of duty. She was a good girl and wouldn’t cause hurt. Not her.

An eye for an eye wasn’t an issue. It was a burn for a burn, a kick for a match, a punch for a pair, abuse for a duce, and maybe a drowning—just to even the score.

‘You look shocked. Can you see yourself etched in my hatred? They say I’ve got my mother's face, but I got your warped mind. I've got my mother’s hair, but I have your twisted nature. You're my mentor;
you're my guru; Daddy. I've grown up and I'm going to do all the things that you taught me to do.

I've come to kill you. Daddy.

But first, I want to play with you awhile.

He shrank away from her and she felt powerful. She enjoyed the terror in his eyes.

Swallowing her revulsion, she saw to his needs, coldly, neither gentle nor harsh, mechanically. Following the guidelines of her profession as though he was a patient, she did no less and certainly no more.

She fed him when his hands were too unstable to hold the spoon, fighting the urge to cram his mouth, so that she could watch him drown in a lungful of liquidated food. When he asked for a snack, she brought it. She didn't lock him in his room for thirty hours and then beat him if he wet himself.

Can you learn compassion? When had she first come to care about her patients? She’d seen so much suffering, people in pain and confusion. Eyes, terrified of dying had scanned her gaze, searching for warmth and empathy. Hands had groped for hers just to have human contact at the moment of their passing—to not die alone. The thorn bindings that had cut into her psyche withered and fell to the ground and the stems slackened their hold and sheathed to the floor like a silk stocking down an oiled calf.

Want to know a secret, Daddy? I've already tried to kill you three times. Do you think I’m a failure? I was a child, ten years old. The first time was a roller skate on the stairs. You found the skate before you trod on it. Do you remember that beating, Daddy? I had my M.O. but the skate was too noticeable. A bar of Pears soap would do the trick but the luck of the devil was with you that night. I hate the smell of pears soap. You were drunk but somehow you stepped over it and lived. My third attempt was identical to the second, only this time you saw it. Do you remember that beating? After that I filed my plan under flawed thinking and cowardice drove me back to scheming.

Dealing with suffering and death taught her patience, and somewhere along the road she’d discovered tenderness.

At first he could use the bath with assistance. Later she put him in the hoist, making sure that all the buckles were fastened, the slip mat was in the bath, the safety guard’s were raised. Checking and rechecking that everything was safe, that he wouldn't slip. She lowered him into foamy water at just the right temperature.

‘Just think, Daddy, if the water was boiling hot you’d be stuck there, trussed like a ham in a net. How loud would you scream, Daddy, as the blisters formed—and then burst? Remember the pan of boiling soup? I do. The physical scars are almost imperceptible; the grafts have merged with the skin of my breast. Only the eyes or probing tenderness of an attentive lover would notice them now.

Her skin crawled as she washed his withered body. The suds felt like venom between her fingers. The sponge was a barrier between her skin and his. She had to wash him—there. Kneeling down, careful to keep her eyes averted from it. She saw his mocking realisation of her terror. Their eyes locked and, in that moment he had his only chance to recapture the upper hand. Both brass plates weighted, the balance rocking, victim or survivor? Meeting his gaze firmly and with new resolve she washed him thoroughly, professionally.

Four beads of perspiration on her upper lip the only indication of her revulsion. She washed his back and stopped with a hand on each of his
shoulders.

Was this the position you were in when you tried to drown me, Daddy? Did you think of me when you left me alone in the cold water as you made your alibi in the pub? You did murder that day though, didn't you? Circumstantial evidence. Insufficient evidence. The words begged allegiance with you, fawned to you, clung to you like strips of rotting meat to a damned corpse. You drowned my mother. And after my first taste of foster living I was returned to your loving care. Three more years, Daddy. Three years before the soup and they took me away for good.

How much pressure would it take on these slack old shoulders to submerge you, Daddy? How hard would it be too hold your withered old body under? Would you beg me first? Course you would.

For two years she went morning and night. One day she walked in to see him contemplating his gnarled, arthritic hands. Tears streamed down his face, he was a broken man with his broken body.

She smirked, a jolt of pure joy passed through her but it was short lived as she was gripped by a spasm of pity for him. It was so intense that it all but brought her to her knees.

She’d never said an unkind word to him in all those months—but she’d never said a kind one either.

She made milky coffee for them. A memory smacked her against the wall. She remembered all the milky coffees he had made for her. She used common sense words to talk him down from his melancholy. A memory smashed her face against the tiles. She remembered that he’d issued words of wisdom and guidance, Words that she’d lived by.

Sometimes she had to take her child. The man was never left alone with him. He’d never given her a reason to doubt his clean love for the boy. The only reason she had was the past. It hurt to punish his grand parenting with distrust. The pain in his eyes was mirrored in hers when she took the child from his knee and trailed the toddler through to the kitchen or bathroom with her. He never raised his voice to the boy, let alone his fist. He never caressed the child as anything other than a Granddad. His temper was replaced with patience and tenderness.

The baby loved him.

She didn’t.

A grudging friendship built between the father and the daughter. They talked about anything but the past. She had so many questions, that she would ask but his final betrayal was to die before she got the chance.

She washed him and dressed him with care. They’d say she did it out of duty.

She did it out of friendship and respect for the man that he’d become. A better man.

She never loved him. She doesn't love him now. She learned to like him. She still misses him.

I'm your daughter, Daddy. But I'm not like you. You see--I’m my mother's daughter too.