Daddy’s Little Girl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL

by

TOM DURKIN

 

There was no way Richard could afford half the tuition for Alysia’s going to Cornell and he knew it. Unfortunately, Richard chose to tell his daughter over dinner at the Prince Charles Inn.

“Cornell is where I want to go and Cornell is where I will go,” Alysia told her father, her voice rising with every phrase, “and you can go to hell and stay there if you don’t like it, for all I care.”

Alysia’s outburst was so loud, people sitting at tables at the far end of the room could hear everything she said.

Karen, Richard’s fiancee, the third person at the table, sat silently through the performance and was more embarrassed by it than either father or daughter. When the loudness subsided, Alysia stubbed her cigarette, grabbed her purse and stormed out of the restaurant, stomping her feet all the way to the front door. In response, Richard blushed with embarrassment, apologized to Karen, paid the check, and followed his daughter out to where she was waiting for him in the parking lot.

Karen witnessed several variations of this father and daughter scene over the past twelve months, but none quite as volatile as this. Each time Alysia erupted, Karen became tense and angry at Richard for tolerating Alysia’a disrespect and her thoughtless behavior. But talking to Richard, when they were alone, about Alysia’s demands and her carrying-on accomplished nothing.

Alysia’s college plans, Karen could attest, were the major cause of disagreement between father and daughter during each of the four weekends Alysia spent with him the past year. Richard’s fundamental unwillingness, or his inability, to take a stand with his daughter before this most recent blowup, developed into a major sore point between Karen and Richard. It bothered Karen that Richard always found a way to explain or excuse Alysia’s behavior, and that he expected Karen to understand.

“Don’t get this whole thing wrong,” Richard told her after they had dropped the still pouting Alysia at her mother’s house. “It’s not that she’s using me even though it looks that way now. She’s simply headstrong like her mother and once her mind gets fixed on something, that’s it. Give her time and she’ll come around.”

Since her parents’ divorce when Alysia was five years old, according to Richard, Alysia and her brother, David, seldom found time to visit or even telephone their father.

“Alysia’s visits have always been irregular,” Richard explained, “because my ex-wife is overly protective of her.”

“Lately, though,” he said, “it’s because Alysia works part time at the Farmers Market after school three days a week and has an active social life. When is she going to find time?”

Richard and Karen both work in the administrative offices at Briarwood College which is where and how they met. Richard came to Briarwood three years ago as assistant development director because, he told Karen, he wanted to live close to his children and spend more of his time with them. But the most compelling reason for taking the job at a lower salary than he was making in New York, he said, was to send both of his children to his alma mater tuition free. Alysia and David could attend Briarwood without cost as children of one of the school officers, and he hoped they would. But if they didn’t want to attend Briarwood, they could choose to go to one of the other nearby colleges, tuition free, under the reciprocity program of the area college consortium. In either case, he explained to Karen, the salary cut he suffered was much smaller than the cost of four-years tuition and board for each of his children.

“There is still a chance David will go to Briarwood when his turn comes two years from now,” Richard said, “but if Alysia pulls this Cornell thing off, who’s to say what David will try in two years.”

When Richard first told Karen of Alysia’s college plans, Karen reminded him of the outstanding computer electronics program at one of the consortium schools, Madison College. If Alysia went to Madison, Karen reasoned, she could live at home and commute to the campus.

“I asked her about day-hopping at Madison, or even boarding there if that would make her happy,” Richard later reported, “but Alysia wouldn’t consider it.”

“Alysia says going to Madison wouldn’t be the same as going away to school,” Richard told Karen, “The other kids would know she’s a townie and that wouldn’t be cool.

“Besides how could she be sure her mother wouldn’t always be bothering her about one thing or another if she lived that close to home.”

“Do you know what she told me, Karen? ‘Dad, get real! You know the woman.’”

Karen was present each time the subject of Cornell came up and listened patiently as Richard tried to explain to his daughter that his thirty-five thousand dollars a year salary did not go very far.

Karen could recite Richard’s litany by heart: “My net salary is even smaller after I pay rent, food, child support for David and my cleaning and laundry. Then I have the monthly payments on my car, and I’m stuck driving that used Volvo station wagon. And there’s health insurance for you and your brother as well as for me.”

Karen asked Richard to include in his explanation to Alysia that he and Karen were trying to save some of their money to build a life together. It infuriated Karen that he never did.

After the first disagreement between Alysia and her father about Cornell, Karen pointed out several ways Richard might approach the tuition and board problem without crippling their future financially: Richard could offer to give Alysia the same amount of money he had sent her mother for child support each month before she turned eighteen. Richard insisted that would not be enough money for his daughter. Karen then recommended Alysia apply for federally guaranteed student loans. He dismissed that saying he did not want Alysia strapped with a heavy debt when she graduated. Karen’s observation that Alysia would be earning more at her first job after graduation than Richard earns now, and would be in a better position to pay off the loans, fell on deaf ears. Work-study? That’s out too, he said. “She’s not going to have to go to school the way I did.”

“Doesn’t Alysia’s mother have some responsibility in this?” Karen asked. “Can’t you ask her to speak to Alysia about what you two can afford and what you can’t?”

It became clear to Karen that Richard’s mind was made up to do it Alysia’s way no matter what she said, even though he knew there was not the remotest possibility he could bring it off financially.

Early in their relationship, Karen resigned herself to Richard’s being broke most of the time. When you go with an older divorced guy and he’s still paying child support, that’s part of the package. And she could understand, Karen convinced herself, if Richard had strong feelings for his ex-wife. After all, he married her once so he must have loved her, at least back then. You’ve got to allow for that, too, she argued. Love doesn’t always die with divorce. But Richard’s obsession with his daughter, his mindless determination to do everything Alysia demands of him and put himself–and her–into debt for the next ten years is something Karen could neither understand nor was willing to be part of.

“When you can’t compete with an eighteen year old girl for her father’s heart, and you’re not getting any younger,” she finally admitted, “it’s time to change playing fields.” She regretted that it had taken almost two years into her relationship with Richard to come to this realization.

Karen’s head pounded as she packed the last of her belongings at Richard’s apartment. What she believed to be thoughtful and gentle ways in Richard and found so magnetically appealing in the early months of their going together–before she met Alysia–had now become the single issue that came between them like a woodsplitter’s wedge.

“I wish you’d reconsider,” Richard pleaded after Karen announced she was leaving. “There has to be a way we can work this out. I’ll speak to Alysia again. She’ll understand.”

“No, Richard,” Karen said with unaccustomed forcefulness. “I’ve had enough. You’ve obviously made your choice and it isn’t me. Now it’s my turn to close my mind, think only about myself, and get out of here.”

Richard offered to help Karen move her things back to her apartment in Stockton but she declined. “The break will be cleaner,” she said, “without your becoming involved in the move.”

“It will be painful enough seeing you five days a week at the college,” she said, “but in time, I am sure that. too, will heal.”

Karen kept her apartment even after the two moved in together, since Richard’s place was smaller and couldn’t hold his things and hers. Besides, they agreed from the start that for Alysia’s sake, Karen would not sleep at Richard’s apartment on the weekends when Alysia stayed over. They agreed to it, but Karen never did understood Richard’s reasoning that it would be scandalous if Alysia saw Richard and her sleeping together and it had not been scandalous all those years when, if Richard’s information was to be believed, his ex-wife took man after man into her bedroom with both impressionable children in the house.

The familiarity of her own apartment and the privacy it afforded set well with Karen and helped her regain a sense of independence. She welcomed the thought of having enough closets and drawers and corners to store her things. The refrigerator would now reflect her tastes and preferences and there wouldn’t be a couple of six packs in space that could be better used to cool a bottle or two of wine. Yet it was not all that easy for Karen to adjust to being single, especially to thinking as an individual again instead of in couples’ terms as she had the past two years.

Karen’s and Richard’s paths crossed frequently at the college the first few weeks after their breakup and both experienced an understandable level of tension. However, it was not stressful enough to create problems for either one. To most of his co-workers in the college’s development office, Richard seemed to be having one of his occasional bouts with depression that would pass in a week or two. Karen’s staff was less aware of any change and no one thought to ask her how things were with her and Richard. Her work pattern did not change. She came in early, as usual, to get a start on the day’s work in the admissions office and could be counted on to stay an extra hour or so, if needed, to make sure her day’s work was completed. As far as any observer was concerned, that’s the way Karen worked.

Part way through the fourth week, though, Richard telephoned Karen at her home.

“I’m beginning to understand where you’re coming from, Karen,” he said after the small talk had been exhausted, “and I don’t blame you for leaving. I wish there were some other way for us to work this out. We have so much invested in one another.”

Karen told Richard she was doing well with the new arrangement and was going forward with her life once again.

“You seemed to be one of the nicest guys I’d ever met,” Karen told him, “you were thoughtful and considerate, so much so that I couldn’t help falling for you, Richard. But I see it’s not what I thought it was and I know now we can never make it work for us.

“Your daughter is more important to you than I could ever be. I can understand Alysia’s being important. I suppose if I had daughter, mine would be important to me too. But I wouldn’t want to build my whole life around her the way you seem to have around Alysia.

“I’m important too, Richard, and I wanted to be as important in your life as you were in mine. But that’s where you and I differ,” she said.

Karen’s pause was met with silence from Richard.

“I can’t tell you now how much it bothered me that I had to ‘camp out’ every time Alysia decided to stay over at your place,” she continued. “I didn’t say anything to you any of those times, but it made me feel cheap and disposable.

“And I never said anything when you’d tell me at the last minute that we had to change our plans because Alysia wanted to do this, or Alysia had to be driven there and you had to wait to take her home when she was finished.

“Maybe I should have spoken up sooner and told you what I thought. But the fact is I didn’t.”

Karen listened to another Richard-made silence.

“Do you think I’m being selfish wanting more out of life than the way you treated me?” she said. “Am I some awful person because I won’t stand still for it any more?” she asked.

“I certainly don’t think so.”

Her pause met with yet another silence, but this time, Karen decided to wait it out until Richard spoke up.

“I thought you understood, Karen,” Richard said breaking the palpable silence after what seemed several minutes. “If you felt that way I wish you had spoken up earlier. Maybe we could have done something about it at the time. Maybe we still can. I think we should try.”

Karen assured Richard it was too late now to try to rebuild their relationship and that she was beginning to get comfortable with the idea of life without him.

Before they finished, Karen declined an invitation to have dinner with Richard at some indeterminate time in the future.

No thank you, Richard, she thought, my stomach is still tied in a knot from our last meal together.

Over the next several weeks, Karen became more sure of herself and let her friends know that she was “coming back into the market.” While most passed up the temptation to press for details, several of her friends could not resist reminding Karen: “I told you so.”

Before the college students went home for spring break, Alysia showed up at Karen’s apartment one evening unannounced. She said she had to talk to Karen and was afraid Karen would have said no if she had called ahead.

“I’ve decided to go to Madison College instead of Cornell,” Alysia said after Karen ushered her in and asked her to sit down, “and I like wanted you to know.

“My father and mother will split the cost of room and board and books and that will like make the money thing easier for Daddy.”

“I’m surprised at your decision, Alysia,” Karen said, “and I think Madison is a good choice. Madison has an excellent program in computer electronics and it should be a wonderful experience for you, especially as a boarder. My guess is that you will do very well in your studies there.

“I’m sure your father is pleased with your decision, too, but if you don’t mind my asking, Alysia,” Karen asked, “why did you change your mind?. I know you really had your heart set on Cornell.”

“It’s like a long story, Karen, you know,” Alysia said. “Nothing is like simple. I know you guys split over my wanting to go to Cornell and I bummed out over it. It isn’t too much of a sacrifice for me going to Madison if it’ll get you two back together.

Alysia’s response had the ring of rehearsal in it.

“I know Daddy’s been a real mess since you split and like honest I’m doing it for you as much as I am for him. OK?”

Karen said she thought it unusual for a person Alysia’s age to be so responsible and so considerate of her father’s finances. She thanked Alysia for coming over and sharing her news, and wished her well in her studies at Madison.

“Do keep in touch with me, Alysia. I’ll be interested in seeing how you are doing at Madison.”

When Alysia left, Karen went to the living room window and watched as the young woman walked half-way down the street and got into the passenger side of the shabby maroon Volvo station wagon.

“Yes,” she said half aloud as the car pull out into traffic, “it’s almost unbelievable.”

THE END