Daughter of Darkness (19 page)

“Actually,” he told the others, “it looked like no one else lived there. He never talked about his parents much at all.”

I saw him look my way.

And then, in a loud voice, he added, “He was probably so brokenhearted he couldn’t go on attending school here.”

Everyone laughed.

Later that afternoon, Curtis approached me in the hallway and asked me if I knew anything about Mark’s disappearance.

“Did he call you or anything and tell you he would be leaving?”

“Mark never called me,” I said. “I never gave him my phone number. Maybe his father lost his job or something. I couldn’t care less,” I added, and walked away.

“Well, pardon me, Miss Hot Ass!” he shouted after me.

If anything, all this did was alienate me more from
the rest of the student body. The only one who seemed to notice, however, was Mr. Burns. He asked me if there was anything wrong, anything he could help me with.

“I’m fine,” I told him.

“You come to me if you need anything,” he said. “Anything at all, Lorelei. You wrote a very good paper on Lady Macbeth,” he added.

I thanked him but tried to avoid his eyes and his interest in me the rest of the week. Word finally spread that Mark Daniels’s family had moved away. When I arrived home, I immediately told Daddy. He was in the kitchen talking with Mrs. Fennel. They both looked at me and were quiet for a moment.

“Well, maybe it’s over, then,” Daddy finally said. He smiled. “Let’s just continue as if none of it ever happened.”

I looked at Mrs. Fennel. She was studying me so hard my heart began to race.

“Okay, Daddy,” I said.

When I stepped into my room, I looked at the bedroom window through which I had almost been pulled into oblivion.

The bloodstains were finally gone.

10
 
Back to Normal

Ava was true to her word. Suddenly, she wanted to include me in everything she was doing. We went shopping together to keep up with some of the latest fashions. Ava was far more of a fashion guru than I was, but in her way of thinking, it was all work-related.

“Daddy places no limits on our budget because he wants us to be walking sticks of dynamite out there,” she said, half kidding. She looked at me and added, “Neither of us really has to depend on clothes, though, Lorelei. But why not take advantage?” She laughed. It was good to hear her laugh and, more important, to have her include me in everything she thought for herself.

Sometimes we just took rides with no particular destination in mind. She would pop her head in my doorway and say, “Let’s get some fresh air.”

I loved that, because just cruising was conducive to talking, to exchanging thoughts and ideas the way sisters should. I learned a lot about her youth during those rides, how she had always been so envious of Brianna, until that night when Brianna made the mistake with the married man. She had often questioned me about it
when I was younger, acting as if she was unhappy that she had not been the one to have actually seen it all. I would have gladly changed places with her.

“I told myself I would never disappoint Daddy like that, if I could help it,” Ava said. “Of course, I did with that stoned man,” she sadly admitted.

“He’s forgiven you,” I told her.

“Maybe. In any case, Lorelei, Daddy forgives only once. Remember that.”

I didn’t want to ask her what that meant, what would happen if she or I seriously upset Daddy more than once. At this point in my life, I couldn’t imagine Daddy ever being so angry at me that he would disown me. When I was younger, I had had those fears, but I felt closer to him now, and although I wouldn’t say it to Ava, I did still feel that I was his special daughter.

We continued to have these good, intimate talks. Sometimes we just sat on the beach in Santa Monica and watched people sailing or simply sunned ourselves. She became more and more open about her own feelings while growing up with Brianna still in the house.

“I learned a lot just watching her, despite my young age. That’s what I mean by instinct,” she said, but she went on to describe her own days of doubt and difficulty, especially when it came to Mrs. Fennel, whom she now admitted she obeyed more out of fear than respect.

“I mean, I respect her because Daddy has such high regard for her, but I won’t miss her when I leave.”

“When will you leave, Ava?”

“When Daddy says it’s time,” she said. She turned to me. “And that depends on you.”

I didn’t say anything, but I nodded.

“Don’t worry. You’ll do fine,” she said. She reached for my hand and smiled. For a while, it was as if we were no different from any other two young women, young sisters opening up their intimate thoughts and feelings.

We continued to spend time together. We went to movies, flirted a bit with boys in the malls, and enjoyed our shopping sprees, sometimes just buying silly hats or purses. Marla was upset that she wasn’t included, but Ava got around that by telling her that I would do exactly with her what she was now doing with me. Once again, she heard that familiar expression, the one I had grown up with: “Your time will come. Be patient.”

Daddy stayed home more, too, and soon he was doing more things with us, things that included Marla anyway. When spring break came, he took the three of us to San Francisco. We had a wonderful time doing what he called the “Tourist Polka,” and we had some fun food for a change, without Mrs. Fennel looking over our shoulders. We spent a day in Carmel and then drove down the coast and saw Big Sur. Daddy also decided we would go to the Hearst Castle on the way home. He had been in many, many castles and made comparisons for us, sometimes with very descriptive details about the art, the interiors, and the grounds, including the plants and trees.

“How can you remember so much?” I asked him.

“I don’t know, Lorelei. I just do. There are many things I don’t understand about myself,” he revealed.

Ava overheard his answer. I saw her eyebrows lift. I understood why. Daddy never admitted to any
weaknesses or flaws. This sounded a bit as if he was doing just that, and for us that was extraordinary.

The vacation flew by too quickly. I had never felt more like part of a family and hated to see it end. Although Daddy was sweet to all three of us, he once again singled me out to take me for a walk on our last night of the vacation. We had driven down to Santa Barbara, and after dinner, he had come to Marla’s and my room in the hotel. Ava had her own room. Marla was already in her pajamas in bed watching television.

“Step out with me for a while,” he told me, and I did. We were staying at a hotel right across from the beach, so it took us just a few minutes to be there.

He reached for my hand, and for a while, we just walked quietly, the two of us. I imagined that people seeing us might think we were lovers instead of father and daughter. Maybe that was wishful thinking. The moon painted a silvery sliver of light over the ocean. I remarked about it, and Daddy said it reminded him of an old Japanese haiku, a three-line poem about a butterfly that died on the water but thought it had died on the moon.

“You understand?” he asked.

“Yes. It died on the reflected light. Fish out there probably think they’re swimming on the moon tonight,” I added, and he laughed.

“You are brighter than any other daughter I’ve had, Lorelei,” he said. I blushed with pride.

To the right and left of the moon, the stars blinked, and the lights of a commercial jet flickered as it crossed the sky to head east. Toward the horizon, we could see
an oil tanker moving so slowly that it seemed painted on the ocean.

“When you were little, you told me the night sky was a dark blanket with tiny holes in it. You said that behind it was this second sky of bright light.”

“I did?”

“It made sense to me,” he said.

We never spoke about heaven and earth, God and the devil, or anything religious that other families discussed or believed. It was part of Daddy’s philosophy that everything just is, and it’s futile for us to try to explain it.

“We don’t need to go to a house of worship or read a Bible to learn what is important to us. There is only one place to get your morality,” he said. “The family. All comes from that. What you do for the family is good. What you do to hurt the family is bad. I am the family,” he quietly added. “It all comes from me.”

“I’m happy with the way you handled our recent crisis, Lorelei,” he said as we walked farther down the beach. “It gives me the faith in you that I need. Soon all responsibility for our survival will be in your hands.”

“Ava will be leaving us,” I said. I was resigned to it now.

“Yes. Her time will come very soon.”

“Where will she go?” I asked. “To join Brianna?”

Was he finally going to tell me that?

“In a way, but that’s thinking too far ahead for you right now, Lorelei. Think only of the near future.”

He paused and turned toward the ocean.

“There is so much out there,” he said. “So much that awaits you. It’s important, however, that you never think
of yourself as less than anyone or anything, that you never think of yourself as evil. Everyone out there does things others disapprove of, but they have to battle for their own survival. Everything living does.

“In fact, Lorelei, everything living feeds on something else that lives. No living thing on this earth is above doing that. If that’s wrong, then all that lives is wrong. We all participate in survival of the fittest. We didn’t decide that was to be our overriding rule. We were born into it. Every nation, every people, every tribe or religion, struggles to survive and in the end will do whatever is necessary to protect its own existence. They may pretend to care about some higher morality, but when it comes right down to it, it’s every man for himself. Understand?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

He looked at me. The moon made his face look as if it was on fire, with his eyes two hot coals simmering within the flames. Just as a candle flame could hypnotize a moth, I was hypnotized by his glow.

“Do you love me, Lorelei?”

“Oh, yes, Daddy, very much.”

“Do you want me to go on?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Is your heart big enough to conquer anything and anyone who stands in the way, then?”

I nodded.

He didn’t speak. He stared at me and then started to walk again in silence, holding my hand. I walked along, but I felt as if I were trailing behind, caught up in the soft light that came from him and followed us along the
beach, to take us quietly back to our beds and our comfortable and contented sleep.

Later the following day, I thought about our conversation on the beach and his questions. Was I wrong to be so confident about myself and what I was capable of doing? Ava didn’t know about my private walk with Daddy. I was tempted to tell her, because I wanted to hear what her answers were when Daddy told her these things and asked her similar questions. Then it occurred to me that he might not have felt the need to ask her these questions. Maybe he was more confident in her. Although he didn’t say it, I also felt he wanted what we discussed and how we discussed it to be something only between us, so I said nothing about it.

Our lives fell back into our regular daily activities. When I returned to school, the other students appeared to have lost all interest in and curiosity about Mark Daniels and, perhaps by proxy, me as well. Very few students said anything to me. I began to feel invisible. When I told Ava, she said I was lucky. She admitted to having had similar feelings and being grateful for it.

“You’ve outgrown them,” she told me, “and they know it, too. When they look at you, they don’t see themselves or someone who cares about the same things anymore. The boys are probably intimidated, and you’ve done a good job of driving the busybodies away. Good for you,” she said.

I didn’t feel the same way about it, but I didn’t disagree with her. The truth was, it was still quite lonely for me, and I hated that I was still someone looking through a window at everyone else. I was like the poor waif who stood outside the ice cream parlor watching the
other, more fortunate kids lick their cones and eat their whipped cream. In class, in the hallways, or in the cafeteria, whenever I heard a conversation about parties or dances or dates girls had, I either moved away quickly or tried to close my ears by thinking hard about schoolwork. It got so I hated getting up in the morning to attend school, and some days, if it hadn’t been for Marla having to go, I wouldn’t have gone.

I think Ava either saw the turmoil going on inside me now or felt it. One morning, she decided to come to my rescue. I knew there were many reasons for Ava to concern herself with my happiness and well-being, not the least of which was her concern that I wouldn’t be able to step into her shoes and give her the freedom to leave and fulfill her own destiny. Then, at minimum, she would have to wait until Marla was capable of becoming the daughter Daddy needed.

When Mrs. Fennel left the dining room at breakfast, Ava whispered, “I’m taking you two to school today, but you’re not going.”

“What?”

“You’ll cut a day and spend it with me. I have a class in nineteenth-century American literature we’ll attend, and then a big break until my biology class. We’ll have lunch in Westwood, just enjoy the day, and you can see what it’s like to be in college, not that it’s anything I want to do much longer,” she added. “Daddy thought I needed more background, whatever that means.”