2
“Kayla Joy,
I wouldn’t kiss you if you were the last girl on earth.” Petty, but painful
nonetheless. That’s what Darren Thomas told me in first grade. Little did he
know that I would be making out with Rand Allis by my junior Prom. Little kids
don’t realize that much of the world is in flux and that the object of ridicule
one day becomes the object of passion the next.
I wouldn’t
have married Rand for that exact reason. He
had peaked. Every girl was crazy about him. He had everything going for him,
which means that he didn’t have to work at anything. Puberty never stops where
you want it to. Rand will one day probably
look like Grawp from the Harry Potter
books and he will be sorry for gaining my lips, but not my heart.
Or will he?
I peaked too. I had a great figure and could work it better than any other girl
when walking down the center hallway of Oak High. I now have the figure of a
third-world refugee and the hair of a newborn.
I look down
at my chest. Compared to the frailty of my body, it looks out of proportion.
It could nurture life in a newborn, but not in me. No boy would be impressed
if he came in here. My greatest asset now mocks me.
My chest
also mocked me in my childhood. No girl likes being the first one to develop in
elementary school. The boys are too young to be impressed, but not to point and
laugh. And they were merciless. My only friends were fellow female
outcasts—from the donkey-faced to the gorilla-armed.
Even so, I
loved being young. You remember it, don’t you? You could jump down half a
flight of stairs and keep running; bang your knee on a rail and shake it off;
eat whatever you want and not worry about your weight. I knew that once too.
Christmas
was the favorite time for me in those awkward years. Dad would always dress up
in an undersized Santa suit that would expose a bit of his chubby midriff. It
always made me giggle. I would tell him that I knew he wasn’t Santa, but he
would never give in. He’d tell me that there were certain things that only
Santa could know, and not little girls.
The first
present he would always give me was something we called “Daddy’s Promise Ball.”
It was an ordinary, cheap Christmas tree ornament with a special meaning. Each
year, when he pulled it out, he would say that my dad gave it to him and asked
me if I knew what it meant.
I would
then recite the words spoken over me each year when I was little: Daddy
promises me that he will never leave me and always love me. If he ever breaks
this promise, I can smash the ball to pieces and collect the pieces as evidence
against him. Pretty serious stuff, but I knew my dad would never give me reason
to break the ball.
After he
gave me a present or two, we would sit down for our Christmas dinner. He would
fix his “green glop,” which was some sort of jello with nuts and fruit. The
food, like the presents, wasn’t fancy, but it was good. We would go for a walk,
hand-in-hand, during the afternoon and would whittle away the remaining time
before supper.
After we
ate, would spend the night drinking hot chocolate and watching special
Christmas episodes of my favorite cartoons. I loved the Peanuts episode because Charlie Brown loved the pathetic little
Christmas tree when no else would. I also loved the Garfield episode because Garfield gave John’s
grandmother the letters from her deceased husband, bringing light to a darkened
old soul.
On
Christmas night, my dad tucked me in and kissed me like he did every night. In
that way, he showed that while the day was unique, his love wasn’t uniquely for
that day. I cherished that time. Before I fell asleep, Baby would crawl up on
my stomach, circle several times, collapse, and fall asleep.
Shortly
before Christmas of my fourth grade year, Dad made a new lady friend. She
seemed nice, but her attempts to “get to know” me were patronizing. She would
give me little gifts and pet my head, always in view of my dad. Early on it was
decided: Her or me.
She could
have never known her predicament, trapped between my mom’s rejection and my
dad’s transparent, unconditional love. Everything short of my dad would equal
my mom. I also had to protect my dad. One “I do” had already been shown to be
an “I might” for him, and I wasn’t sure he could handle another woman breaking
that bond.
I can make
excuses all I want. The final straw for this woman was her attendance at our
Christmas day rituals. She violated the intimacy and beauty of that day.
Instead of being able to enjoy my dad, I felt like I was on parade. Like dominoes,
each ritual was falling down, making for a miserable day.
When my dad
handed me the ball, I knew what I had to do. He asked me what it meant. I
didn’t answer. He asked a second time. (This woman’s eyes bore a hole in me.)
Before I was forced to lock eyes with him, I threw the ball to the ground and
shattered it into a dozen pieces. I was seething with rage and blinded by
tears.
I did,
however, catch a long enough glimpse of my dad to see his reaction. His mighty
Adam’s apple rose and fell and a tear fell from his chin. However justified I
felt in smashing the ball, the pain on my dad’s face tore me up inside. There
was nothing I could do. I couldn’t take it back. I turned around and ran
upstairs, crying the whole way.
That lady
never came back to our house. I can only assume that my dad, whether he thought
it right or wrong, did what I wanted. That’s the difference between my dad and
my mom. His dreams were never as important as his daughter. It was unfair to
make him choose, but he still chose me.
It’s funny
in a sad sort of way, looking back on it now. That ball represented my dad’s
promise to love me unconditionally, but that ball didn’t break because of his
lack of love, but my own. He never asked for a ball from me. He could’ve broken
it. Instead, my sin was his shame.
One night
he offered me the pieces of that ornament. I could see my reflection in the
shattered fragments. I told him that I wished I had never broken it and to
please throw the pieces away. He hugged me for a long time. The next Christmas,
there was a new ball on the tree.
