He was dressed in his dark suit, but he didn't look as handsome as he usually did. He looked like he had been up all night and had gotten dressed in the dark. His tie knot was not tied tightly and his suit jacket looked wrinkled. His hair looked a little bit mussed.
"Good morning, Princess," he said softly. My heart began to pitter-patter. He looked so sad; his face was as gray as his hair.
"Morning, Daddy. Isn't everything on
schedule?" I felt so very afraid suddenly, but I tried to tell myself that something had gone wrong and our docking had been postponed.
"Yes, yes." He smiled weakly and closed the door behind him. "I wanted to see you before you went to breakfast and we docked."
I turned completely around in my vanity table chair. Daddy fidgeted nervously for a moment and looked around my suite as if he were unsure of where he should sit. Finally, he sat on the end of my bed. He clasped his hands and leaned toward me. He was quite upset about something--I could tell because the small muscles in his jaw were jumping and the veins in his temples were pressing so hard against his skin, they looked as if they would pop out. For a long time he said nothing until I got so nervous I thought I would scream.
"What's wrong, Daddy?" I held my breath.
"Leigh," he began, "I waited until the last possible moment to come here to tell you this. I wanted to hold off as long as I could to hold sadness away for as long as I could."
"Sadness?" I brought my hands to the base of my throat and sat so still, waiting, unable to breathe, for him to say more. I heard the pounding of my heart and felt the slight rocking of the ocean liner in the water. Above and around us were the sounds of the guests and the crew preparing for the final morning aboard ship--people talking loudly and excitedly on their way to have their breakfasts, porters getting instructions, doors closing, children laughing and running. Excitement and tumult rained down around us making the silence between us that much deeper and more disturbing. Inside, my blood felt that it was freezing, leaving me a stiff ice princess instead of flesh and blood.
"You'll remember when you and I had that little discussion right after your mother left us in Jamaica that I told you she was going off to do some thinking," he began again.
"Yes?" My voice sounded so tiny, so
frightened.
"I told you she was disappointed in me, disappointed in the way things were between us." He swallowed hard. I nodded, just so he would continue because he seemed to be swallowing back his words. "Well, a few days ago, Leigh, I received a telegram on board ship. It was from your mother and she informed me she had gone ahead with one of her possible choices."
"What choices? What has she done?" I shot out in dismay.
"She flew from Miami to Mexico, instead of from Miami to Boston, and processed a divorce," he said quickly, as quickly as a doctor would give a patient bad news, so as not to draw out something so painful.
But his words hung in the air as if they had been frozen there. My heart fluttered beneath my breast and then became a thumping drum. Numbness tingled in my fingers because I had them locked so tightly together.
"Divorce?" It was such a forbidden word, such a foreign word. I had read about the divorces of movie stars and other entertainers. It seemed to be a natural course of events for them, almost something expected; but I had no friends whose parents had divorced, and the students in school whose parents were divorced were somehow thought of as different, sometimes avoided as if they had leprosy.
"Actually," Daddy said sighing, "I almost feel a bit relieved. For months now I've been waiting for that second shoe to drop over my head. Barely a day has gone by without your mother expressing her unhappiness with me or without us having angry, bitter words between us. I did my best to hide it all from you, as I think your mother did as well.
"I submerged myself even deeper in my work just so I wouldn't dwell on matters at home all the time. In a way it has been something of a blessing to have all these financial and business crises occurring. It's kept my mind of my marital problems." He pressed a smile back on his face, but it was such a sad, soft, and weak smile, the kind that can't last more than a moment or two. For his sake I closed off my own emotions, clamped down hard on them just so I could speak.
"Is Momma still in Mexico?"
"No, she's back in Boston, at home. She sent me the telegram from Boston. But," he said after a deep breath, "I did promise her that I would go along with whatever she had decided. There's no point in trying to force someone to stay with you, if she doesn't want to anymore."
"But why doesn't she?" I demanded. "How can she want to leave you after all these years?"
What I really wanted to know was how could a love that had begun so magnificently, so romantically, die? How could two people be so sure of each other at one point and then so unsure of one another? Was this what Daddy really meant when he told me love blinds you?
But then, how can anyone know he or she is really, truly in love? If feelings betrayed you and words were like thin bubbles that burst in the memory and disappeared, what could anyone do to be sure? You promise someone you will be with him and he promises he will be with you until death do you part, and then . . . something else parts you. What is the value of a promise, even a promise that comes with a kiss?
"Your mother is still a very young woman. She thinks she still has a chance for a happier life, and I won't stand in her way of achieving that. Ironically, I love her too much to do that," he said. "I know that doesn't make sense to you right now, none of this does; but later in your life, you might think about what I said and you might understand why I say I love her too much to stop her from leaving me."
"But Daddy, what will become of us?" I was frantic now, and I was surprised that my voice hadn't come out in a shriek. What I really meant was "What will become of me?" He understood.
"You will stay with your mother. The two of you will live in our house for as long as your mother wants to." He paused, sighed, then went on, "I have much to occupy myself with these days. In fact, after a very short shore leave, I'm taking another cruise, an exploratory one to a place called the Canary Islands. I've got to search for new and exotic places to attract my clientele and keep myself competitive.
"I guess your mother is right about one thing, Leigh--I am devoted to my business. I can't sit by and just let it die," he confessed.
"I want to go with you, Daddy," I choked out through my sobs.
"Now, now, sweetheart. That would be impossible and wrong. You have your school and your friends and you should be with your mother in your own home where you will be comfortable. There's nothing to worry about financially, although the way your mother spends money, there's never enough. he added dryly.
There were no tears in Daddy's eyes. If he had cried over this, he had done it privately and he had put it aside. Even now he was so in control over his emotions, when I never was. I could see that his love affair with Momma was already dead and gone, buried in a cemetery filled with once happy moments, happy things. He was already thinking of other things. The funeral was over.
His tired face was so filled with resignation that one look at him snuffed out the small candle of hope I tried to keep bright and alive in my heart. It shocked me to learn that the love between Momma and Daddy had been dying in small, slow ways for a long time. But now that he told me this, I thought back and remembered things Momma had said about him and the way she had said them. When I recalled her words now, I recalled them in their true color, and I heard the unhappiness and the warnings I had refused to listen to before.
But I could ignore them no longer.
"Daddy, won't I ever see you again?" pleaded. I had to wet my lips which had gone dry. My hands betrayed me and began to shake so I had to clasp them together and press them down in my lap.
"Oh sure you will. Sure, sure. This trip will only be about a month and then I'll come by."
"Come by"? The words sounded so silly corning from my father. He would "come by"? To his own home? Like a visitor, a stranger, he would ring the doorbell and be greeted by a butler and then be announced?
"And call you and write you whenever I can," he added. He reached out to take my hand. "You're growing very quickly now, Leigh. You are a young woman and have a young woman's concerns. You need your mother more than ever, need her advice and companionship. You'll be growing more interested in boys and they'll be growing more interested in you.
"Perhaps your mother's right about one thing--I shouldn't be filling your head with business things and mechanical things at this point."
"Oh no, Daddy, 1 never minded that. I enjoyed it," protested fervently.
"I know." He patted my hand. I yearned to have him hold me so tight I couldn't breathe, to warm my lips with his kisses and to make me feel that
everything would be okay.
"Oh Daddy, I don't want you to go. I don't want you to just
come by,"
I choked. The tears were streaming freely down my face now. No matter how I tried, I couldn't hold back the sobs. My shoulders shook. Finally Daddy embraced me and held me tighter than he had ever held me and he kissed my hair and stroked me.
"There, there, my darling princess. It will be all right. You'll see. Once we're over the hump, it will be all right." He held me and wiped away my tears. "You're the owner's daughter. You want to put on a good face and go upstairs to say goodbye to people alongside me. Will you do that for me?"
"Of course I will, Daddy." I swallowed my cries, but I started to hiccup. Daddy laughed.
"I hold my breath," I said. "That usually works."
"That's the spirit." He stood up. "Take your time and then come up and join me for breakfast. After that, we'll go to the bridge and watch Captain Willshaw bring the ship into the harbor. Okay? And no matter what, Princess, always remember I love you. Promise?"
"I promise, Daddy, and I'll always love you."
"That's the spirit, the spirit of the sea. I'll wait for you upstairs." After he closed the door, I sat there staring at it.
My heart was an aching ruin, but I was too emotionally exhausted to cry anymore, even though a part of me wanted to bawl and bawl until my body was dried out. Then I felt angry, furious at Momma for doing this. How selfish she was. Now I saw how selfish she'd always been. How could she care only about herself like this? How could she do this to Daddy and to me? Who cares how young she was or how young she looked? She wouldn't be young forever and she would never find anyone who loved her as much as Daddy had, and still did!
Oh, it was so ungrateful of her to turn her back on him now that the years had passed. He had rescued her from a horrible life. She'd told me all that herself, and now, she was casting him aside, just because she wanted to have more
fun.
Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe I could talk Momma into changing her mind, I thought. No one even has to know she went to Mexico to get that horrible divorce. She could go back and change it again. Once she saw she had ruined my life,. .
My heart sunk like a rock in a pond because I knew Momma obviously had to have considered all this before and it hadn't made her stop. She had left me in Jamaica, hadn't she? This was too important to her. She wouldn't listen to anything I had to say, I thought, and no amount of crying, not even gallons and gallons of tears, would convince her she was wrong.
Daddy had accepted it; there was no hope left in him, I concluded. I got up slowly and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked horrible, my face streaked, my eyes bloodshot. I still had the hiccups, too. It kept happening so fast and so hard, it actually began to hurt. I drank a glass of water and then held my breath, but it didn't go away until I had washed my face again and was ready to go up to the dining room to join Daddy. I had no appetite, but I would do what he asked of me.
After breakfast Daddy and I went to the bridge just as he had promised and we stood beside Captain Willshaw watching him and the officers oversee the docking of
The Jillian.
How sad it must be for Daddy, I thought, to think of the ship's name now. I remembered the day he had taken Momma and me for a ride without telling us the reason. He had turned down to the dock pretending he had a short errand to run, and suddenly there it was before us . . . the new ocean liner being readied for christening. Both Momma and I were excited, but it wasn't until Daddy pulled right alongside the ship that we understood why he was so insistent we take this ride. There were the words brightly painted over the sides of the new liner:
The Jillian.
How Momma had squealed with delight and covered Daddy's face with kisses. But that seemed so long ago, ages ago.
Now as we drew closer and closer to the dock, I could see the crowd of people that had gathered to greet the returning voyagers. There were taxi cabs lined up alongside limousines and private vehicles. Down below on the decks, passengers were waving and shouting at people who were waving hats and handkerchiefs, taking pictures and calling to them. I looked for Momma, but I didn't see her anywhere. Finally, I saw one of our cars, but there was just Paul Roberts, a driver we used frequently, standing beside the car, waiting.
"Isn't Momma coming for me, paddy?"
"I had an idea she might just send Paul with the car. She's not anxious to set eyes on me."
"But what about me! She should be here like everyone else's relatives."
"She's just avoiding a scene," Daddy said He was defending her even now, I thought. If she only knew how much he really loved her. I was determined to tell her.
"You're not coming home at all now, Daddy?" I asked quietly. I knew he was depending on me not to cry and not to give away our personal problems in front of the passengers and crew members.
"No. I have some work to do yet. You just go on ahead. I'll come by later."
There was that expression again: "come by."
I nodded quickly. When the ship was finally docked and people were permitted to disembark, I turned to Daddy. He just closed his eyes and opened them and then nodded.
"Go on," he said softly. "I'll be all right."
"Daddy." My throat closed up. He nodded again toward the door. I saw that he was doing all he could to keep himself together, too. He kissed me quickly on the cheek. I started to reach for him, but he pulled back and then I charged out the door and down to the deck.