The Descendants (4 page)

I’ve gotten the hang of home. I help run the household, help decide what Scottie eats, when she sleeps, what she’s allowed to wear, watch, do. I say things like “time out” and “full circle,” and I tell her to check the Chore Door, an invention of mine: It’s a door in the den that posts her weekly duties. It’s sort of fun, these responsibilities, and I think Joanie will be impressed.

“Is good fat,” Esther says. “She so skinny. This good fat.”

“No,” I say. “Some fats are good, but not that fat.” I point to the white substance in the pan, melting slowly like wax. On parenting websites, I’ve learned that corn syrup, nitrates, and hydrogenated fats are bad and that soy is good, as well as organic produce and whole grains. I’ve also learned that Scottie needs a booster shot for whooping cough, meningitis, and that there’s a vaccine for HPV, which causes genital warts and can lead to cervical cancer. It’s recommended as a preventive measure for tweens before they become sexually active. When I read this, I was so appalled that I participated in the online vaccination chat, only to be severely reprimanded by Taylorsmom.
Why not protect them as best we can?! Yes, Scottiesdad, I would give them a vaccine for loneliness and heartache if it were available, TYVM, and it’s not the same! Genital warts are not emotions! They’re warts, and we can put a stop to them.

I had to ask Scottie what TYVM meant, because now that I’ve narrowed into her activities, I notice she is constantly text-messaging her friends, or at least I hope it’s her friends and not some perv in a bathrobe.

“Thank you very much,” Scottie said, and for some reason, the fact that I didn’t get this made me feel completely besieged. It’s crazy how much fathers are supposed to know these days. I come from the school of thought where a dad’s absence is something to be counted on. Now I see all the men with camouflage diaper bags and babies hanging from their chests like little ship figureheads. When I was a young dad, I remember the girls sort of bothered me as babies, the way everyone raced around to accommodate them. The sight of Alex in her stroller would irritate me at times—she’d hang one of her toddler legs over the rim of the safety bar and slouch down in the seat. Joanie would bring her something and she’d shake her head, then Joanie would try again and again until an offering happened to work and Alex would snatch it from her hands. I’d look at Alex, finally complacent with her snack, convinced there was a grown person in there, fooling us all. Scottie would just point to things and grunt or scream. It felt like I was living with royalty. I told Joanie I’d wait until they were older to really get into them, and they grew and grew behind my back.

ESTHER, AS USUAL,
is humming. Our kitchen is a good size, yet it feels small whenever I’m in it with her. She’s a short ball of a woman and has no awareness of her body; her stomach is always brushing me on the hip or abdomen. I’m slicing carrots and celery that Scottie can dip into a bowl of ranch. I realize Esther and I are in a sort of food battle,
Iron-Chef
ing my child’s lunch.

“Have you talked to your family yet?”

“Not yet,” she says.

Just a week ago I told Esther that we won’t need her anymore, even though I feel terrible about this, but she claims her family is away from their home in San Diego and she doesn’t have the keys to her house.

“They still on vacation?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says.

“The Jersey Shore, you said?”

“Yes. Jersey Shore.”

“How lovely.” I bend over to pick up shreds of vegetables I have dropped, and Esther walks behind me. I feel her stomach brush across my ass.

“You’re not ready anyway,” she says. “There’s much I haven’t told you.”

She has been using her years of experience with Scottie as power, dishing it out slowly to extend her stay. I allow it because I can’t deny how helpful she is and how much she loves Scottie. Her method is genius—I truly do need her to teach me more things before she goes. I feel like I’m taking the bar again—I’m cramming, stuffing myself with rules, learning the logic and the language of girlhood. Esther teaches me what Scottie loves: Xbox, dance,
SMART
magazine, almond butter, hamburgers, Jay-Z, Jack Johnson, making playlists on her iPod, text messaging, and I tell myself I need to know this because Joanie may be weak for a while, out of sorts; she may not be herself mentally or physically for a long time, but I never tell myself that I need to learn the habits of this creature because Joanie may die.

“Should we continue?” I ask.

Esther sighs as though this is tiring, but I know she enjoys our study sessions. She gets to be the teacher of her employer, she gets to show me the girl she knows so well, and she gets to create the girl she wants Scottie to be.

“She like for read
Jane
and listen to music,” Esther says as she stirs her pot of fat and beans. The kitchen smells like a heart attack. “She used to like MySpace, but now she does the scrapbook. She like
Dog the Bounty Hunter.
She like back rub.”

“Back rub?”

“Yes, when she was baby, I rub her back until she sleep. I still do this now when she wake up with nightmare.” She pokes the pot with a wooden spoon.

“Nightmare? What is she having nightmares about?”

This is a stupid question. Her mother is in the last state before death, the brain on the last and lowest level, but I don’t want to admit this has a profound psychological effect on Scottie.

“I don’t know,” Esther says. “I haven’t yet told you about child nightmares. Is common thing. We go over it next week.”

I really like Esther and don’t want her to go. It’s just that the idea of her, a Mexican nanny, doesn’t sit right with me. I never thought Scottie needed a nanny, since Joanie didn’t really work, and I don’t like spending the money on someone to care for my kid. It also makes me feel like some kind of colonist to have Esther around. Especially now that I have stepped in and she’s doing mainly housecleaning and cooking. Ever since we’ve been spending more time with each other, she has acquired quick retorts and smooth comic timing, so now she’s the sassy Mexican maid, sitcom-ish and wise. But I need to think about what’s best for my family instead of how others perceive my family, something I’ve been guilty of all my life, trying to prove I’m great and not just a descendant of somebody great.

I have inheritance issues. I belong to one of those Hawaii families who make money off of luck and dead people. My great-grandmother happened to be a princess. A small monarchy decided what land was theirs, and she came in to a lot of it. My great-grandfather, a haole businessman, was doing pretty well himself. He was a good land speculator, good banker. All of their descendants, as well as Hawaii’s missionary descendants, sugar plantation descendants and so on, are still benefiting from these old transactions. We sit back and watch as the past unfurls millions into our laps. My grandfather, my father, and I rarely touch the money we’ve made off the trust. I’ve never liked the fact that how much I have is public knowledge. I’m an attorney, and I use only the money I earn from being an attorney, not what I have inherited. My father always said it was the right thing to do, and in the end I’ll have more to pass down. Anyway, I don’t like legacies. I think everyone should start from scratch.

I think of Joy, her knowing smile. I should probably pick up today’s paper, but I suspect she was reading about the beneficiaries, how much we own, and guesses about the decision we have to make this week, or the decision I will make, since my vote counts the most. I get about ? of the trust, whereas the others get
. I’m sure they’re just thrilled about that.

“All right,” I say to Esther. “You can hold out on the nightmares, but keep the rest coming.” I figure I’ll work a little on my daughter now while we make lunch, and then I’ll get to the King portfolio this afternoon. I’ll pick a buyer and be done with it.

“She like handbags and low-rider Seventween jeans.”

She dishes the rice, beans, and chicken onto a steamed tortilla. I arrange the vegetables onto a plate next to a turkey sandwich. I surround the plate with three dipping bowls filled with three different sauces: ranch, mango salsa, and almond butter. Esther eyes the almond butter as though it’s a point against her.

“And?” I ask.

“And…I don’t know. So much more you need to know. She like lots of things, but you need to know what she doesn’t like, too. It will take months to explain. Even when your wife come back, she doesn’t know a lot.”

We hear Scottie coming down the hall, and Esther lowers her voice. “She loves for me to read
Mother Goose.
”

“Her baby book?”

“Yes. It brings her so much joy. Sometimes I read the same rhyme over and over again. It makes her so happy. It makes her laugh loud with delight.”

I wonder if Scottie’s regressing into an infant stage, if she likes the nursery rhymes because they take her back to a happier and more innocent time.

“She should be reading young-adult novels,” I whisper.

“She read whatever she wants,” Esther whispers back.

“No. I think she needs books with moral messages and lessons on how to deal with womanhood, not books about single women who can’t stop having kids and who live chaotic lives in a lace-up boot.”

We both see Scottie, and we stop talking. Esther pushes her plate toward the chairs. I push my plate forward as well, and Scottie sits down on a stool, looking at both of us and then at the food in front of her.

Scottie cuts into the enchilada. With her other hand, she types, or texts, a message to one of her friends.

Esther looks at me and smiles. “She like lard.”

JUST WHEN I’M
about to go to my room and get to work, Esther tells me that Mrs. Higgins has called and wants me to return her call immediately. She wipes the stove and uses her fingernail to remove something stubborn, grunting. I swear she does this purposefully to make me feel sorry for her.