Tempting Daddy by Ava Sinclair
Chapter Fourteen
Carmen
The sadness over going home is more than just a reluctance to leave Father Dominic. My father doesn’t get over slights. He nurses and magnifies them into grudges. All afternoon I’d been shrouded in dread over seeing my father.
I knew as soon as he walked into the office that he was still angry at me over what had transpired over the past couple of days.
Father Dominic had shot me a glance. It was apparent he had noted my father’s brooding expression and went to speak to him before I could even get up from my desk.
“Mr. Angelo, how are you?”
“Get your things, Carmen,” he’d said.
“Is there a problem that makes you unwilling to greet your priest?” Father Dominic had stepped closer to my father. A good six inches taller, he was using height to his advantage.
My father’s reaction was to put his hands in his pockets and puff out his chest like a fat little toad. I just stood there, surprised to see Father Dominic directly challenging the man I’d been afraid of all my life.
“I’d prefer to be speaking to Father Morris if you want to know the truth,” my father had said. “He had some respect for the leaders of this church.”
“Father Morris had respect for everyone, Mr. Angelo. And he warned me that there are certain political considerations to the priesthood. My style is different from my predecessor. I suggest you get used to it.” He’d paused then. “How is Mrs. Angelo?”
My father’s face had reddened. “She’s fine, not that it’s any of your concern.” My father nodded in my direction. “Did you hear me, girl? Get your coat.”
I rose from my desk, anxiety moving through me in waves. Father Dominic had become a bulwark against my father but that was about to change.
My father had walked to the car while Father Dominic helped me into my coat. “If you need me, you call. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Promise,” he’d said. “I can’t help you if I don’t know.”
I’d promised, but once in the car, the impact of my situation hits me. I’ve slept with the parish priest, and as silly as it sounds, I think I’m in love with him. I can’t say he’s in love with me, but he cares for me. I know he does. He wants to protect me, but I want to protect the secret of what we shared. If he rushes to my defense after we’ve spent a night together, will my father draw some correlation? It’s a risk I can’t take, one that means leaving him out of any family drama. That means handling it myself. That means finally being strong.
“Did we get power back on at the house?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“How long did Mom stay at the factory?”
“She didn’t come.” His answer is abrupt, and he grips the wheel a little tighter. “She didn’t want to. She slipped on the stairs and banged herself up this morning and said she’d be fine. I put some wood in the furnace so she wouldn’t freeze. Power was back up on the north side a couple of hours later, so she would have been fine anyway.”
“She slipped? How badly is she hurt? She didn’t say anything to me.”
“She’s not hurt. She’s fine. She didn’t say anything because she didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t even know about it until I got home with the wood.”
I don’t tell him how illogical this is. She told me about the house being cold. Why wouldn’t she tell me she’d fallen?
I breathe a sigh of relief when we pass the street leading down to my father’s business. I’d worried he’d make good on his threat to have me apologize to Mindy, but I suppose she’s probably gone home, and I hope he forgot about what he’d said. I can hardly think on it anyway. I want to see my mom. It unsettles me to think that while I was safe and warm at the rectory she was in pain. What if she’d gotten seriously injured? I begin to pick at the cuff on my sleeve.
When we pull into the driveway, I get out and navigate the icy walk and steps as quickly as I can. I drop my handbag on the foyer table and head to the living room where I sometimes find my mother working on her knitting when I get home from work. She’s not there, though. She’s not in the kitchen either.
My father, who usually calls to her to bring him a beer, walks to the fridge without a word and gets one himself. He doesn’t call or ask where she is, and I get a sudden sense of foreboding. I mount the stairs, heading first to her sewing room and then to her room. But that door is locked.
“Mom?” I knock as I call to her. “Mom?”
There’s no answer. I can hear her on the other side and the door opens just a sliver. “Honey, you’re home.” Her voice sounds strained.
“Mom, are you okay? Dad said you fell. Are you hurt?”
“No. Just a little sore. I’m laying down. Why don’t you go have some dinner? We didn’t lose food in the freezer, thankfully. Just thaw some meatloaf.”
“Mom. Let me in.”
“Honey, I’m fine.” She starts to push the door shut, but I nudge it open and force my way into the room. As soon as I do, she turns away.
“Mom…” I reach for her elbow and turn her towards me. She keeps her head down even though she’s facing me, her unbound hair covering half her face. I push it back and as soon as I do my hand flies to my mouth. The right side of her face is bruised, her lower lip cut and swollen.
She didn’t get this from a fall.
“Mommy?” I haven’t called her that since I was little, but I do now. My mom.
Tears fill her eyes. “It’s fine, honey.”
I shake my head. “No. No, this is not fine. You didn’t get this in a fall. He hit you, didn’t he?”
“Honey. Honey…” She flutters her hands nervously. “Your father didn’t mean it. He’s just such a proud man, you know. He was so furious when he came home, going on and on about Father Dominic telling him how to run his household and how the two of you embarrassed him.”
“Mom, I should have been here,” I say.
“No.” She shakes her head. “You were safer there. That’s why I wanted you to stay.”
I’m suddenly confused. “You said you couldn’t come because the roads are getting bad.”
My mother sighs and looks towards the door as if fearing my father might be on the other side.
“I lied,” she says softly. “He was so furious after the meeting. He said he was going to make you sorry. I was so afraid, Carmen. I was so afraid he’d do to you what he’s done to me.”
“This isn’t the first time?”
“It’s the first time since you’ve come home. But it’s not the first time he’s hurt me. I’ve just been good at hiding it.”
Tears sting my eyes and I think back to the times when my mother’s makeup was especially heavy, even at home.
She’s been hiding the abuse for a long time.
“I used the storm as an excuse. As luck would have it, your father didn’t come home either. When I called to tell him, the power had gone out, he said he was staying at the office. I didn’t see him until he came to bring the firewood. He was so angry. I just happened to be in the way of it.”
She wipes her eyes then forces a small smile. “What about you? Did you have a nice time with Father Dominic?”
Memories flash through my mind. His kindness, the feel of his lips on mine, the sensation of our bodies moving as one, the snowman. Even if my mother and I had the kind of sharing relationship I always wanted, I couldn’t tell her about what happened.
“He was very good to me,” I say, “but I’m not the one who matters now. Mom, you can’t live like this.”
“I don’t have a choice,” she says.
“Mom, it’s not the 1800s. Of course you have a choice!”
“How?” Tears trail down her bruised cheeks. “You of all people should know how hard it is, even with an education. I don’t even have that. Your father didn’t want me to work after we got married. He said my job was to take care of him and his house.”
“Mom, you need to report this and file for divorce. I’ll take you to the station. I’ll…”
“No!” She backs away, trembling. “I’m not going to do that. I have more than myself to think of here, Carmen. I have you to think of…”
“Me? I’m an adult! We could get a place together. I could find work. A second job if I have to. I could… I could take care of you…”
“Just stop.” My mom puts her hands to my face, her eyes searching mine. “Just stop. I can’t, Carmen. I won’t. And if you say anything, I’ll deny he hurt me.”
“Why?” Pity is replaced by anger tinged with disgust. I pull away from her and turn, crossing my arms. When I turn back, I can’t contain my anger. “Mom, I know he bullied you to the point you couldn’t even protect me, but you can still protect yourself. You don’t have to live like this.”
She winces, as if my words are a slap of their own and turns away.
“If you don’t mind, Carmen, I’d like to be alone now.”
Alone. We’re a family, but each of us might as well be alone. My father sits above us both. My mother has always been a shadow of whoever she once was. And me? I’ve walked a tightrope between them, avoiding my father’s wrath as my mother urged me to placate him.
“Fine,” I say, angry at myself for hurting her and angry at her for refusing to leave my father.
My head aches from tension. My throat aches from the painful lump I fear will soon erupt into sobs. I’m hungry but I don’t want dinner. I don’t want to go downstairs for fear of seeing my father, but as I round the turn in the hall to my room, I stop. He’s standing there, waiting.
“Went to check on your mother, did you?”
I can smell the beer on his breath from where I’m standing.
“Yes.” My tone is icy.
“So she told you how she fell on the stairs, hit her head on the post at the bottom?”
I cross my arms and don’t reply.
He sighs and takes the last swig of his beer. “You thought going to school was going to make you better than me, didn’t you? Fancy education? But look at you. Just like her. Worthless, just like her. And now that damn priest, filling your head with all kinds of nonsense, making you think you can embarrass me in front of the council…” He steps closer to me, and while I want to retreat, I hold my ground. “So, you stayed over at the rectory during the storm, did you? Snowed in? How long was it before the two of you—”
“Shut up,” I say, unwilling to let him go further. “Shut up.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. Little whore. Just like your mother.” His face reddens and he crushes the beer can in his beefy hand. “Nobody crosses me and gets away with it,” he says. “Nobody. Not you. Not your mother. Not that busybody priest. Come tomorrow you’re going to give notice at work. Seven days should be enough.”
“No.”
“No use saying no. You’ve gotten too cozy with that priest. You’re sharing our family business and that won’t do. You’ll give notice because it’s the right thing to do, but you’ll keep your mouth shut in the time you have left there. You’ll tell him you got a better job opportunity.” He smirks. “A week should give him enough time to hire someone to use those fancy new computers.”
He turns away, then looks back. “Oh, and we both know your mama isn’t going anywhere, so if you even think of refusing me, let’s just say that life for her won’t get any easier if you put me in a bad mood.”
As he walks away, I go into my room, shut the door, lock it, and lean my back against the wood before sinking to the floor and putting my head on my knees. I’m shaking with rage.
Growing up, I was aware of his disdain, but tonight what I felt from my father was nothing short of pure hatred. Why? He wasn’t always like this. In pictures I’ve seen of him with his first wife, he looked like a different person. He looked happy. Why did he marry again if there was no love in his heart? Why did he father a child? My mother made the choice to marry him, but it was not my choice to be born. I sink into self-pity. I deserved a happy childhood. I deserved a daddy who loved me.
A daddy. I think of Father Dominic, of how he smiled as he watched me build the snowman, how he made me mugs of hot chocolate and fretted over whether I was warm enough. I think of how gently he wiped the virgin blood from my thighs. My heart is homesick for him. I want to run screaming from this huge loveless house and go back to the rectory. I want to fall on his doorstep and ask him to take me in like some abandoned orphan, to give me forever what he gave me in our time together. But I can’t. What happened between us was a small sin compared to the sin of luring him away from the priesthood. Dominic has offered me fatherly mentorship; I can ask for nothing more.
Tears course down my face. I remember the nightmare I had that sent Father Dominic running to my room. Being locked in this house with no escape has always been my worse fear. My father has not nailed the door shut, but he might as well be doing just that. I love my mother, and despite her inability to shield me from my father’s verbal barbs, I wonder if she took physical blows for me. I think back on the times when my father was angry with me. If I leave, there will be no one to stop him from hurting her.
“God,” I pray, closing my eyes. “Please save me. Please save us.” I try to picture Jesus, but his face won’t come to me.
Why should it? I’m a fallen woman who slept with a priest, a daughter who sees a loving daddy in a man of the cloth. I want to be both lover and child to the man who took my virginity. Why would God show his face to someone like me?
Perhaps I’m getting what I deserve.
