Chapter 11

Monday, one week later, didn’t go well. Sia stared daggers at me, standing in front of me as I lounged on the couch.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she said forcefully.

Perhaps I had mishandled it a bit. But, when she’d asked if we could make love tonight, I’d declined. It was my line in the sand. She didn’t seem to understand how petite she was, or how much it would hurt her - or if it was even physically possible without injury. She wasn’t swayed by my promise to have intercourse when she was seventeen or eighteen, either. Fourteen seemed so young to me; too young.

“I’m not kidding, Sia. I told you, it’s too soon. There are so many things we can enjoy until then.”

I tried to explain how absolute the step of intercourse was, that she’d be better off waiting just in case she met the right guy; how once taken, it was forever gone, no return. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned emotional maturity but I was struggling for rationale.

“I can’t believe you!” she said angrily. “After everything we’ve...” Following a pause, eying me with a blue eye that had turned decidedly icy and a hazel eye that had darkened ominously, she stated, “Well if you won’t, I’ll find someone else who will!”

My heart constricted. “You’d never hurt me like that,” I responded.

“Oh! So it’s okay for you to hurt me, but I’d never hurt you?! Really? That’s what you think?”

“Sweetheart...”

She hobbled out of the living room without letting me finish. Her bedroom door slammed shut - a familiar sound. My first instinct was to go after her but common sense prevailed. She needed to stew a bit and burn through her anger. Logic would return. It always did when she got into one of her rare tempers.

By four in the afternoon I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her. It was déjà vu. This time, I went to her door and knocked. “Sia?”

“I don’t want to talk to you!”

Turning away, I went and puttered around in the kitchen. Man, did I hate Sia angry. Around six I began dinner preparations. At six-twenty, now more than concerned, I knocked on her door again. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“I’m not hungry!”

“Sia, we need to talk,” I informed her through the closed doors.

“Go away! I don’t want to talk to you!”

This was another of those moments. Intimacy aside, I was still her father. She didn’t understand how irreversible or how significant intercourse was. It was my responsibility to help her accept the situation. Steeling myself, I opened the door and entered. Sia was on her back, her head propped up with pillows, her iPhone in her hands. She didn’t even look at me.

“I said I don’t want to talk to you,” she repeated.

“Well, I need to talk to you.” Sitting on the edge of her bed, I placed my hand on her thigh. She shook it off. Damn.

“Listen, honey, I only want what’s best for you.”

“No you don’t. You only want what’s best for you,” she said, interrupting me.

“Sia?” I said, and waited for her to look at me. It hurt to see the genuine anger in her eyes. I’d seen my daughter furious and frustrated, but never this coldly angry. It was a bit intimidating. “Do you, even for a minute, believe I don’t want to make love with you? I can’t imagine anything I want more.”

Her intense eyes studied me. I continued.

“You are a remarkable girl. I’m more proud of you than I’ve ever been. What we’ve done together, that intimacy, should be proof of how enamored I am with you. But, what you’re asking ... I’m not even sure if you’re physically ready for it. I just don’t know. And, even though you disagree, you might find someone later and regret what happened. Do you understand?”

Enchanting eyes studied me, beautiful eyes full of emotions. “But I choose you, Dad. You’re the one I want. Won’t you at least consider it?”

I sighed. This was so much harder than I’d expected. When I rubbed her leg, she let me; progress. Truth was, if I could be sure it wouldn’t hurt her, if I could be absolutely sure she was serious and aware of the magnitude of it, and that she’d never regret it, I wanted nothing more than to make love to her. But, I still hesitated. Perhaps I could delay her.

“Okay, honey. I’ll consider it.”

Sia smiled. “Promise?”

I nodded. “Promise.”

“Kay. What’s for dinner? I’m hungry.”

Sia was hungry, just not for what I’d cooked. She sniffed the ravioli on her plate and announced, “Spinach. I don’t like spinach.”

“You like spinach, Sia.”

She sniffed her food again. “Not anymore. It smells hinky,” she said with a wrinkle of her nose.

I had an immediate vision of Sia at six years old, arms crossed, a cute frown on her face, staring at a small pile of wilted green spinach on her plate, “It’s yucky, Daddy. I shouldn’t eat it.”