Chapter 2: Gareth Chancelor, Friday Morning

The morning arrived in a rush. I blinked my eyes open when the clock-radio started playing “Yesterday.”

The Beatles seemed to have read me perfectly.

“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they’re here to stay.”

I mean, sure, the song’s about a girl leaving, but Estelle’s lack of concern for my opinion or my feelings had kicked me in the guts so hard that she might as well have left. I felt as if she’d abandoned me by trying to turn me into a toy that she could play with or pass on to whomever took her fancy.

And her reaction when I didn’t go along with her plans seemed over the top. It was as if I was wrecking some longer scheme of hers that had little to do with fulfilling any desire of Jen’s to be with me. A sudden chill ran through me as an idea occurred to me. I wanted to discount it immediately. The idea was too bizarre to contemplate. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t convince myself that it wasn’t possible.

The warm body nestled against me wriggled. The body was warm and curved in all the right places and it was young and firm and it was wrapped in that wispy, almost non-existent, drapery. If it had been Estelle, I would’ve been incredibly turned on, but that part of my brain somehow shuts down when I hold my daughter.

Part of it is a conscious decision but part of it comes from holding that tiny bundle in my hands so many years ago and committing my life to protecting her and nurturing her. I can’t explain it but I’ve always been able to admire my daughters, delight in their intelligence, wonder at their beauty, even acknowledge their burgeoning sexuality without ever considering how that sexuality could apply to me.

Admittedly I hadn’t been in quite this situation before and Jen’s declaration last night of what she wanted from me had given the block in that part of my brain quite a battering. But apparently it was still mostly functioning because all I wanted to do was hold her and hug her and make sure that she was okay.

I felt Jen stir and wake in my arms. I held on so she couldn’t move away from me, but I held her loosely enough so that she could roll over and face me. We lay next to each other and looked into each other’s eyes.

Her eyes were red from the crying last night, but she seemed calmer this morning.

“I’m still a virgin, Daddy,” she whispered. “You were going to be my first.”

I stared at her for a moment and saw the truth of it in her eyes. I leaned forward and planted a kiss on her nose. I didn’t know how to respond to that. Intellectually, I’d assumed she’d been sexually active before this, but my heart was pleased that she’d held out. And for her to want me – that was beyond imagining.

“Can you tell me why? “ she whispered. “Can you tell me why you wouldn’t... ?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. There’s probably a few reasons and every one of them would be enough on its own.”

I took a moment to gather my thoughts.

“I’d had a really long day and I was totally exhausted. Even if I were going to make love to you, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be last night for your first time because I was so exhausted. I wouldn’t have been able to do you justice.”

“Oh! I didn’t think of that. You did get home pretty late. I’m sorry.”

“Also, the two of you sprang this on me last night and you know I loathe surprises – big surprises. I don’t mind little surprises like being welcomed home with a candle-lit dinner by my wife and my gorgeous daughter. That was lovely. But when people surprise me with big stuff like this, I tend to get angry rather than romantic and I’m pretty sure you’d want me romantic.”

“Yeah! I knew you hate surprises. That’s why I didn’t think this would work but Mum convinced me you would like this surprise.”

I sighed and shook my head.

“Thirdly, I married Estelle and for me, being married means a man has given his word to only make love to his wife. As you know, I take my promises very seriously.”

I hesitated as I thought about that promise twenty years ago. It felt like only yesterday but today the purity of that promise felt stained.

“And finally, even though you’re now old enough for it not to be child abuse, anything between us would still be incest and therefore not only illegal, but also immoral.”

I ran back through everything I’d said, trying to spot if I’d left anything out. “I suppose those are the main reasons. As far as I’m concerned, each one of them on their own would be a deal-breaker.”

Tears started running down Jen’s cheeks again. “I never really stood a chance, did I? I love you so much that it hurts. I’ve wanted to do this for so long and Mum kept stringing me along. It would’ve been better if she’d told me to forget the idea when I first spoke about it.”

“Probably. But your mother has never worked that way. Was this really all your idea?”

“Um! I think it came out of a conversation about men and stuff like that – after I broke up with Dale. She really doesn’t have a good opinion about men in general. She thinks you’re about the best of a bad lot. She might’ve said something about how you’d make a good lover.”

“That’s what I thought,” I said.

“But even before that, I loved you and I had ... um,” Jen blushed but it didn’t slow her down. “You know – fantasies about you. I’ve always loved you. And you’re the sexiest man I know. All my friends have had crushes on you. And every time you looked at me or talked to me or held me in your arms I could feel how much you loved me. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve lain in my bedroom at night and listened to you and Mum and wished that it was me in there with you – even before I really understood what I was hearing.”

I kissed her on the lips to stop the stream of consciousness before she gave me even more information that I really didn’t want to hear.

“I have one question, honey. Last night seemed pretty well planned. I assume you were on birth control?”

“Of course, Daddy. I’m too young to start having babies. I’ve been on the pill for two years.”

“That’s good. I had an extremely worrying thought about what your mother was up to.”

“Mum insisted that I be protected. She even got me a new brand of pill that’s supposed to be more effective. She was so determined to make everything perfect for my first time.”

My heart sank when I heard that. But I wasn’t ready to share my concerns with Jen.

“I’m so angry with you mother,” I said. “She had no right to put us into that position. She really hurt both of us.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I honestly don’t know. I do know that some things are going to change around here. The way I feel now is that she can move into the spare room until we sort things out between us. I’ve had enough of her pulling stunts like that without any consideration for my feelings or my opinions.”

“I’m glad you’re going to stand up to her. You do tend to let her push you around a bit.”

I looked at her in surprise. I hadn’t expected her to agree with me. I didn’t know how to deal with that, so I chickened out of the conversation.

“We need to get out of bed. You have school and I have work.”

I rolled out of bed and ducked into the bathroom for a quick visit. When I came out again, Jen was still sitting in the bed with a sheet wrapped around her, hiding that whispy nothing of a night-dress.

“I can’t go back to my room dressed like this,” she muttered at me with a red face.

“How did you get in here last night?” I asked.

She slapped her forehead. “The bathroom. I left my robe in your bathroom.”

“It’s your bathroom too, this morning. Go and use it.”

“Don’t look, Daddy.”

I stood there and pouted at her, more to tease than out of any real disappointment. She stuck her tongue out at me. I grinned and turned my back to busy myself at my dresser, pulling out clothes for the day. Behind me I heard the patter of her feet as she trotted past me and into the bathroom.

When she came out, wrapped in a knee-length robe, I was mostly dressed and standing in front of the closet, hunting through Estelle’s clothes. I pulled out a skirt, blouse and jacket to form an outfit I knew Estelle sometimes wore to work and showed it to Jen.

“Can you remember what shoes your mother wears with this outfit?”

Jen nodded and picked them out for me. I put them with the outfit and the underwear I’d already dug out.

“Jen, how would you feel about waking your mother and telling her I said this is her outfit for today? Can you be really stern with her?”

Jen stared at me with wide eyes for a moment and then nodded. “I could do that. You don’t normally tell her what to wear. You don’t normally tell her to do anything.”

“No I don’t, normally. Does this morning feel normal to you?”

She shook her head.

“Me neither. I want to make sure it doesn’t feel normal for her as well. I want her to get the message that I’m angry with her about what she did to the two of us last night.”

Jen scowled. “Me too, I’m furious. But it wasn’t all her fault.”

“I know. The rest of it is mine. I should’ve stopped her years ago. I’m sorry you got caught up in it but now you’re right in the middle. Are you willing to stay in the middle for a while?”

She looked at me with wide eyes, but then she nodded.

I smiled. “Good. Come back in here after you’ve woken Estelle, okay?”

“Okay!” said Jen.

She picked up the clothes I’d selected for Estelle and stalked out of the room like she was on a mission.

I followed her down the hallway and tapped on Bonnie’s door. When I didn’t hear a response, I went into the room and sat down on the edge of her bed. Bonnie was curled down into the bed with her head completely off the pillow and her face tucked under the edge of the sheets.

I tugged the sheets down slightly until her shoulder and face were exposed. Then I gently shook her shoulder. After a couple of shakes, Bonnie’s eyes flickered open and she groaned.

“Morning sunshine,” I said quietly. “Time to wake up. It’s a school day, not a snooze day.”

She groaned again and rolled slightly so that she was looking up at me through sleepy eyes and tousled hair.

“Morning Daddy,” came a whispered voice. “I’m awake.”

She reached out into a full body stretch and yawned, mouth gaping wide open.

I leaned down and touched my lips to her nose. “So I see, sunshine. Breakfast will be ready soon. See you there.”

“Okay Daddy.”

I grinned and walked out of her room.

I slipped into the bathroom that the girls share and did a quick explore. I quickly found what I assumed were Jen’s birth control pills, even though the label was medical gobbledygook. The advantages of youth is that neither girl is on any other form of regular medication. I slipped the packet into my pocket and ducked back out of the room.