Chapter 7

I woke up when Jack eased his arm out from under me and got out of bed. The sun was shining enough to lighten the room, so I knew it was well past 7:00. That's what's sucky about having a birthday in early November — the clocks have just changed and the sun comes up late and goes down early.

I felt pretty good. I should, with over 11 hours of sleep. All of it in Jack's arms. Boy, I really needed him last night. I don't think I've ever felt so out of it, both physically and emotionally.

You can function for years knowing something but still hiding it from yourself.

That day Jackie gave me Bozo was the first day his mother met my father. She already knew him, just not as my father. When she saw him and realized that my father and Dr. Asshole were one and the same, she was all set to leave. I'm sure she would have if her son hadn't called her rude and demanded she at least talk to him. But she reamed a new asshole for Dr. Asshole before they called a truce and she agreed to stay.

It seems my Daddy expected perfection in the operating room. Actually, what he expected went way beyond perfection. He expected to be able to just think of something and have a nurse provide it, from giving him a scalpel to sopping up blood to wiping the sweat off his brow. He was always ready to complain when something he expected wasn't done, or wasn't done quick enough to suit him, and he never said anything about those things that were. The nurses who worked with him not only had to put up with the normal tensions of an operating room, they had to put up with almost certain degradation from my father.

But he also was able to change once it was pointed out to him. He and June made a deal that she'd call him on it if he ever acted up, and as far as I know, it hasn't happened since.

Looking back on it, I realized that making the kitchen my domain wasn't all my idea. It was something I was eased into until I decided it was my idea. Manipulated into is probably a better description. I don't think there was anything sinister about it, but now I could see the barely adequate meals Daddy made, hear the talk of how good my mother had been in the kitchen and how he missed that, feel the way he'd kindled my desire to take care of him. I wasn't forced by any means. I wanted to pay back this man for his love, his attention, for my very life. He took care of me; it was only natural that I yearned to take care of him the only way I could. I made it my crusade to learn my way around the kitchen and make those things for him that he was unable or unwilling to. In return, he took good care of me and gave me love. We all make deals like that in our lives. Whether or not they are good deals depends a lot on the attitudes of the people involved.

The Sunday barbecues were more of a showcase for my Daddy than anything else. If it required more than taking it out of a package to get it ready for the grill, I did it behind the scenes and brought it out to him. Whether it was as simple as wrapping potatoes in foil or as complicated as creating a marinade and preparing chicken for him to grill for twenty minutes and take the credit for, I did it. Sometimes I'd enlist Wanda or Charlie to mix some lemonade or put meat and vegetables on a skewer or help carry the food and drinks out to the patio. Daddy had even turned the actual cooking over to Jack the last few times he'd been over, still taking credit for the meals. He showed Jack how to light the charcoal the first time he was over and expected it from that day on. Because that's the nature of my father. He expects things.

That's the thing. The problem. The reason for this whole mess. He expects things. With the two of us, it was no problem. I wanted to take care of my Daddy, to try to pay him back for all the good things. Because there were lots of good things. I had an almost unlimited line of credit until recently. He patched my scraped knees and, more important, he taught me how to patch them when he couldn't be there and how to prevent myself from scraping them in the first place. He made me look at who Jill O'Hara was and how she fit into this world of ours. And how she could survive better. From the time I could talk, he treated me as a person. Take a look around and see how many people actually act as if their child has a brain in his or her head. Not many.

There was food, there was a really nice place to live with my own space and a kitchen and an entertainment room that he almost never set foot it, there were the ridiculously overpriced cars. There was love and respect. How many fourteen year olds can tell their father they're ready to go on birth control and have him make a call and set up an appointment on the spot?

So, if he wanted dinner when he walked in the door, it wasn't a big deal with me. It's just as easy to have it ready at 5:15 or 6:12 as it is at 7:00. And if it's not quite ready, there are lots of tricks you can play. Go change into something more comfortable, you look really wiped out, why don't you take a shower before dinner, here's a martini, relax for a few minutes and then we'll have dinner. Because it wasn't the actual food on the table so much as the caring, the love and respect, saying "you're important to me." Manipulation can work both ways. Like I said, it's all in the attitude.

We had someone come in a couple of days a week, so the cleaning, the laundry and some of the meals were taken care of. But I was the primary cook and ended up cooking or at least heating up the meals our housekeeper had prepared more times than not. And I ragged on him when his tie didn't match and dug out the right one for him, even tying the new one for him most of the time. And when something needed to be dry cleaned, I pointed it out or just got it ready for him to take to the cleaner's. In many ways, I acted more as a wife than as a daughter.

As I reached puberty and my body started demanding, my Daddy was my lover in many a fantasy. But that's all it was. I know he felt many of the same things because his lap wasn't as available and the hugs weren't as close for several months when I realized I was changing and really needed them. And when I ignored him and sat in his lap and really hugged him whether or not he was comfortable with it, I would feel his hardness. I had enough trust in my Daddy and enough self-respect that it never occurred to me to be disgusted by an involuntary erection. I took it as a sincere compliment to the woman I was becoming. And I enjoyed the little tingles I'd get when I held him and felt his reaction. I knew that was the way things were supposed to be. There was no man on this planet who had anything near the trust my Daddy had from me. And when the hug was over or I got up from his lap, that was it.

After years of being the center of my universe, my father got dropped like a hot rock when Jack came along. The fact that this is normal and he was by no means the first father this had ever happened to didn't really make a bit of difference. I'm sure it was comparable to my mother running off in his mind. There were different dynamics involved, to be sure, but I know he felt deserted, betrayed, tossed aside; all that and more.

I realized I had some responsibility in this. I worked myself into a position where he was almost totally dependent on me. And then I dropped him.

Looking back now, it makes sense that he and Wanda got together. They both had holes in their lives and it looked like they could each fill up the other's. Wanda was desperate, and willing to do whatever it took for some love and attention. But she didn't have the skills that I'd developed over the years. Her skills were more suited to another room in the house.

Was a seven year old Jill able to whip together a meal and have it ready the moment my father came through the door? If he wanted soup and potato chips, maybe. Anything more complicated, probably not. A fourteen year old Jill could do it with one hand behind her back. And it had become expected.

Wanda couldn't. She was a stranger in a strange land. She did her best to make spaghetti that Sunday and we ended up going to KFC because nobody could stomach it, Wanda included. And my father was the most understanding and comforting person there. As Jack pointed out to me when we went to get the chicken, I was probably the worst in the bunch. I felt guilty for abandoning him and I felt jealous of her for taking his mind off it and I felt superior because I knew my way around the kitchen and she didn't.

A few days later when I helped Wanda make dinner, I never thought about when Daddy would be home. Since it had almost been a matter of survival for me all those years, I should have. I can honestly say there wasn't a conscious effort to get Wanda into trouble with my father. I do know that I could have said something when he first started picking on her that would have calmed him down for the rest of the dinner, but I wasn't about to help the woman who stole my Daddy at that point. Whether or not it would have cooled him down permanently or he would have blown up after we were gone, I don't know.