Chapter 45: Resistance Collapses

When Margie slipped through the downstairs bedroom door and closed it behind her, she felt like her mind had gone through deep tissue massage, painful during the massaging but looser or more at peace afterwards. Scanning the large dining room/living room, she saw her sister/wives Mary and L immersed in conversation with Denise and Joe's sister. It seemed impenetrable to her, and she preferred not to be in the outsiders' company anyway. Joe and Marta had disappeared as had Roger and Carol. Undecided whether she needed to find her Master and Mistress, she decided to interrupt the foursome and ask Mary their whereabouts.

"They wanted to be alone tonight," Mary informed her. Mary noticed a twinge on the petite sister's face. "I'm sure if it's important..."

"No, that's okay."

"Do you want to talk?"

"You're busy."

"Kind of, but..."

Margie embraced Mary. "Do your thing," Margie whispered. "I can see it's done wonders for Pussycat."

"I love you Little One," said Mary, kissing her lightly on the lips.

"I love you Mary." They shared a sad smile and Margie walked away.

Embracing her role as scullery maid, Margie began collecting plates and cups and glasses, bringing them into the kitchen to clean. Needing little attention on the work, words started emerging from her lips quietly. A poem began forming. She realized her gift or profession or skill or creative life force, writing, suited the therapy she needed as well as any dialogue could. When everything had been cleaned and surfaces wiped, she sauntered upstairs and took out her notebook and composed. Words flowed effortlessly onto the pages.

Helen's gift related to her occupation which involved training future managers in her graduate business classes at St Cloud State and current managers at various corporations in the Upper Midwest. Her theory of managing others in business which she published in a series of books, more training manuals than How To nonfiction thus not particularly profitable, hinged on the concept of listening and being transparent in responding to those being managed. The concept reflected her personality and her gift. She listened aggressively and responded with honesty and sincerity. Because of this, many times with friends or colleagues or students she found herself comforting weeping men or women and bringing them out of despair. Neither a psychologist nor a professional counselor, she never pursued one on one catharsis. They simply happened.

Case in point: Harold Maguire. Anyone else witnessing his collapse from proud self-confidence to blubbering self-loathing would have been shocked or repelled. Anyone else would have changed her mind about inviting the man into her bed and inside her. The man charmed and turned her on like no man had since her husband before his illness. Despite his great shame, whatever it stemmed from, she wanted him.

"Talk to me Harold," she told him when she settled him on the bed, his head propped up on pillows.

Glancing around the small guest room, he saw his audience: Margie, still Felicity in his mind, still a child, his child sitting cross-legged on the corner of the bed; Bill, a man crippled by disease sitting in his wheelchair smiling kindly at him; Helen, a mother, a lovely woman, compassionate and caring sitting close enough to feel contact. "You of all people..." he began.

"Me of all people ... Yes Harold. I'm a good listener. I'm the right person."

"You're a parent. You know the scope of my shame."

"Bill? How successful have we been turning out fine progeny?"

"Proud parents," Bill mumbled. "Sometimes it's hard to find the points of pride."

"But Joe..."

"Joe's a wonderful son," stated Helen. "He stuck by us when things got worse. He'd have stayed forever if I didn't insist he grab his chance here."

"I'd have kicked his ass if he didn't." Bill concurred. Everyone smiled.

"As for his siblings: Roger's a devout miscreant, I can smell his intoxicant sweetening the air in this room, and Patti's ... stiff as a post," Helen said. "We tried modeling values for them, but only Joe ... And now he's marrying into a harem!" Everyone laughed. "What did we do wrong, Bill?"

"Nothing," said Margie. "You grew the biggest heart I've ever known. That's why he bonded with us. We needed his love and Marta's love, Marta who also came from a marvelous home. Nothing should change your pride in him."

"I know," smiled Helen. "Do you know why your father fell apart out there?"

"Yes. I made him feel especially guilty for ignoring my need for a daddy." Margie told the story of her unbearable home in Golden Valley and running away to Chicago.

"Have you called your mom since you left?" asked Helen.

"No. I wrote a letter. I never sent it."

"Why not?"

"It's angry and mean. Despite everything, I couldn't rub the sore of me leaving with that."

"So you know she cares about you and worries?"

"Of course. It's just that we couldn't be in the same house together."

"I let her know how Felicity's doing. Since Marta pulled her out of hell, we've talked a couple times a week."

That fact surprised Margie, "Really?"

"What's it like talking to your ex-wife?" Helen asked.

"Weird mostly. It's like if you bumped into your old high school girlfriend and realized how different your paths had been and how little you have in common."

"Twice a week?" asked Helen.

"Oh we have something in common: Felicity and my other two daughters. It's the closest I've come to complete regret for being a philanderer. That and what I did to Felicity."

"Tell me what happened," Helen requested.

Margie began. "I had this vision of open arms and long hugs and excited chats about everything. And then I confronted Father and his clawing young wench."

"Denise," Helen finished.

"We call her Pussycat for the claws and for marking her territory." She told the story of the flirtatious distraction keeping Harold from responding and reading the IM messages from Denise creating the distraction and making her run away.

"What did you do, Harold? What did you feel?"

"Nothing."

"That's bull."

Tears returned to the proud man's face. "I know what I should have done. I should have run out the door and chased down my daughter and embraced her and swung her in circles."

"What happened?"

"You have to understand I suck as a parent. I loved my children, but at a distance. I just ... didn't know what to do. When I lived with Felicity's mom, I worked incessantly. I loved watching these cute little people, versions of me, and at the same time I hated their distractions. My stories started getting published. I got a book deal and an editor who I'm afraid I enjoyed unprofessionally. My first novel got praised but sold little. My second..."

"The Bridge of Sighs," Helen remembered fondly.

"There you go. Success made me want to escape the prison of family life and go adventure and be free. So I escaped. But I never really lived in that world, the world of little girls and their interests even if they represented my flesh and blood.

"When Felicity burst into my life with the kind of vigor ... Well you can see for yourself. She's the eternal combustion engine ... I had no idea how much she needed me. I told Denise I should go after you, but it didn't take much for her to talk me into staying."

"What did she say?" asked Margie.

"I told her I hadn't seen you in a few years and never thought you'd pop in like you did. She said you were rude to not call and ask to come over and then expect to be coddled like a little child. She reminded me you had the spunk to run away all the way to Chicago and could find your way back home just as easily. But mostly she ... distracted me."

"Distracted," snorted Margie.

"She's quite a distraction," Bill chimed in.

"Maybe too much. But then I found out my selfish ways had precipitated the horror that my lovely, brilliant, charming daughter suffered for over a month."

"I wandered around, eventually ending up at the bus station. I really didn't want to go home, but I didn't have a lot of money left."

"Why didn't you call me when things became impossible?"

"Revenge? No. I just felt utterly abandoned."

"God I wish..."

"I know Dad. It ... wasn't an option. Heading down here, I figured you'd help. Confronting you with your pussycat I realized you couldn't. It confused me because I thought you'd see me as a fellow scribe. We'd have the world of literature and the craft of writing to share. But in the end, I realized being your daughter had to be the first hurdle to get to any camaraderie. And I remembered your distance while you remained at home and how after you left, even when we visited you at this house, you never felt comfortable with us. Somehow I hoped you'd love me simply because I needed it."

"And now that you don't, I want to express my love."

"You can start loving me anytime, Dad."

"I just never expressed it."

"I know. I should have grasped that thought and let it pull me out of the shit."

"What shit exactly?" asked Helen.

"At the bus station I got talked into becoming a streetwalker."

"What were you thinking?"

Margie convulsed in laughter. "Oh my God Helen, Mom, you're incredible! What indeed! What an idiot! No, but I just felt ... lonely I guess. Slick was slick. He's good. He acted kind of sweet. He didn't wear his peacock feathers and stood not a lot taller than me. I didn't feel threatened. He seemed to understand me. He talked to me like an adult, you know, and listened really well. We got high on some pot and he lured me to his pad for some cocaine. We started petting and then he sort of insisted I wanted to fuck him. I didn't. Then he injected me with something and somehow my resistance faded. I still really didn't want to be fucked, but I did like being on the nod, though it made me puke. After that, with the heroin and the cocaine and the attention, I became a part of his stable. It's not like I got strung out or anything. He never gave me enough, like everyday or anything, but just the carrot dangling, the numbing bliss I got after sucking stranger's cocks and fucking them for money and getting slapped around by him and the other whores, I guess it gave me a purpose or something. Stupid, hunh? Then I finally got what I wanted, what I always wanted. Marta and Mary rescued me in a crazy moment of bravado and I found myself, this starving, shaking waif, in the arms of Joe and Marta, being loved unconditionally and respected and protected like parents are supposed to do when the kid is down and out."

"You found Joe because your father and his lady kicked you onto the street," concluded Helen.