Don't Tell Daddy (31 page)

“And what do you want, Pamela?”

“Custody. That’s it. I don’t want alimony, and I won’t put you on child support. Do the anger management, and you can have visitation. But if you make this hard on me, Bryan, I’ll tell them you beat me, and I will have proof and if that happens, you’ll be sitting behind bars. So do us all a favor and say yes to it.”

“If you don’t want alimony, and you don’t want child support, how are you going to provide?”

“I did stupid things, I’m not a stupid woman, Bryan,” she told him.

He didn’t get her meaning, but he left it alone. He agreed to her terms, and she was glad. “I tried to make it work,” she informed him softly. “I really wanted to please you. I tried so hard. I sacrificed my happiness for you and Pilar’s. When I told you I was happy, I only meant it if we were about to or had just finished making love; and maybe that was my problem, confusing sex for so many things it wasn’t, because it was just sex. That was all we had, Bryan. And a daughter. To be honest, she’s all I got out of the marriage, and a hard-earned life lesson.”

“I’m sor—”

“Save it. I have enough of those to last my lifetime. I really have to go. I have a date.”

Pamela left his office and went to pick up Pilar from the apartment, and Jordan appeared. She smiled up at him. “Hey.”

“Hey. I was wondering what you were going to do for Christmas.”

“I don’t know yet. Bryan and I were planning a trip to the Dominican Republic. That’s obviously not happening now.”

“Have dinner with my family,” he suggested.

“Okay.”

Jordan took Pilar and held Pamela’s hand. They went to see a movie, and Pilar fell asleep somewhere in the middle. Pamela pulled the baby in her lap and laid her head on her breasts. Pilar had once commented they were her pillows. This had only caused her and Jada to laugh.

After the movie, Jordan took them to lunch, and Pamela just pointed to what looked good to her on the kids’ menu. “What you getting?” she asked Jordan.

“Steak.”

“Oh. What you get, Ma?” she asked.

“Food,” Pamela told her.

“I know that, silly,” her daughter giggled, poking her arm. She and Jordan both laughed.

Bryan called and asked for his daughter. Pamela passed the phone over. She could hear Bryan say he was going to see her soon. She told him about going to the movies with Jordan and that they were having fun. “That’s great, baby. I have to go. I love you.”

“Lub you.”

Pilar passed the phone back, and Pamela hung it up. Jordan leaned over to Pamela and kissed her. “You can spend the night.”

“I want to.”

When they got to his house, they watched The Lion King, and then Pamela went and tucked Pilar in. “Let’s play Scrabble,” Jordan suggested.

“Make it interesting?”

“You know, I’d like it if I didn’t lose any more money to you, Miss Lady. Let’s play for fun.”

She chuckled as he got the game out and they sat on his bed, playing their game. “You wanna try and beat me at soccer again?”

“Embarrassment is enough once. Not twice.”

She smiled. When their game ended, he was in the lead. “Shoulda bet money,” she teased, climbing under the cover. He just pulled her close to him.

“You’re cute.”

“Come off it, I’m grown.”

“I don’t care. You’re cute.”

She laid her head on his chest, enjoying the feeling of just being in his arms. No love making needed. They weren’t in a rush, and it was her favorite part.

                           
The End for the Beginning

Pamela’s day was good until she got a disturbing call from Jada about Bryan being in a car wreck. The only thing that came to her mind was Pilar. What would her daughter do without Bryan? She didn't know what to do, so she told Jordan that she was going to the hospital to see her ex-husband, but she didn't think Pilar should see her father like that. Then she decided to take her. 

When they arrived to the hospital, Pilar didn't understand why her father was so wrapped in bandages. "What happent, Daddy?" she asked, laying her head on his chest. He held her, rubbing her back. 

"Daddy got in a car accident," he said weakly. 

Pamela could see the effort it took him to move and sat with him and held his hand, in her head praying. Jada was on his other side, and all three of his sons were there, but not his oldest daughter, Jasmine. Every child he'd raised but that one was there. Including Pamela. Bryan looked up at Pamela. "I'm not going to make it," he told her factually. 

"Don't think that way, Papi," she said softly. 

"I don't mind it, if Jordan has to be her daddy. If he can do it. If he can love her that way."

"You're her father," Pamela said in a way that left no room for debate. 

They stayed in the room talking to Bryan, reminiscing on good times, and he died with his toddler asleep in his arms. Pamela felt tears well in her eyes. Her daughter wouldn't remember Bryan. Wouldn't remember the great father he had been for her. He'd never get to see his daughter graduate. Never get to give her away. Would never see her quinces. 

Pamela cried for her daughter's loss. But she cried for her loss too. As her husband, Bryan was abusive. But there were so many years before he was that, and he'd been so many different things. He'd been a father, a lover, a friend... She'd never stopped loving him.

Pamela took her daughter to Jordan’s place and climbed into bed with a heavy heart. He woke up, hearing her sob softly, and he took her in his arms. He didn't have to ask. He knew. She laid her head in his chest, needing his comfort.

She and Heather helped his children plan his funeral, and she explained to Pilar that she couldn't see her daddy anymore, but that he was her guardian angel. Pilar didn't understand, and the more Pamela said that Pilar couldn't see Bryan, the more irritable Pilar became. When they had the funeral, Pilar tried to jump out of her mother's arms and into the casket. It was a bleak time for the family.

Pamela shut herself off to everyone else, locking herself up in her room and looking at old pictures.

A smile crept its way onto her face as she looked at a picture of herself dancing with Bryan at her quinceañera. She swiped tears away. It was just too bad that could never be Pilar in those arms. 

The weeks passed, and Pilar gradually asked for Bryan less and less. Pamela worried his memories were fading from her mind, and she continued to show her daughter pictures of him, and of them as a family and of her and Bryan while she carried Pilar.

Pamela was making lunch while Jordan was helping Pilar paint a picture, and she called him Daddy. He froze, and he looked to Pamela. She looked at him, and neither said a word. But Pilar was insistent. "Daddy," she whined, tugging on his pants leg. He kneeled down to her, and Pamela left the room. She needed to cry. 

Calling her mother, she asked to meet up for lunch and immediately left the house when Carmella agreed.

"Pilar called Jordan Daddy."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Confused. Bryan told me..." Pamela got choked up. "He told me that he wouldn't mind it. That he wasn't going to make it. But seeing her call another man Daddy is hard for me. Because hers is not here anymore. It breaks my heart that he won't get to see her first day to school. Or her make it to her double digits or become a teenager or go to high school or see her quinces. He can never watch her get her diploma. Can never give her away."

Carmella pulled Pamela into her arms and held her soothingly. "He was there for her birth and her baptismal and her first birthday and those were just as big milestones and happy events. You know he's watching her from wherever it is he may be."

"It's hard, Ma. He was more for me than just the father of my first two born. He was practically my father too; and every day I live in his memory, I wonder if it's going to be this hard to lose you and Daddy too. I don't know, because growing up, he was Daddy number two. But then I had children for him, and we grieved a lost child together. Now I and a surviving child grieve him together and it's odd, because on occasion, Pilar will ask for Bryan, but she just called Jordan her daddy."

"If you think her calling Jordan Daddy is wrong, then gently guide her back to first name usage. But she's going to need a father, and if Jordan is willing to fill the role, and I know he is, then leave it be, Pamela. We can't resurrect Bryan. She needs a father."

 At home, Pilar alternated between calling Jordan by name and Daddy. He would answer to both. Every blue moon, Pilar asked about Bryan. She had a picture book of him and herself in her room. Pamela was in a few of the pictures, and she would sometimes get the book and take it to Pamela, pointing to Bryan. "Where is Daddy?" she asked every time, and every time, it broke Pamela's heart a little more. 

                           
Epilogue: Talking to Me

Fourteen years later

Pamela was making breakfast when Pilar came in and started helping. "You're helping with breakfast? What is it, cariña?" 

Pilar let out a breath. "Do I have two older sisters?" 

Pilar had no idea the weight that question carried for Pamela. Although she was only close with one of Bryan’s children, she could’ve had the opportunity to be close friends with two.

Pamela knew this moment was coming. Pilar spent a lot of time with Jada and saw her brothers from time to time. She knew that Bryan’s oldest daughter came up on occasion. The girl wanted nothing to do with Bryan after his divorce with Heather and never met her baby sister.

Pamela never worried about Jasmine. She had never told her daughter about the woman because she saw no need to mention a woman to her who would have nothing to do with her. She was never really friends with Jasmine, so she wasn’t hurt and felt like her daughter was missing nothing although Bryan would sometimes mention a regret about Pilar never having her oldest sister in her life.

"How many older sisters have been in your life?" 

"Jada."  

"Okay, then. Jasmine was raised by Bryan. But she's not biologically his, and she stopped talking to him and acknowledging him as her daddy. So you have one older sister." 

Pamela made plates for herself and Pilar and they sat down to eat. "You're old enough to know, Pilar. Whatever you ask, I'll tell you the truth." 

"Well... How did you and my daddy, Bryan, not Jordan, get together?" 

Images of herself leaned over the tub inviting Bryan to herself filled her head. Images of him in her bed. Feelings of lust and regret filled her.

She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. She had thought she’d steeled herself, but she just wasn’t ready. After seventeen years, she still had some shame in what she had done.

"I think I need to start from the very beginning. Not just us together." 

"Okay." 

"Bryan was my godfather. He and my daddy were the very best of friends." 

This was news to Pilar. She couldn't imagine sleeping with her own godfather. Sure he was an attractive dude, but he was twenty-three years her senior and she saw him as a father figure.

"He was happily married with Heather. For a long time, they were my second parents. If I wasn't at home, I was in the Valdez home. Jada and I used to be a lot closer. I think the only reason we're even on speaking terms is because I had you." 

Images of Jada, so filled with hurt and anger, knocking Pamela around came to mind. To this day, she couldn’t say she blamed her. She was just so happy that they had reformed their friendship in some way.

"When I was a little girl, Bryan was a strong paternal part of my life. I was no different from Jada and Jasmine. Your daddy didn't like spanking his girls, so we got timeouts. I always would think it was some sort of test when he'd tell me to go and play after a few minutes." 

Pamela chuckled in reminisce, getting up to make iced lattes and they went to sit in the den on the floor. Pamela pulled out old photo books.  

She began her story with a picture of herself and Bryan at the park. He was pushing her on a swing. All of the Valdez children were away with their grandmother in Ecuador, but Bryan still filled his godfatherly duties by taking Pamela out and giving her parents a small break. Heather had taken the picture.  

A smile caressed her lips remembering the day. Bryan had taken them to have ice cream, and Pamela remembered that, then, she wanted Bryan and Heather to never leave each other's sides. She didn't have her crush yet. That came right before her quinces. She hadn't seen Bryan in a while, having just spent the last two years of her life in the Dominican Republic. In fact, it was where she had her quinceañera. 

She'd danced with Bryan and enjoyed the closeness. He smelled like heaven to her then. The whole time his hand rested on her lower back, she just kept thinking she wanted him to pull her closer, she wanted his hands on her ass.