“I’m sorry, but . . . damn, you really shocked the hell out of me. I’ve never seen such an obvious come on in my life! And right in front of Mom, too!”
She clucked her tongue. “It wasn’t a come on and it wasn’t obvious. I was just being sweet to him.”
“Yeah, you were — damn sweet! Walking around in your bra –”
“Hey, it gets hot in that little kitchen –”
“‘Oooh, it’s so hot in here! — isn’t it hot in here, Daddy?’ and whoosh! off comes your shirt. Big preggo belly hanging out –”
“Josh!” she whined, shoving him. “Shut up! God, you act like I did a fucking lap dance for him. It was hot, you prick. If you were pregnant you might understand!”
“Vanessa, you were so all over him it was embarrassing!”
“I was being nice to him — that’s all. Mom isn’t being nice to him, God knows. And he’s having a hard time.”
“Yeah, you’d like to have a hard time with him! Dude, he’s gonna think you’re psycho or something.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” she spat disgustedly, pulling up her shorts. “Come on before they wonder what’s taking us so long.”
She picked up Jasper’s leash — he had been an indifferent spectator in the corner — blew out the candle and opened the barn door, letting the icy breeze rush in. Josh continued laughing all the way across the powdery snow bank to the back door.
***
In Neal’s dream his daughter was calling to him over a broad white field of snow. He was trudging through it to get to her, but the ground kept giving away beneath him, and his legs ached from the effort.
He awoke to find it wasn’t a dream — not all of it anyway.
“Dad?” her whisper sang through the room. “Daddy?”
She was nowhere in the den, though he thought he saw her foot shrouded in the shadows of the hall.
“Nessa?” he said. “What is it, sweetie?”
“Are you . . . um, can I come in?”
“Of course, come in.”
She stepped forward tentatively, but with a smile. She wore a full length nightgown like the night before, but prettier. A soft lavender, with little cotton flowers.
“I was just checking on you again,” she said, crossing the room and stooping next to his bed. “Making sure you’re all right.”
“Yeah, I’m fine, baby. As well as can be expected. What time is it, anyway?”
“Um, I’m not sure. About two, I think.”
“Two? Shit . . . ” He sat up, rubbed his eyes and yawned. “What are you doing up, baby? Go back to bed.”
“Oh, I can’t sleep very good,” she said, lowering herself to the floor beside him. Without meaning to, he studied her every curve as she descended. “It’s too cold up there.”
She rubbed her arms and shivered as she said it, and the face she made was straight out of her girlhood. That pouty little gonna-get-my-way expression.
“I’m sorry, sweets. Why don’t you — did you try to get in bed with your mother?”
“Mmm hmm. I knocked on the door but she didn’t open it. I guess she’s zonked.”
Neal nodded and grunted acknowledgment. He swallowed, twice. Suddenly his mouth had gone very dry.
“Okay, well . . . you came to the wrong place if you wanted warm,” he said, chuckling uneasily. “Pretty damn cold down here, you know?”
She said something back but he didn’t hear it; his heart was thundering in his chest. Again he swallowed, trying to calm down, suddenly feeling like he was back in high school, asking Sherry out for their first date. As he had done then, he tried to breathe deep without seeming to, knowing he had to say something, trying to get it out.
At the same instant that he said “Do you want” she said “Would you mind,” and then they both laughed.
He shook his head, smiling, and thought to himself, My God, she is so, so pretty.
“There — how’s that?” he said, pulling the covers over her.
“Mmm,” she purred happily. “That’s nice.”
“Good.”
He laughed a little laugh, for no reason. There had been a moment’s embarrassment when he had to put his shorts back on under the covers while Nessa turned away, but now she was settled in. She lay next to him, on her side, facing away from him. He was sitting up beside her, afraid to lie down in case she felt his heart pounding through the cushions. He was also rather shocked to find he was sweating.
Christ! In a thirty degree room? That’s quite an accomplishment.
Neal couldn’t help it — his already overwrought brain was now in a tailspin. Unavoidably, he thought of those first panic-stricken moments with Melanie, when he first realized he was no longer flirting, he was propositioning.
Stop it, Neal — this isn’t Melanie, you pig! It’s your daughter. Start comparing them and you’re in big trouble.
Yes, it was his beloved daughter, his Nessa. She had just come to get warm. It was totally innocent.
But she was stretched out next to him, in his bed, under his blankets, inches away. It was glorious and it was torture.
It couldn’t mean anything. She was just cold, and she loved him. She trusted him. And she was affectionate — she’d always been affectionate! Jeez, there was no law against a daughter wanting to get warm with her daddy. In a freezing house with no heat? Come on . . .
“Are you okay?” she asked him, looking over her shoulder.
She sounded puzzled, concerned, and sleepy all at once. It could not be an act. She was tired, and pregnant, and comfortable for the first time that night. She wanted him to lie down and go to sleep, was that so hard to understand?
“Mmm hmm — fine! Yeah, I’m great, baby.”
“M’kay,” she said, scooting back ever so slightly closer to him.
Neal leaned back slowly, stiff as a statue, and stared at the ceiling . . .
. . . In the space of thirty seconds, he told himself a hundred times that it was okay — that he could do what she asked. She was only cold. And she was his baby.
Trying to believe this, he turned very slowly onto his left side behind her and draped his arm across her.
“Like this?” he asked, sounding like a shy teenager even to himself.
His daughter immediately tucked his arm beneath her own, hugging it to her.
“Mmm hmm — that’s perfect. Oh, you’re so nice and warm.”
“Yeah, so are you, baby,” he said.
— and soft, and firm, and wonderfully curvy under that gown, he did not say.
He was suddenly hyperperceptive, like Roderick Usher — his senses were heightened ridiculously, and he grew completely aware of where every part of him was in relation to her. The inside of his elbow, for instance — it now rested against her side, beneath her own gently clamping arm. His forearm — oh, his forearm was in heaven, pressed against the side of her engorged right breast. And he could tell, even from his arm, that she wore no bra beneath the nightie. His hand she held in her own; he could just detect her softly exhaled breath against the back of it.
His eyes were an inch or two from her shining, silky hair. His nose inhaled her shampoo with his every breath — something fruity, like melons or papaya. His chest was pressed against her back, slim and firm against him, like Melanie’s had been.
His crotch?
His crotch he kept a good twelve inches away from her — no easy task, since she kept shifting back toward him in her doze. Whereas she lay in a beautiful, natural fetal position, his top half was lurched forward from his middle, like a man losing his balance on a wire. But there was no way he could move up to spoon her — no way he could press himself against her little cotton-clothed buttocks. If he did . . .
She snored for a while, which put him at ease a little. At least she wasn’t self-conscious of their closeness, even if he was. If he lifted his head a little from the pillow he could see her sweet, clean cheek, could watch her long lashes quivering against her skin. She was so beautiful, so very beautiful.
And so trusting, too. For the eleven thousandth time that day, he began to feel ashamed of himself.
She stirred a little when he had to move his arm; it was falling asleep.
“Mmm . . . ,” she cooed, the absolute of contentment. “Oh this is so much better — thanks, Daddy. I was freezing my fanny off upstairs.”
“Well — we don’t want you to freeze your fanny off, do we?”
“Mmm, no.” She turned her head to giggle softly, bathing his face in her hair. “We used to snuggle like this when I was little, you remember? Watching Sesame Street on the floor.”
Neal smiled. “That’s right, we did. I’m surprised you remember.”
“Oh, I remember. I always liked it — felt so safe and warm. Just like now.”
“Aw. I’m happy to help, sweetheart. You gonna be able to sleep?”
“Mmm hmm, definitely. Are you?”
“Oh yeah.”
After about two hours of deep breathing, reciting baseball statistics in my head.
“Good night, then.”
“Night, hon.”