"But honey, listen..." WHAM! Dorothy slammed the door to her
room, cutting her father off in med-sentence. She didn't have to listen to
him. He was wrong.
"Yeah, he really cares about me," she muttered. "Probably
wouldn't care if I stayed in here the rest of my life."
"Dorothy." Her father reached the door shortly after she had
slammed it. "Come on, hon, open up."
"Why should I?" Dorothy scremed, her face still wet with tears.
"You don't care about me anyway!"
"Dorothy, if I didn't care, I wouldn't have bothered to chase you
up here, would I? Look, I was only upset because you went against my
specific request. That doesn't mean I don't care about you. In fact,
just the opposite, Dorothy. I ask you not to do these things because I
love you." He felt like he was pleading with her. She was fourteen,
and was beginning to feel the need to realize her own identity, independent
of her father. Well, he wasn't going to try to develop an iron fist. He
knew that would only cause Dorothy to hate him, and to try to hurt him, to
pull farther away from him, and that could lead her down paths he did not
want her to follow.
"Go away," Dorothy said. "I don't want you here."
"All right," came her father's voice through the door. "I'm
going to leave you alone, just like you want." He turned from the door and
returned down the hallway, pausing at the top of the stairs leading down. He
sighed and hoped, against all odds, that she would realize that he really did
love her. He would let her do what she wanted, but certain thigns were just
off-limits. He descended the stairs hoping he had handled the situation
correctly. Freedom was a tough issue with a fourteen-year old daughter.
Dorothy threw herself onto her bed, still fuming about her
father's arrogance. She grabbed Fluffy, her childhood teddy bear, and held
him up in front of her face. "Who is he to tell me what to do?" she asked.
Fluffy didn't answer. "Why does he get to be the father? That's not fair."
She breathed deeply and exhaled angrily. "Rrrrr!" she growled. "I'm so
mad!" Dorothy thought to throw Fluffy against the wall, but changed her
mind. Fluffy hadn't done anything wrong. Instead, she lashed out at her
pillow, punching it and swinging it into the wall. With each exertion of
energy, she let out a loud grunt and grew a bit more tired.
After a dozen or so grunts, her weariness overtook her and she
slumped onto her bed. Frustrated, Dorothy held Fluffy to her chest and began
to sob. Thoughts raced through her mind... thoughts of her father's stupid
face, of her deliberately disobeying him (she knew deep inside, she was wrong
to go with her friends), of her mother before she had died, of how she had
hugged Dorothy whenever she cried and told her everything would be all right.
"Mom, why can't you be here now?" she cried. "I want to hug you." But her
mother didn't answer. "Wherever you are, Mom, I love you. And I miss you."
Dorothy sighed and wept a little longer, but her emotions were slowly growing
less intense. She held on tightly to her bear.
"I'll bet Mom would've let me go to the party," she told
Fluffy. "She didn't hate me," Dorothy continued, obviously implying
that her father did hate her. She lay on her side, holding Fluffy so
she could look him in the eyes. She scratched the worn fur on top of his
head. "Feels like carpet," she said, "but it's not fluffy." She frowned
slightly. Then she examined the scratches on Fluffy's round plastic eyes.
"You've been through a lot there, Fluffy," she said. Dorothy rubbed her
thumb over the scratches, as if that would fix them. Nothing happened.
"Looks like you've learned a few lessons about what can hurt you, huh?"
Dorothy grinned. "But it's too bad you can't get rid of the scratch marks."
She thought about it a little bit and added, "But it gives you character."
She smiled at her teddy bear friend and hugged him once again. "I like you
that way."
Maybe her dad wasn't so bad after all. Maybe he was
really trying to protect her from getting scratched. But just going to one
party... Dorothy still didn't see anything wrong with that. She let out a
sigh and played with Fluffy's ear. It was the only ear he had left after all
these years. Dorothy had basically chewed the other one out of existence
while she was teething. "But if I go down there and say I'm sorry..." she
felt ashamed just thinking about it. "What should I do, Fluffy?" Fluffy
didn't answer. "He's a dad, he'll just scold me," she said. "That's what
dads are for, anyway."
Dorothy rose from her bed and looked in her mirror. She saw a
girl who wanted to tell her father she loved him. A girl who was afraid to
do so. Dorothy took a deep breath, wiped the tears from her eyes, and ran
her fingers through her hair, trying to tease it into looking at least
presentable.
She walked to her door and slowly turned the knob. She swung the
door open and was about to step into the hallway when something on the floor
caught her eye. It was a piece of notebook paper, folded once. "Hmm," she
said, wondering what it could be. Dorothy stooped and picked it up,
unfolding it as she stood. A smile slowly spread across her face as she read
its message:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I may be upset,
But I still love you!
-- Dad
Dorothy strode down the hall and downstairs. As she entered the
kitchen, she recognized the smell of cooking rice, and saw her father at the
stove, with his back to her. "I love you, too, Dad," she said, loud enough
so he could hear her, but not so loud that she would seem overly anxious.
Her father turned to look at her, still stirring the rice with
his left hand. "Do you know why I was upset with you?" he asked in a
friendly tone.
"Yeah," Dorothy replied, letting her eyes drop to the linoleum
floor. "I... I'm sorry."
Dorothy's father said a silent thank-you that she had sought him
out on her own. He was proud of her. She could have just as easily kept on
screaming about how much she hated him. But he would always love her.
"I'll always love you, Dorothy," he said. "And I'll always worry
about you. And it may not make sense to you now, but when I say no about
something, it's not just because I want to ruin your fun. Someday I know
you'll realize that I say no because I love you. I've been about where you
are, and I learned a lot of things the hard way. I suppose you will, too,
but I don't want you to go through the same pain I had to." He gave her a
warm look. "I forgive you for disobeying me."
Dorothy had never seen her father quite like she saw him now.
Was that a tear in his eye? It amazed her to think that he had ever been
anything but just her dad. He was right. She didn't understand. But she
trusted him-- he'd been a pretty decent parent since Mom had died. And
Dorothy knew he loved her. Dad just didn't seem to make sense sometimes, but
he still loved her.
Dorothy went to her father and put her arms around his chest.
She smiled and thought of Mom. "Can I stir the rice?" she asked.