Cautiously, Laura investigated room numbers, half expecting him to burst from his room and discover her unprepared. After a few false starts she found 1402 and standing there, looking at that door, she felt an enormous need to cry. She shut her eyes hard and said softly, “I won’t, I won’t.” Then she opened them, and, with her heart in her mouth, she rapped on the door.
The noise sounded huge. For a moment she wanted to run. But she didn’t. He mustn’t see me looking panicky, she thought. She listened. There was no sound audible. Maybe he’s not in. Oh, dear God, maybe he left. She didn’t know whether to exult or despair. If I don’t face him now, I’ll never be able to face myself, she thought. I’ll never stand alone. I’ve got to tell him everything. She felt desperate at the thought of having to go and search him out, to win her freedom from him. The hope that she had missed him, that he had already left for Chicago, was too sweet to banish.
She was ready to flee when the door swung open, without any preliminary sounds to warn her. She blanched uncontrollably and found herself looking at her father’s feet. Very slowly, she looked up the rest of him to his face. There was a slight frown on his heavy features but he wasn’t at all surprised. He let her stand there until she was miserably uncomfortable, and then—only then—he spoke.
“Come in,” he said. Not “Hello, Laura.” He spoke as if she might have been the maid come to clean his room. He stepped aside slightly to permit her to walk past him. She clutched herself in her arms, fearful of touching him as she brushed past, and walked quickly across the room to a half open window on the opposite side. She looked resolutely out at the city, afraid to let him see her face.
The minute I look at him, I’ll cry. I’ll do some damn silly weak thing, and he’ll lord it over me, and I’ll wind up promising to go home to Chicago with him. I can’t look at him. Not yet.
She listened to him moving around the room behind her and felt his eyes on her. But he said nothing. After a few moments, Laura could stand it no longer. She knew he was laughing at her. Not with his voice or his lips, but silently, inside. She turned and looked for him. He was standing across the room, his enormous back planted against the wall, his arms folded over his chest, studying her. She flinched a little, seeing his face.
“I never knew before,” he said slowly, savoring it, “how fast you could run.” He gave her a slight sardonic smile.
Laura felt her insides turn to water. Her face was white and set as plaster. She forced herself to return his gaze.
“I never knew you could swear, either,” he said. “Especially at me. As a matter of fact, I doubt whether you can, now that we’re face to face.”
It was a dare. Laura, stung, felt a flush of resistance come up in her. “If I do,” she said, “you’ll beat me. That’s your answer to everything.”
“It always worked before,” he said, mocking her.
“It worked so well that it drove me out of your house forever. It made me hate you, Father.”
“You don’t need to spell it for me, Laura. I get the idea.”
She hated his sarcasm! Her hatred flowed in her now and revived her spirit. “Is that what you wanted? To make me hate you?” she asked. “Because you’ve done a fine job. A masterful job.”
“Thanks. I’m glad we agree on one thing anyway.” He stood immovable, still smiling slightly.
He wants to drive me frantic. He wants me to end up on my knees, incoherent. Kissing his feet. God damn him! He doesn’t care what he says as long as it’ll drive me wild.
“I must say, you took a prosaic way out, Laura. Running away is no way to solve a problem. Running away to New York is the classic cliché. There are a lot of you here in New York, you know. Silly little girls who left one set of problems at home for another set in the big city.”
Laura turned her back on him. I won’t even answer him. If I could just hurt him somehow. Hurt him like he hurts me. What would hurt him the worst? Mother. My Mother.
“Did you slap my mother around the way you do me?” she asked him abruptly.
At this his smile faded and his face grew very hard. “Your mother never deserved it,” he said.
“Neither did I,” she retorted. “As far as I can see.”
“You are notoriously shortsighted, my darling daughter.”
“And you, Father, are blind.” Her face flushed.
Again he smiled, but his smile frightened her. “What have you been doing, Laura, that gives you such intestinal fortitude in the face of such obvious physical risk?”
She wanted to scream at him, “I hate you! I hate your Goddamn sophisticated sarcasm!” But she only said tersely, “I have a job. I have some nice friends. I have money in the bank. I have a life of my own without you. I have a little confidence I never had before.” They were all lies, that started out so beautifully true. Almost all lies, anyway. But she had flung them in his face, and now he was not sure. He studied her. “Those are the problems I came to face in New York, Father. Nothing could ever persuade me to trade them for the ones at home.” If I didn’t hate him so much I couldn’t do it. He started out wrong, trying to drive me in a corner. He gave me a chance without realizing it.
He moved away from the wall then, his face registering contemptuous
