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The first word out of his mouth when he got home, nine times out of ten - as it was this time - was my name -
"Peanut?"
followed very quickly by, "I'm home, babygirl."
- or one of his nicknames for me - almost unfailingly. Peanut or Biz or Bizzie. Always warmly expectant, inviting, loving - reveling in me - who I really am, for him and him alone - with just those four words - two of which were endearing terms for me.
I wanted to answer him soooo much! The parts of my mind that had been dampened and overwhelmed - rudely shoved to the back of my consciousness and held there, bound and gagged, by other, much less pleasant parts - wanted me to intone excitedly, "Daddy!" - my legs wanted me to run to him, arms open and up to him from my very first step, to move blindly towards him with a little's tunnel vision, seeing and hearing nothing but him, absolutely certain of my welcome once I got there, where I would be lifted and swung around once, probably, then settled against him to wrap my legs around his waist, his hands lacing beneath my bottom, as he said, "There's my Peanut!" and kissed the end of my nose loudly.
But I just couldn't.
As much as I wanted to, it wasn't going to happen. It couldn't happen.
Instead of accepting what I knew damned well was my due from him, I huddled myself tighter together in the dark, hugging my knees and laying my head atop them, rocking myself as much as I could from habit, yet wholly unable to glean any solace from doing so.
I could hear him walking calmly through our house, performing his evening ablutions methodically as always - and calling my name occasionally, inquisitively, but not in any kind of panic.
"How can I sing the 'Found My Peanut' song if I can't find my Peanut?" he asked whimsically at one point, I think from the dining room. I had tortured him one lazy Sunday afternoon after he'd begun calling me that by singing to him - all nine thousand verses from memory - the nauseatingly repetitive children's song "Found a Peanut".
But I remained as I was - where I was - as I could now only be for however long it gripped me - silent and alone.
Eventually, he came into the bedroom, and the usual thrill I felt - even when I was little - at being so close to him was suppressed horribly and turned into something wrong - I was uncomfortable feeling that good - incapable of really experiencing or feeling in any way the love I knew felt for him - or what I knew he felt for me.
Numb, but definitely not comfortably so.
And never, ever enough not to worry terribly about the fact that I was behaving this way, and how that might make him feel about me - how it might make him feel neglected or despised - how that might drive him away from me at some point - lose me his love . . . which, of course, only compounded those awful feelings that had stealthily taken me over and reduced me to nothingness.
I heard him sit down on the bed. Clunk. One uncomfortable dress shoe off, and an almost comically relieved sigh. Then clunk - the other. I could see him - in my mind's eye, much too dispassionately - loosening then removing his tie, then shouldering out of his suit coat, absently unbuttoning shirt as he probably ran lines in his head or wrote a grocery list or planned the next time he was going to surprise me with something wonderful, like going horseback riding with him, or taking me out to our favorite restaurant or kidnapping me from work to go to a matinee of the latest little movie he knew I wanted to see.
There was no telling with him what his agile mind might be contemplating, although, even now, in the state that I was in, I was very aware that it was quite likely that - at any given time - he would be thinking about me or something related to me.
I knew his after-work routine so well that I recognized the slightly squeaky old bureau drawers opening right on cue.
If I was more myself, I would have bet that he was retrieving a comfortable blue t-shirt that would bring out his eyes and cling distractingly to his muscles and yoga pants that would do nothing whatever to hide his masculinity, both of which he would don immediately.
And then he turned and walked the exactly three steps - for him - to the closet to put his clothes away.
One side of our sliding door closet - where all of my clothes were hanging neatly, as prescribed by him - slid open slowly and although he didn't have any clothes there, nor his tie rack, he put everything away there anyway.
Tie first, then shirt, then the suit itself.
I knew he knew I was there, and he knew I knew he was there. But he also knew I couldn't bear for him to acknowledge me in any way at this point, so he didn't. And I never once so much as looked up at him.
I didn't really have to. I knew he had given me the once over as soon as the door opened enough for him to do so, to determine that I was conscious and that there was no obvious bleeding or broken bones, although I suspect that he already knew that neither of those types of situations was the reason for my unusual choice of locale. Unfortunately - fortunately? - my Daddy was familiar with my occasional need to hide myself away from even the wonderful, safe, loving environment he worked so hard to create for me in our home.
My wounds were internal - on the back of my skin and my heart, scrawled in acid on the inside walls of my skull. And sometimes they made me like this - unable to accept any part of the unbridled love and joy he usually brought to me. Unable to even believe something like that, something that good, that pure, that positive - someone that good, that pure, that positive - even existed - for me, anyway.
My Daddy - who was the personification of every bit of all of that good stuff in my life and who I still could barely believe that I had the right to call Daddy - unfailingly believed that I always deserved all of that and more.
Mostly, I'm fine. But he totally understood and accepted and what's more - knows what to do - during those times when I cant believe it for myself, and had done so right from the beginning of our relationship.
I had told him - not long after we became intimate - that I had been abused when I was young, but that I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.
He had been and always was exquisitely understanding, and adhered scrupulously to my desire not to discuss it.
But he did bring it up himself - once and only once - a day or two after I'd told him, only long enough to hold me tightly in his arms in our big bed that evening and say, "If you ever want to talk about it to me, about anything, I hope you know that I'm here for you. You're always teasing me, saying that I'm a very busy man, but I want you to know and never doubt that you are my primary business."
That was the origin of him giving me other nicknames - Biz or Bizzie - because I was his Business.
He had held my chin so that I had to meet his eyes, and gave me a very serious look. "And, along those lines, I want you to know that, if you get so that you're feeling . . . " he searched for the right word, "distraught like you sometimes do, and you really need me, or if you're sick and you really need me, or whatever, I will always come to you. I will always be here for you.
"If I'm in China on a shoot or a press tour, and you call me and say you need me, I'll be on the next flight home to you." He frowned a little. "But I'm not always able to answer my phone - we should have a code word that you can use, any time, anywhere. Hmmm, what should it be, I wonder?" He tapped his finger against his lips like he did sometimes when he was thinking hard about something that was important to him.
Then it struck him.
"If, when you call, you don't get me, for whatever reason, you should call my assistant and just say the word 'Peanut'. You don't have to chit chat politely or anything. I'll make sure she or he knows that if you should ever, ever, ever call and say that, that they're to come get me out of whatever I'm doing no matter what it is - a rehearsal, a table read, or an interview, I don't care. Whatever I'm doing at the time, they're to come get me, even if I'm on stage at the Donmar, in the middle of Coriolanus, they're to take me away right in front of Mark and Hadley and the entire audience. I don't care about them; I care about you, and I'll leave them all mid-soliloquy to come to you."
I don't think I'd ever been as touched by anything anyone had ever said to me in my life as I was by this. That he would say that to me - that a man who lived for his work would just drop it at my whim . . . And I had absolutely no doubt that he meant every word.
Big or little, though, I would never, ever do that unless I was dying - and even then I'd have to think long and hard about it - but it was enough for the both of us to know that that was how he felt.
And, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, though, he had tilted his chin down to look out at me from under drawn eyebrows, both his tone and expression rife with warning, "And woe betide you, little one, if I ever find out that you did need me like that, and you didn't call me. I will tan your hide with my belt." Sometimes, when neither of us was expecting it, a little bit of Hank's drawl came out, but he paid no never mind to it. Instead, he gave me that chin notched slightly down look that made my parts and my bottom tingle. "Am I making myself perfectly clear? You are not to hesitate to call me."
Really trying not to mentally cross my fingers, I had nodded big. "Yes, Daddy."
Sometimes him knowing me that well was not an advantage.
Now, though, he went on with his routine as he knew I wanted him to, leaving everything the same except that he left that side's closet door open when he walked away.
It was a little thing - in more than one way - and I was, of course, free to close it again if I liked. He wouldn't be angry or anything if I did, but I never had.
Again I could hear him padding through our house and it was disturbing to hear those familiar sounds, because I couldn't be comforted by them or anything else.
I wasn't worth comforting in my current state. I couldn't tolerate it, so I tuned it out.
Even when he came back into the room and squatted lithely down at that open door, leaning around it to gaze at me with what I knew had to be a soft, inviting smile.
I still couldn't look at him, but he didn't care whether I did or not.
And I still knew that smile was there. It was even in his soft, loving voice.
"Hey, Peanut. You know you don't have to say anything right now if you don't want to, but you also know I'm going to ask you one thing and you must nod your head yes or no, then you don't have to say or do anything else you don't want to. Are you okay?"
He meant, "Are you sick? Are you in pain? Is there anything serious going on that I need to know about?"
I shook my head.
"Brave girl," he praised quietly. "Thank you for that."
He left again, but a few minutes later, around the open corner of the door came a beautiful, elegantly masculine hand that left two small things for me within easy reach. One was a tiny plastic container of Honey Nut Cheerios. The other was my favorite Tinkerbell cup, full of milk.
"Finger food for my little one, just to keep body and soul together," he stage whispered through the door as I heard him settle himself onto the carpet just outside the closet, against the wall we shared, in a neutral, unobtrusive spot and position.
I could hear him munching on his own Cheerios and that made me feel the tiniest bit better, which, in turn, made me feel just that much worse.
I don't know how long we sat there like that. He never moved. Never grew angry. Never complained that all he was doing with his highly valuable time was sitting outside a closet in which his wife - who was barely four years old at the time - was huddled, alone, on the floor, in the dark.
I had been working up to it all that time - fighting myself tooth and nail every inch of the way to be able to do it - and finally I was able to say it.
"D-Daddy?" I whispered tentatively, my voice a hollow shadow of its usual vibrancy, especially when I was speaking to him.
"Yes, Baby?" he responded immediately.
"You - " I was struggling so hard to get the words out through the roadblocks in my own mind that they came out in a garbled rush, "youdon'thavetostayherewithme."
But, of course, he knew exactly what I was trying to say. "Aw, thank you, love, but if this is where you need to be, then it's where I need to be, too."
I knew that was what he was going to say - that was what he always said any time I was feeling particularly fragile and feeling like I didn't deserve him or his attention.
"But you - you have 'portant things to do," I whispered raggedly, throat clogged with tears.
He answered with no hesitation whatsoever and with absolute sincerity. "No one and nothing in this world is more important to me than you are, little girl."
I couldn't hold back a sob at that, but even then he remained where he was, although he shifted so that he was sitting along side me, still on the other side of the closed door. I could hear him lean his forehead against the door itself, his fingers running up and down the wood, as if he was trying to soothe me through it.
Another long spate during which I sobbed softly, partly because I knew how hard it was for him to hear me crying and not be able to do anything about it. I knew how he ached to wrap me in his strong arms and make everything all right for me again.
It was one of the hardest things about being this way for me, too - that he couldn't.
I knew he'd reached his limit when the door slid open, just enough that his hand could reach in and just lay there, palm up, then he closed it again on his wrist.
"I'm getting' kinda lonely out here, my darling girl. Would you be willing to hold my hand to make me feel less alone?" he asked softly. "It's okay if you can't, though. I understand."
Nothing more than that. I was completely free to refuse to offer him the comfort he both sought from me and offered to me at the same time.
And at first I did, for a long time.
But my Daddy was almost always very patient with me and his hand remained exactly where it was.
Except that sometimes his fingers had minds of their own, and they would wiggle and cross and uncross and feel around him as if it was exploring a new planet, and splay, all of a sudden, sometimes, as if scared . . .
He almost got me to laugh a couple of times.
And I wanted to hate him for it.
But I couldn't.
Then he curled his index finger as if beckoning me, although he couldn't see me.
Every once in a while, in between trying to make me laugh with his antics, he'd do that.
And, eventually, I couldn't keep my left hand - my closest hand - from inching towards his slowly, although he couldn't see my advance, of course.
So as soon as my fingertips touch his gingerly, his hand stiffened in great surprise, then fainted dramatically over onto its back.
And I chuckled once.
I couldn't help it.
My hand braved his apparently dead one, until my fingers lay across his palm. But he did not clasp my hand.
I leaned over and picked up his fingers, trying to close them around me, but they just fell limply back.
Not until I wrapped mine around his did he respond in kind, very gently and carefully, squeezing them tight, just once, then holding on.
I heard his cell phone ring from somewhere in the house and stiffened, trying to let go of his hand so he could go answer it, but he didn't so much as flinch. I was trying to let go of him, but his hold on me never waivered.
"Whoever it is can wait, babylove," he intoned. "My little girl needs me, and I'm not going anywhere until she feels lots, lots better."
I want to whimper a watery "thank you" but can't.
Another long, silent stretch, but this time with the undeniable, unavoidable aid of his thumb lazily rubbing over mine and the occasional fortifying squeeze from fingers that remained stubbornly wrapped around mine.
It didn't even register at all, really, when a finger from his other hand crooked its way around the small opening in the door that his hand occupied, opening it just a tad more at first, then a bit more than that, until there was no longer anything between us at all.
And I was surprised to realize that I was okay with that.
And that I was right, too. Blue t-shirt and soft black pants, close enough now that I could smell him - not just his familiar cologne, but him.
Daddy.
My Daddy.
And then I began to notice - again, with no real sense of alarm or concern - that he was inching himself slowly, very slowly, into the closet with me, moving in glacial increments, but definitely moving, still.
Suddenly, he was sitting next to me, and then he drew the closet door closed on the both of us.
"Ah, much better," he breathed.
I kinda thought he was lying, though, because, when I'm in the closet, I'm short enough that the clothes don't really bother me - they were mostly his, since this was his side of the closet. But Daddy - even sitting like this - was tall enough that he was practically wearing one of my blouses, breathing in the clothes that literally surrounded his beautiful head.
So he reached one long arm up and pushed our clothes down the pole a ways, giving himself a bit more room.
"It's much cozier in here with you than out in our big bedroom by myself."
I didn't say anything, but he was used to that, his big hand finding mine again and lacing our fingers together, holding our hands on his thigh as he stretched those wondrously long legs of his out in front of him, his feet playing bulldozer to our shoes, until he was more comfortable.
We were still a bit cramped, but in a nice way.
Eventually I had to move and the only place for me to go, really, was to turn to kind of lean against his side. It was only natural, then, that his arm came around me to hold me there, his other hand immediately taking its place clasping my hand.
With the subtle - and not so subtle - encouragement of that arm around me, it didn't take me very long at all from there to land where he'd wanted me to be all along - on his lap - cradled with infinite tenderness and love.
He didn't crow about it, he didn't even acknowledge it, really, although, when I'd settled myself against him, except he did lean down to whisper softly into my ear, "I finally found my Peanut."
And when I began to cry at that, he didn't try to stop me. He just let me cry within the safety and security of his arms, knowing that this was the epitome of safety for me - to be held by this him, even if I didn't think I deserved it at the time, even if I didn't think I could do it.
He could.
He could do it for me - watch over me attentively, support me quietly, and accept me completely - until I could.
And beyond
He'd proven it time and again. Never a recrimination, never a harsh word, never berating me about these times when I lose myself, lose my way to him, and he has to hack his way through the darkness that lives in me, that makes me seek out real darkness even though I'm terrified of it, to guide me back to where I'm supposed to be.
In the sunshine, with him.
In the warm, private sunshine that is him, to me.
I think I fell asleep on top of him for a bit, probably just after I stopped crying, and as he was slowly, hypnotically stroking my hair.
And when I awoke, his hand was still stroking my hair.
"Did you have a good nap, babygirl?" came the hushed question, soft lips against my forehead, and I nodded automatically, rubbing my hands over my eyes.
"Time for some dinner?" he asked, brushing my hair away from my face, and again, I knew it would be perfectly fine if I said refused, but I didn't have to do that any more.
I didn't need to hide away from the world any more - he'd healed me, patching up my heart and my mind yet again.
Selflessly, patiently, lovingly.
"Since you're feeling a bit delicate, what if Daddy treats you and makes you hot dogs and Kraft mac and cheese for dinner?"
He never let me eat things like that. On my birthday, I could eat anything I wanted, for a full twenty-four hours. Otherwise, I was only allowed to eat healthy foods - with the very occasional dessert treat.
"Really?" I asked, feeling enthusiastic about something for the first time in what seemed like forever, and smiling up at him, as if for the first time.
Daddy's finger lifted my chin, and I could see the relief on his face that I seemed to be better - happy, even. "Honey, for that smile, I'm getting off cheap. I would do just about anything to see you smile like that at me."
He opened the door slowly and helped me up first, almost lifting me with my hand in his and his other hand on my bottom supportively, then, as he unfolded himself and stepped out of the closet, he reached down to pick up my mug and the tiny container.
They were both empty, of course, as he had to have known they would be.
With that, he began to walk with me towards our kitchen, his big hand on my bottom, patting it encouragingly as he beamed down at me.