Artist's Daughter, The: A Memoir by Alexandra Kuykendall Page B
Authors: Alexandra Kuykendall
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of holding it in, and it came out right here with an audience of fifteen. I wanted a chance to do it over, to come off presentable, collected.
Derek came up to me and tried to be nice. He remembers saying, “I had no idea. About your dad.” All I remember was thinking he was thoughtful and hoping I would become camouflaged by the sofa I was sitting on.
So, doubly embarrassed, I sat in the passenger seat of the van and tried to think how I could redeem my image in front of this very cool guy. I was thankful to have one-on-one time with him, but I could think of about a thousand different ways I would have liked it to come about. Ways that involved him initiating rather than responding to my crisis.
Ever since that football player in Olympia spoke, I’d had an image of a man who would love and take care of me. A man who was stable and kind and principled. All through college I’d prayed for God to send me someone to protect me. Someone to start a family with, to share in my new beginning. I knew Derek had that potential, but I didn’t want him to see these needy parts that were already seeping out, spilling in front of him in a big mess. I was still trying hard to hold it in.
iii Secrets
L isa and I sat in the parked car, putting off reentering the chaos of life in the community, or “on the block,” the term we used to describe the cluster of homes that made up the Dale House Project. We’d been away for an hour—a trip to get a soda and a temporary reprieve for her from her identity as a group home kid.
Lisa sat next to me not moving, and I sensed she wanted me to keep pushing the conversation. She held her large cup of soda in her hand, and I could hear the ice clink as she shifted her weight in the passenger’s seat. We’d had similar conversations before, and she’d blown off my questions with a sarcastic “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I wanted her to believe she was worth pursuing, so I repeated my words: “You can tell me what happened.”
Lisa looked at me out of the side of her eyes, smirking. She knew she held power in that moment, a rare feeling for her.
I wanted us to be close, to be her big sister figure, for her to like me. In some ways I was like a five-foot-two, 110-pound, white-girl puppy running circles around her, wanting her approval. She was offering me perspective on my own disappointments; her life washelping me better understand mine. She was finishing her sentence with the courts for assault, and her anger spewed everywhere—in her spiteful comments, her physical posturing, telling anyone who would listen she would hurt them before they had a chance to hurt her. I knew this kind of overflowing anger had a story behind it. I suspected I knew what it was in general terms, but I wanted her to trust me with the details.
Lisa shifted her weight again. Her body carried many extra pounds, she may have weighed almost double what I did, and her dark brown face was covered in acne. She smelled of a combination of ripe body odor and cigarette smoke. Her hair fell out of its ponytail around her face like a halo of frizzy curls. I suspected her poor self-care was evidence of past sexual abuse, her way of guaranteeing no one would be attracted to her like that again. But she hadn’t confirmed my suspicions. Yet.
“You can trust me,” I said.
Her smirk didn’t go away. I knew those words sounded cheap. Trust? What was that to a seventeen-year-old girl who’d been abandoned by the world? Who tried to hide in a body of fat and stench to protect herself? Who looked at me with my size 2 jeans and seemingly perfect life? How could she ever trust me? But I had been working for months at being consistent with her. Making small promises and following through. Taking her on trips, like this one to get a soda, to listen for the feelings behind her words and affirm them. Driving her to her GED tests and picking her up with an excited “How’d it go?” Doing my twenty-two-year-old best to
Derek came up to me and tried to be nice. He remembers saying, “I had no idea. About your dad.” All I remember was thinking he was thoughtful and hoping I would become camouflaged by the sofa I was sitting on.
So, doubly embarrassed, I sat in the passenger seat of the van and tried to think how I could redeem my image in front of this very cool guy. I was thankful to have one-on-one time with him, but I could think of about a thousand different ways I would have liked it to come about. Ways that involved him initiating rather than responding to my crisis.
Ever since that football player in Olympia spoke, I’d had an image of a man who would love and take care of me. A man who was stable and kind and principled. All through college I’d prayed for God to send me someone to protect me. Someone to start a family with, to share in my new beginning. I knew Derek had that potential, but I didn’t want him to see these needy parts that were already seeping out, spilling in front of him in a big mess. I was still trying hard to hold it in.
iii Secrets
L isa and I sat in the parked car, putting off reentering the chaos of life in the community, or “on the block,” the term we used to describe the cluster of homes that made up the Dale House Project. We’d been away for an hour—a trip to get a soda and a temporary reprieve for her from her identity as a group home kid.
Lisa sat next to me not moving, and I sensed she wanted me to keep pushing the conversation. She held her large cup of soda in her hand, and I could hear the ice clink as she shifted her weight in the passenger’s seat. We’d had similar conversations before, and she’d blown off my questions with a sarcastic “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I wanted her to believe she was worth pursuing, so I repeated my words: “You can tell me what happened.”
Lisa looked at me out of the side of her eyes, smirking. She knew she held power in that moment, a rare feeling for her.
I wanted us to be close, to be her big sister figure, for her to like me. In some ways I was like a five-foot-two, 110-pound, white-girl puppy running circles around her, wanting her approval. She was offering me perspective on my own disappointments; her life washelping me better understand mine. She was finishing her sentence with the courts for assault, and her anger spewed everywhere—in her spiteful comments, her physical posturing, telling anyone who would listen she would hurt them before they had a chance to hurt her. I knew this kind of overflowing anger had a story behind it. I suspected I knew what it was in general terms, but I wanted her to trust me with the details.
Lisa shifted her weight again. Her body carried many extra pounds, she may have weighed almost double what I did, and her dark brown face was covered in acne. She smelled of a combination of ripe body odor and cigarette smoke. Her hair fell out of its ponytail around her face like a halo of frizzy curls. I suspected her poor self-care was evidence of past sexual abuse, her way of guaranteeing no one would be attracted to her like that again. But she hadn’t confirmed my suspicions. Yet.
“You can trust me,” I said.
Her smirk didn’t go away. I knew those words sounded cheap. Trust? What was that to a seventeen-year-old girl who’d been abandoned by the world? Who tried to hide in a body of fat and stench to protect herself? Who looked at me with my size 2 jeans and seemingly perfect life? How could she ever trust me? But I had been working for months at being consistent with her. Making small promises and following through. Taking her on trips, like this one to get a soda, to listen for the feelings behind her words and affirm them. Driving her to her GED tests and picking her up with an excited “How’d it go?” Doing my twenty-two-year-old best to
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