Invisible(16)

“She thinks she’s invisible,” Lara explained to him one day.

“Invisible? That’s ridiculous. What makes her think that?”

“I don’t know. I get the feeling that she thinks it’s what you want, never to be bothered by her. She’s afraid you’ll get mad at her and send her away.”

He looked shocked. “Why would I do that? I’ve hardly ever gotten angry at her.”

“I think it’s a leftover from another time, when it was safer not to be seen.” Antonia had told her about her parents’ fights, but Lara didn’t share that with him.

“I used to feel that way about Fabienne. I just stayed at the office as late as I could. It’s a habit I’ve never managed to break since.” He worked long hours, as Lara knew too. She had to wrestle with him to get him to leave the office and spend an evening with her.

“She didn’t have that option so she hid, and convinced herself she was invisible. And that way she felt safe.”

“And now?” he asked. He was getting to know his daughter through Lara, and she was a competent interpreter. More so, because she liked them both.

    “You said it yourself, old habits are hard to break. She feels invisible at school too. She feels different from the other kids. She looks younger and she’s not in a clique of mean girls, and she’s been embarrassed for years not to have a mother. You know how kids are. They can be hard on each other.”

“I felt that way about not having a dad at a boys’ school,” he said, looking misty-eyed at the memory. He hadn’t thought it would affect Antonia as much, but clearly it had. “Antonia and I really don’t know each other,” he said sadly. “Maybe we’ll do better when she grows up.”

“You don’t have much time left,” Lara reminded him gently. “She’s almost there. High school will fly by, and then she’ll be gone, in college, and she won’t come back much. I never did.” She had fled her depressing home as soon as she could.

“My mother died when I was in college so I never got the chance to come back. There was no one to come back to,” Brandon said. She realized then, more than ever before, that he had lived in a state of emotional deprivation for years, and then Fabienne had come along and blown him wide open, and burned him badly while he was vulnerable, and he had been shut down ever since. It was terrible luck for Antonia. Lara was trying to slowly pry him open, for his sake and her own, but it was a hard battle she hadn’t won yet, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever succeed. Fabienne had done a lot of damage before she left. But as long as they were dating, Lara continued to chip away at him. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But he made several awkward attempts at conversation with Antonia, and was surprised at how much he learned about her, particularly when they talked about films. She always drew the parallels with real life and was amazingly astute, just as Lara had said. She didn’t seem to disappear quite as often, especially when Lara was around. Their growing friendship touched him, more than he wanted to admit.



* * *



—

    In the summer before her sophomore year in high school, Antonia, who would be turning fifteen in August, went away to camp in Maine for two months. Her father had sent her there every summer, ever since her mother had left. He didn’t know what else to do with her. It was a sailing camp and she was a good sailor, but she admitted to Lara before she left that she didn’t want to go, didn’t enjoy it, and felt like an outcast there, but her father insisted on sending her every year.

“I’m terrible at team sports,” she confessed. “I’m too small and I’m lousy at sports anyway, so no one wants me on their team. Softball, baseball, touch football, field hockey, I suck at all of it. I always make the swimming team, but that’s about it. They draw straws about who’s on what team, and the losers get me. And honestly, I don’t really care if they win or lose.”

“So you become invisible again while you’re at camp?” Lara asked her, and Antonia grinned.

“Yeah. I guess. I don’t want to go again next year, but he’ll probably make me.”

    Lara passed the information on to Brandon, but it didn’t do much good.

“What else am I going to do with her in the summer? I only take two weeks off myself, and when I do, I need a break. I can’t entertain a kid for two months, while I’m working. I’ve had her on my own since she was seven. I’ve been sending her to camp ever since, and it’s one of the best. Kids even come from Europe to go there.”

“Maybe so, but she hates it. None of them want her on their sports teams. The only thing she likes to do there is swim and sail.”

“I know. She’s told me that every year.” For eight years.

“You could take a little more time off and rent a house somewhere. You’ve said yourself that she’s good at entertaining herself.”

“Renting summer houses is what married people do. I’m a single man with an almost fifteen-year-old daughter. She’s better off at camp for two months, with other kids and lots of planned activities.” But Lara didn’t agree. She was doing something more exciting herself, and going to Greece for three weeks, with friends, as she did every year, to Spetses, a romantic, rustic, tiny island she’d fallen in love with years before. And she was going away with him for two weeks to Shelter Island, to stay in a house he had borrowed from friends who were going to Europe. He was upset about her going to Greece, but didn’t want to complain. He had a busy work summer ahead, and she didn’t want to sit in the sweltering city waiting for him.