John Williams stared morosely out the window. It was raining again. He remembered so well how Sarah used to enjoy the rain. Sometimes, as a child, she would come home splattered with mud merely because she hadn't the sense to leave the park when the sky opened up and sheets of water fell. She caught cold often when young, but she was strong and wiry, a little tomboy who loved playing make-believe games with the neighborhood children. Before her growth spurt had started turning her into a woman, she had always wanted to play male characters. She didn't want to be the rescued heroine. She wanted to do the rescuing.
That had all changed when Sarah turned twelve, received her first bra, and her mother left the house. John knew he was partly to blame. With no one running the household he had imposed upon Sarah the feminine role, having her take over what previously her mother had grudgingly done. Except with his daughter, John Williams allowed no griping. Cooking, cleaning, simple housework were now part of her daily life along with schoolwork. There was less time for games of bravery, of heroic spirit. That was when she stopped playing Robin Hood and began to be Maid Marian.
He hadn't minded. One didn't present a little tomboy with dusty knees at office parties. The men at the office had all fathered little ladies, and John was determined to be like them now that he had lost his trump card—his theatre wife. Men had always watched Linda Williams wherever she went. John thought they were good for each other—his stability to her rashness and head for excitement. He thought he could ground her a little, and when that didn't work he thought maybe having a child could give her more of a sense of responsibility. All it did was throw their lives into even more chaos. Sarah grew up halfway motherless, for Linda was often in the City doing what she loved best—acting.
John Williams stared at the family portrait, a large 11x13 hanging on the wall. Sarah wasn't in it; it had been taken just several months before. Toby was growing, he had to admit. The boy wasn't a baby anymore. John worried. Where had he gone wrong with Sarah? What had happened? Would the same thing happen with Toby, too?
Boys had never been a part of Sarah's life. That was one thing that had saved her from being found out before she told them. Didn't even tell them, really. The memories were too painful to think about. John poured himself a shot of the kirschwasser that Karen so frowned upon, propped it on his soft stomach, and settled into the leather armchair staring morosely out at the rain. His mind rolled back months, as in a form of mental masochism he remembered what had happened on the day Karen came to him with her suspicions….
"John, listen to me!"
"Karen, I know the two of you don't get along, but that's no reason for you to come complaining to me. What happened this time? Another fight?"
"John, I think she's pregnant."
He laughed and shook his head. "Are you crazy? Sarah? She doesn't even date!"
She narrowed her eyes, unwilling to let this go. "So she says. John. For the past few months she's spent all her time up in her room. She refuses to go anywhere, even to the park or the library. She comes down to meals with swollen eyes when she comes at all—she's up there crying. Half the time she's so sick in the mornings that she can't go to school, but she feels fine by lunch. You go away to the office every day. You don't see everything that I do. I know you don't want to believe it, but look at her! She's always so secretive. She's hiding something, John, and if it's not a baby then I'll…I'll…I'll wish Toby away to those stupid goblins she's always telling him about!"
"Karen," John warned, sober now, "You're making an extremely serious accusation. Are you sure?"
"No," she admitted. "But nearly so. Please, just talk to her. She won't say anything to me; she still treats me like she's Cinderella and I'm some sort of ogre."
John Williams rubbed the bridge of his nose. This was not what he wanted to be dealing with after a long day at the office. "All right," he said finally. "We'll both go talk to her. You do know that if you're wrong this will ruin any form of relationship you two might have built."
"I know," Karen said grimly. "I'm that sure."
Sarah was lying on her bed when her father knocked on the door and then opened it without waiting for permission. He stared at her, unwilling to believe what his wife was saying but knowing all the same that it was true. Even just looking at her, at Sarah's adolescent body, he could tell.
"My God," he whispered. Her eyes, bright with tears and red from crying, stared at him as she turned her head. "It's true." He narrowed his eyes at his daughter. "Karen?"
There was no swell to her stomach yet, but even so John could tell that there was a child living inside his daughter's body. He barely felt his wife's hand on his arm as he stared at her, stared at the girl who looked so much like her mother. Jumbled thoughts floated through his head. When was the last time he had hugged her? When was the last time he had really looked at her and seen her? When had he last spoken to her and actually cared about her answer? Feelings of powerless inadequacy shot through him, as he saw what all fathers feared and saw as their failure. Whether it was testosterone or merely the bonds of society that prompted the feeling, anger swept through him almost as quickly as the sense of his shortfall. It was anger directed at the girl lying on her bed, her childhood bed still covered in stuffed animals.
"Who is he?" John demanded, stepping forcefully into the room. Karen was beside him, but offered no help to either Sarah or her father.
"Daddy…" Sarah said, slowly sitting up. Her arm snaked around her midsection, an involuntary protective gesture that enraged her father even more.
"Yes, that's what I'm asking!" he bellowed, his face growing red. "Who put that bastard in your belly?!"
"John," Karen said quietly, a rebuke at his language.
"Who is he?!!!"
Sarah's jaw tightened in resolve, no longer looking to him for quarter. She stared defiantly at her father and stepmother, not saying a word.
"God help me, girl, you will not make a mockery of me!" he said. "I raised you better than this!"
"You raised nothing!" Sarah screamed back. "You were always too busy at the office, attending parties hosted by your betters, hoping you'd get ahead! You took no notice of me when Mom was around, because she was beautiful and charming and the perfect pawn to hoist you up! You didn't even look at me until she left, and then it was only to tell me to fix you dinner!" Her face was growing red, too, and the threatened tears began to spill over. "I can't help it if you wanted a son! I can't help it if I couldn't be what you wanted!"
"So now you'll whore yourself and blame me for it?" he demanded. "Don't you dare try and lay all this at my feet!"
"You'd just step on it if I did," Sarah mumbled, flopping back to the bed. She lay on her stomach, burying her head in the pillows and trying to drown out the voice screaming in her heart, the one that had always believed her father would be supportive when the time came to confess…. Now it was dying slowly, that voice.
Sharp footsteps sounded, and a strong hand on Sarah's arm wrenched her to a sitting position again. She stared up into her father's furious face, alarmed. She shrank back from the hand touching her, knowing her previous bruises had healed but still feeling the shame of their past presence. Up until this moment, she had never felt fear around her father. Other men, yes, but not her father….
"Let go of me!" she demanded.
He didn't. "Look at me, damn it!" he said, staring hard into her blue eyes with his dark ones. "Don't you dare try and tell me it is my fault! Now, I will ask you one more time. Who…is…he?" The words were slow and deliberate, the pauses between them laced with undisguised anger.
"No king's command could make me tell," she spat. "Think what you will of me, for I have done with you." She pulled her arm away from his grip, spreading the bruise she knew it would leave.
"No," he said. "I have done with you." And with that he stormed away.
Two days later—two days where Sarah locked her door and refused to come out—she was gone. Her Jeep wasn't in the driveway, her bank account had been withdrawn, and there was no clue as to where she had went. She left no note.
Now, John Williams sat in his armchair and stared out at the rain, cursing his temper a thousand times over. First he had lost Linda, and then Sarah. It wasn't fair. He winced as he recognized one of Sarah's favorite statements. Come to think of it, she hadn't said that in…years, it had been.
"Sarah," he whispered. It was terrible, not knowing where she had gone, what direction she had taken, if she ever reached her destination. She had not gone to find Linda—that much was sure. "Sarah, I'm so sorry," he whispered to the rain. It was all he would let himself say. She was gone, most likely forever. If she ever chose to come back, he didn't know what he'd say. He could tell the rain he was sorry, but apologizing in person was another matter.
For a long time he sat and stared out at the rain. Little did he know an unseen presence sat behind him in another overstuffed chair. Invisible, Jareth watched Sarah's father. He scowled. "Foolish man. You lost the greatest treasure under heaven, and you are just now starting to figure it out." He clucked his tongue and faded away. "Such a pity…"
