Not my Brides
Posted by Robin Hemley on April 10, 2009 9:14 PM
Tonight at the mall, I went into the gadget store, Brookstone, with my older daughters, Olivia, 17, and Isabel, 15. I love gadgets, always have, and I can't resist taking a peek at the latest in IPOD holders, massage chairs, and globes that spin in imitation of the earth's rotation. As I was looking at the wallets (too expensive) and the pens (nice, but I inevitably lose them), Izzy and Olivia plunked down in the massage chairs. The clerk approached me.
"Are you shopping for your bride?" he asked.
My bride? I laughed. "I'm just looking," I said.
"Well, okay then."
Afterwards, I told Olivia and Isabel what the clerk had said and they laughed, too. Hopefully, neither of my daughters look like my brides, and what an odd word, too. Maybe I misheard him.
In any case, I've felt awkward with my older daughters three times. Once was several years ago when we all went to Las Vegas and everyone wanted to go on the gondola rides at the Bellagio. Izzy was paired with my wife, Margie, and I was paired with Olivia. Our gondolier, who swore she was Italian serenaded us as she steered us through the canals of the fake Venice. As we approached a faux "Bridge of Sighs," she told us that this is where couples traditionally kiss, "except in some cases, it would be very scandalosa!" Olivia and I both sat stock still and I blushed deeply because I've always been quite easy to fluster.
Then about a year ago, shortly after my youngest, Naomi was born, we all were eating in a Thai restaurant in Iowa City. Isabel, who was thirteen at the time, was holding Naomi. Halfway through the meal, we noticed some people at a nearby table looking at us and whispering. I knew they thought that the baby was Isabel's. It turned out that one of the people at the table was an acquaintance of ours who hadn't recognized me (I had my back to him). He came over and chatted and admitted that yes, that's exactly what he'd thought.
Then, around Christmas time this year, Olivia and Isabel visited us in the Philippines. One day, I needed to go to a nearby mall to get something and Izzy wanted to come along with me. She also wanted to bring Naomi. After the experience in the Thai restaurant, I didn't really feel comfortable going to the mall with Izzy holding Naomi, but I decided to tough it out. To me, Izzy will always be five or six years old, but she's 5'7" and maybe to some Filipinos she looked older than fifteen, though not much.
As we entered the mall, I felt everyone staring at us. We get a lot of stares anyway in Manila because there aren't a whole lot of white foreigners, certainly not a lot of teenage foreign girls. Fewer holding babies and accompanying men old enough to be their fathers.
I AM her father!! I wanted to shout, but that wouldn't have done any good. I would have seemed like a loon.
So I finally, I gave in. "Do you know your way back to the condo from here?" I asked.."
Isabel, who knows how nervous I am sometimes, just laughed and said, "Oh my gosh." But she went back to the condo, leaving me to worry about the next thing - whether she and Naomi had made it back to the condo safely. I called Margie five minutes later and I heard them all laughing, all except for Naomi who doesn't yet know all my quirks.
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