The Venus Fix

Ninety-Four

Later that night, I stopped by her room to say goodnight. The door was open and she was in bed, watching a rerun of The Actor’s Studio.

I walked in, sat down beside her, picked up the clicker and muted the sound. “I know how much the audition means to you, but it’s not going to happen no matter how good a job you do of torturing me. I don’t know what the right way to deal with this is- I’m sure if it was something one of my patients was going through I’d know just how to advise her, but I’m just being your mother here, and all I can think to tell you is that I don’t want you to have to deal with the pressures and stress of doing a television show yet.”

“Yeah, yeah. Dr. Sin saves the sinners, but she doesn’t know what to do with her own daughter.”

“What do you mean saves the sinners?” I was used to her calling me Dr. Sin, but this wasn’t just her being cute and clever, she was issuing a new challenge.

She told me what she’d pieced together between the news on TV and what Mitch had told her about the scene at the Playpen Theater. She’d heard that I’d saved a woman’s life and that the woman had been a Web-cam girl-hence, a sinner.

Until that night, I’d tried to shield Dulcie from so much of what I did. I’d always thought she was too young to hear it. But she was only three years younger than Simone and Amanda had been when they’d made their X-rated movie.

So for the next hour, I told Dulcie about the two best friends and how they’d felt about the boys in their school and how hard it was for them to figure out what to do, and I told her what they’d finally done, how it had all turned around and become a nightmare that they never escaped, and how sadly one had taken her own life, but the other was in therapy now and would be getting the best help there was.

When I was done, I brushed a lock of dark hair off my daughter’s face and looked into her cornflower-blue eyes. “I know what you want, but I can’t let you have it yet. I need to protect you. I promise I’m not going to go crazy and lock you up in the house. You can do the play. And after this play, if you want to do another one, we can talk about that. But I need to keep you with me for a few more years, so I can do everything in my power to help you through this last part of growing up. And so you can help me through it, too.”

She hadn’t interrupted me once. She still didn’t say anything. I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake by telling her Amanda and Simone’s story.

“Do you want some water before you go to bed?”

She shook her head. “I think I’m really tired, Mom,” she said, scooting under the covers, looking so little among all the pillows and the comforter.

I hadn’t expected her to acquiesce or to throw her arms around me and tell me that she loved me and would do anything I wanted her to do. This was all I had hoped for. A cease-fire. A willingness to listen to me explain.

I was so grateful.

As long as she would let me sit on the side of her bed and talk to her, as long as she would listen, as long as she took what I said in, that was all I could ask for. It was so much more than so many parents had.