Daddy's Little Girl
Frank Carter was overjoyed when he learned from his wife that he was about to become a father—so much so, that the day after hearing the welcome news, he rushed out to the local Best Buy store and bought himself a video camera, the best one he could afford on his budget.
Thanks to his new toy, every month of his wife's pregnancy was lovingly preserved for posterity on videotape. Through a series of short scenes covering a six-month-long period, viewers could watch Margaret Carter's waistline expand as the child inside her grew. Despite his wife's objections, Frank even brought the video camera into the hospital delivery room to film the birth.
The Carters' daughter, Lori Ann, was born on Wednesday, May 10 at 3:47 p.m. The tiny female infant had blond curls and blue eyes and instantly became the apple of her father's eye.
"I think she looks like you," he told his wife.
"She's only a few hours old," the exhausted woman claimed as her husband filmed her response. "Don't you think it's a little too soon to say who she's going to look like?"
"Not for me. I can see her now. She's going to be the spitting image of you."
From that momentous day on, Frank was rarely seen without his video camera in hand. He dutifully filmed practically every event, major and minor, in his daughter's life. In her first few weeks alone, he managed to fill half a dozen videotapes with such cherished moments as Lori Ann's first bath, her ride home from the hospital, her first diaper change, her first trip to the grandparents' houses and her first visit to the pediatrician.
"You're going to wear that camera out before our daughter's first birthday," Margaret playfully teased her husband who had his video camera pointed at her face.
"Then I'll buy another one," he replied. "Maybe two. It's always good to have a backup."
"You know, Frank, I can't remember the last time I saw your face. You always have a camera in front of it."
Seven months after little Lori Ann was born, Frank was offered a promotion to the position of regional sales manager of the internationally known computer manufacturer for which he worked. The new job meant a substantial raise in salary, but it also required Frank to travel from the Carters' home on the outskirts of Philadelphia to the company's corporate headquarters in Boston to attend the quarterly sales meetings.
Although Frank hated to give up four weekends a year—precious time he preferred to spend with his wife and daughter—he couldn't very well turn his back on the additional income the promotion would bring. After all, he had to put aside money for Lori Ann's college education and perhaps someday he would have to bear the burden of the cost of a large wedding.
The thought of Lori Ann going off to college or, even worse, getting married, was one Frank did not want to entertain.
I know I'll have to set her free someday, he thought, wiping a tear from his eye with the back of his hand, but for now, I want to keep her Daddy's little girl for as long as possible.
For three days each March, June, September and December, the new regional sales manager for the mid-Atlantic area flew up to Boston and stayed at the Quincy Inn, a nice family-oriented motel, far from the noise and traffic of the bustling city. It was on the first of these trips, that he met Gareth Jackson, the company's regional sales manager for the Richmond, Virginia, area.
Frank and Gareth, who had rooms next to each other at the Quincy Inn, decided to stop at an local Italian restaurant for dinner after the sales meeting was over. During the meal, the two men discovered that they had a great deal in common: both were roughly the same age, both enjoyed baseball, both were family men who didn't care to go out to night spots without their wives, and, most important, both were proud new fathers.
While drinking an after-dinner cup of coffee, Gareth reached into his jacket pocket, took out an envelope containing a small stack of 35mm photographs and handed them to his friend. As Frank flipped through the pictures, Gareth kept up a running commentary.
"That's my son, Alex," the father said, beaming with pride. "He turned ten months on the twenty-fourth. Here he is just starting to crawl. And that's him with my sister's kids."
"You've got a nice-looking little boy. Look at that thick head of curly hair on him!"
"He takes after this mother in that department," Gareth said with a laugh, rubbing his hand over his receding hairline. Then he turned to Frank and added, "Now it's your turn. Let me see the pictures of your daughter."
"I hate to admit it," Frank replied sheepishly, "but I don't carry any snapshots of Lori Ann with me. The truth is I'm more of a video man myself. But, if you're not too busy later on, I just so happen to have a tape I brought along with me—in case I got homesick, you understand."
"I'd love to see it. I have a video collection of my own back home. Hey, I've got an idea. Since we have to meet in this place every three months, why don't we make it a practice of bringing a video with us each time we come? I'll show you mine, and you can show me yours."
"It's a deal!" Frank readily agreed, happy to finally have someone to share his home movies with since no one, not even Margaret, took an interest in them.
That evening set a pattern that would continue for many years to come. Whenever they were in Boston for the company's quarterly sales meetings, Gareth and Frank would go out to dinner together afterward. They would then return to the Quincy Inn where they would watch the latest video installments in the lives of their children, Lori Ann Carter and Alexander Jackson.
Thus, Gareth had the opportunity to watch Lori Ann grow from a tiny infant to a rambling toddler to a precocious adolescent on the motel's VCR. Frank shared with him her first day of both preschool and kindergarten, her performance in the second-grade class play, her ballet recital, her participation in a spelling bee in the third grade and her game-winning soccer goal in the fourth. Every year Frank videotaped his daughter opening presents on Christmas morning, going trick-or-treating on Halloween evening and blowing out the candles on her birthday cake each May. Not only did the proud father never fail to capture a day at the zoo, amusement park or beach, but he also chronicled all her Brownie and Girl Scout outings, school sports events, awards presentations and gymnastic shows.
It sometimes seemed to Gareth that Lori Ann ranked second only to Princess Diana when it came to being caught by the camera. Yet he fully understood Frank's passion for videotaping his only child, being somewhat of an aspiring Steven Spielberg himself when it came to filming his son, Alex.
Still, Gareth thought it odd that in all the years he'd known him, Frank never carried an actual photograph of his little girl in his wallet, not even the standard school pictures that were taken every year. In fact, the only picture he ever carried was of his wife. This was even more bizarre given the fact that Margaret never appeared in any of the family's home videos. It was as though Frank did not want his wife upstaging his daughter.
* * *
The two regional sales managers, who in the course of their friendship had visited some of the finest restaurants in Beantown and the surrounding suburbs, chose on their most recent trip to Boston to drive half an hour to Salem and sample the fare at Finz Seafood and Grill on Pickering Wharf. While he was tasting the fried scallops from his seafood platter, Frank told Gareth about Lori Ann's recent sixteenth birthday party and the extravagant present he had bought for her.
"She had her heart set on a Mitsubishi 3000GT," he explained, "but I bought her something a lot more practical and economical—not to mention less powerful: a Subaru Outback."
"It's hard to believe our kids are old enough to drive already," Gareth declared with a sigh. "They were only babies when we first met. Where did the time go?"
"Face it, buddy. You and I are getting old. In another two years, our children will be going off to college."
"Yeah, and then it won't be long before they move out, get married and have families of their own."
Frank laughed and suggested, "Then I'll show you tapes of my grandchildren, and you can show me tapes of yours!"
When the laughter finally died down, both men became quiet. Gareth was enjoying that comfortable silence that often existed between two close friends. Frank, meanwhile, was fighting the rising panic in his soul. His daughter was sixteen years old already. How long would it be before the inevitable happened, before he lost her for good? Frank didn't think he could bear it.
* * *
The following day was a special one for Gareth. It was his twenty-fifth anniversary with the company, and a celebratory dinner was being held in his honor. As a surprise, Frank had decided to videotape the occasion.
The dinner, held at one of Boston's finest restaurants, was a success. All the district sales managers as well as the high-level executives attended, and there was much laughter at the good-natured barbs that were directed at the guest of honor. Frank filmed the speeches, the jokes and the presentation of the company's "small token of appreciation": an envelope containing two plane tickets to Bermuda for Gareth and his wife.
The honoree was at a loss for words.
"I wish I could think of something clever to say," he commented as he stood at the head table to accept his gift. "But sadly I lack Frank's imagination. He's the creative genius, not me."
The celebration lasted long into the evening and finally came to an end just before midnight.
"Wait a minute," Frank said, as he and Gareth exited the restaurant. "I want to use the last of this videotape up."
He stood by the side of the road, in front of Gareth's rental car, pointing the video camera at his friend, who was standing beside the senior vice president of marketing.
"Say cheese and wave at the camera," Frank instructed.
Suddenly, a pickup truck careened around the corner, squealing its tires. The young driver, who'd had more than a few drinks and whose blood alcohol level was way over the legal limit, didn't see Frank on the side of the street until it was too late. The driver hit the brakes and frantically turned the steering wheel, yet he couldn't avoid hitting him.
Gareth and his coworker watched in horror as Frank's body flew into the air and came crashing down onto the sidewalk.
* * *
The patrolmen who responded to the 911 call quickly questioned Gareth, who was badly shaken up by the death of his close friend. Based on eyewitness accounts, the driver of the pickup was arrested for vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence, and his truck was impounded as evidence of his crime.
"Are you going to be all right?" the senior vice president asked his regional sales manager from Richmond.
Gareth nodded and got behind the wheel of his rental car.
"I'll be all right," he assured his boss.
Tears came to his eyes as he sat in the driver's seat and pondered the tragic, senseless death of a good man. When he finally felt composed enough to drive, he turned the key in the ignition. Before putting the gear shift into drive, he glanced in his rearview mirror and saw something lying on the sidewalk: it was Frank's video camera. He had been holding it when he was struck down.
Gareth got out of his rental car and picked up the camcorder. Upon examination, it appeared to be undamaged.
When he got back to the Quincy Inn, he took the cassette out of the camera and watched the highlights of the dinner held that evening in his honor. Then he turned off the television and VCR and cried himself to sleep.
* * *
Gareth decided to drive back to Virginia rather than fly, despite the heavy traffic on I-95. On the way home, he stopped at the small town on the outskirts of Philadelphia to return Frank's video camera and pay his respects to Margaret and Lori Ann Carter. With the camera in hand, he rang the bell of the two-story white colonial house.
Although they had never met before, he immediately recognized Margaret Carter when she opened the door. Even if he had not seen the photograph of her Frank had carried in his wallet, he would have known her. She looked just like Lori Ann, only older.
"Gareth, it's so good to meet you!" she said, inviting him inside.
"The same here," the visitor replied solemnly. "I only wish it could have been under different circumstances."
"Frank spoke of you so often that I feel I know you."
"I hope he had good things to say about me."
"Oh, yes. He liked you very much. You might very well have been his best friend."
The recent widow turned her head away so that her visitor could not see her eyes misting with unshed tears.
Gareth desperately wanted to console Margaret, but he didn't quite know what to say to a woman who had just lost her husband. After stammering out his apologies, he finally gave her back the video camera. She was surprised and somewhat dismayed by the sight of it.
"Frank's video camera," the widow said, fighting back her tears. "I haven't seen that old thing in sixteen years."
How could she not have seen it? Gareth wondered. After all, she must have accompanied Frank and Lori Ann on most—if not all—of the occasions her husband had taped.
"Oh? Did Frank have another camera he sometimes used?"
"No," Margaret assured him. "That was the only video camera he ever owned. He bought it when I was pregnant. He filmed practically the entire pregnancy and even brought it into the delivery room."
She couldn't go on; she just lowered her head and cried softly.
Gareth sympathized with her pain.
"Of course, remembering such a happy occasion as the birth of your child would only make you feel worse at a time like this. I'm sorry."
Margaret looked up at him with confusion.
"Frank and I had no children. Our daughter was stillborn."
Gareth was so shocked by her words that he forgot all about her grief.
"But that's not so. I've seen Lori Ann with my own eyes."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Jackson, but you must be mistaken. After all, I ought to know what happened to my own child."
"Of course, you should, and I sincerely apologize for upsetting you at a time like this. But I've spent the last sixteen years watching videotapes of Lori Ann. Frank brought one with him every time he flew up to Boston."
"I have no idea who or what you saw on those videotapes, but it certainly wasn't our daughter. Come with me. I have something I want to show you," she said and then led Gareth upstairs and into Frank's study.
On the far wall between two bookcases was a tall, locked oak cabinet.
"Frank kept the tape in there," she explained, "the one he took in the delivery room. Of course, I never had the courage to watch it myself, but I know it's still there."
Margaret got the key out of the desk drawer and opened the locked file cabinet. Then she gasped and stepped back in astonishment. The cabinet was filled with videotapes, dozens and dozens of them. Each of the tapes was neatly labeled: "Sixth Birthday," "Christmas 1993," "First Day of School," "Philadelphia Zoo" and so on.
Margaret's hands trembled as she reached for the videotape labeled "In the Delivery Room." She crossed the study to the television, put the cassette into the VCR and pressed the PLAY button.
Gareth could hear Margaret sobbing as the video replayed the events of that tragic day sixteen years earlier:
... Margaret, going through the final stages of labor, was concentrating on her breathing technique as she had been taught in her Lamaze classes. Meanwhile, Frank was uttering words of encouragement from behind his video camera. Margaret breathed, pushed, breathed and moaned in pain. Eventually, a tiny head appeared. After more breathing, pushing and moaning, the infant at long last emerged from the womb. But something was wrong. The baby wasn't breathing. Suddenly, the obstetrician and nurses rushed into action, frantically trying to revive the tiny infant. Margaret was crying and screaming for her daughter, and Frank rushed to her side to comfort her ...
Then Frank's video camera, left unattended on a metal tray beside the doctor's sterilized instruments, filmed only a spot on the delivery room wall. Yet it still managed to capture on audio the sounds of heartbreak and the death of the parents' hopes and dreams.
Mercifully, the recording finally came to an end, and the television screen turned blue. For several moments both Gareth and Margaret sat in silence, each absorbed in his or her own nightmare. Finally, Margaret took another tape from the cabinet, put it into the VCR and pressed PLAY.
The cassette was labeled "Lori Ann Learning to Walk." But the tape, like the dozens of others in the file cabinet, was blank, for unlike the times Gareth had viewed the tapes at the Quincy Inn, Frank was not there to project visions of his unfulfilled dreams onto the television screen.
Despite his tendency to get into trouble, Salem will always be Mommy's little boy.
