No Way Out of It

RODERICK: Hey. Hey, hey, hey, where’d you think you’re going?

JEMIMA: Out. Out, Daddy, I’m going out!

RODERICK: Oh, you think so, huh?

JEMIMA: I know so.

RODERICK: Well, then, you got another thing coming.

JEMIMA: Let me go!

RODERICK: What is the matter with you!

JEMIMA: You can’t keep me cooped up in here forever!

RODERICK: Well, I’m not the one keeping you cooped up, am I?

(baby crying from the next room)

RODERICK: You gonna get that, Jemima? Hey. Kid. Baby needs his momma.

JEMIMA: I just don’t understand why you can’t take care of him. Just, like, a couple nights a week.

RODERICK: So you can go out with that boy again?

JEMIMA: Daddy, you know we’re not together, that was just a…

RODERICK: What, just a one-time thing?

JEMIMA: Yes! And it hasn’t happened since. I know it was a… I wasn’t thinking. But now we got Ricky.

RODERICK: Who’s “we”?

JEMIMA: All of us, Daddy. You’re the granddaddy, now, don’t you go messing with that.

RODERICK: Well, if that boy isn’t with you, why don’t you make him take care of the kid? Or his parents? Hell, they got more kids than sense already–

JEMIMA: They don’t know.

RODERICK: They don’t know he’s the father?

JEMIMA: They think it was Toby.

RODERICK: That gay kid?

JEMIMA: He’s not gay, Dad.

RODERICK: He might as well be.

JEMIMA: It shoulda been Toby. If it’d been Toby, then… Why’d you have to be your Daddy’s son? You know I wouldn’t do it again.

RODERICK: I know no such thing.

JEMIMA: You really think I’d be that stupid? Twice?

RODERICK: You really want me to answer that? How could they not know? How could you not tell them?

JEMIMA: I just figured they got enough to worry about–

RODERICK: That boy knocked you up! He knocked you up, and now he’s getting away with it! Listen to me. A Daddy has responsibilities.

JEMIMA: Like what?

RODERICK: Like providing.

JEMIMA: Like providing what?

RODERICK: Security. A roof over your head. Why’d you think I didn’t kick you outta the house when you got knocked up at fifteen? You’re my daughter, and a father is supposed to take care of his daughter. Or his son.

JEMIMA: Shouldn’t a father also be able to make his kids feel safe? To make ‘em feel happy?

RODERICK: Not if it means lettin’ ‘em go off and be crazy–

JEMIMA: I’m not going to be crazy, Dad, I’ll probably just go out to a movie or something, but I will start going crazy if you keep me cooped up in here! I need a life, dad.

RODERICK: So’s Ricky.

JEMIMA: Well, right now, Ricky’s in a phase, see, where he likes the simple things. Things even you can provide him, since there’s milk in the damn fridge, and it is not–it is not healthy for a mom to spend every waking second with her baby and not have a life.

RODERICK: Where you gonna be?

JEMIMA: I don’t know yet, but I’ll have my cell-phone. I won’t be more’n fifteen minutes away, I swear.

RODERICK: All right, give ‘im to me.

JEMIMA: Thank you, Daddy.

RODERICK: What you lookin’ at, huh, kid?