Don't Call Me Mother (28 page)

After a few weeks we are going steady, with me proudly wearing his ring. In my dorm room I finger the little blue stone, amazed that a boy actually wants to date only me. Sharing a dorm populated by fifty girls teaches me how life is lived outside of Gram’s prison. Over pizza and cokes, my dorm-mates talk about their lives at home—being cheerleaders, class secretaries, or homecoming queens. They know the subtleties of boys and dating, the facts of sexuality, and the ins and outs of the social scene, all of which leave me astounded. More than ever, I feel like an ignorant, small-town girl. I see how small my social world has been and realize that Gram hates people in general, not just my father, and that none of it is normal at all.

During the first few weeks of the fall semester, I read D. H. Lawrence’s
Lady Chatterly’s Lover
aloud to Brad as we sprawl on a blanket, allowing him to touch my breasts and French kiss. At dorm pizza parties, I discover that other girls like to be touched and are willing to talk about sex and feelings. I discover that intimacy with boys is not disgusting, as Gram would have me believe. The Baptist voice is in my head though, so it’s hard to completely relax and enjoy my adventures with Brad. That voice warns me against the delight I feel and makes me wary of the strange new feelings surging within me.

On a Saturday night in late September, Brad and I stand in front of the Dairy Queen two blocks from the famous OU football stadium. Tonight he wants me to try alcohol. The Baptist voice says he is evil, tempting me on a path to perdition. “Drink will send you down the corridors to hell. Don’t let him tempt you. Walk away and never talk to him again.”

Brad says, “Come on, it won’t hurt you. You’ll see.” His voice is soothing and his brown eyes beckon.

He orders two cokes from the blonde girl at the counter. I wonder if she can tell that I am about to grievously sin. He pours rum from a flask into the cups. Time slows down and the voice in my head gets louder: “You aren’t lost yet. Walk away, don’t let sin into your soul.”

Trembling, I bring the cup to my lips, waiting for the awful punishment that will thunder down from on high. The concoction tastes good. Cars whiz by. The fall breeze brushes my face. A pleasant warmth flows through me and relaxes my muscles. I stop in the middle of the sidewalk, wide eyed, still waiting for some punishment but laughing, too. Brad smiles. “See, I told you nothing would happen.”

He leads me to the lake where other couples lie entwined on the grass. We watch the stars shift across the sky and a sliver of moon grow orange as it slips under the horizon. Our explorations continue. He shows me his “private parts” and has me touch him. Again, I wait for the fires of hell to punish me for this brash encounter with flesh, but it doesn’t happen. The Baptists are wrong. Gram is wrong. Men are appealing creatures, dangerous but thrilling. Of course I would never “go all the way,” and I don’t let him touch me except through my clothes, but it’s exciting to explore these new pleasures, and to discover that nothing terrible descends from the heavens. I am suddenly very confused about God and his rules.

Brown leaves hang from branches by a single thread, waiting for the gusts of winter to carry them away. My folkdance class is gathered around the radio, listening to a special news broadcast. The governor of Texas and President Kennedy have been shot. Everyone huddles in shock as terrible words tumble from the radio—rifle shots, blood, book depository, hospital. After a few minutes, a stunned Walter Cronkite announces the death of the president. A horrified silence envelopes us, punctured by sobs. We stare at each other vacantly, trying to make sense of it all. We don’t understand this kind of violence. It is not part of our world, yet.

As if in response to the horrible news, the November wind now comes whirling around the building, stripping the trees. Everyone is running. Frantic for details of the event, we search for a TV. In the dorms, girls line up in rows to watch the swearing in of Lyndon B. Johnson. Jackie stands by with bleary eyes, blood on her skirt. The casket is loaded onto Air Force One.

Regular life is suspended for days. We gather in little knots, talking, wishing that recent events could be erased. Funereal music plays all day on the radio. Starved for information, we watch the constant coverage on television. For days, the dorm living room is full of girls munching chips, attempting to have a normal day while watching live coverage in Dallas. We watch Lee Harvey Oswald being led down a corridor. Suddenly there’s scrambling, a big Texas hat, a loud noise. Oswald crumples. The bad guy is dead, too. The news is full of photos of Lee Harvey Oswald, press conferences, and grim-faced men in dark suits.

We line up again in the dorm living room to watch the J.F.K. funeral footage: the horse with the backward-facing boot, the stately walk down the wide streets of Washington. A long, black veil conceals Jackie’s face. When John-John salutes, there is sobbing in the room.

Eventually, life returns to something like normal. During frosty winter evenings, Brad and I stay out late, kissing as the icy wind rushes through our coat sleeves, kissing as if it would make us immortal. We are, or he is, tempted to go beyond kissing, but I always bring us back from the brink. It is not only the Baptist voice that I fear. I am mortally afraid, afraid to cross a threshold I hold sacred. If you are not a virgin when you marry, you are a disgrace to your husband, no better than a whore. Some part of me still believes this.

One night Brad goes too far, pushing past the invisible, shaky fence I have set up. Because he wants more, much more, than I can give, we break up. My few months of physical transgressions with Brad, and my keen enjoyment of them, ultimately have convinced me that I am a sinner after all. The crazy jumble of recent events and emotions—my confusion, my guilt, my fear, and the death of the president—send me back to church.

This time, though, I am not alone. I am embraced in the fold of a family whose mother gathers me under her wing, the way I have always thought mothers should.

Alma

Alma is my boss at the music library, where I work ten hours a week. Every day, she sweeps in wearing fancy brocade coats and elegant linen suits, looking nothing like the other plain-Jane librarians. Who could know that one night when she invites me home for dinner, we will begin a friendship that will last for life.

She lives in bare-bones student housing with her husband, a graduate student in philosophy, and their three children. The older two, a boy of six and a girl of seven, are wispy, blonde, affectionate children who share their school assignments, books, and drawings with me. The youngest, just a year old, nurses before and after dinner. I am somewhat shocked to see a mother openly nursing a child, embarrassed to see her bare breast.

Next to Blanche, Alma is the most efficient person I have ever known. She holds the baby while she fixes quesadillas, food that I’ve never heard of before, all the while chatting about world events, politics, and philosophy with her husband and some of his friends. She quiets the children, supervises their homework, puts them to bed, then returns to clean up the dishes, seamlessly handling these mundane activities as she inquires about my life, my family, and how I am doing. I notice that she listens not just to what I say but also to what I don’t say. She responds to me on a more sensitive level than I’m accustomed to. Alma invites me to more dinners, then to brunches and breakfasts, where I find myself caught up in a sophisticated world of politics, philosophy, religion, and new friends.

I discover that church, religion, and God need not be frightening, that maybe my transgressions don’t mean I’m doomed to a scary hell. I attend Episcopal services and learn about the origins of this quite different church, with its colors and symbols, incense and holy days. I like the fact that I can kneel to send my prayers to God or Jesus. I enjoy being still with my thoughts and feelings rather than being talked at. I enjoy the candles and the deep sense of connectedness and intelligence in the prayers.

At church and at Alma’s brunches, I meet several interesting young men. I begin to date like a normal person, without restrictions, and learn once more that Gram’s dire predictions about men are not true. When Alma becomes pregnant again, carrying her large belly proudly in front of her, I see that a woman can manage this extraordinary event without struggle and drama. My Baptist skin begins to loosen and slip off. Alma and her family become my family.

I still have to go home to Gram during the holidays. I steel myself to face her depressing form hunched on the couch. Gram’s life hasn’t changed—it has stayed bleak and black while mine has been transformed into something wonderful. Through my new experiences, and especially my involvement in Alma’s life, I see Gram in a new light. I understand now that she has turned her back on real living, choosing to exist in darkness, living a half-life. She goes out of the house only a few times a year, the rest of the time wearing her nightgown all day at home.

I am pleased that I have learned to enjoy life, the simple pleasures of good food and intellectual conversation. These ordinary things are like miracles to me. The candles burning at church and at Alma’s promise life and hope, and I yearn for all the light I can find. At Gram’s I feel tired, exhausted, and angry at the darkness I was forced to live in for so many years. When I visit Gram, the shackles snap onto my wrists as she wields the same old guilt and shame with alarming skill.

“So, have you forgotten your old grandmother? I raised you and gave you everything you ever had, and all you can do is send me one card. Why don’t you write more often? How can you come here and see how I am and just leave me like this? You don’t care what happens to me. You are selfish just like everyone else. I could die like this. You would come home and take care of me if you were really a Christian.”

I have told Gram about my conversion to the Episcopal Church, hoping for her approval. She’d always complained about the Baptists, telling me that the Catholics had a closer ear to God, yet she never committed to a spiritual life herself and never attends church. Gram hunkers down, spewing smoke and hurtful words. It’s clear to me now that she will always criticize whatever I do, and this knowledge is a kind of shield.

I’ve learned more about how life is lived, and can be lived, in the last three months than I did in all my years in Enid. There is so much more to the world than Gram’s little hole. Her dark side had hoped to control me forever, to keep me captive in her negative world, but I have broken free. Ironically, Gram’s other side, the part that wanted me to experience music and art, that insisted I study and go to college, helped foil her plans.

I begin to question everything Gram taught me. If she is so cut off from life, so different from normal human beings, then everything I learned through her bears re-examination.

Gradually, almost against my will, I begin to open my mind to my father.

I Have Been Waiting and Hoping

Early on an autumn evening in my sophomore year at the university, I stand at the window of the practice room watching the rain pour down in sheets. My friend Carlos comes in. His black hair and eyes show his Spanish heritage. He’s the first chair of the bass section, and he often teases me about being the smallest cellist in the ranks. He’s inquired about my family, at first expecting the usual story—mother, father, brothers or sisters. He knows now about my divorced parents and my grandmother, and from time to time seems curious or perhaps confused about it all. Despite the fact that he’s an ex-Catholic, Carlos believes in the power of spiritual teachings and is always putting things in a philosophical context.

He leans against the wall. “Do your parents ever come for the holidays?”

I look away, the familiar ache starting in my stomach.

“I’ve never seen my parents for holidays—well, once I spent Christmas with my mother. As for my father—I’ve given up on him.”

“Oh?” Carlos moves closer to me, his dark eyes lighting up with interest. “How can you give up on your own father? Where did you get that idea?”

“It’s been like that for a long time.” I wave my hand dismissively.

Carlos doesn’t let things go by. “What made you decide you can just write him out of your life? How old is he?”

“I suppose he’s about sixty.”

“What if he gets sick or dies without you speaking to him? How would you feel then?”

Suddenly, I can’t quite hear Carlos; his voice fades as my mind plays images of Daddy’s kissing lessons and Gram’s angry face as she fumes about him. I can’t remember the last time I wrote him—months ago. I start to feel shivery inside.