Dropped Threads 2 (16 page)

Nobody
                              Needs to Know

Mary J. Breen

I started out as a nine-month secret. It was 1944, and my mother at forty-one discovered she was pregnant with me, her first and only child. Instead of openly rejoicing, my parents decided to tell no one but the village doctor—not one person in their families, not one of their friends. So well did my mother fool people by standing very straight and continuing to wear her sturdy corset that when I was born, the village busybody travelled all the way to the city hospital to see for herself; she couldn’t believe that Mrs. Breen was in the maternity ward.

My mother considered their close-mouthed behaviour a perfect model for me to follow. Secrets were the norm; “nobody needs to know” was the rule. There were no end of things I was not to mention, from who had been over playing bridge the night before, to what my father’s family had done for a living, to where we’d gone on a holiday. The one really big thing I was
never, ever
to tell anyone was this: my parents had owned and run a prosperous movie theatre for six years when I was a young child. Then television arrived, and everyone stopped coming because they preferred staying home to watch
Hockey Night in Canada
and
I Love Lucy
. Our theatre, like thousands across North America, closed its doors. Soon afterwards, we moved to another town, where my father returned to high school teaching, and I was told to keep my vivid memories of the theatre to myself. It was as if I’d been put in a witness protection program, and my real past had been erased. So strong was this taboo that as I write these words now, forty-five years later, my stomach tightens up, and I want to beg you never to tell a soul.

None of the other things I was forbidden to speak of seemed at all important. They weren’t the “good” secrets I had heard whispered in the schoolyard, the kind that are irresistibly better passed on than kept to oneself. Nor were they the life-or-death ones I read about in books—no murders or spies or mad relatives in the attic—but just stories of ordinary people doing ordinary things. I couldn’t understand how we could be hurt by anyone knowing that the Breens had been farmers, or that my father had been scouted by a major league baseball team (but had turned it down for some unspoken reason), or that he had had a job other than teaching. It was like being told to hold my breath forever.

I obeyed their secrecy rule, but I didn’t like it, and I certainly didn’t understand it. I assumed it was somehow connected to their ominous reminders that since we were Catholics in a Protestant town, we needed to keep things close to the chest. Perhaps “they” weren’t exactly the enemy, but on the other hand, “they” didn’t need to know our business. (This old kind of Irish Catholicism may seem strange now, but just thirty years earlier, my parents had experienced the bigotry of Toronto’s “No Irish Need Apply” signs, and for them, your religion was still the test of whose side you were on.)

Gradually it became clear to me that not only was I to keep many things secret but many things were being kept secret from me as well, especially about my father. “She doesn’t need to know” was the other half of their rule. Although I heard many stories about my mother’s family, I learned next to nothing about my father’s. Every evening when we said the rosary, we prayed for the repose of the souls of his parents, aunts and uncles, and a sister, people he spoke of with great fondness—but little detail. The only contacts with his two brothers and one sister were Christmas cards and occasional letters that, of course, I wasn’t allowed to read. We didn’t visit them, and they didn’t visit us. Once, and only once, a brother came for a short visit. Even though I was only eight or nine at the time, I couldn’t help sensing the tangle of love and pity my father felt toward his favourite brother. Of course, I wasn’t told why; I was just told not to ask any questions.

I loved my father in the unconditional way children do when they are with someone who gives them endless approval. He was a gentle, handsome, loving man who always had time for me. We spent hours and hours together—playing cards, painting, playing ball, going for walks, fishing, making up math quizzes, doing homework, reading bedtime stories, as well as going to daily Mass and saying our prayers. I have a photo of the two of us, me about eight, my father close to fifty. My hand is in his, and I’m grinning up at the camera, certain that life is full of only good things. That’s how I felt around him—except when I’d ask him about his early life. Then his manner would change. Instead of his usual comfortable way, his answers would become brief and uninformative. He wouldn’t get cross with me, but until the topic changed, I felt as if a door had closed between us. I was always left hungry to know more.

Of course, memories have a way of popping up unbidden, and sometimes little things did come out. I remember he started calling me Genevieve, his sister’s name, when we played cards because he said I teased him exactly as she had done. And once he told me about taking out a new Arabian horse against his father’s orders, an unbroken stallion that had thrown and nearly killed him. I also remember one Christmas, as I sat surrounded by gifts, his telling me that when he was young, he and his siblings had received only one orange each. Then there was the story, one he and I both loved, of a boarding house where the woman owner would tuck a loaf of bread right up into her armpit while she cut off chunks and then flung them off the end of her knife to the men. These are not remarkable stories in themselves; what’s remarkable is that despite how much time I spent with my father, this was almost all I knew of his past.

The summer I turned sixteen, my parents and I visited his first cousins near the family homestead in the Ottawa Valley. I was astonished to be immediately loved and accepted just because I was his daughter. The only puzzling thing was they all called him Leonard, whereas I thought his name was Larry—short for Lawrence. My mother’s explanation was that Leonard was just another of his given names. Despite how happy my father was there, laughing and playing cards in the farmhouse kitchen that had been his home, this was our only visit. It was almost twenty years before I saw any of those cousins again.

I went to university, then off to Malaysia with CUSO. Then came the unthinkable. Instead of heading for a convent as my father had always hoped, I got pregnant, then married in a Protestant church, and—to make it all worse—soon after divorced. I went from being their good child, their top-student-pride-and-joy daughter whom even the priest praised for her “good works” overseas to a fallen Catholic, a divorcée. My father was shattered. When I returned home six months pregnant, he barely spoke. He couldn’t even look at me.

I was heartbroken with my own loss and with knowing the anguish I was causing him. I knew his strict Irish Catholicism left him little choice except disapproval and disappointment, but I was still surprised by the extent of his pain. All I could hope was that he wouldn’t turn away from me forever, and that his tenderness toward his little granddaughter would remind him of how he’d once felt about me. I also thought we had lots of time. But I was wrong.

Three years later, while I was living in B.C., he was diagnosed with cancer. Despite painful treatments, he was dying. I returned home, and on the day he died, he hadn’t the energy—and I hope no longer the will—to stay turned away from me. He lay in his narrow hospital bed, unable to see more than shadows, and assured me he had left us a little money in his will. As I cried, he held my hand, and for a few minutes I had my father back, back in his old role as my protector, trying to comfort me for all I was about to lose.

Despite our brief reconciliation, the pain and confusion of his rejection never went away; I just put it away, over to the side of my life, not quite in focus, but never out of the picture.

When my mother died seven years later, I took over sending Christmas cards to my father’s cousins, and I even managed a few visits. During one of these visits, one of the older women asked me to look through a stack of old photograph albums with her. I was nodding off over page after page of photos of blurry strangers when she nudged me and said, “Look, there’s Leonard!” I opened my eyes to see her pointing to a small photo of my father wearing a long black robe.

“But … what’s he wearing?” I asked, and with that, I was given the key to much of who he was: for nine years, my father had been Brother Lawrence; he had been a Christian Brother!

The earth’s plates shifted and resettled; some things now fitted together perfectly, and some were forever upended.

Here it was, an explanation for so much—his extensive knowledge of Latin, his assumptions that I would attend Mass with him every morning and that we would pray four times a day, his use of the name Lawrence. More important, I knew immediately that this was a huge piece of why I had upset him so much.

I pestered every relative and old friend of my parents to learn more, but I’ve found out only this: he’d entered the Christian Brothers as a boy of sixteen, just after an uncle in the Order, a Brother Lawrence, had died. Brother Lawrence was a man of great promise and drive, and the assumption was that my father would soon fill his shoes, even though he was so young, his personality and interests entirely different. My father went along with the plans of his superiors, even taking the same religious name, but just before his final vows nine years later, he decided to leave that world of teaching, prayer, and obedience. The only explanation for his leaving came from one of his cousins: “I think he met your mother, dear.” It’s true that my parents were friends by this time, having met several years earlier during teacher training at Toronto Normal School, but if he did leave because of her—and he certainly did love her—they didn’t marry for another ten years. Maybe he left because the expectations were too great, or maybe he realized he didn’t have a vocation. Maybe something much darker happened. I was given a photo of him at seventeen, and I can barely look at it: this beautiful young man has the saddest eyes I have ever seen.

I was told his sister took to her bed for three days on hearing the news of his leaving the Order, so perhaps he expected the same shock and disapproval from everyone, even from me. Or maybe he was unable to discard the rule within the Order of keeping personal things to oneself—a habit that stayed with him long after he’d left behind the long, black one he’d worn all those nine years. Or maybe he recognized in the choices I made in my life that same ability to put one’s own will ahead of God’s, and they seemed all too close to the choices he had made forty years earlier; after all, we were so alike.

If only my parents could have seen that this secret, so rooted in attitudes about sexuality, pleasure and will, was going to grow like another member of the family, planted squarely between my father and me. If only they could have known how it would affect his ability to love me.

Perhaps I’m wrong, letting the light of day shine on this secret part of my father’s life; maybe nobody
does
need to know, but oh, how important this discovery has been. It’s given me a way to understand the depth of his pain, and so, a way to forgive him. But, most of all, it’s given me a way to feel my father’s love again; it’s given me a way to heal my heart.

Toe-Ring

Jennifer L. Schulz

When I close my eyes and imagine myself in five years, I see the
woman-in-the-distance
. She is an elegant, acclaimed academic, firmly placed in the life of intellectual pursuits. She has been shimmering on the horizon of my mind for years, beckoning me. I’m sure that one day, if I work hard enough, I will meet her—I will become her.

This is new for me, openly acknowledging her existence, and already I’m worrying about how this revelation will be received. I’m more accustomed to keeping her to myself because of what I know about the boundaries of female conversation—and what it takes to keep within them. Lately, I’ve been trying to respect the boundaries without always observing them, so the
woman-in-the-distance
is, as of now, out in the open.

She has been with me for a while. When I was fourteen, I travelled through England with my family. I stood on the banks of the River Cam, near the Bridge of Sighs, at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, and told my parents, “One day, I’ll go to school here.” Ten years later, on a gorgeous sunny day, walking past the Bridge of Sighs to my grad house with a year’s worth of luggage in tow, I felt invincible—full of the potential for scholarly accomplishments. Surrounded by hundreds of years of intellectual prowess, I tried on my first academic gown. That was when I first glimpsed the
woman-in-the-distance
in the mirror. I knew I belonged.

Ever since I was small, intellectual pursuits were my thing. Perhaps I was a strange kid, but I loved school more than anything else, more than ballet, skating, piano—you name it. The other kids would play outside, and I would stay in and read. I loved to learn and still do. There is an exhilarating click for me whenever I master something new and can pass it on to others. This excitement for learning and teaching probably came in part from growing up in an academic home where family trips were fun
and
educational and flash cards were the expected in-car entertainment. At eight, I was the only kid on my block with her own set of encyclopedias, and I was proud of it. At ten, I received my first school-wide prize for academic achievement.

It was the end of Grade 4. I sat with my friends and classmates on the floor in the school gym and watched as other students were called up, class by class, to claim their prizes—certificates for academic accomplishment, most improved academic performance and best school spirit. My name wasn’t called. I was crushed. Each year before, I had won a prize for the highest marks in my class. My girlfriends noticed my disappointment and tried to comfort me with their hands on my shoulders and murmurs of reassurance. Then, an award I had never heard of was announced: the John Pritchard Award for top academic achievement in the entire school. My name was called—I had it! Beaming, I strode to the podium and accepted my prize. When I returned to my part of the floor, there were no comments from my friends, no hands on my shoulders. I said, “Isn’t this great? I’m so happy.” No response. That was when I learned not to talk about my academic successes. Two weeks later, when our report cards came out, I knew I shouldn’t mention my grades.

I don’t remember whether I made the complete connection when I was ten that no prize meant personal disappointment but comfort from my young female friends, while the top prize meant personal jubilation and a cloud of silence from those same friends. Looking back at that incident now, I see that two significant realizations were cemented for me: the importance of being recognized for my academic interests and accomplishments, and an equally strong need for support and validation from my close female friends. I know I need both, but it has been hard to reconcile the two.

When we were inseparable teenagers, the balance was tipped in favour of support. So many of our successes were the same that it was easy to celebrate them together. Our interest in guys and our “triumphs” with them provided fertile ground for many special connections. We shared so much with each other that it didn’t matter that we never talked about school performance. We had each other’s support. Between learning how to shave (“use the pink Daisy, and don’t shave past your knees”), planning boyfriend-attraction strategies, buying our first tampons (“ick, the scented ones are gross”) and relating French-kissing debacles, lifelong friendships were formed. Later, in university, my friends and I met every day in the student centre for lunch and continued our intimate conversations. To demonstrate our bond, we bought toe-rings. Not just any toe-rings—no plain, silver, slightly etched toe-rings for us. We bought sparkly, gem-encrusted toe-rings, and we wore them all the time. Especially during our daily soap-opera-watching ritual. Toe-ring on foot and remote control in hand, each of us knew what our favourite characters and villains were up to, because we had time enough to attend classes, philosophize and watch TV. Although I continued to observe my silence around academic accomplishments—even through law school, I steadfastly avoided comparing marks and discussing class rankings—our boundless connections made our conversational bounds less important.

The bounds matter to me now. The importance of talking about my academic pursuits with my women friends has grown for me since I became a professor in a faculty of law. As my friends have married and had children, we have moved from talking about boys to talking about birthing boys, but the silence around my interests persists.

Our primary topics of conversation are children, religion and money—none of which relate directly to my life. We talk about children, even though I don’t have any. Why? Maybe it’s because I always ask about them. I ask because their kids are cute, because I really am interested and because I’m afraid we won’t have anything else to talk about. If I don’t ask about their children, we might talk about religion. Then I’d have to reveal that I neither practice our religion nor am I clear that I believe in God—heretical, I fear, in a group where we all went to Sunday school together. So, fine then, on to money.

Well, without children, my partner and I do not worry as much about economic planning and financial forfeiting, so the topic of money is not as central in our house. (In fact, it’s not even a house; we live in a converted loft. Living in a loft with no children and no plans for any apparently does not compute.) Besides, we have separate money—there are no consultations before we spend, and consequently there are no issues, at least none for us. For some of my friends, this lack of shared money is bewildering and indicative of a lack of a “plan.” “Without a plan, how can you be stable, together, united?” I am left with nothing on the approved list of topics to talk about.

Why do wonderful, intelligent women feel free to discuss athletic, artistic or birthing success, but not brain success? Why the silence around intellectual and academic achievements? Full-time moms are expected to be proud of and talk about their achievements—their children. That’s part of the job of good mothering, and we celebrate it. On the other hand, descriptions of intellectual success are
not
encouraged. I am not expected to talk about my successes and am not celebrated for them in the same way. Perhaps a focus on academic accomplishments is just that—academic. It might be too removed from the daily activities of full-time mothering, or perhaps it is too much a part of the world of men. What I do know is that there is very little space in which to talk about my professional interests, and as a result, validation from some of my women friends is hard to come by.

And then there is the problem that talking about intellectual success is seen as bragging, especially if you are a woman. (Remember Mom’s good advice to keep the bragging in the family?) Intellectual ability seems to be accepted as something we are born with, not something we work for—and we shouldn’t boast about the things we’re born with. So it’s a double whammy: first, such accomplishments fit better in the world of men, and second, if we are lucky enough to garner some despite that, we shouldn’t display pride in them. Since there is no control over brains and we don’t work for them, we must be silent about our “brain” accomplishments.

Woman can, though, it seems to me, trumpet success in areas of struggle. If we are born thin and stay thin, we don’t boast about it—we didn’t work to get there. But if a woman was overweight and then loses seventy pounds, she can flaunt that because everyone knows she worked for it. Similarly, women seem able to recount their athletic and artistic successes because these accomplishments involve struggle in an obvious way. Athletes must exercise, train and sweat, so their successes are deserved. Being artistic also involves toil—the sculptor laments the loss of her funding in her chilly garret. Even the new mother can describe the pain that culminated in her drug-free birthing success. But cerebral success? I get the impression that some think it takes no particular skill, is innate and involves no struggle. Well, like metabolic rate, there is something to be said for heredity, and yes, some of us got lucky; however, it takes tremendous effort to translate that initial advantage into something tangible in the world.

Pursuing intellectual and academic dreams, publishing regularly and commuting hundreds of kilometres to teach every week, as I do, is real work. It’s taxing, and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for other things. Because there is always more to read, more to write and more to present, the work expands to fit the time available. Consequently, I am always working, always pursuing head-related goals. According to goddess psychology, I would be classified as a brilliant Athena (warrior woman in the world) and a lousy Aphrodite (golden goddess of love). Or, as an old boyfriend once wrote, a person who spends “far too much time over-utilizing that key cerebral organ to decide matters that are best left to that key circulatory organ.” But this geographically challenging, intellectually stimulating life of mine works because I’m stuck in my head, not in my heart. I am proud of this, but it has come with some sadness—another area of silence.

I’ve found that it is impossible to pursue my dreams without leaving at least some relationship wreckage behind. Intellectual strength makes some relationship weakness inevitable. If you think “too much,” analyze “too much” or just generally assert your own way “too much,” things get tricky. When you are devoted to the
woman-in-the-distance
, you are not devoted to a man. This, quite simply, is problematic in heterosexual relationships. The pursuit of the
woman-in-the-distance
means you can conceive of life without your partner. This can be dangerous or might be liberating, but it most assuredly leaves wreckage in its wake. When that wreckage begins to pile up, I feel I have failed, and I do not want to admit that to anyone—least of all to some of my women friends, who might not appreciate my life decisions.

I have changed without my long-time women friends. I have lived away from them for years now, and although at first we talked incessantly on the phone and visited frequently, we now miss one another less. When we visit, it’s harder to reconnect. Too much time is spent on catching up and getting the news rather than really speaking intimately. Our divergent personal choices have altered our talk, altered our friendships. I don’t want the same things they want. Is this because I moved away? I don’t think so. More likely I have always wanted different things from many of my women friends, and time, distance and my spouse have helped put that into clearer focus. I did not want a father for potential future children; I wanted a partner. Nor did I want a house in the suburbs. A flat over a bakery in Paris would be more like it. Here in my new city, I have met women who seem to understand these things. We’ve formed a book club—not a mere book club, though, a salon, as in Coco Chanel, semiotics, oenology and Rodin. (Some of the men we know are threatened; they call us the Sisters of Satan.) Perhaps it is the diversity of the salon—a lawyer, an artist, an accountant, a Wiccan, a Jew, some Christians and a few agnostics—that allows us to applaud one anothers’ successes. When success is measured in different ways, one woman’s need not intimidate the others.

The conversational taboos diminish when the reference points are different. My friends from home—all mothers, all married, all Mennonite, all homeowners—have matching reference points; they share many of the same traditional indicators of success for women. I’ve come to realize that a circle of homogeneous girlfriends can silence.

That silence scares me. I think it may mean the end of some of my long-term, much valued friendships, at least on some levels. We have difficulties sharing our successes; it’s hard to share the exhilaration of winning Professor of the Year with someone who is disciplining her child and washing the dishes while she listens. And when I’m lost in the minutiae of legal footnoting, my appreciation of the sheer elation over finding the perfect preschool is not nearly as enthusiastic as it should be. I may never connect with the physicality of their love for their children because I may never have a child. They may never connect with my
woman-in-the-distance
because she may not be important to them. But maybe what’s important is that one day I will.

I have one eye trained on her at all times, and I am closing the distance. In the meantime, I continue my work, begin doctoral study and keep envisaging. And in between, there are flashes—fantastic, midnight, red-wine conversations that make me think no time has passed. My friends and I talk, for a while, the way we used to. We occasionally even watch our old soap opera, just to make fun of it over the phone. We all still hate the villain, we definitely do not want to work at the cosmetics conglomerate and we laugh together. I look down at my feet. There is the toe-ring. I have a toehold after all.