Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science (20 page)

I should call for an ambulance. I should call Uncle Jack.

I rest my arms on the edge of the sink, and my head in my arms, and wait. For what? Incredibly, I am listening for the “still small voice” my Sunday school teachers always talked about, or for some inner compass to point me in the right direction. But nothing, nothing at all, is clear, except that I have to go back into that room. My head hurts.

I rinse the few plates in the sink, load them in the dishwasher, keep breathing deeply, and head back to the guest room. I take a seat on the other twin bed again.

“Did I tell you who’s going to cut my hair?” I ask. Mom shakes her head. Absurdly, I find myself telling my mother about a recent fashion shoot at German
Vogue
, how the hairstylist, one of the most sought after in New York, showed up two and a half hours late.

“Rados was furious, so she said—”

“Now, who’s Rados?” Mom asks, blankly.

You’ve met her, damn it! We’ve had long conversations about her.

“Oh, you remember,” I say lightly, my voice cracking, “my boss?”

I am terrified, but I clear my throat and push on.

“So he’s cutting my hair for free,” I say, pretending to examine my fingernails. “He usually charges, like, a hundred and fifty dollars.”

My mother is smiling at me, pleased at my good fortune.

“Mom,” I say, “I have to leave soon.”

I have to call Olivia and Sherman.

“Do you have a date tonight?” she asks.

I’m caught off guard; I do, in fact, have a date. And because I do, I feel ashamed. If we were a normal family, I would be staying right here to care for Mom. But this situation is not normal, not even close, so I am returning to the city, to carry on the pretense of a regular life, with a job and the occasional date.

“What’s he like?” she asks. It has been so long since she has asked me anything like this. But instead of feeling good, or even nostalgic for this type of exchange, I feel distracted. I can’t even pull up an image in my head.

“He’s got dark brown hair and green eyes,” I say.

“Green eyes?” she asks and winks, but I’m not even sure that he does.

We both smile, and I am aware that, for Mom, this chat must feel good, significant, as it allows her to be something she hasn’t been for months: my mother.

“Does he have brothers and sisters?”

“Brothers. Four, I think—”

“Five boys and no girls?”

I nod.

“And his parents? Are they both alive?”

I have to look away. I am disarmed by the question. Asking about siblings is one thing. Asking if his parents are both alive is something else altogether.

“Uh,” I manage, “uh … yeah. I think they are.”

I face her again, and it is my mother who looks away.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

She has turned toward me again and is looking straight into my eyes. I have to ask the question.

“Look, Mom, are you sure you don’t want to go see a doc—”

“No, Lucia. No.” She is shaking her head vehemently. “I just know this will be met. It
will
happen.

“You know, Connie and Susie are such good Scientists …,” Mom says wistfully. “Having grown up in the Church, their understanding is just, well, more pure. You may not see it this way now, but, Lucia, you are so blessed with this upbringing.”

I bite my lip.

I want to tell my mom that her illness isn’t the result of some sort of failing or shortcoming on her part. But I don’t. I say nothing.

“I am working very closely with Mrs. Childs. She is an excellent practitioner. I know I’m making progress. But I need you to be behind me.”

I remember what Mrs. Childs said to Sherman and me about her three children, and keeping the ones who are not Christian Scientists at a distance. I take a deep breath and tell my mother what she wants to hear me say.

“Mom, whatever you need to do, I support you. I love you.”

I hug her, squeezing maybe too hard. I don’t want to let go.

Once I’m in
the car, I want a cigarette. I search my purse but can’t find the box of Marlboro Lights. Am I really craving nicotine? Is that why I’m shaking? Or do I just want to fill my father’s Honda with smoke, commit the ultimate Christian Science fuck you?

I speed back to my parents’ house. Driving fast feels strangely exhilarating. I wouldn’t mind if I crashed. I blast the stereo to drown out everything.

Turning in to my parents’ driveway, I slow down to twenty, which is still way too fast for the rutted gravel road. The woods are so dense and green I can’t see the house through them, but then,
suddenly, here I am. Why the hell did I race back? At the bend, I coast to a halt, put the car in park, and rest my head on the steering wheel. My eyes well up again, and I feel I may completely lose it, but then I look up and see that my dad is walking toward the car. I lower the volume on the stereo and roll down the window.

“So you brought my car back in one piece?” he says, clearly trying to be funny.

I’m in no mood. I turn off the ignition, get out, and walk past him.

“I’m going to pack up my stuff. Any time it’s convenient to take me to the Junction, I’m ready.”

My father says nothing.

A hundred and seventeen days ago Mom went to Tenacre. Yeah, she’s out. So what? It’s not like the doctors have said, “Okay, you’re all better. You can go home now.”

Her birthday is in five days. She will be fifty.

I take the
train out from Penn Station and pick up Mom’s car, which Sherman has left for me at Princeton Junction. I wish he were here, but he’s gone to the city overnight. I don’t blame him for needing to get away. The last time I left Hopewell, I thought about never coming back.

Turning in to the driveway, I see Mom and Dad approaching me in Dad’s car. We pull up side by side and both roll down our windows.

“Hi,” we say in unison. “Hi, Mom,” I add. She looks, I think, about the same, but she is wearing a pink cable-knit sweater, and her face is, maybe, a bit fuller. In spite of the confused mental state I found her in nearly two weeks ago, and the complete lack of evidence of physical improvement, I still cling to the hope—or the fantasy—that Christian Science can work.

“We’re going into town for some ice cream,” Dad says.

“All right,” I say. “Can I drop my bags first?”

I expect to hear him say, “Great!” and mean it, or at least acquiesce to my wish to join them.

Instead, he looks at Mom, and she looks at him, and then she glances down at her hands, and Dad turns back to me and says, “Gee, Loosh,” wincing. “I think, I think we’re going to go just the two of us. We won’t be long. Can we bring you something?”

I roll up my window and feel hurt, shut out. It’s probably a ruse anyway. She won’t touch the ice cream.

But then I think: maybe she
does
want some ice cream. Maybe she really doesn’t have the energy for the three of us. Wanting to go out for ice cream could still be a good sign. I’m aware of my need to see just about anything as an indication that she might be getting better.

I bring my weekend bag up to my room and set it on the far twin bed, the one that used to be Olivia’s. The room is cozy enough, with pretty Laura Ashley bed linens and curtains. I first stayed here in August of ’78, after Claremont and before I went off to Emma Willard. My parents have lived here for eight years now, but I’ve never slept here enough to think of this room as anything more than a guest room. I lie down on the bed and close my eyes.

About half an hour later, I hear the churning of car wheels on gravel. A car door opens and closes. Then another does. I approach the window, where I see my father helping my mother walk. She’s fifty now, but she looks as old as Grandma. Dad’s right arm is around her waist, and his left hand is holding her left arm at the elbow. They are moving very slowly but urgently. He struggles with the screen door, and they step into the kitchen together.

My mother moans.

“We’re almost there. Do you want to rest?” my father asks.

“The bathroom …,” she says.

I tiptoe toward the hallway. I feel like a spy.

“Oh, uh,” my mother says, changing her mind, “no. Upstairs.”

I hear the shuffle of footsteps. I return to my room and quietly close the door, hoping it won’t squeak.

I am ready for bed, even though it’s only nine-thirty. I’ve brushed my teeth in the bathroom down the hall. Washing up has given me something to do while Dad helps Mom settle in for the night. There is a whispered conversation, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Dad closes the door to the master bedroom and quickly heads down the hall to his study, pulling the door shut behind him.

I walk from my bedroom, past my father’s study, to my parents’ bedroom. I’m pretty certain he has heard me, but I don’t feel like talking to him. It might lead to a confrontation, and I feel as though my status here is already in jeopardy, like my parents see me more and more as part of the problem. If I’m not careful, there may come a time—soon—when I’ll be asked to leave, or I won’t be invited back.

I knock lightly on the door.

“Mom?” I say. “Can I come in?”

“Sure, dear.”

The bedside light is on, and Mom is propped up with pillows. Her Bible and
Science and Health
aren’t open to the Lesson, and she is not wearing the Walkman earphones. She is staring aimlessly into space, or maybe she is praying. Even though it is a muggy summer evening, she is wearing a flannel nightgown, and the air-conditioning is turned off.

“How are you?” I ask.

“I’m fine.”

“Here, come sit with me,” Mom says, turning toward me and patting the down comforter.

I’m pleasantly caught off guard. I climb in next to her and pull a section of the comforter over me. It’s good to feel welcome.

“Did you see what your daddy gave me for my birthday?”

“No,” I say, surprised, grateful, glad.

There’s no such thing as birthdays
, I was told as a kid. It was the most depressing of all the Christian Science truths, because we were usually reminded of this a week or two before a birthday.
“Birth and death connote beginning and end,” our parents would say, “and in Science we know there is no beginning, no end.” Not going to doctors was no big deal, but no birthdays? Of course, every year we did celebrate our birthdays, and our parties were every bit as good as anyone else’s. Maybe Mom and Dad loved the tease of it all. Or, possibly, Dad felt strongly about it and Mom was torn, and as each birthday drew near, Mom won? In truth, the uncertainty made birthdays that much better, knowing we were getting something we shouldn’t.

Mom and Dad, on the other hand, didn’t celebrate their own birthdays. I can’t remember a single party for either one of them when we were growing up. They never went out for special birthday dinners. At most, we got to bake and decorate a cake, and light candles, but that was for our sake, not theirs.

My mother pulls her left hand out from under the covers and extends her fingers elegantly toward me. In place of her wedding band, I see a beautiful new ring, with rubies and pearls arranged in a circular pattern. She is beaming. I think,
Well done, Dad
.

I take my mother’s hand and hold it in mine. We sit there quietly, and the silence feels, somehow, nearly perfect. A few moments later, I look up at her face again. She has tears in her eyes.

“Lucia,” she says, “maybe one day you’ll get to have it.”

My mother has said this with such tenderness, but all of a sudden I’m so fucking angry I might explode.
What, am I supposed to thank you? How can you do this to me? I couldn’t care less about a stupid goddamned ring. You are abandoning me!

I need to excuse myself.

I lie in bed
, waiting for sleep, trying to do it without my Halcion—not out of deference to Mom and Dad while I’m at their house but because I’m pretty sure these pills are intended for occasional insomnia, which I am long past.

“Maybe one day you’ll get to have it.”

She thinks she’s dying, yet she refuses to change course. And here I sit doing nothing.

God, please make Aunt Mary or Aunt Kay or somebody call here. Make someone act on a hunch and fly out here and get Mom to a doctor.

I don’t even believe in God.

Tomorrow, Mom will stay in her room and Dad will bring her a tray with tea and sandwiches that she won’t touch. Or maybe she’ll make it down the stairs, with his help, and out to the screened porch in back, where she’ll lie on the gliding sofa. I’ll watch the Sunday morning news shows in the next room and hang out by the pool with
The New York Times
, maybe go for a jog. And then I’ll head back to the city.

Worse yet is this: Dad is scheduled to conduct his two-week Primary class, a closely guarded annual event central to the work of a Christian Science teacher and the Church’s training of practitioners, in the city next month. Normally, Mom and Dad stay in their apartment for the duration.

Sherman and Olivia and I are worried that Dad will send Mom back to Tenacre. If he does, I just know she will never come out. But what are his options? He can’t leave her. He can hire a Christian Science nurse who makes house calls, but that still leaves Mom alone for much of each day.

He should postpone his class. Maybe we can convince him. We have discussed this possibility over the last few weeks, but we have not broached the subject with Dad. Everything about his practice is strictly off-limits to us.

What little I know about Primary class I have pieced together from Mom and Dad’s cryptic, sporadic comments, and from what Mary Baker Eddy outlines in the Church Manual: Christian Scientists may apply to specific teachers to take the two-week course, which is centered on the teachings of one particular chapter in
Science and Health
entitled “Recapitulation.” Each class is made up of no more than thirty pupils and
is taught only once a year. The teacher can determine whether membership in the Mother Church is a prerequisite. In addition to the annual Primary class, a teacher holds a one-day meeting of his association of all students who have ever taken his class. At that, he gives an address, which he spends weeks preparing. My father’s Primary class is held in July, his association, in August.