Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science (33 page)

What Aunt Nan didn’t say—what I figured out for myself—is that my father got lost in the shuffle.

“Glamour girl,”
Grandma had said to me wistfully from Mom’s bedside a few days earlier, as we watched Mom sleep. “Jo was always your grandfather’s little glamour girl.”

I have no memory of my mother’s father. I’ve been told repeatedly that he was a hardworking, respected physician. I wonder how he felt about Mom’s religious views. About his son-in-law.

An old college
friend of Mom’s called me in Hopewell as soon as she heard the news; even she had a story to share.

“Your mom, when she was at Carleton … well, she was one of the Johnson sisters. And were they ever popular! Always had dates. But of the three, your mom was the prettiest. And your dad,” she went on, “well, he was a catch. So handsome. And from a prominent Minnesota family. Your father took your mom on a six-week honeymoon through South America.”

I was shocked
—no, I was jaw-drop speechless—when Grandma told me, in the hospital cafeteria over coffee, about the summer between Mom’s sophomore and junior years of college, when she drove from Colorado back to Minnesota with a boy she’d met as a camp counselor.
My mother? On a road trip?

The reminiscences continued
.

“I wasn’t exactly surprised when I first heard that your parents had become Christian Scientists,” Aunt Lucia said to me in the hospital one morning. “Well … notwithstanding the fact that your mother’s father was a doctor. Your great-grandmother—my grandmother—had dabbled in Christian Science. When your dad told me they’d joined the Mother Church, I didn’t think much of it. Heff had never seemed particularly ardent about any religion. I guess I never knew the intensity of his conviction.… I’ve often wondered if his Marine Corps days in Korea had anything to do with it.”

I had never given much thought to my father’s tour of duty. Did
she mean he came back from Korea
changed
in some way? And how naïve of me to presume that he didn’t. But what did she mean? He became a Christian Scientist because of what he witnessed as a Marine? Or because of what he did when he was in Korea?

“Your mom’s always
been gullible,” Aunt Kay said one day as she was knitting. “Always.”

There was a
conversation my mother and I had once while I was in college. “If your father had been a rabbi, I’d be Jewish,” she said. I was a sophomore at the time, home for a few days, and she and I were debating something, I don’t recall what. I do remember, though, how unabashedly, almost proudly she’d uttered the words and how appalled I’d been because of what they said to me about my mother.

“What about
your
beliefs, Mom?” I shot back.

“They
are
my beliefs,” she said, as though her position required no defense.

Was my mom’s decision to convert to Christian Science that easy? Would she have gone along with any belief system, however extreme? Until Mom got sick, I had thought of my parents as fairly moderate people. What was it about who she was at the point in her life when my mother converted to Christian Science that made her reject everything her family stood for?

Or did she even see it as a rejection? Maybe it was less about faith and more about wanting, above all, to be one with the man she married, no matter what.

Could it be my parents were drawn to each other, and together to Christian Science, because of something that both were lacking in childhood? Is this even a reasonable guess?

I realize there are so many things I don’t know, probably never will.

I look over at my dad, who sits watching the television with a butterscotch candy lodged between his teeth and right cheek, and suddenly, I feel like he is a
stranger
. He glances up at the wall clock again, checks it against his watch. What is he thinking right now? Is he imagining his wife on the operating table? Is he still in shock that she is in a hospital at all? Or is he wondering how soon he can—or should, or must—leave for the city, to “prepare mentally” for his big meeting? (It was only after his sisters intervened, and urged him—delicately—to postpone his departure, that he agreed to stay until the surgery was over.)

It is three-fifteen
, and Mom has been in surgery for just over an hour. The Authorized Personnel Only door swings open, and Dr. White, the surgeon, walks toward us briskly.

I brace myself. The surgery was supposed to take two hours.

“Mr. Ewing,” Dr. White says, extending a quick, businesslike handshake to him, and then to each of us. He folds his arms on his chest. “She’s a fighter, that’s for sure.”

I feel a burden lift from me. She made it through the operation.

“We performed the colostomy. That went well, but then she started hemorrhaging. We got it under control, but there is a sizable tumor in her lower abdomen. We were only able to do a partial biopsy of the surrounding tissue. We had to close up.”

Grandma nods in understanding.

My heart sinks.

“How is she doing now?” Dad asks, and I cannot tell if the urgency in his voice has to do with her condition or with his plan to leave shortly for his association. I feel myself tensing all over again.

“She’ll be in recovery for maybe an hour,” Dr. White says, “but her vital signs are stable. Just as soon as they bring her up to SCU, you can see her. She’ll be quite groggy.”

“What’s next?” Grandma asks, holding her hands behind her back. She is still adept at this sort of conversation. I picture the
black-and-white photograph of her, circa 1930, in her crisp white nurse’s uniform and cap.

“Let’s give Jo the weekend to rest up,” Dr. White says. “She should be more comfortable now that the bowel situation is under control. The infection should begin to clear up too.”

His voice suggests a glimmer of hope.

“Dr. Sierocki will call you in for a meeting when the results are back. Probably Tuesday. He’ll talk to you about the treatment alternatives: chemotherapy, radiation, or possibly a combination of both.”

“Is Mom strong enough?” Olivia asks.

“That remains to be seen. Dr. Sierocki is the expert on that. I’ll be talking to him about what we found in the surgery, and he’ll consider the possibilities and their risks. But she did okay in there,” he says, nodding his head. “She did okay. Why don’t you get yourselves a cup of coffee, and we’ll see you up in SCU in a bit.”

It is impossible to reconcile the doctor’s encouraging manner with the words
sizable tumor
. Does he mean to imply optimism? Is there any chance she’ll be cured? I hold out hope. He wouldn’t have mentioned chemo and radiation if they weren’t viable treatment options. Would he? People
do
beat cancer.

We are all on hand when Mom is wheeled back up to the Special Care Unit, but it doesn’t really matter, for her anyway. She floats in and out of consciousness for the rest of the afternoon and evening, never quite registering where she is, or who we are. We, for the brief spells she is with us, put on our optimistic smiles and squeeze her hand lovingly.

The next morning
, while Grandma and I are sitting with Mom, the first words out of her mouth are “Where’s Heff?”

“He’s in New York for his association today,” I say, grabbing her hand again. “Remember?”

Mom looks away from me, toward the window, and closes her eyes. I feel Grandma’s resentment like a cold wind and wonder if Mom shares my humiliation, shame, and rage.

On Saturday evening
, Dad returns from his association meeting.

In the first post-operative days, we all take turns at Mom’s bedside while she drifts in and out. When she is alert, we chat, and her spirits are good. The mounting tension between and among us—because of Dad’s untimely departure, Uncle Jack’s absence, and the decision to restrict the flow of information from the doctor to anyone but Dad, Sherman, Olivia, and me—is not apparent to Mom; we work expertly to keep it below the surface.

We meet with
Dr. Sierocki to go over the findings from the surgery and possible treatments. In keeping with the plan that only our immediate family will have direct access to Mom’s doctors, we exclude Grandma and Aunt Mary from the conference. Their exclusion adds to the tension, and I feel torn. On the one hand, they have been left out far too long, and they
are
family. On the other hand, they are in Uncle Jack’s camp, or so it feels, and Uncle Jack has added to our troubles, not alleviated them. Still, the policy feels punitive.

The walls of the waiting room of the doctor’s office are covered with fake wood paneling, and the carpet is dreary. To compensate for the minimal natural light that three low windows afford, there are several homey-looking lamps with pull chains, on cheap wooden end tables. A coffee table offers the usual assortment of out-of-date magazines:
National Geographic
,
Sports Illustrated
,
and
Ranger Rick
. Framed prints of historic Princeton University adorn the walls.

The four of us take seats in one corner of the room, as removed as possible from the other families. Dad and Sherman sit anxiously on one couch, leaning forward, with their elbows on their knees. Olivia and I sit opposite them.

“Do you think we should check in with the receptionist?” Dad asks sheepishly, meaning “Would one of you tell her we’re here?” I get up begrudgingly, annoyed at my father’s helplessness, still angry that he didn’t cancel his association. I sort of wish Mom’s family, or Dad’s, had called him on it. The only drama surrounding his absence was my confrontation with him beforehand, which didn’t change anything.

Part of me thinks he shouldn’t be here now.

Olivia and I walk to the receptionist’s window. I am finding it harder and harder not to feel negative about practically everything my father does, or says, or doesn’t do or say. And yet, he looks totally defeated. I’m aware of a lingering—even building—sense of pity, a pity that catches me off guard.

After we sign in, we return to our corner, and I open my Filofax to start writing down questions for the doctor.

The receptionist calls our name, and we are led into the doctor’s office.

“Let’s see now,” Dr. Sierocki says, putting on his glasses and opening Mom’s file. It must be a hundred pages thick.

“Well, the colostomy was successful. Mother’s infection is clearing up. Her vital signs are stable.

“The biopsy,” he says, “came back positive. Mother has a sizable cancerous tumor in her lower abdomen. It does not appear to have metastasized to her lungs, lymph nodes, or brain. Everything
upstairs
appears clear from the CAT scan.”

“Does that mean it hasn’t spread?” Dad asks.

“No, not exactly,” Dr. Sierocki says. “It means that it hasn’t
spread to other regions. But it has begun to affect the bowels and the reproductive region.”

“What do we do now?” I ask.

“Nothing
to
do until Mother’s strength is back. We’re keeping her on the calorie supplements. And we’d like to begin physical therapy. When was the last time Jo walked?” Dr. Sierocki asks Dad, peering over his glasses.

“Uh,” Dad says, shifting in his chair. He is sitting on his hands, and his legs are crossed underneath his chair at the ankles, making him look feeble, ineffectual. “It wasn’t too long ago. She was walking almost until she left Tenacre.”

I wonder if my father is lying. It hadn’t occurred to me, until now, that in fact Mom
couldn’t
walk. I had assumed, naïvely, that she chose not to, because it was too exhausting. I realize I haven’t seen her out of bed, on her feet, for months. Since she was back in Hopewell.

“Her muscle tissue has atrophied considerably,” the doctor says, “so I’ve scheduled brief sessions of physical therapy three times a day.”

We all nod. I feel such shame. Now that she is being treated in a hospital, the regret I feel about the responsibility I
didn’t
assume for so many months overwhelmingly negates the whole notion of respecting her religious wishes. If we had tried to “rescue” her, to use Aunt Kay’s term, Mom might have refused, and died feeling that she had been betrayed. But she is here now, in a hospital. The idea that she might have refused feels impossible. Oh, God.

“That’s about all I can tell you for now. Do you have any questions?” the doctor says.

I look down at my Filofax and try to read the list of questions, but my eyes are filled with tears. I can’t focus through the blur. All I can think is,
If only we had come sooner
.

“Can it be removed surgically?” Dad asks.

“If the tumor were confined to the colon,” Dr. Sierocki says, “then a surgical procedure would make the most sense. But now the entire pelvic region is affected.”

“Do you think we should get a second opinion?” I ask. “Like, maybe Sloan-Kettering?”

I hope he isn’t offended by the question.

“I always encourage people to get second opinions,” he says, allaying my fears, “and in Mother’s case, that’s already been done. I have consulted with my colleagues in the hospital, and Dr. White—her surgeon—and I confer daily. I think Princeton Medical Center is as well equipped to deal with this case as any of the finest hospitals. But I have some very close colleagues at Sloan-Kettering. If you like, I can put you in touch.”

“But what do you think, Doctor?” Dad says.

“It would be a mistake to move her now. Of course,” he adds, “anything might happen in the future to make a move to Sloan-Kettering the best option.”