Melody looked genuinely surprised. She pushed her blond hair back and leaned back on her hands. “Of course not. Why should we be? We have a free and open relationship. We can be with anyone we want to be with—we just chose to stay with each other.”
“But that’s not right,” Eleanor declared.
“Says who?”
“Well, that’s not the way you’re supposed to do it. You’re supposed to have a ceremony and make it special. We even have weddings here in the commune.”
“They wouldn’t be deemed legal by the state,” her mother countered. “We do it merely for the fun of doing it. Sometimes it makes people feel more married. But do you realize the stupidity of legal marriage? You go pay money and get a license—a piece of paper—that says it’s okay for you to live together, pay bills together, raise kids. The state is telling you that this is okay, and not because they think you will be happy with each other or that you are a perfect choice for each other or that you think alike enough to make a good couple. They say it’s okay because you’ve paid your money. That’s all.”
Eleanor felt sick inside. The idea that her parents weren’t married truly bothered her for some reason. She’d never considered it before. She and her friends always talked about falling in love and getting married. How could it be that her parents weren’t a part of this?
“Then you go to some church or judge and they say a few words over you, and that makes you married. Just like that. Why should I be a part of that? I love your dad and we’ve had all you kids because of that love. The rules of the state don’t change that.”
“But what about promising to stay together?”
“You mean a commitment?” Melody shook her head. “We are committed in our own way. But, Ellie, if your dad decides he wants to be with someone else, why should that bug me? Sure, I’d miss him and I wouldn’t stop loving him, but why would you want to force someone to be with you when they didn’t want to be there? You can’t hold on to people like they’re some kind of possession. Your dad isn’t some nice piece of furniture I found at the store. He’s a human being with his own mind. I don’t own him and he sure doesn’t own me.”
“But you could break up.”
“But we could even if we were married. It’s called a divorce. Eleanor, I don’t see why you’re so upset. It doesn’t change anything. Your dad and I are married in our minds, our hearts. That’s all that matters. We have our own kind of commitment, but we don’t hassle each other. That would be a bum trip. It would destroy what we have.”
Eleanor couldn’t stand any more. She ran off toward the river, heartbroken to know the truth. Her mother called after her, but she ignored her. Why bother? She’d probably tell Eleanor something else that she didn’t want to hear.
She didn’t realize she was crying until her nose got all stopped up. Sniffing, Eleanor wiped her face on her shirt. She felt terrified of what the future might hold. What if her mother grew tired of her father? What if she decided to pick up and move away, taking the kids with her? Or what if she decided she didn’t want to be a mom anymore and left them all behind?
Eleanor wasn’t a naïve child. She’d heard enough from other people in the commune—new people from the outside—that there was a whole different way of doing things in the outside world. She’d always known this to be true, but the things she’d been hearing were intriguing to her—maybe even calling to her.
There was, in her soul, a need for something more permanent. Something she could call her own. She dreamed of living in a real house, with floors that didn’t creak and walls that had good paint. And a dog. A dog would be so nice to have. A little dog. Her folks never wanted to have pets because of the hassle and cost. Her father said it wasn’t good to take food out of the children’s mouths and give it to a dog. He hadn’t relented on his position, even when Eleanor offered to share her food with the animal.
“I’d get a dog,” she said, sobbing the words against her arm. “I’d get a dog and a house and I’d find somebody and marry them with the license and everything.” In that moment, Eleanor’s heart changed toward her mother. For some reason she felt confident that most of this had been her mother’s idea. Her father surely wouldn’t have done this on his own accord. He loved Eleanor—he was always there for her in a way no one else had ever been. Eleanor was certain that living in such a haphazard way could never have been his plan.
That night, as Eleanor lay in bed trying to sleep, she grew even more resentful toward her mother. Just because she didn’t like living in a house and having rules, she has to force me to live like this. It isn’t fair.
She fell asleep with a bitterness in her heart that she’d never known. It was still with her the next day when her mother rallied her and her brothers for breakfast. Eleanor sat at the table listening to her brothers’ incessant chattering and complaining.
They have no idea what they’re missing out on, she thought. They’re too little to understand like I do. I’ve heard stories and know about things. She watched her mother slip around the kitchen as if she had the world by the tail.
Our parents aren’t even married, she thought, looking down the table at her siblings. What did that mean? What would happen if her parents decided to suddenly give up being parents—just as they had the choice to give up being together? The thought sickened Eleanor. Where would they go? What would she do? Would she have to take care of her brothers? How in the world could she do that? She was only a girl without any money or real education.
“Where’s Dad?” she suddenly asked.
Her mother looked up from wiping Spirit’s face. “He’s seeing people. Since we need this place to live, he’s going to them. You know that’s how it’s done.”
“Oh, are those your rules?”
Her mother looked at her oddly. “What’s with you? You’ve been sour-faced all morning and you’re bringing me down. It’s a beautiful day and I was in complete harmony until you woke up.”
“Well, I was in complete harmony until you told me you weren’t married to Dad,” Eleanor snipped.
“Oh, forget it, Eleanor. It’s not a big deal. We’ve been together so long now, the state probably considers us married. They call it common-law marriage.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t consider it anything.” She got up and stormed out of the trailer, nearly losing her balance on the rickety metal steps her father had put in place at the front door.
It was one defining moment in her life that Eleanor would carry with her forever. It changed her heart—not only toward her family, but it redefined who she was and wanted to be. She had thought she was happy, or at least satisfied with the world she lived in. Now it was as if a door of discontent had been opened.
“I want something more,” she muttered and walked past her hippie neighbors and the clutter of communal living.
Eighteen
For the next couple of days, Eleanor avoided her father. She almost felt ashamed of him, yet she didn’t understand why. There were no rules in their world that said her parents had done wrong. She’d even found out that many of the other couples in the commune were unmarried. It never seemed a problem to any other children that their parents were unwed.
Eleanor kept mulling the situation over in her mind. Why did it bother her so much? It just seems, she concluded, that everything I’ve been taught is a lie. But how could that be? Her father loved her, and everything he’d ever done for her had proven that.
I shouldn’t want to avoid him, but I’m not sure I want to deal with this truth either. Nothing feels right. The whole world—my world—seems so wrong. She knew her father would have answers, but she wasn’t convinced they would be helpful ones. Her parents’ loose philosophy of open marriage and free love didn’t provide what she longed for: confidence and security. Still, it wasn’t right to say nothing. Sooner or later her father would realize she was avoiding him, and then he would be hurt. She didn’t want that.
With this on her heart, Eleanor decide
d it was finally time to have a talk with her father. She went in search of him, knowing from her mother that he had gone for a walk along the river. All the way, walking slowly and contemplating her words, Eleanor hoped fervently that he might explain her fears away.
The day was hot and dry, and when the wind did blow, it seemed to be full of grit and sand. Eleanor felt she was always eating sand. It was in the air, in the food.
“I don’t like it here,” she muttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “It’s ugly, and I wish we could live somewhere else.”
Eleanor wandered along for about half an hour before she finally spotted her father sitting beside the river on a rock. She felt nervous about approaching him. If she didn’t talk to him now, she might not ever talk to him again. She knew that above all else, she didn’t want that.
“Dad?” she called.
“Ellie girl, come on over. What are you doing out here?”
“I came to see you,” she said as she approached. He looks tired, she thought. Tired and more dirty than he usually likes to be. His hair was a bit longer than he usually wore it, but that was because her mother hadn’t had time to cut it.
Her father drew her into his arms and positioned her on his lap as he had done for as long as Eleanor had memory. “So what do you want to talk about?”
She looked away. She felt she very well might start to cry. She sucked in her lower lip and waited for the feeling to pass.
“Ellie,” he said softly, brushing back the hair from her face, “is this about what your mother told you the other day? About us not being married?”
Eleanor nodded but didn’t trust herself to speak. She hadn’t realized that her father knew about the discussion she’d had with her mother.
“That really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
Again she nodded, but this time she met his eyes. The love he held for her there was more comforting than any words he could have spoken. She felt in that moment that if the world suddenly fell apart, her daddy would find a way to protect her and keep her safe with him. She wrapped her arm around his neck and put her head on his shoulder. He cradled her for several minutes, his hand gently stroking her arm and leg.
“Ellie, it doesn’t mean you aren’t loved. It doesn’t even mean that Mom and I don’t love each other. We just don’t believe in the same rules that the world wants to put on us. The establishment doesn’t understand our hearts.”
“But it scares me,” Eleanor finally whispered. “I don’t know why you never told me the truth before now.”
Her father shrugged, causing her to sit back up. “One man’s truth is another man’s lie. Who defines truth?”
“Well, there’s gotta be some things that never change,” she declared. “Some things have to be true no matter what.”
“Sure, there are some things. Like we have to breathe air. We have to have water to survive. Those things don’t change.”
“But love does, doesn’t it?”
“Love?” he asked. “Why do you worry about love?”
“Because you and Mom could decide you don’t love each other and leave. You could decide you don’t love me.”
“Ellie, that will never happen. I’ll always love you.”
She found no comfort in his words. “But what about Mom? What about our family? Will we always be together?”
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, we’ll be together for a good long while. But, Ellie, you’ll grow up and want to move out. You’ll want to start a home of your own.”
“Do you and Mom love each other?”
“Of course we do.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “But it’s our definition of love. Not someone else’s. See, that’s what I mean about truth. The truth is a matter of perspective. I have one truth, and for me it works well. Someone else has another truth and for them, that’s the answer.”
“But it seems to me there should be only one truth,” Eleanor said seriously.
“Why?”
She looked at him for a moment. “Well, one truth would make things more simple. If everybody has their own truth, it seems to me that things will get pretty complicated. Like I told Mom the other day: what if your truth causes someone else to get hurt?”
“You can only be hurt by people if you let yourself be hurt. It’s all up to you, Ellie girl. You don’t have to let people hurt you.”
Ellie shook her head. “Daddy, that doesn’t make sense. You and Mom hurt me by not getting married. It wasn’t just me letting myself get hurt.”
“Wasn’t it? You weren’t hurt until you decided that the way we’d done things was wrong. In fact, as I recall, you were pretty happy. You let the world come in with its regulations and say you were unhappy, and all because we weren’t doing things by their rules. You didn’t have to let this hurt you, Ellie.”
She thought about that for several minutes. Maybe he was right. Maybe she didn’t need to be hurt about anything ever again. If it were only a matter of willing the pain to go away or refusing to feel anything in the first place, maybe that really was the way to get by.
“Ellie, the world is full of lies. It tells you that you need certain things in order to be happy, and it sets boundaries for you that you don’t need or understand.”
“Like what? What kind of boundaries?”
“Like the rules and laws that govern the land. The politicians will tell you that this is to make things better, to help our lives run smoother. But do you have any idea how complicated things have gotten?”
“Complicated, how?”
“Well, for instance, it used to be that anyone could be a doctor who wanted to be. A person only had to learn about medicine and people’s ailments and he could be a healer. But now you have to be licensed and go through all sorts of college and training.”
“But training is good, isn’t it? Isn’t learning about stuff helpful?”
“To a degree, but sometimes the best learning comes from actually doing the job. I think I could have been a good doctor even without college. I spent half of my college years learning a lot of other things that had nothing to do with being a doctor. I took art classes and English and history. None of those things helped me learn about medicine. I could already communicate by reading and writing. I didn’t need more English to teach me that. I knew history enough to understand how wrong we were in our philosophies and ideologies, but I certainly didn’t need more of the same in order to be a good doctor.”
“So boundaries are wrong?” Eleanor asked.
“Boundaries are deceptive. People set boundaries because they’re important to them. They tell each other, ‘These are my boundaries and you can’t cross them.’ ”
Eleanor’s confusion grew. “But isn’t that what they do with their different truths too? Aren’t they saying, ‘This is my truth and it doesn’t matter what you think or how it hurts you’?”
Her father sighed and tousled her hair. “Ellie, I don’t expect you to understand everything right now. You’re not even a teenager yet. Almost,” he said with a grin, “but not quite.” He hugged her close.
“I can’t help feeling scared, Daddy. It seems like everything that makes me feel safe is gone. I liked our old house, but then we had to move. I heard some of the girls talking about moving to the city and the places you could go, and it sounds like fun. I think I’d like to go to the city. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No, it doesn’t make you bad. I just don’t want to see you conform to a world that doesn’t care how you feel. Our friends out here care about one another. We share what we have with one another and we don’t worry about a lot of rules. We keep things cool.”
“But I feel like something’s missing. I feel all empty inside. Like I need something, and I don’t even know what it is.”
Her father nodded. “All you really need is love. And you have that. I’ll always love you and so will your mom. You don’t need to be afraid.”
“But sometimes people stop loving,” Eleanor said frankly. “
They stop caring.” She sat up and looked at her dad. “They leave each other and everything changes. What if Mom decides to leave? What if you decide to leave?”
“I know this won’t make things better, but, Ellie, everyone has the right to walk away when the time comes. You can’t hold on to people—you can’t put a leash around their necks and force them to your side. Would you like it if I said you could never grow up and leave?”
“Well, no, I suppose not.”
“Then why do you worry about that with me?”
“Because you’re an adult and you can do what you want. I’m just a kid. If you left, it would be bad, and I would be scared. I need you.”
“Ellie, you shouldn’t need anybody. That’s why you’re scared. You’re putting too much dependency on the people around you. We could all die tomorrow. I have no say over life and death in that way. I don’t want you to need me for your existence. If you do, then I’ve done something wrong in raising you.”
Ellie looked at her father quizzically. She pushed up from his lap and stared at him, trying hard to take in all his words. He stood and shoved his hands in his jean pockets. “The less you need in life, Ellie, the happier you’ll be. Think about that and you’ll find out soon enough for yourself that it’s true. If you don’t need people or things, then when they go away you won’t feel that sense of loss—that hurt. That’s one of the ways you control whether or not you get hurt.”
She felt a deep sadness wash over her. “So you don’t need me?”
Her father’s expression grew almost stern. “No, Ellie. I don’t need you. I love you, and that will never change. But I don’t need you.”
“And you don’t need Mom or the boys?”
“No. I don’t need them either. To need them would be to set up boundaries for myself that would fence me in and kill me.”
“So if Mom leaves or I leave, you won’t feel anything about it? You won’t care?”
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