by Tricia Dower
“Ron’s better at it too, must be the Y chromosome.”
Grace laughs. “Must be. Our talents are legion, dear one, but they lie elsewhere.”
Lin says, “It bugs me too when people complain about Ron. Can you believe somebody said he was too tall?”
“I can. I recall one old darling who thought Howard had parted his hair differently one Sunday just to confuse her.”
Lin lazily stretches her arms and yawns in this serene room with no toys on the floor. Such an easy relationship she has with her mother-in-law. How lucky she is. “Did you ever wonder if some people in your congregation were making futile gestures and you were contributing to their delusion?”
Grace lifts her eyebrows. “What kind of gestures, dear?”
“Like praying for a miracle or tithing for a place in heaven when they can’t even make their mortgage payments.”
Grace frowns. “Have you asked Ronnie that question?”
“No, I haven’t.”
The silence that follows feels heavier than night. Accusing. Lin slides a throw pillow onto her lap, sifts the fine tassels through her fingers. A snowplow scrapes its way down the street. Grace stands and busies herself with the fire. Lin can’t bear a moment’s alienation from this woman she adores. “Maybe I am exhausted and don’t realize it,” she says. “What should I do?”
Grace sits again, on the sympathetic edge of her chair this time, and leans forward, relief on her face. “Some nights I didn’t answer the phone and every so often I’d head off on a long, solitary walk.” She spreads both hands over her heart. “It fed my spirit, it truly did. You need more time for reflection. Tavis can come here anytime at all. You know that, don’t you?”
Lin nods. A different kind of numbness creeps in. One that says, You’re on your own.
Grace slips beside her on the couch. “Your life is in God’s hands, Lin. Don’t doubt for a minute He has a plan for you. The winter inside you right now will yield to spring. It always does.” She pats Lin’s hand and her voice turns upbeat and beseeching. “Take a bubble bath tonight after Tavis is asleep. That should help. And let’s keep this matter between you and me. We don’t want to quench the Holy Spirit in Ronnie’s life.”
On a crisp, dry Sunday in February, Lin finds it impossible to recite the Apostle’s Creed. Her mouth simply won’t form the words. She can no longer affirm belief in a “Father Almighty” to whom she’s supposed to surrender her will and who’s supposed to make her feel safe in an unsafe world. What proof is there besides a few words in a book written by fallible men that Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” and born to a virgin? Some Taoists believe their deity was conceived by a shooting star. The resurrection of the body after moldering in the grave seems as far-fetched as the earth resting upon an elephant, the elephant upon a tortoise.
That night while Ron and Tavis sleep, she tiptoes downstairs and into the kitchen, softly lifts the wall phone off the receiver as quietly as she can and dials Artie. He’ll be awake, covering the night shift at the shelter. The phone is in the common room with the couches and TV. She hears a program in the background when he answers. Ages ago he told her he lost his enthusiasm for dogma while in seminary. What inspires and drives him is the message of love, forgiveness and social justice attributed to Jesus in the. Whether Jesus was real or not doesn’t matter to him. Tonight she asks him straight away, “Why’d you become a minister?”
“It gives me a platform to challenge people about what they mean when they say they’re Christians.” His voice is buoyant, as though he’s thrilled she asked. “I’m a ham, a grandstander. I could write for obscure journals, I suppose, but I love to talk, to see people’s faces when they consider a life of integrity.”
That’s it. That’s what she wants, though she doesn’t know what a life of integrity looks like. “Do you believe in God?” she says.
“I don’t ask myself that. It’s irrelevant. Makes no difference to how I live.”
She tiptoes back to bed, relieved of a burden she wasn’t aware she was carrying.
37
Sat, Sept 23/72
I cried great gulping sobs all the way back from PF, had to pull over twice when I couldn’t see to drive. Felt like a space walker whose lifeline has been cut. Thank heavens Angel was home. I told her about T’s tantrum, how the 2nd treat he had to wait for until “tomorrow” must have been one too many. She poured me a glass of cold white wine, told me it would blur the edges of my pain. It made my left eyelid droop. I told her the sacred family time started off looking promising w/T waking us by jumping onto the bed & flopping like a fish. She said you slept with your ex? I said he’s still my husband. She said I know, but…How was it? I said weird. She said I bet & waited but I couldn’t tell her I had felt like occupied territory, that Eldon Jukes had invaded my mind. She doesn’t know about Eldon Jukes.
I told her breakfast was OK at first, that R made pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse (Grace must’ve given him the idea). We all had jobs, T’s to give the pancakes cherry noses, orange mouths & banana eyes, mine to set the table & warm the syrup. Angel said she’s never thought to warm the syrup. I told her R asked who had a funny joke & T said I do, I do & gave me a mean look. Angel said so what was his joke? I said why did the mommy cross the road? Because her arms were noodles. Angel laughed & said oh that’s for cute, when Anthony started telling jokes, they were goofy like that but he thought they were hysterical, did you laugh? I said yeah, but inside I was shaking. My own son wanted me to cross the road & be killed by something I couldn’t defend myself against because my arms were noodles. Angel said wow, that’s really stretching, if he’d said why did the daddy cross the road, would you have thought he wanted his father to die? I said no but he didn’t tell R to go away, did he? She leaned across the table & took my hand, said, you’re too easy to hurt, he knows how much you love him, you’re like a walking, talking Valentine around that child.
I could’ve smacked my head. She’d hit on it, of course. Since T was born, I’ve acted more like a besotted lover than a parent. I told her I knew I’d overreacted, that I was in such a state by the time we finished breakfast, I couldn’t stay until Grace got there & R looked so disappointed but said he understood, he’s always so darned understanding. Angel said that’s the Capricorn in him. I told her seeing Grace’s stuff in the parsonage brought home how much I’ve disrupted her life as well as R’s and T’s, that if I’d waited to see her & she’d been the least bit kind to me I would’ve slit my wrists. Angel said I hope that’s only an expression, you’re not suicidal, are you? I shook my head. She said because if you are, I’m not giving you any more wine. I told her she was a kind soul. She said it was time I had a session w/Rhonda.
38
Ron hasn’t “come around,” as Artie said he would, and discussed Transactional Analysis with her in any meaningful way. He claims she’s like a hammer looking for a nail and he won’t encourage her. It’s been six months since the workshop. Six months of living with the awareness of her emotional immaturity and childlike faith, the shame of it like a shroud winding itself around her tighter and tighter each day. She finds it hard to breathe, to eat, is down to one hundred and five pounds.
She makes senseless bargains with herself: if she counts to eleven before pouring the oatmeal into the boiling water or if she folds the bedspread back exactly two inches from the top, the maddening, intrusive thoughts will scatter like cockroaches in sudden light. She curses the workshop for making her dissatisfied, curses herself for embracing so earnestly what she learned at it. Ron is the same caring man she married, Tavis still her rising sun every day. Church membership holds steady. Prayer breakfast happens every Tuesday, choir rehearsal every Wednesday and Crafty Gals the last Thursday of the month. All that’s changed is her perception of herself and she wants to escape it with an urgency she hasn’t known before.
The possibility of leaving arrives in g
limpses, too painful to contemplate at once. She confides in Artie, who says there’s no disgrace in being whatever you are at the moment, whether Child or Emancipated Adult, Believer or Doubter and, besides, you can’t leave yourself behind no matter where you go. His words hold little solace. For a while she clings like a wet leaf to the comfort of belonging to a congregation. At some point it’s blindingly clear she can no longer deceive them and Ron with her presence.
Easter has come early. She lets Ron rest for a few days after the dizzying pilgrimage from Good Friday’s grief to Easter Sunday’s joy he orchestrates for congregants each year. The night she tells him is cold and windy. They’re upstairs, the space heater between them. He’s bent over a crossword. She turns her chair to face his, the words she’s rehearsed pounding like prisoners against the walls of her heart. She sets them free. “I want to live in Minneapolis.”
He looks up with a frown. “You want us to move?”
“Not us, me. I want to get a job there.”
He shakes his head as if to dislodge what he’s heard. “Say again?”
She leans forward, hands gripping her knees under the washed-out purple robe she’s had since their first Christmas together. She sucks in a breath then painfully lets it out. “This is so hard to admit. I married you under false pretenses, wasn’t mature enough to accept your proposal. I’ve stolen the time you could’ve spent with someone else.”
He sets his crossword aside, gives her a pitying smile. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re so hard on yourself.”
She shakes her head. “I’m being honest.”
“You’re tired and no wonder. Stuck inside with Tavis all winter, eating like a bird.”
“I’m not tired.”
He moves to the edge of the bed close to her, takes her hand. A faint odor of garlic emanates from him. The thinner she gets, the more sensitive to smells. “It’s the lingering fear from the letters, the FBI, isn’t it?” he says. “And the war. You took it so much more to heart than I did, allowed it to live inside you. I should’ve gotten counseling for you.”
“You see?” She wrests her hand away.
“What?”
“Why would counseling for me have been up to you?”
“You wouldn’t have thought you were worth it. You always take the shriveled piece of cheese, the burnt toast. How many times have you worn that dress from our honeymoon?”
“That’s not why counseling wouldn’t have occurred to me. It’s because my Parent says don’t grow up. My Child expects you to take care of me.”
He throws up his hands, slaps them down on the mattress. “Listen to yourself. My Parent. My Child. I’m fed up to the eyeballs with it. Throw those blasted books away.” He leans forward, head in hands, elbows on his knees. “What’s wrong with me taking care of you? You take care of me lots of ways and I like it.”
She reaches out, touches his leg. “The problem is I cast you in the role of my rescuer.”
He looks up. “I hate this talk of roles and scripts, this manufactured philosophy that’s captured you. God gave us free will, not scripts.” His mouth turns up in a dismal smile. “The day we met, you in that nothing of a hat? What struck me was your spirit. A voice inside me said this is the girl I’m going to marry, not the girl I’m going to rescue. I didn’t for a minute believe you needed rescuing.”
The girl. “But I did and that was the problem.”
He straightens his spine. “If you feel we need the money, you can look for a job in Northfield, maybe part-time at one of the colleges. I’d be okay with that.”
“It’s not about a job.”
“What, then?”
“I can’t be a truly responsible adult with you hovering over me.”
“Hovering, how?”
“Warming the car for me, shining my shoes every Saturday night, asking me what I’m doing a dozen times a day, answering for me when people in church ask me questions. Know what bugs me most? We know there’s no assassin but you still won’t let me go to Red Owl alone.” It’s petty but she says it anyway. “Shopping with you takes forever and you don’t know beans about nutrition or the advantages of buying in bulk.”
A smile teases his mouth but he quickly suppresses it. “For pity’s sake why didn’t you tell me this before? You want to shop alone, warm the car, polish your own shoes? Be my guest. Reach out your hands and take all the responsibility you want. But do it here. Minneapolis doesn’t have any growing-up magic.”
“Growing up is only part of it.” She takes a shuddering breath. “There’s no easy way to tell you this. God isn’t with me anymore, Ron, if he ever was. I’m not sure he even exists. I can’t sit in church and pretend I believe in our ministry. I can’t live with the hypocrisy.”
He’s as unarmed for this as she feared, his expression a mix of pain and bewilderment. “How long have you felt this way?” His suddenly desolate voice makes her want to recant but she’s come too far for that.
“Three, four months.” In fact, it started earlier than that. The TA workshop opened her to the possibility her faith was no more than a childlike transference of responsibility to God.
“You couldn’t tell me before now?”
“No.”
He looks on the verge of some spiteful candor then stands and walks to the windows, his head a whisper away from the sloped roof. The wind hammers against the panes as though demanding to be let in. “If you went to Minneapolis, how long would you be gone?”
She assumed he wouldn’t want her back, sees a faint trail of breadcrumbs out. “A year?”
His back is still to her. “What’s our son supposed to do without a mother for a year?”
“He’ll go with me.”
He swings around, his eyes wild. “Oh no, he won’t.”
His sudden rancor stuns her. “He needs me.”
“He needs me too.”
“Not the same way.” Ron hasn’t a clue about stimulating Tavis’s social and emotional development. He wasn’t the one who sparked Tavis’s baby brain by rubbing swatches of velvet, silk and corduroy on his cheek, holding up spices to his nose, dancing with him to “Hey Jude.”
He sits down hard in his chair, observes her coldly. “Where’s he while you work?”
“In daycare. I’d find a good one. He needs to be with other children. Your mother has said so. Many times. I know you don’t like TA talk but if I don’t become an Emancipated Adult, chances are Tavis won’t ever either. I need to do this for him.”
His response is like a vengeful slap. “Well, you’d better rethink your plan because if you leave, it’s alone. I can put him in daycare here as easily as you can there.”
She didn’t think of that. It’s her turn to stand at the window, the better to imagine the wind thwacking the trees. A Mary Poppins wind, she told Tavis earlier tonight when it frightened him. A raw animal instinct urges her to be with him now. “I’ll stay downstairs tonight,” she says.
He picks up his crossword from the floor. “Fine.”
39
In an eruption of self-esteem, she tells him she’ll stay with him on Friday nights only if she can decide if and when they have relations. She delivers that message over the phone in her kindest-yet-firmest voice, detects a mocking tone in his “I shall exercise restraint.”
She also liberates eight dollars from the grocery money to attend a session of “Unleash Your Creative Powers with Rhonda.” Angel goes once a week. On a windy Tuesday in October, they head off in her car, a rusting Pontiac with a death-rattling muffler that calls forth Helen and Carl’s rotted-out VW van. A rubber arm sprawled on the back seat is so realistic she gasps. Angel laughs. She uses it for venipuncture and injection demos. It comes with phony blood.
Jackie’s apartment is a tumult of colors and patterns, armchairs upholstered in birds and pineapples, a turquoise love seat lit by a lamp the shape and size of
a beauty parlor hair dryer. Lin expected dim séance-type lighting. The room is bright as morning. A man with one pierced ear and a woman in a hippie dress occupy the armchairs. The man sits barefoot and cross-legged like a yogi. Across the room in a dark green recliner, a stubby woman lies back with her eyes closed. She’s wearing pink polyester slacks and a blouse stamped with blue and pink hydrangeas.
“That’s Jackie,” Angel whispers. “I’d introduce you but she’s redirecting her focus.”
Angel hands eight bucks to Jackie’s scrawny, bald husband and Lin does the same. They claim the love seat.
More people arrive. More greetings. Lin looks at her watch. The session should have started by now. Ron will have already rung her apartment to catch Tavis between dinner and bedtime, doesn’t know he’s with Angel’s boys and a sixteen-year-old babysitter who calls himself Chick after some musician but doesn’t look like a druggie. She didn’t tell Ron where she was going, couldn’t explain to herself much less him why she’s here. Even as a kid she wasn’t smitten by Magic 8-Balls or Ouija boards.
Jackie opens her eyes. In a surprisingly high and tender voice she says, “It’s time. Would our newcomer like to say a few words?”
Lin starts, didn’t realize Jackie had even noticed her. “Thanks for letting me come tonight,” she says and flushes. How lame. Thank you for taking my eight dollars.