Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science (19 page)

I’ve taken a
half share in a summerhouse on the Jersey shore, although I’m not sure why. It was a foolishly optimistic decision on my part. I was supposed to go down to Spring Lake for the opening weekend, but instead I am in Hopewell: Mom came home from Tenacre on Thursday, and Dad has said I may visit. I don’t know what it means. Could it be she’s been discharged, like a patient from a hospital after being successfully treated? I’m doubtful. But she must be doing better on some level.

When I arrive Saturday evening, she is already in bed, even though the sun has yet to go down.

“You’ll see her in the morning,” my father says, sensing my disappointment. It is his fifty-fourth birthday, but neither he nor I mention it.

Sunday morning, Mom and Dad don’t go to church. I wake up and find her—after looking first in my parents’ bedroom and then the kitchen—supine on the gliding sofa in the screened porch behind the house. I am surprised to see that her hair looks lovely, brownish gray now but done up—like she has paid a visit to a salon. Maybe she has? Her lips are a pretty shade of rose, and she has the healthy glow of a suntan. But she is in a bathrobe, with a blanket folded in half over her waist and legs, even though the temperature is in the high eighties. Her hands rest in her lap on top of the blanket. The two rings, a diamond solitaire and a simple platinum band, which I’ve never seen her without, are missing, and the reason is clear. Her fingers are skeletal.

The image is startling. And heartbreaking. I had bought into my own fantasy that she was doing better. My mother—or someone—has gone to considerable effort to make her
appear
well. But it is a mask.

“Hi, darling,” she says, moving her eyes but not her head to greet me.

“Hi, Mom,” I say.

I bend over to kiss her. Her forehead radiates warmth on my lips.

“Would you be a dear and bring me some hot tea?” she asks.

I go back to the kitchen, thankful that I’ve been handed a few moments to compose myself. What was I thinking? That everything would be normal? That Mom’s “little problem” was in fact, miraculously, just that, and nothing more? While the kettle is heating, I try to call Olivia in Cambridge. No answer. I have no idea how to reach Sherman. He’s somewhere in the city rehearsing with his band. After the holiday weekend, he’ll be moving back home to live with Mom and Dad for the summer. He has taken a job with a landscaper in Princeton.

I return to the porch several minutes later with a tea tray. Mom eases herself up to a semi-sitting position, and I watch her reach for the teapot. Her arm is alien thin. She pours the tea, then the milk from the small pitcher. Her hand is unsteady. Very cautiously, she lifts the teacup to her lips, then replaces it on the saucer. It is uncomfortable for both of us to witness this: the teacup rattles nervously as she sets it down; the saucer catches the murky spillover. I stare silently, wondering whether or not I should have helped her. She deflates into the pile of pillows supporting her.

“It must be oppressive in the city,” my mother says. Even the three syllables of
op-press-ive
seem too much for her. “Why don’t you take a swim in the pool?”

For the remainder of the day, Mom, Dad, and I inhabit our separate orbits at home: Mom in the screened porch and later her bed, Dad in his office, and I on an air mattress in the pool. Hopewell is
not—nor has it ever really been—home for me, and this weekend I feel even more like an intruder. I don’t think they really want me here. My presence feels tactical, part of an effort to placate me; a necessary, if temporary, evil.

In the evening I drive into Princeton to grab dinner.

At Hoagie Haven, a popular joint at the other end of town, I wait in line to order a cheesesteak. Back on the street, I sit on a bench and eat, watching the students come and go. For some of them, their college years are almost over; commencement is less than two weeks away. I feel sorry for them, which strikes me as odd given the situation I face at home.

I’m transported back to Brown and the public speaking course I took my senior year. One of the assignments was a speech to a hostile audience. For me, any speech, even to the most hospitable of audiences, was terrifying. I couldn’t come up with a decent subject, but the day before I was to give my speech I heard on the radio that Dr. David Sweet, the president of nearby Rhode Island College, had died of a heart attack. A known Christian Scientist, he was fifty-one. I had my topic.

Standing before the class, I took a deep breath. I felt like I was about to divulge some deep-seated family secret. (And I was, since I’d never really spoken about my religious background with anyone at Brown.) I looked down at my notes, and then up, and said something to the effect of “I was raised as a Christian Scientist, but while I am not one myself, I do support a person’s right to choose prayer over medicine for one’s health care needs.” I pointed out—taking care to make eye contact—that people using traditional forms of health care had heart attacks too. I was strangely dispassionate, I didn’t feel emotionally connected to the subject at all. And once I got going, I wasn’t nervous.

“But what about the children who die of treatable causes?” a classmate asked.

“Believe me,” I said, “my family has had years of good health and many healings. And there are numerous documented cases in
The Christian Science Journal
. I am a testament to its efficacy. Furthermore,
choosing prayer over medicine is a right protected by the Constitution.”

I was poised and calm.
Testament to its efficacy
 … My parents and the Mother Church would have been proud.

“Well then,” another student pressed, raising her hand, “why aren’t you a Christian Scientist?”

I don’t remember my response.

When I was twelve, I could have joined the Mother Church but didn’t. To my parents’ credit, I was never coerced into joining, nor was I cajoled. The most they did was bring up the subject occasionally, and casually, in conversation. And when I said it wasn’t for me, they’d remark how one day, surely, I’d come back to the fold.

Sherman never joined either, but Olivia did, as soon as she could, at the age of twelve, probably out of a desire to please our parents. I don’t know why I never felt that need. For years now, Dad has made Olivia’s required annual gift to remain in good standing (minimum one dollar, but who knows the actual amount?). She has never officially renounced her faith, and while she and I haven’t discussed it much, I know she’s not—nor has she ever been—a believer.

The question for me evolved from “Why aren’t you a Christian Scientist?” to “Why is anyone?” Some time after my speech I learned the true cause of death for Dr. Sweet. He’d been sick for several days, refused medical treatment, and had a diabetic seizure, followed by cardiac arrest.

Monday morning I wake up to the sound of the vacuum cleaner. My stomach is badly sunburned from the day before, and the skin of my midriff is emblazoned with the imprint of wrinkled bedsheets. A cold, wet washcloth brings the only relief. Obviously, I won’t find any Solarcaine in the medicine cabinet: only toothpaste, soaps, shaving stuff. When I head downstairs, I come face-to-face with our cleaning lady, Carmen, who tells me, through a combination of fractured English and gestures, that Mom and Dad are over at Connie Reeder’s and I should give them a call. Connie, Mom’s best Christian Science friend, is so close to my mother that, when
her kids left home and she wanted a smaller house, she moved from Princeton to Hopewell to be closer by. Carmen pauses and says “you mommy,” and her hand goes to her mouth, and she takes a step back and shakes her head slightly. She makes no effort to hide the worry in her beseeching eyes. I have no idea what to say to her, so I say nothing. She is not a Christian Scientist; she is from somewhere in South America, and I assume she is Catholic. What must be going through her head?

“Hi, Dad,” I say when he answers the phone. “Why are you at Connie’s? I thought she went to the shore.”

“She did. We’re just here while Carmen cleans. Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah.” I know this is not his real concern.

“I’ll be home in a bit. We’re just finishing the Lesson.”

That’s the end of the conversation.

In the next room, Carmen is folding laundry. I am sprawled out on the living room sofa, reading the paper and watching
Donahue
. Mom’s practitioner would say this is a perfect time to open the books.

I won’t do it. I refuse to make this tiny gesture, and yet I am puzzled. Why am I taking
this
stand but not a meaningful one, the only one that even matters? What is stopping me from picking up the phone and calling Uncle Jack?

I have seen Mom for all of twelve minutes so far this weekend. I wonder if today will be any different from yesterday.

A little while later, Dad walks in.

“You think Mom might be hungry?” I ask.

“Why don’t you call her and ask?” he says before disappearing into his study.

I pick up the phone and dial Connie’s number again. Mom answers it after the first ring. Her voice is very low, not much more than a whisper.

“Hi, Mom,” I say. “Would you like me to bring you something to eat? A sandwich maybe?”

“Thanks, sweetheart, but no,” she says, and I feel rejected, even
foolish. I
knew
that answer before I called. “Maybe later,” she adds before saying good-bye and quickly hanging up.

Not thirty seconds later, the phone rings.

“On second thought,” my mother says, “I’d love a PBB.”

When I was a kid, Mom’s and my favorite sandwich was peanut butter and banana on toast. The very mention of it used to make my dad grimace in disgust, and nobody else in the family liked it much either. But, oh, what comfort: the warm, gooey peanut butter, all melty from the heat of the toast, and the cool, slippery sliced bananas. This was our common craving, a mother-daughter thing.

I decide not to toast the bread. By the time I reach Connie’s, it will be hard and dried out, and there’s nothing worse than a cold, dried-out PBB. But the Skippy is in the fridge, not in the pantry, where it should be, and nearly unspreadable—further proof that someone other than Mom has been at the helm in her kitchen. The peanut butter steadfastly clings to the soft bread, pulling it apart. Nervously, I try to put the mangled sandwich together. Oh well, it will taste good, even if it looks awful. I also pack up a slice of the rhubarb pie that someone—I wonder who—has made.

Mom is lying
on one of the twin beds in Connie’s guest room, covered with the bedspread. She doesn’t hear me when I come in. She’s wearing earphones and holding a Walkman.

“What are you listening to?” I ask.

She looks up and removes the earphones.

“Oh, hi. A lecture. Just marvelous,” she says.

I unwrap the sandwiches and hand her a quarter of one. When I was a kid, she always cut my sandwiches up into quarters. Now I’ve done the same for her, thinking it will make eating easier, but somehow having done so feels inappropriate, jarring. I wonder if she feels it too. She takes a hardcover book from the bedside table, hands it to me, and asks me to read to her. It is
On the Road with Charles Kuralt
. I sit on the other twin bed facing her.

I guess Charles Kuralt is a welcome break for her from Christian Science lectures on tape. I start reading aloud a passage about some of the men who helped build the Golden Gate Bridge. After several minutes, I pause to take a sip of water.

Mom is staring at me. “I don’t get it,” she says.

What is there to get?

I am taken aback, unnerved, ill at ease. I set the book down and grab a quarter of a sandwich. I want her to think I’m only breaking to eat, but the truth is, I don’t want to read Charles Kuralt. I’m scared. What is going on here?

But then I think—maybe I want to think—she must be tired of doing nothing but reading the Bible and
Science and Health
, and listening to lectures, and lying here or wherever, day in, day out. Even as a diversion from her routine, maybe the building of the Golden Gate Bridge just doesn’t hold her attention at the moment. I switch gears.

“Bill Cosby was on
Donahue
this morning,” I say. “Did you watch?”

“No.”

“I almost called you to tell you to turn it on,” I say, nibbling, making the sandwich last, “but I figured you and Dad were reading the Lesson.”

For a moment, neither of us speaks.

“Cosby,” Mom says. She looks at me, confused. “It’s crazy, I know,” she says, “but my mind is running a blank.”

Running a blank on
Cosby
? A show she watches every week?

“Oh, you know,
The Cosby Show
?” I say, as casually as I can.

My mother’s face registers nothing. I try to change the subject again, because the silence is so awkward, but just below the surface I am barely keeping my composure.

“It will be nice having Sherman home this summer, won’t it?” I say. I am nearly in tears, and my voice is shaky, but she doesn’t notice.

“Oh, it will be wonderful,” my mother says. “Cosby … I just … can’t … place it.”

I want to shake my mother.

“It’s on Thursday nights,” I say, fighting back tears, “before
Cheers. The Cosby Show.
”

“Does Cosby have a family?”

I cannot bring myself to answer this question. “Would you like anything else? Some pie?”

“No, but you could take this to the kitchen,” she says, handing me an empty glass.

I go to the kitchen, somewhat relieved that I have been granted permission to flee that room for the moment. I tear off a piece of paper towel to use as a tissue. My tears burn. I try to take deep, even breaths, but I can’t. I am sobbing, choking. I need to call Olivia and Sherman immediately, and I need them to be there to pick up the phone.