Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science (28 page)

Dad, Sherm, and I
return to the ICU and gather around Mom. The nurse draws the curtain back and sticks her head in.

“Lucia? There’s a doctor on the phone for you at the nurses’ station.”

I stand up and excuse myself. It does not occur to me to pull the curtain shut. I walk around to the far side of the circular nurses’ station and pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Lucia, this is Uncle Jack.”

“Hi,” I say, startled.

“Your aunt Mary and I are here with Grandma, and we’ve told her about Joanne. She would like to say a word.”

My heart is racing. I was not expecting it to be Uncle Jack. There is a pause, followed by some murmuring I can’t discern.

“Hi, Lucia … dear.” My grandmother’s vocal tremor, far worse
than I’ve ever heard it, alters her speech significantly. I would not have recognized her voice.

“Hi, Grandma.”

She is sobbing. Then there is the sound of a struggle. Maybe Aunt Mary and Uncle Jack are trying to take the phone from her, or maybe she is so upset that her hands are fumbling. I have never heard my grandmother cry before. It is unbearable. Mom is her
daughter
, I think to myself. I press the phone’s earpiece against my forehead and close my eyes. I recall how Grandma used to make everything better for me when I was a wronged, wailing kid: how she’d take a seat on the glider in our screened porch and pat her thigh with her veined and bejeweled hand; how I’d come rest my head in her lap. I remember how her long fingernails lightly traced the path of my spine and ribs, calming me.

I clench my teeth to keep from crying and return the phone to my ear.

“Tell your mother—tell my Joanne—I love her … very much.”

“I will, Grandma—”

I look up again and realize my mother’s eyes are focused on me, and not on the two interns who are drawing blood from her arm. I try to smile, to mask the despair I’m feeling.

“And tell … your father … I will … 
never
 … forgive him.”

If my grandmother had hit me squarely across the jaw, I’d have felt less stunned. I quickly turn my back so my mother can’t see my face. I have to lean against the bulkhead of the nurses’ station to steady my shaking legs.

There is a scuffling sound through the phone, and then it goes dead. Hearing the click, I feel both abandoned and scrutinized. I wonder if the nurses can tell I’ve been cut off. I turn around and try to replace the phone in its cradle as gently as possible, but both of my hands are also shaking. I have to get out of the ICU. I head for the elevator.

In the hallway I see one of the interns who has been caring for my mother. He approaches me. I wonder if my distress is obvious.

“Hello,” I say, expecting him to reply and keep going. But he stops and turns to face me. He looks me straight in the eye. “I have one question: How could you let something like this happen to your own mother?” he asks.

Not waiting for a response, he turns and walks away.

I try to get my bearings, but I can’t remember where I am headed. I feel dizzy. I hold my breath to contain the sob. I spot a bathroom and duck into it.

For several minutes, I weep as quietly as I can, holding my sides. Then I splash my face with cold water to keep my eyes from swelling. It is useless. My face is puffy and mottled. I take a brown paper towel and moisten it, holding it over my eyes. I have to stop crying. I take some deep breaths to calm the shuddering heaves of my gasps. In the mirror I see a face soaked with tears and running snot. I take another brown paper towel and blow.

I return to
my mother’s bed with dread.

“You’ve been crying,” Mom says.

“It’s nothing.”

“Who was on the telephone?” she asks. “Tell me. Was it the doctor?”

My mother is trying to be brave, I can tell. She bites her lower lip.

She expects me to say yes: yes, it was the doctor and the news is bad.

“No, Mom. It wasn’t the doctor. I promise.”

“Then who was it? Please tell me, Lucia.”

“It’s not important, Mom. Really.” I hold one of her hands in both of mine. I wish I were invisible. I know she is studying my face.

“Tell me,” she says softly, tilting her head like she might have when I was much younger, to coax the details of a playground incident from me. I swallow hard.

It was your asshole brother, I want to say.

“No, Mom,” I manage, shaking my head. “People are upset that
you’re sick,” I say, referring to her family in the most general of terms, hoping to avoid alarming her. “They’re naturally concerned. We all are. And for some, this news has come as a terrible shock.”

“Who was on the telephone?” Mom squeezes my hand and speaks with resolve.

“It was Grandma,” I say. “She wanted me to tell you she loves you very much.”

Mom stares at me briefly, and looks away, and I feel myself coming undone.

I realize I am no help to my mother in the state I’m in, which I am utterly unable to change, so I excuse myself to “run an errand,” and I head out to the car.

On my way back to Hopewell, I pass Aunt Lucia and Aunt Nan heading to the hospital.

Olivia’s car is in the driveway when I get home. From the kitchen I can hear the shower running in the bathroom off the den. I open the fridge and find it fully stocked, thanks to my aunts. For months Dad has been living on little more than Grape-Nuts and half-and-half. Now, in addition to Mrs. Florence’s lasagna and fruit salad, there are cold cuts, apples, eggs, bread, some frozen Stouffer’s entrées; even Häagen-Dazs in the freezer.

I grab a Diet Coke and walk to the screened porch, Oscar and Felix following at my heels. I stretch out on the glider, and my left foot, moored to the floor, sets it in motion. The dogs lie obediently nearby, Felix with his front paws crossed, which always makes me smile. I close my eyes and listen for sounds: frogs and birds, the hum of an air conditioner in an upstairs window, the dogs panting. I try to take a deep breath, but I am still in the grip of my earlier conversations, with Uncle Jack and Grandma on the phone and the intern in the hallway of the ICU. Now I hold my breath. Hold it, hold it.

Olivia appears.

“Hi,” she says with a tone of foreboding. “We need to talk.”

I exhale. I haven’t seen my sister since early this morning in the
ICU; she has no idea what I’ve just been through, and I am not inclined, at the moment, to fill her in. Nor am I in the mood to hear whatever she feels the need to tell me. Olivia opens the screen door, comes in, and sits down across from me.

“Mom was saying some pretty awful stuff last night,” she says. I stare at the ceiling fan above me to avoid my sister’s eyes.

“I think Mom was saying that Dad forced her to stay at Tenacre.”

“That’s bullshit,” I say reflexively. I won’t listen to this. I can’t.

“Lucia, would I lie? Would I make this up?”

Maybe
, I want to say, not because I think she would but because it is easier to think that than to consider the alternative: that Dad kept Mom at Tenacre—a prisoner—against her will.

“About a half hour after you left, Mom woke up. It was probably four-thirty in the morning. She said, ‘I wanted to come here a long time ago, but someone wouldn’t let me.’ I couldn’t believe it. I just froze, Loosh. I felt—oh, my God—I felt ill. But then, I needed to know
who
she meant. So I said, ‘Who wouldn’t let you?’ And she wouldn’t answer. So I said, ‘Was it someone at Tenacre?’ And she was silent. ‘Was it your practitioner? Mrs.… Childs?’ I asked. She shook her head. I wanted to say ‘Was it Dad?’ but I couldn’t. ‘Who was it, Mom?’ I asked. And then she said, ‘
He
knows.’ ”

I sit up and meet my sister’s eyes.

“Liv, she could have left Tenacre,” I argue, my impatience seeping through as bitterness, aimed at her, the messenger. This cannot be true.

Mom had choices.

“She could have said something to me,” I say. “Or to you. Or Sherman. I asked her to go to a doctor. She wouldn’t. Liv, she wouldn’t even discuss it.

We sit for a few moments in silence.

“But what if it’s true?” Olivia asks tentatively.

“It’s not. Maybe you heard wrong.”

“Fuck you,” my sister says. “I know what I heard.”

“I talked with Mom last night too,” I say, “and again this morning.
She sure didn’t say anything like that to me. And then she asked Sherman and me to leave so she could read the Lesson with Dad! Would she have done that if she’d been forced to stay at Tenacre against her will?”

I know I shouldn’t walk out on Olivia, but I am angry. Angry at her—even though none of this is her fault—angry at Dad, Mom, that asshole intern; Uncle Jack; angry at this whole fucked-up mess. What’s more, I cannot believe that right now I am defending my father, who I’m already angry at, against this charge. I go upstairs to change into shorts and a T-shirt; I pull on my running shoes, grab my Walkman, and head down the driveway at an uncharacteristically fast clip. The humidity might kill me, and I’m exhausted from lack of sleep the night before, but I need to get out of there.

I have to think. I don’t want to believe what my sister has told me. But as my pace slows in the oppressive heat, my feet heavy on the pavement, I ask myself, What if? What if Olivia heard right?

She must have heard wrong.

Mom cannot stand to face the consequences of the choice she’s made. So she’s taking it out on Dad, making him the scapegoat …

But what if it is true: that Dad kept Mom from seeking medical attention?

I realize it is conceivable—maybe even likely?—that my mother, after months of unrelenting pain, and the creeping progression of unknown but undeniable disease, wavered in her conviction, and suggested to Dad that she go to a doctor.

I can picture my father, hear him, feel the explosiveness of his reaction.

“If you give in to mortal mind, Jo … Don’t do it! Just
don’t
! You must claim your dominion over this erroneous belief! There
is
no substance in matter!”

Could the mere declaration of disappointment by my father have kept my mother from asserting herself?

“Oh, Jo. Jo—please. Honey, please …”

I don’t know. I don’t want to know.

I stop running.

I can’t bear this. I can’t.

I look up at the dizzying vastness of the sky and try to catch my breath.
Oh, God
. I sit down on the shoulder of the road, rest my elbows on my knees, and stuff the palms of my hands into my eyes.

2
A.M.

I am back in the ICU taking a night shift with Mom. She stirs.

“I wonder what’s wrong with me,” she says.

“I’m sure the doctors will have some answers soon,” I reply.

“Lucia, dear, will you do something for me?”

“Sure, what?”

“Will you call your daddy? Ask him to pray that I sleep tonight.”

“I’ll call him right away.” I move to the edge of her mattress and half-sit on it. “Have you been praying too?”

She nods. This, and the fact that she has asked for Dad to pray for her, is paradoxically reassuring to me. Olivia must have heard wrong.

I kiss her on the forehead. She feels warm.

“Mom, I love you. I’m glad you’re here.”

“I love you too, dear. I love you too.”

I walk out to the pay phone in the lounge. My father answers before the second ring.

“Hey, Dad,” I say. “Mom’s awake. She asked me to call you. She wants you to pray for her. That she sleeps.”

“Oh, good. Yes, right away,” he says, sounding relieved. “I’ll get started right way.”

Does he notice, as I do, that she isn’t asking him to pray for a healing, only for some rest? Does he feel like the police detective reassigned to desk duty? When I hang up the phone, one of the interns (not the mean one) is waiting for me with a blanket and a pillow.

“Here,” he says, with a kind smile. “Your mom’s asleep. Want these for the couch?”

4:20
A.M.

I go check on Mom, and she stirs again. She smiles at me, and then she turns away, to rest on her right side, her back to me. I move my chair closer.

“I should have come here a long time ago,” she says just above a whisper, but the words are unmistakable.

My stomach knots up. Even after my talk with Olivia, I am not prepared for this.

“I wanted to,” Mom says. She rolls onto her back again, so that she is looking straight ahead at the curtain separating us from the nurses’ station. “I wanted to come sooner, and your father knows it.”

She closes her eyes and goes back to sleep.

Head in my hands, I am left with this. I don’t know what to do.

I feel someone
gently pressing my forearm, trying to rouse me. It is my father.

“Loosh, why don’t you head home,” he whispers. “Get in a real bed.”

Somehow, I was sound asleep on the couch. I look at the clock on the wall. It is 6:15
A.M
. My father is freshly showered and shaved, dressed, carrying a Diet Coke in one hand and the PBS tote bag with his
Science and Health
and Bible in the other.

I think about what my mother told me in the early hours of the morning, how she had wanted to go to the hospital when she was at Tenacre. And Dad knew it.

I am too scared, too confused to confront him right now, because if I do, then what? I try to sort out the possible consequences, but none of them are good. Maybe because I’m so tired, I can’t even
really process them. In chess, I’m not one who can see two or three moves ahead.

If I ask Dad, and he admits it’s true, then what? Is this a police matter? And a police matter now? If I ask Dad and he denies it, then what? What is the truth? What is my moral responsibility?

And why is Mom saying these things while still reading the Lesson with Dad? Why is she asking him to pray for her at all?