Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science (4 page)

When Dad gets home and discovers the dead kitten in the box on his desk, he wants to know the meaning of the practical joke. I am confused that he thinks we would joke about something so serious.

“Dad, we put him there so you can
heal
him,” I say.

He sighs. “Gee, kids,” he says. He is at a loss for more words. He seems uncomfortable.

“Aren’t you going to pray for him?” we ask. “Aren’t we going to know the Truth?”

Knowing the Truth, we’ve learned in Sunday school, means acknowledging God-given perfection, refusing to surrender to prevailing mortal mind.

There is a long pause.

“I think probably we should bury … him,” my father says slowly, tenderly, facing us but looking at the box out of the corner of his eye.

“But Dad,” I say, “there’s no such thing as death.”

“That’s right,” my father says, squatting on his haunches now so that he is closer to eye level with us. “We can
know
that he—is in—his—right place.”

My father isn’t even going to try.

Sherman starts crying. “But Dad, he’s so young! He’s just a baby!” he says.

“I know, kiddo,” says Dad, “but this kitten hasn’t really died at all. He’s just moved on to a higher plane of existence.”

From Sherman’s confused expression, I can tell he is thinking of flying machines.

I eye my father. I feel angry, but I’m not sure why. Something bigger than disappointment has settled over me.

“You mean,” Sherman says hopefully, his eyes widening, “he’s still alive?”

“Well … yes,” Dad says, somewhat uncertainly. “This kitten has
passed on
to another level. You know we don’t talk about death, right? We say
passed on.
”

My father seems satisfied with his answer. I’m not.

You can call death whatever you like, a higher plane, or passing on, but the kitten is dead.

It hardly seems
fair that we had Sunday school yesterday and have to go to church again today, but that’s how the calendar falls this year. At least we are going to Mount Olivet Lutheran Church. Our church has Christmas Eve services only when December 24 falls on a Sunday or a Wednesday. Grandma likes us all together for the holiday, so we go with her to Mount Olivet for the candlelight service.

We are sitting near the front of the enormous church, in two long pews, and everyone is here except the Bowmans, who are late. I’m holding a spot next to me for Mimi, but with the church filling up, I wonder if I’ll be able to keep it for her. Down the pew to my left, Sherman and Dad, and Uncle Jack and the Johnson boys—Harry, Sargent, and Steven, who go everywhere as a threesome—are all wearing blue blazers, gray slacks, loafers, and
assorted red ties. So are Uncle Bear, Jerry, and Teddy, seated in the pew behind us. Mom and I are in matching floor-length wraparound skirts, but Olivia flatly refused to wear hers. Now that she’s in boarding school, she burns incense in her room and wears whatever she wants, which this evening happens to be a purple beaded dress and a pair of brown suede boots. My cousin Tristin Erickson, who is a year older than Mimi and I, looks like she got her dress from Scheherazade too. Aunt Kay is wearing a silk blouse, a skirt, and patent leather boots and is chewing on a piece of gum. (I wonder what Mom thinks about that!) Aunt Helen is wrapped in a luxurious mink coat, which I’d like to touch except for the fact that it’s a dead animal. She always leaves her coat and gloves on for the entire Christmas Eve service. Little Annie Johnson is wearing a green silk taffeta dress and a huge matching bow in her hair. She is sitting on Uncle Jack’s lap now. Poor Teddy. He is sitting directly behind Uncle Jack and Annie. What with Uncle Jack’s size, and Annie’s hair bow, Teddy won’t be able to see a thing.

Mount Olivet has thousands of members. I know why. It has an adult choir, a teen choir, a children’s choir, and a cherub choir, and youth groups that go on camping trips. At First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Excelsior, Minnesota, we have none of these things. We just have a boring soloist. We don’t have candles or kneeling benches either. I would love to kneel down and pretend to pray like a Lutheran right now, but I think Mom and Dad might feel betrayed.

Grandma keeps turning around, searching for the Bowmans. She looks so pretty in her ruby red pantsuit with the beautiful corsage that Uncle Bear pinned on her lapel as we were walking in.

What I don’t understand is why Grandma is Lutheran, when nobody else in our family is. We Ewings are Christian Scientists, the Bowmans are Episcopalians, I don’t know what Uncle Jack and Aunt Helen are—maybe they go to Wayzata Community Church?—and Aunt Kay told me when I was in second grade that she is agnostic but used to be an atheist. I feel sort of sorry for Grandma that nobody stayed Lutheran. I would switch just to be in one of the choirs.

The sanctuary is filled with hundreds of poinsettias, the ones with the dark red leaves, and everywhere I look I see even more glowing candle flames than plants. This is what a church is supposed to look like at Christmas.

The service starts, and still the Bowmans are nowhere to be found. This would be a lot less painful with Mimi here, fun even, playing hangman or passing each other notes. Last year she scribbled on the collection envelope “Did you know that so-and-so’s mom got a boob job instead of going to her Smith reunion???” We got snickering so loudly that Mom and Aunt Mary gave us both the evil eye. Now, Smith reunion, or just plain Smith, is code for boob job. As in, “Did so-and-so go to Smith?” Or “Gee, I think I may go to Smith after high school!”

My favorite part of the candlelight service at Mount Olivet is the cherub choir, the way they all toddle up the center aisle in their little choir robes, some of them singing, a few of them sobbing, most of them looking out into the sea of faces for their parents. After they’re done with “Silent Night,” I just drift off, thinking about what we’ll get for Christmas, and where Mom and Dad have hidden all the presents.

The service is over. Grandma wants us to stand in the long line to shake hands with Pastor Youngdahl
—young
Pastor Youngdahl. His father, the older Pastor Youngdahl, was the minister here when Mom was little. It’s hard to believe that this Pastor Youngdahl, in his beautiful vestments with the embroidered wide scarf draped elegantly over his shoulders, used to wear a leather jacket and ride a motorcycle, but that’s what Mom says.

“… and this is my fifth granddaughter, Lucia,” Grandma says proudly, nudging me toward him. I stick out my hand.

Pastor Youngdahl smiles at Grandma, and nods to Mom and Dad, as though they have done something extraordinary by producing me. I shake his hand and gaze up. He is almost as tall as Uncle Jack. He cups my hand in both of his, and for some reason a line from the Twenty-third Psalm pops into my head.

The robe, the warm hands, and a smile that seems genuinely concerned for his flock feel magical to me. Maybe holy. One day perhaps I’ll join a church like this.

Aunt Kay’s house
has never looked so gorgeous. From the outside, it’s bank-like: a big rectangular box, nothing special, and nothing like a
home
. But when you walk inside, your eyes pop. There is a three-story garden with a tropical tree growing right up through the center of the house. In the basement, a rec room with huge windows and sliding glass doors opens to the snow-blanketed back lawn and the frozen lake. The rec room has a fireplace, a yellow Yamaha piano, and a huge projection television. There’s even an indoor swimming pool with a gently arched footbridge, and a wall of black lava rock, which is bumpy and sharp if you run your fingers across it. At the shallow end, an enormous hippo sculpture watches over the swimmers.

Hanging on the big wooden double doors in the front entrance are two enormous wreaths, and the tropical tree in the atrium is covered in tiny white lights. Draped on the handrails throughout the house are fragrant pine garlands. Downstairs, a grand Christmas tree stands at attention next to the Yamaha piano, and for tonight’s feast, three round tables are elegantly arranged with candles, the good silver, water goblets, and wineglasses. Christmas carols are playing on the hi-fi.

In the kitchen, I help Mom and Aunt Kay put out the hors d’oeuvres. We are stalling, still waiting for the Bowmans. Sherman and the boy cousins are off playing air hockey. Olivia is telling Tristin and Grandma all about boarding school, and Aunt Helen and Annie are looking at the pool.

Dad is a Christian Science practitioner, Uncle Jack is a plastic surgeon, Uncle Bear’s family owns a big chain of gas stations and convenience stores, and Uncle Brad doesn’t have to work. So when
the families get together, the men mostly talk about sports. And hunting and fishing.

At the moment, Uncle Bear is tending bar, talking about this fall’s outstanding muskie and deer seasons. Dad listens, holding his glass of tonic water. He’s not much of a fisherman—we have a small aluminum outboard that he and Sherman take out maybe twice a summer—and he’s never hunted (we don’t even own a rifle), so he can’t contribute much to the conversation. He looks up at Uncle Bear and Uncle Jack, and I wonder if he feels small standing next to them. Uncle Bear played football in college; he has hands as big as a bear’s. And Uncle Jack is practically a giant. Talk invariably turns to the Vikings. Now Dad can join; this year he and Sherman have season tickets. The big question on everyone’s mind is: Can Fran Tarkenton finally bring us a Super Bowl victory?

A car’s headlights beam through the plate-glass windows by the front doors. The Bowmans are finally here.

“Aaah! Merry Christmas, everyone!” Aunt Mary says, her lyrical voice crescendoing on
kriss
, as she breezes in with a tray of food, the December chill whooshing in behind her. My earliest memory, when I was three and we were living in Chicago, was the arrival of Mary Poppins at Olivia’s sixth birthday party in an ankle-length skirt and jacket, lace-up boots, an umbrella, and a cap with flowers in it. I didn’t realize that Mary Poppins was actually my aunt Mary until long after Olivia’s party guests had left. I still think of this whenever Aunt Mary makes an entrance.

Uncle Brad, Sarah, Bradley—and finally Mimi—appear, each carrying something: full grocery bags, a box of gifts, a huge green salad. Mimi rolls her eyes at me, and I can tell that her family has had a stressful time of it. Their chronic lateness is often a topic of conversation. Nobody quite knows if Aunt Mary or Uncle Brad is the real culprit, although every adult seems to have a strong opinion.

The women hug and chat and linger and laugh. There is something reassuring about seeing the four of them, a mother and her grown daughters all together.

“… we ended up parking half a mile from the church,” Uncle Brad grumbles to no one in particular. In appearance, he reminds me of Oscar Madison on
The Odd Couple
. He is a bit of a curmudgeon. Aunt Mary, by contrast, is warm and cheerful.

“It was standing room only, but,” Aunt Mary adds gleefully, “we got there in time to see those
adorable
cherubs.”

During dinner
, the adults are at one table, the thirteen cousins are at the other two. Mimi and I always sit together; so do Olivia and Sarah (Mimi’s older sister) and Sherman and Bradley (Mimi’s younger brother). We are
twuzzins
, a word I made up in second grade that means “cousins of the same age and sex.”

Judging from the noise level, the adults are having more fun than we are, growing increasingly boisterous as the dinner goes on. Every few minutes I hear Aunt Mary’s high-pitched
whooooh!
at whatever outrageous thing Aunt Kay is saying at their table. Mom and Dad are laughing along, but it looks to me like maybe they’re missing something by not drinking wine. A pretty stemmed glass must be more fun to drink from than a boring old water glass. Some of the grown-ups are holding lit cigarettes. Observing the smokers as they elegantly inhale—making their embers glow, delicately flicking their ashes into the silver ashtrays, and releasing puffy, fleeting clouds—makes me think one day I’ll smoke too. And maybe I’ll be Episcopalian.
E-pis-co-pa-li-an
. I love how the six syllables skip over my lips.

Dessert is finished, and the seven boys are getting restless. Their ties are pulled loose or missing altogether, and they are sitting on their calves or ankles instead of their butts, playing finger football. Their table has a Coke spilled all over it and eight barely touched plates of Aunt Helen’s cranberry pudding, but on the cookie tray, only crumbs are left. At the girls’ table, almost everyone has eaten the cranberry pudding and the tablecloth is spotless.

Uncle Brad gets up from his seat and stands with his pipe in his
mouth, ponderously puffing. He is the oldest of the uncles, and his stony face could belong to an army general. The room turns quiet.

“Did you hear something?” he says, again to nobody in particular, but everyone is listening now. “I—I could have sworn I heard bells.” He squints slightly and gazes off into the distance, his tiny, straight mouth widening ever so slightly into a grin. Little Annie squeals and bounces up and down on Mimi’s lap, and Mimi gives her a hug around the waist.

Everyone moves over to the sliding glass doors that face the frozen lake, Annie and Teddy with their noses and hands pressed to the glass. After a minute or two, Santa comes trudging in with a heavy-laden burlap sack, stomping the snow off his boots.

Santa settles into a wingback chair that Uncle Bear and Dad have placed prominently near the fireplace and, one by one, calls the grandchildren up. This year I can tell right away who Santa really is: the tennis pro at Woodhill. Grandma is seated on her own throne off to his right, where she has a good view of everything. There are several cameras with flashbulbs going off (or not going off, accompanied by some audible cursing). Dad fiddles with his light meter, and several minutes pass before he takes a single picture.