Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science (9 page)

“What do you mean, as a family?” I ask skeptically.

“Well, for one thing, by praying about this, by really
embracing
this new … adventure”—my father says
adventure
with ridiculous enthusiasm—“you are in a sense doing your part for the Cause. There is a real need for Christian Science worldwide, and this is one way you can play a part. An important part.”

“So, you’re saying the need in London is greater than here?” I ask.

“Are you being flip, young lady?” my father snaps.

My eyebrows rise up in defiance, but I know to keep my mouth shut.

“So, here’s how it will work. We’re going to put our house on the market in a couple of weeks. We’ll be here until the beginning of August. Then, before we fly to London and get you settled in schools, we’ll spend some time on the East Coast, starting in Boston, traveling as far south as Williamsburg, Virginia, with stops in New York and Washington. A pre-Bicentennial tour, if you will …”

We’ll miss our country’s big party, the two hundredth birthday we’ve been talking about in school for the last year?

“… we’ll have a wonderful time and you’ll learn a thing or two about this great country. You’ll get to see the Mother Church. The Statue of Liberty. The White House.”

Normally, I’d be excited to see the Statue of Liberty and the White House, and even the Mother Church.

“Does Grandma know?” Olivia asks. Her tone is more worried than accusing, as though she’s already surrendered.

“Not yet. We wanted to tell you first.”

Thanks.

“And,” Dad continues, “because we are still ironing out the details, we expect you to keep this hush for a while, to guard against malpractice.”

Not too long ago, our homework assignment for Sunday school was to memorize Mary Baker Eddy’s definition of
mental malpractice:
“the injurious action of one mortal mind controlling another from wrong motives … practised either with a mistaken or a wicked purpose.”

What the
hell
?

My eyes well up again, and for the first time in my life I understand the meaning of
overwhelmed
.

“How long?” we ask in unison.

“Well, until we put the house on the market, anyway. We all need to do our protective work. As Mrs. Eddy says, we must ‘stand porter at the door of thought.’ ”

“What’s protective work?” Sherman asks, bewildered.

He hasn’t learned about mental malpractice yet, or the need to do protective work.

“We have to keep our thoughts elevated, to know the Truth: that this is part of God’s perfect plan—” Dad says.

“But what if it
isn’t
?” I ask.

My father glares at me. “—so until we’ve dotted our
i
’s and crossed our
t
’s,” he continues, “we’re not going to discuss this with anyone.”

“Anyone? Not even Grandma?” Sherman asks, his voice now at a panic-ridden, high pitch.

“Not even Grandma,” Mom says and pauses. “There are those out there—not Grandma, just … people,” she adds, but she sounds uncomfortable with her words, “who might wish us, and the Church, ill. We need to protect this
right idea
, like a mother protects her newborn child.”

It is late
at night. I am restless, unable to sleep. My head hurts. I have been sobbing, silently, for hours through gritted teeth. I take shallow breaths through my mouth because my nose is stuffed up. I am so angry, but I am determined to stifle the crying; I don’t want to be heard. The last people in the world I would want to be comforted by are the two responsible for this.

I keep asking myself,
Why?

At dinner our father’s patience was quickly exhausted, and he was left to deal with our total lack of enthusiasm. “It wouldn’t be any different if I worked for Cargill, or Exxon, or the State Department,” he said, annoyed. “People get relocated all the time. Families
adapt.
”

But he doesn’t work for Cargill. And he’s not being relocated. He’s doing this
to
us.

I wonder how we can even afford a move like this. It has to
be expensive, and there’s no Exxon paying for it. Several years back, when Dad and Mom announced that he was going into the practice, they warned us (enthusiastically) that there might be some changes, some belt-tightening. We might have to give up summer camps. Or family trips. But we never did.

“How come we haven’t tightened our belts?” I had asked Dad once before bed. He smiled sort of awkwardly.

“Do you make a lot of money as a practitioner?” I pressed.

My dad looked searchingly into my eyes, and then his eyes twinkled tenderly. I thought for a second he was going to tell me something extraordinarily wonderful.

But, gently patting my knee, he shook his head. “No, Loosh. Practitioners do not make a lot of money.”

“Well, then … how …?” I started to ask.

“Do you know what a dividend is?” he said.

One day soon a moving truck will come to take everything. Some of my things will be given away, some will be shipped to England, and some will be put into storage, because, Dad said tonight, “shipping everything to London makes no sense.”

But nothing makes sense.

Choices will be made, things will be culled, but they will not be my choices.

The trampoline? My bicycle? Our three cats? My dollhouse, which, even though I never play with anymore, I’m not ready to give up. It’s
mine
.

Will I see my grandparents again? They’re getting older.

When I think of the possibility of never seeing them again, the pain I feel is sudden, sharp, like all three of them have just died.

Will we ever come back to Minnesota? What about Mimi and Mary? Will they still be my friends?

At the dinner table Mom said they could be my pen pals, and I scowled at her. The suggestion was like a knife to my stomach. Pen pals are never friends …

I’ll have no friends.

“You’ll make new ones,” Mom said.

Like friends are replaceable. And what about James?

Even my canopied trundle bed is going to be taken apart, boxed, and hauled off to storage, which sounds to my ears cold and soulless and unprotected.

In my mind’s eye, I see Mrs. Lurton, my Sunday school teacher. A stern, brainy woman in her mid-forties, the mother of my friend Jenny, Mrs. Lurton walks with the aid of crutches, has an angular face and perfectly manicured nails at the ends of her knotty fingers. A couple of times I’ve asked Mom what’s wrong with Mrs. Lurton, and she has said, “You know, Lucia, in Science we don’t put labels on … problems we’re working out.”

I see myself sitting, along with Jenny and the rest of our class, at a round table in the Sunday school, where we are memorizing passages from the Christian Science textbook. Mrs. Lurton points a gnarled index finger with its elegant nail at her leather-bound copy of
Science and Health
, opened to page 451: “Mental malpractice is …?” she prompts, and we recite, “ ‘the injurious action of one mortal mind controlling another …’ ”

We say the words, over and over, tripping and stumbling semi-rhythmically, until we have committed them to memory. We have done the same drill with the Scientific Statement of Being, Mary Baker Eddy’s definition of God, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Twenty-third Psalm, but they sound more fluid.

I memorized the definition of
mental malpractice
because I was told to. I was assured that the words would be helpful at some point in my life when I needed God.

If there were ever a time I needed God, it would be now.

But I
hate
God.

And I hate my parents.

I wake up
the next morning, remembering. London. Boarding school.

Girls’ boarding school. Christian Science girls’ boarding school. My face hurts, my head hurts, a reminder that I fell asleep sobbing into my pillow. We’re moving. I will have to say good-bye to everyone I know and everything familiar. My parents’ new house won’t be
home
. At least Olivia and I will be at the same school. For Sherman, it’s even worse: he will be alone at Fan Court. We’ll see him only once a week after Sunday school.

But today, Saturday, there is an immediate pressure: I am spending the day with my friend Annie at the Lafayette Club, and I mustn’t breathe a word about England to her. I want to scream it.

Until last night I had looked forward to swimming in the indoor pool and staying for lunch, but now, I dread it. Outside, it is cold and rainy, and that is just how I feel on the inside. When Annie and her parents pick me up in their red Pacer with the wide rear window, my mother exchanges totally phony, empty words with Mrs. Goan. As the car pulls away, and my mother waves good-bye, she makes meaningful eye contact with me that I can see even through the raindrops on the rear window. The lump in my throat aches.

In the ladies’ locker room, Annie and I change into our bathing suits in separate cubicles, seventh-grade modest. We jump into the pool and swim and splash to warm up, then race to the deep end. Approaching the far wall, I feel like I’m taking the swimming test at camp, trying to tread water fully clothed, and my boots are filling with water. I panic. I begin to sob, and as I gasp for air, my mouth fills with the pool water and I start to choke, and then I’m coughing and the chlorinated water fills my nostrils and burns them.

Annie thinks I am struggling to swim, even though I’m pretty sure I am only working to fight back the tears. She grabs me at the elbow and pulls me to the side of the pool. “What’s wrong? You okay?” Annie asks.

I take a deep breath and try to inhale evenly, but my chest stutters.

“Annie, I’m not supposed to tell you.”

It is Saturday
morning, and I am riding the train from Esher to Waterloo Station. I’ve been excused from Prep and am heading home for an unspecified weekend leave. Normally, I’m not allowed to do this, since I’m a full boarder, but Mom called the school for special permission. A surprise of some sort, Mrs. Williams said. Olivia isn’t coming. She has to study for A levels.

I ride the Northern Line from Waterloo to our stop, Hampstead. I don’t mind the walk from the tube station to Keats Grove. Sometimes I stop at the newsagent to get sweets, but not today. I turn down the High Street and take a left on Downshire Hill, past the church, and then fork right onto Keats Grove. The trees lining the street are beginning to sprout little green leaves.

I pull open the heavy wooden door with the broken hinge that leads to our small, enclosed garden. Dad’s moped is blocking the footpath; I go around it. I walk up the front steps and bang on the door before I remember it’s
my
house; I don’t need to knock. I push the door open and walk in.

There, standing in the doorway, is Ham.

He gives me a huge hug, lifting me up in the air, my chest to his. It is great to see him, but I wonder if he realizes that, almost fifteen, I’m a bit old for this type of greeting.

Ham, or Bum, is tall and a bit stiff in his back. He has a ruddy face, with a long chin and a square jaw, a big beak of a nose, and thick reddish blond hair that he combs back with Jamaican bay rum. Ham is I guess what you’d call a favorite uncle, except that we’re not really related. His mom is Dad’s stepmother’s sister. (I think.) He’s also our only Christian Science relative. The last time I saw him was in New York, right before we moved to London. As a send-off gift, he gave me a red Panasonic Toot-a-Loop radio, which I still listen to clandestinely every night after lights-out. Sometimes a song will
come on that makes me homesick for Minnesota, like Rod Stewart’s “Sailing,” and even though hearing it brings on tears, I don’t let on to my roommates, who are listening to radios under their own pillows. Something about the longing feels good.

Standing behind Ham, inside the front hall, are Mom and Dad, smiling. Ham backs up slowly and turns the corner into the sitting room, and when he’s about to bump into the sofa, he bends down with some effort, leans backward, picks something up, and hands it to me. It’s a gift, wrapped in crumpled purple tissue paper. I open it and find a gray suede skirt, very hip. He always brings cool stuff.

“Thanks, Ham. I love it.” I turn to Mom and Dad. “Where’s Sherm?”

I can tell by their faces that he’s not coming home. Mom explains that he has a rugby match. I’m disappointed.

“How long can you stay?” I ask Ham.

“How long can you sta-ay?”
Ham repeats, and he hugs me again. I don’t have a British accent, but sometimes what I say comes out more British than American.

“I’m just here for the afternoon,” he says.

My mood sinks further.

“I’m en route to Geneva. My sister is in the hospital.”

His sister’s not a Scientist. Ham converted because of Dad.

Ham asks if I’d like to come with Mom and him to Camden Market, but it doesn’t sound like much fun. I grimace.

“Afterward,” Mom adds, “we can have tea at Fortnum & Mason.”

“What about you, Dad?” I ask.

“Oh, gee, I need to do some work,” he says, his hands clenching in his pockets. He seems satisfied with his plan, but there’s no room in it for me. He is always working, praying for his patients, even when we come home for the weekend. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t just an excuse to close the door and be alone.

“All right,” I say to Ham. There’s nothing else to do.

The three of us walk down to the bottom of Hampstead Heath
and catch the 24, a double-decker, near the Royal Free Hospital. At Camden Market, Mom and Ham rummage through stacks of antique china. I’d rather be anywhere but here, but the depressing truth is that I have few options. None actually. I could still be at Claremont, which I pretty much hate, or 15 Keats Grove, where Dad’s holed up in his study. I don’t know a soul in Hampstead.

If Sherm were here, we could at least see a movie.