“If that’s the way he wants it”

 We had been out of town visiting my grandparents for a few weeks and when we arrived home there was a surprise waiting for us.  The woman sitting on the front porch of our house in my mother’s bathrobe smoking a cigarette was not my mother.  I knew this even with my grade school problem solving ability because my mother was in the car next to me.  She had stopped abruptly at the corner of our street and stared glassy eyed at the blonde woman seated on the cement stairs.

Even as a young child I could feel the anger and fury coming from my mother’s very being.  Her soft white hands gripped the steering wheel as she muttered something under her breath.  All I could make out was something like “If that’s the way he wants it.  I’ll show him.”  Then she turned the car around and as the gravel flew, the woman on the steps abruptly looked up.  Her cigarette dropped to the ground and she hurried inside our house.

Mom dropped us girls off at the library and told us she would be back in a few hours.  I went to the audio book section and placed the headphones on my head.  The story of “Black Beauty” drowned out the pictures racing through my mind and the questions receded into nothingness as I closed my eyes.  Escape to fantasy was such a relief from the questions brought by reality, adults and lies.

When my mother returned for us she seemed less confused and much more in control.  I can’t say I ever thought of my mother as in control often, but this day, in this instance, she had obviously come to a conclusion in her life and acted upon an idea.

It wasn’t but a few weeks later that we met Mr. Jenson.  We sat in the brown tweed waiting room chairs and flipped through magazine titled “Psychology Today”, “Parenting” and “Family Circle”.  When we were called into his office he said that anything we talked about in his office was “not allowed to be discussed at home.”  He asked us if we were angry about how things were at home and if we had any feelings we wished to discuss. 

The only thought that I recall going through my mind was, “What things are we allowed to be angry about?”  I can’t say I asked it, but it was always a question.  Sure there were things I was angry about.  I was angry that we couldn’t be like other kids.  I was angry that we didn’t know the movies and songs that other kids knew.  The issue between my parents and their relationship, or lack thereof, was never a question for me.  I knew my mother would never leave my father because of the “religion” and I knew my father would do whatever he wanted regardless of what my mother desired.  My opinion and my anger didn’t matter so I said nothing. 

I did ask my mother why we weren’t talking about this to the “workers” (ministers in our religion) and she told me they wouldn’t understand.  I couldn’t figure out how a minister who was supposed to be in direct contact with God not understand the troubles of their people?  Why wouldn’t they know how to advise my parents?  The answer came many years later when I was having troubles in my own marriage.  Their advice would have been to love each other and endure all things.  God will take care of you and your relationship.  They would have told my mother she had no “rights”.  She must simply have faith that what was happening was for her own good.

Our house was a very unpleasant place to be that year.  My older sister ran away and my father hung a sign on her bedroom door.  It said “Sewing Room”.  They wouldn’t talk about her.  They said she was at a hospital because she was sick and we couldn’t visit her.  I missed her, but didn’t miss the screaming and arguments.  She was a loose cannon when she was home and my mother was frantic when she wasn’t.  I heard conversations about red pills and alcohol, “uppers” and “downers”, but never understood what it all meant. 

I was torn between the harsh realities of what was actually happening and the “just have faith in God” religious beliefs in which I was raised.  Everything that was wrong or bad or worldly was simply ignored or denied.  We were taught that if we denied it was happening it would simply vanish, but that wasn’t happening in reality. 

The workers said it was because we were lacking faith and needed to pray more for it.  What were we to have faith in?  Whom were we to have faith in?  Where were we to go to get faith?  What did faith look like and if all these bad things were happening to my family because of a lack of faith? Did that mean we were all bad?  This “Just have faith and God will fix it.” rule confused me even more.