Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science (35 page)

“Did you hear some bad news today?” an unfamiliar woman’s voice asks.

“No.” I don’t turn to look at her.

“Is somebody you know a patient here?”

“Yes.”

I can’t answer more fully because I am gasping for air.

Eventually, I calm down enough to begin to tell the woman about everything: Mom, Dad, Christian Science, Tenacre. All I see of the woman are her feet. I guess from her no-nonsense shoes that she is in her fifties. I’ve been half-sitting in the pew, half-kneeling on a prayer bench. When I finally turn to face her, I notice a name, followed by “R.N.” on a pin on her lapel. She tells me she is the head nurse of the hospital.

“It sounds like you have a lot to deal with,” she says. She presses her hand firmly on my shoulder.

“You know, you couldn’t have brought her here against her will. Or at least, legally, we couldn’t have taken her.”

We sit in silence for a few more minutes, until I have calmed down.

“I’ll be on duty all weekend,” the head nurse says, “so if you want to talk some more, come find me.”

I leave the hospital to buy a new pack of cigarettes. The stretch limo is still idling at the entrance as I turn and walk toward Nassau Street. When I look back again, I see Aunt Mary kissing Uncle Jack good-bye. He gets in the car, and it drives away. He passes by me, but I don’t look up, and he doesn’t stop.

I have returned
to work. Olivia is in Tucson and will probably come back when Mom starts chemo or radiation. Sherman hasn’t decided yet whether to register for classes this semester. On the one
hand, things could go on like this for a while—months even—and he needs to finish his undergraduate work. On the other hand, if Mom’s condition worsens, he won’t be able to concentrate, and his studies will suffer. I can go back to the office, and catch up on a backlog of work, and if I have to leave, the Condé Nast personnel department will send German
Vogue
a temp. I can hop on a train at a moment’s notice.

Grandma and Aunt Mary flew back to Minneapolis on Sunday, the day after Uncle Jack’s visit. I haven’t talked with any of Mom’s family since their departure.

Mom continues to
get stronger. I talked with her on the telephone today. It is almost possible to imagine that she is calling from home, not from a hospital bed. She’s been moved out of Special Care and into a private room.

I am back
in Hopewell. Mom has returned to the Special Care Unit, because the doctors believe she has some sort of intestinal blockage. They have hooked her up to a gastrointestinal pump to alleviate pressure in her abdomen. It doesn’t appear to be working, though; her gut is horribly distended, so swollen it is hard. The pump is sucking green stuff out and makes an awful gurgling noise, but for some reason, her belly continues to grow. She is in a lot of pain. Dr. White has scheduled emergency surgery for tomorrow morning. He calls it “mostly exploratory.” Olivia will stay in Tucson until after the surgery, when Dr. White will know what’s causing the blockage. Sherman will come home for the surgery. Aunt Kay and Uncle Bear fly in tomorrow. I’m nervous about their visit; things are still strained between us.

Ham is here. We managed to track him down in Paris, and he caught the first flight back. If there is tension between Dad and Ham, neither one is showing it.

Dad, Ham, and I
are waiting in the pre-op area with Mom. After a nurse introduces herself and checks Mom’s vital signs, she disappears. We are the only people around. Apparently, on Saturdays the operating rooms are used only for emergencies. There is a line of prep stations, each with its own dangling blood pressure monitor and partitioning curtain. I am shivering at the sterility of the place, or maybe it’s cold in here. Putting on the mandatory surgical clothing and mask, I fantasize about being my mother’s doctor. When I see her head swathed in the green cotton cap, I am surprised by how pretty she is, even now. I’m proud of her courage—she is calm—but I also feel, what an incredible waste. This didn’t have to happen.

I hold Mom’s hand. When our eyes meet, I try to cover my sadness with a wink.

“Where’s Sherman?” she asks.

“He’s on his way back from the city. He’ll be here in about an hour. Olivia’s in Tucson. A phone call away.

“I love you Mom,” I say, kissing her forehead.

“I love you too, Lucia.

“Come here,” she says, reaching for my hand again. “We’re gonna lick this thing,” she says.

Sherman is sitting in the surgical family waiting room when we get there. He stands, approaches me, and gives me a hug. Then he bursts into tears. He grips Ham’s hand to shake it but ends up with his head buried in Ham’s shoulder.

In the waiting room, we watch TV again. It is the final weekend of the U.S. Open. Dad sits with his Christian Science books in his lap, peering intermittently over his reading glasses at the
television, then returning his focus to the opened books. Moments later, his chin bobs to his chest and he awakens with a jerk, or snoozes for a few minutes, sighs, rolls his head back, and awakens self-consciously.

Dad is still a handsome man. His silvering hair lends him a distinguished, patrician air. I think about how his outward appearance belies his inner self, much in the same way the Church’s appearance masks its real nature. My father, when dressed casually, wears old Levi’s with loafers and golf shirts. When he dresses for church or a trip to the city, he wears a bespoke suit, pressed shirt, tie, and an old Burberry raincoat. Outwardly, he personifies the Establishment without even trying. The Church, especially through the
Christian Science Monitor
, works hard promoting an image of itself as a credible, established, legitimate, mainstream institution. Most people have no idea what is concealed behind the veneer of its grand city church edifices, the prime-located suburban churches and Reading Rooms, and the impressive Boston headquarters designed by I. M. Pei. Every few years the media jump on the story of a child of Christian Scientists who dies from something horrible, and treatable—a bowel obstruction, diabetes, meningitis—because he or she has not been given medical care, and then the Church puts on a full-court press with its First Amendment lawyers. Eventually the story dies, the controversy blows over.

For reasons I don’t fully understand, and may never, my father needs the security of a way of life that leaves nothing to doubt—at least in its teachings—a belief system that tells him exactly what to think, not how to think. I have theories about the root causes of his conversion: an unhappy childhood marred by divorce in a privileged but fractured family; the psychological damage of being sent away to boarding school too young; the minimal contact with a wealthy, remarried, and geographically remote father (the granddad I met only twice before he died and I was thirteen); the invisible scars of combat in Korea. Christian Science gives my father connectedness, relevance, purpose. But the more I look for clues and
causes and reasons, the less important to me they become, for now anyway. After more than half a lifetime of circumstances, many of which were beyond his control, my father has become who he is, a person of immense complexity. Do I know for sure that, given the same set of circumstances, I wouldn’t also be ripe for a theology as controlling and rigid and absolute as Christian Science?

I’m more puzzled by my mother.

I have no memories of her father, whom we called Bops. He died of a heart attack when I was very young. Once while Grandma and I were talking in the hospital, I asked her what he was like.

“Oh, he was a marvelous man,” Grandma said, “a dedicated physician. His patients always came first.”

Did that mean his family came second? What sort of a father and husband was he? I vaguely recall hearing that, during World War II, he enlisted as a physician, leaving Grandma with four children under the age of what? Eleven, maybe? And during those war years, Aunt Kay almost died of scarlet fever—or rheumatic fever?—and had a long convalescence. Could any of these factors have played a role in Mom’s conversion?

I wonder what my grandfather thought of his daughter’s rejection of medicine. Did he roll his eyes, like a cattle rancher might behind a vegetarian daughter’s back? Did he try to dissuade her?

Did he worry for his grandchildren’s welfare? Were there ever arguments between my mother and her father about Christian Science?

If he were still alive, might things be different?

I look at the clock. Mom has already been in surgery for an hour and fifteen minutes.

“Sherman,” I say.

“Yeah?” he replies, not taking his eyes off the tennis match.

“Aunt Kay and Uncle Bear arrive today. Do you know when?”

“Sometime this afternoon.”

I catch myself chewing on the inside of my mouth. Aunt Kay and I haven’t really spoken since before Mom’s first surgery.

She and Mom couldn’t be more different.

When I was in college, Aunt Kay and I developed a special closeness, sharing confidences and opinions and cigarettes at a time when my relationship with Mom wasn’t faring so well. In my opinion, the way I lived my life was none of my mother’s business, even when I practically forced the details on her. I remember once asking Mom about birth control, and she denounced my immoral behavior (which I was quick to point out was monogamous, at least) using street slang; I accused her of being puritanical.

I could talk with Aunt Kay about anything, and I could smoke cigarettes with her, which made me feel accepted as an equal. She had a voracious appetite for books and ideas; she collected contemporary art. She had a really cool, modern, nontraditional house. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, which, most important, wasn’t my mother’s. I would fly to Minneapolis for long weekends and return to Hopewell for a day or two, making parenthetical comments about the great conversations Kay and I had. I would refer to her as
Kay
, without the
Aunt
. Mom would sit down at the kitchen table, with a full cup of coffee, ready to chat; I would pour myself a cup and disappear to my bedroom, closing the door.

I wish I could have a do-over.

I look around the waiting room. Sherman is stretched out on the couch, Dad is slumped and snoring, and Ham is—remarkably—asleep sitting perfectly upright in a chair.

He opens his eyes and motions me to come over. Before this, the last time I saw him was at my high school graduation.

“I wonder what’s taking so long,” I say.

“Sometimes it just
does
,” Ham says, clearing his throat. “They may have found something that needs correcting.”

He pauses. It seems like he wants to say something but is hesitant. “You know, your father and I haven’t spoken in a long time,” he says.

I nod.

“I’m afraid I hurt him.”

We sit for a moment in silence.

“I’m sure you heard that I left the Church,” Ham says.

Again I nod, but I hadn’t actually heard. So that was why Dad wouldn’t let us call Ham when Mom first went to Tenacre. I wonder if he knows that I’m not a Christian Scientist.

“I withdrew my membership,” Ham says. “A number of years ago, I started having trouble with my shoulder. It was very painful, and I was making no progress.” He lowers his voice to a whisper and glances over at Dad to see if he’s still sleeping, “But quite frankly, I also noticed that all these Christian Scientists in their fifties and early sixties were just dropping. Like flies, for God’s sake! And nobody would even talk about it. Well, I think your father felt very rejected by my decision. And now … this. I’m devastated, I’m sure you know that.”

Ham shakes his head in disbelief.

The telephone rings. I jump up to answer it.

“I would like to speak to a member of the Ewing family,” a woman’s voice says.

“I’m one of the daughters,” I say. I look around to see Sherman, Dad, and Ham all alert and listening.

“Dr. White just came out of surgery and—”

“Is she okay?”

“He didn’t give any information, except that she’s in recovery now until her vital signs stabilize. He’ll meet you shortly in the ICU conference room.”

The door opens
, and Dr. White appears.

“Mr. Ewing, Lucia, Sherman,” he says, shaking our hands. I’m impressed that he remembers our names.

The doctor takes a handkerchief from his pocket and pats the back of his neck. I know he has bad news.

“Well,” he begins, “she endured the surgery quite well,
considering her situation. But I wasn’t able to do much once we got in there. There’s very little blockage of the stomach.”

But I thought the surgery was
because
of a blockage.

“The problem is considerably more serious,” Dr. White continues. “The tumor has developed quite rapidly in the last two weeks. Since her first surgery, it has literally mushroomed.”

The cup of my hand goes to my mouth.

“Now the tumor is engulfing the entire pelvic region, exerting extreme pressure on your mother’s system.”

“Is this the sort of thing that can be removed surgically?” Dad asks.

The doctor replaces his handkerchief in the breast pocket of his lab coat and shakes his head no.

“Chemotherapy?” Sherman asks.

“She’s too weak to undergo the kind of stress chemo entails. I doubt radiation would even be possible now.”

Dad sighs, and his eyes fill. We all stand there, speechless.

“The next three days are critical,” Dr. White says.