Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science (6 page)

On the way home, I sit in the front passenger seat. Mom asks me what we talked about in Sunday school last week. I tell her that accidents are
error
, and that error isn’t real and therefore can’t happen. I
try to say this with certainty, but I start to cry. Are the tears flowing now out of relief that I am going home? Or is it because I’m afraid? Should I be at a hospital right now?

Mom rubs my knee soothingly. “We’ll call Dad as soon as we get home,” she says, “and he will get straight to work.”

We arrive at home, and Mom lets me lie down in her room, on the high, four-poster bed. Then she calls Dad from the phone in his study. I am straining to hear what she says.

“Daddy is on his way home now,” she tells me. “Would you like to call Mrs. Hannah?”

I feel myself start to cry all over again. Now that Dad is a practitioner, we call Mrs. Hannah only for really serious problems, like when Sherman’s finger got caught in the heavy storm-shelter door in the basement. I don’t know why
Mom
is asking
me
if I want to call Mrs. Hannah. I just want Mom to take care of me. I’d rather she call Uncle Jack.

My mother dials Mrs. Hannah’s number and hands me the phone. I take a deep breath to try to stop crying. Mrs. Hannah picks up after two rings. Her melodic, gentle voice brings tears to my eyes again. I tell her what happened, leaving out the word
concussion
. We don’t believe in concussions.

Mrs. Hannah talks about God. She says that “Love is reflected in Love” and that I am therefore perfect. “ ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,’ ” Mrs. Hannah says, quoting Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Together we sing the hymn “Feed My Sheep,” and then she tells my mother we should call her in the morning.

I hear the old red Mercedes turn in to the driveway without the usual
toot-toot
announcing my dad’s return. Moments later, he appears in the master bedroom, sets down his briefcase, and takes a seat beside me on the bed. He doesn’t ask me how I am feeling—to do so might be giving in to
error
. I want to tell him how it all happened: how I went off the jump and the handlebars gave way. I want to tell him what Grandma said about a concussion. But I don’t.

“Do you like my earrings?” I ask.

“They’re lovely,” Dad says.

“I’m okay, Dad,” I say. “I’m just a little tired.”

The next morning, I wake up. Something is sore on both sides of my head, and I remember my pierced ears. I twist both earrings and wonder if Mom bought the rubbing alcohol. Then I remember the bicycle jump, and I gently touch my hand to my forehead and find a bump.

At breakfast, my mother asks me, “How do you feel, honey?”

“Fine,” I say. All I want to think about is my newly pierced ears and how I look.

But Dad says, “You’ve had a beautiful demonstration.” He is standing behind me, wearing a suit and tie, about to leave for the office, and I am pouring some cereal into a bowl. He squeezes my shoulders gently, affectionately.

“You know, Loosh,” he says, “now that you’re twelve, you can join the Mother Church.”

I’m not sure I want to, but I’m not sure I don’t: What if I join the church? Does that mean I can’t go to a hospital if I get really sick? I’m scared all over again.

“Can I go with you to church on Wednesday night?” I ask, looking up at Dad and then Mom. I know if they say yes, it will be so that I can give a testimony. I also know I will get to stay up later, and maybe stop at Baskin-Robbins for ice cream on the way home after the service. Mom and Dad both smile broadly and say they think that is a wonderful idea.

“The two most
important things we can give you kids,” Mom says to me one night, “are your education and Christian Science.”

I am about to start seventh grade at a new school. Mom has
joined me on my bed, and I am resting with my head in her lap before she turns my lights out.

She combs her fingers through my long hair, making my scalp and the back of my neck tingle. As disappointing as it might be for my parents, I don’t look at either Christian Science or my education as precious, and I don’t think of them as gifts. Gifts aren’t boring.

For years my parents have wanted me to enroll at Northrop Collegiate (Nor-throw-up, we called it), an all-girls school in Minneapolis. Until now, I’ve successfully resisted their appeals. Every winter I’ve taken the entrance exam, and I’ve done well enough to be accepted (proof, I point out, that Deephaven Elementary is doing a fine job). Every April my mother has bought me a pair of navy blue oxfords, somehow thinking the uniform lace-ups might lure me into the private school camp; they never do. But this year, I’m making the switch: sixth grade was the last year of elementary school, and my parents aren’t thrilled with the public junior high option.

“It’s the
right
activity at the
right
time,” my mom coaxes, and even though I’m not looking at her face, I know she is gazing out into an imaginary distance, making a silent prayer. I roll my eyes. (When she catches me reading with a flashlight under my covers at night, it’s the
right
activity at the
wrong
time.) I love when she combs my head with her fingernails, but I swear, sometimes she can be so—
ugh—mothery
.

The truth is, I don’t need much convincing on the school thing anymore. This fall, three local private schools are merging: Northrop (all girls), Blake (all boys), and Highcroft (coed). They will become the Blake Schools, keeping the three campuses, blending their student bodies. They’re giving up uniforms. And I won’t have to wear those hideous blue shoes. I’ll count among my schoolmates lots of cousins, as well as Mary, my best friend from Deephaven, and many camp friends.

Tomorrow, the entire incoming seventh grade of the newly merged Blake Schools will board buses and head north for a much-anticipated orientation. There will be hiking, a campfire,
trust falls, and other activities. We will get to know one another and some of our teachers before school starts. It could be fun.

Mom kisses my forehead, and we say our prayers:

The bus ride
to the camp is long. At the outset, the Blake Schools’ new seventh-grade class behaves admirably, with self-restraint, but by the time we are bumping along the final dirt road to the campground, a number of boys launch the first of many handfuls of Cheetos toward the front of our bus. A quick food fight ensues.

Once the bus stops, we proceed to the bulletin board on the edge of the parking lot, where we’ll find our family assignments. There is a confused dash, followed by a nearly spontaneous and unanimous judgment that Family B is the best. It has all the jocks, and all the popular girls. My best friend Mary is in B. My cousin Mimi is in B. I am in D. I recognize a few names on the D list, and some acquaintances, but nobody I can actually claim as a friend. Still, I’m not entirely disappointed. I like getting new school supplies; I figure I’ll enjoy making some new friends too. I’ve already met a nice girl on the bus who will also be in Family D. Her name is Liz.

I am sitting
on the ground in a circle with a bunch of kids and a teacher who asks us to introduce ourselves one at a time and share something about ourselves and our families. He starts with me, and I politely decline. He asks the boy to my right to go first instead.

“I’m Tracy Lund,” he says, looking down at his hands self-consciously. “I like going to Viking games.”

“And what does your father do?” the teacher asks. I stifle a groan. Why did he have to ask that?

“My dad owns grocery stores,” Tracy says easily. We all know this. Everyone’s mother shops at Lunds.

The person to Tracy’s right is Liz, the girl I sat next to on the bus.

“… I like to ski, I have a brother named Happy”—we all giggle—“and my dad is a lawyer.”

But the teacher hasn’t actually asked about her father’s occupation, Liz just offered it! So now the pattern is in place, and nobody will likely break it.

How I wish my father worked for General Mills. I have wanted this for as long as I can remember. In second grade, my class went on a field trip to the General Mills test kitchens, courtesy of a classmate’s father.
That
was cool. The white-aproned, white-hatted, and latex-gloved ladies there tested recipes using Betty Crocker cake mixes, and not only did we get to help, and taste, but we came home with goody bags stuffed with product samples.

What does your father do?

Whenever I answer this question, and no matter how I inflect it—with a cautious question mark or a bold period—the eight syllables seem to take forever stumbling past my lips.

Chris-tian Sci-ence prac-ti-tion-er
. I know my answer will only bring more questions. I can gauge what will come next: if my cross-examiner’s eyebrows go up, there soon follows something along the lines of “My grandmother had a friend who …” or “We have a neighbor whose cousin …” The sentence always ends badly, with a broken leg, or a heart attack, or an early, preventable death.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to act as an Ambassador of Truth,” my mom says, which means, I suppose, that I can be a spokesman for Christian Science. But the truth is, it feels more like time for a hasty getaway.

The rest of the kids around the circle introduce themselves and announce their fathers’ occupations or workplaces: one doctor, two lawyers, Cargill, stockbroker, 3M, Dayton’s, Piper Jaffray, Jolly Green Giant. Even Jolly Green Giant can be said without raising eyebrows. Now, it is my turn. Why couldn’t my father just sell stocks?

“I’m Lucia Ewing. I have an older sister and a younger brother.”

Just then, a teacher walks up to our circle.

“They’re ready for us in the mess hall,” she says. “Five minutes?”

I’m spared?
Amen. I uncross my legs and start to get up. Our teacher gestures for me to take my seat again.

“Whoa, not so fast, everyone. Let’s give Lucia a chance to finish telling us about herself.”

“I like to water ski and play tennis,” I say, “and my father is … a minister.”

That was easy.

And it worked; there are no further questions. It’s close to the truth, I tell myself: an approximation. I can just be Lucia, a minister’s daughter, and that feels nearly as Wonder bread normal as being the daughter of a businessman. I am free to spend the rest of the weekend—maybe even the rest of seventh grade?—just like everyone else. I feel almost giddy as I head for the mess hall. I only hope Mimi and Mary don’t give me up.

After lunch
, I am hanging out with some new friends. We take turns pushing each other on a tire swing. There is a cute boy named James, with blue eyes and golden hair, small like me, and he looks my way whenever I glance in his direction. Liz gets off the swing, and now it is my turn. I pull myself into the tire and grasp the end of the rope, just below where it is securely knotted. James takes hold of the tire and slowly pulls me way, way back. I can’t help but smile. He lets go, and I soar through the air. He catches me around the waist and pushes me again. With each push I fly higher, and warm to the possibility that I have a crush, and that maybe it’s mutual.

What seems to
matter at Blake—more than what Dad does, or the fact that we don’t go to doctors—is who my family is. Lucky for me,
my family—or not my family but my parents’ families—preceded me. When I meet classmates’ parents for the first time, they might tell me they knew Mom from Edina High School, or they remember the annual Christmas pageants at Highcroft, when Highcroft was still the name of the house Dad grew up in, not one of the three campuses of Blake Schools. My uncles’ younger faces can be spotted in the black-and-white team photos that hang on the school’s walls.

In October
, the seventh-grade class parents plan the first Friday night social, a sock hop. James asks Mary to ask me if I’ll go with him. The night of the sock hop, James wears blue jeans rolled up above the ankles and a white T-shirt with a pack of fake cigarettes rolled into the sleeve. His blond hair is greased back, and he stashes a peppermint Winston behind one ear. I wear my hair pulled up in a high ponytail, Mom’s old poodle skirt from Grandma’s attic safety-pinned at the waist, white bobby socks, and a red cardigan put on backward, buttoned up the back. At the party, everyone dances as a group to oldies like “The Loco-Motion,” and “Rock Around the Clock.” When the Johnny Mathis song “Misty” comes over the loudspeaker, James’s hands go timidly to my waist, and I tentatively place mine on his shoulders. I look around the dance floor and see that others have paired off too, but I won’t look anyone in the eye, especially my mom. She is chaperoning. Mary and her friend Jay float past James and me, and she gives me the thumbs-up. I chew my upper lip nervously, trying not to smile too obviously.

James and I win a prize for best costumes.

The next morning Mary calls me on the phone as I am eating breakfast, watching Saturday cartoons with Sherman and Dad.

“So?” she says. “Are you going together?”

“
I
dough-no!”

“You’re going together,” she declares.

I grin.

On the day
before Thanksgiving, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Sherman, and I drive to the airport to pick up Olivia. She is now a tenth grader at Principia, a Christian Science boarding school near St. Louis, Missouri.