I just hoped, now that I was home, I could remember that.
4
Julian
“You’re late,” was all my dad said as he opened the front door to my childhood home.
His eyes said more, though. That I was not only late, but not particularly welcome. That I remained a disappointment and a failure. That he wished he didn’t have to let me into the house.
He did, though, stepping back and allowing me to walk into my parents’ spartan living room. I tried to suppress the shudder that always crawled up my spine whenever I walked back into that house. I made myself smile instead.
“I thought dinner was at 6:00?”
I looked pointedly at the grandfather clock on the mantel, which showed that it was 5:55. My dad just grunted and walked away towards his study. I sighed.
I’d long ago given up offering to bring something for dinner, or asking if I could help in any way. My presence was tolerated for two hours on Sunday evenings, but I swear my parents thought I’d contaminate their home if I spent any more time there, or touched more than was strictly necessary.
I walked across the living room, my feet creaking on the old boards, through the formal dining room with the cross ominously nailed to the wall behind the head of the table, and into the kitchen at the back of the house. My mother stood at the stove, her back to me. Katie was pulling water glasses down from the upper cabinets.
“Hi there.” I was careful to keep my voice neutral.
My mom turned around as though she were surprised to see me standing there. Like I didn’t come over every week at the same time.
“Oh. You’re here.” It was a statement of fact, and didn’t carry any warmth. “Does your father know?”
“He’s the one who let me in.”
She nodded, and turned back to the green beans she was boiling. Katie caught my eyes from across the kitchen and rolled hers. Only for a second, though, because my mom was already turning around again to give Katie a firm look.
“Kathryn, put those glasses on the table and go fetch your father. Supper is ready.”
“I can get them.”
I crossed the room to take the glasses from Katie under my mom’s disapproving stare. What was I going to do, get my churchless germs all over them? I walked out to the dining room to finish setting the table as my mom transferred the beans into a serving dish, and in short order, we were sitting around the dining room table, my father bowing his head sententiously.
“Heavenly Father, we thank You and praise You…”
You could practically hear the capital letters. Katie rolled her eyes again at me from across the table, but after giving her a small smile, I looked down at the tablecloth. I didn’t want to encourage her into open rebellion.
There was nothing wrong with saying grace in and of itself, but my dad’s version did tend to run a little long. He treated prayer as a chance to publicly castigate anyone he felt deserved it, and not a Sunday had passed that that list hadn’t included me. Sure enough, when I tuned back in, we’d moved into the ‘ungrateful offspring’ portion of the programming.
“We take comfort in Your wisdom and Your word. We know that You provide guidance to all those who seek, and punish those who stray from Your path into wickedness. Those who spurn Your commandments will feel Your wrath. Those who dishonor their elders will receive Your judgement.”
I risked a peek across the table and saw Katie’s nostrils flaring in anger. I shook my head gently, hoping she understood my silent plea. She always wanted to defend me to my parents, and I never felt it was worth the risk. I’d take my dad’s anger a hundred times over if I could keep it from landing on her.
“We pray, Lord, that You would open their eyes to their sins, and open their hearts to fearing Your awesome power. We pray, too, that You prevent them from spreading wickedness among the community, that You keep their tongues and hands from causing harm, and prove Your power by punishing them in this life and the next.”
My dad wasn’t big on subtlety, you see. Sometimes I thought he was actually glad I’d stopped going to his church. It gave him the chance to wax rhapsodic about the hellfire and damnation that awaited me. I was pretty sure he enjoyed that more than he would enjoy my return to the fold.
“And we praise You, Lord, for the gifts You shower on the righteous, for the rewards You show those who love and follow You. Truly, You share Your goodness and treasure on earth and in heaven, with those who fear You, to be an example to others. We may only beg to be worthy of You, even as we know that the inborn sin of men and women means none of us can ever be worthy. Still, You bestow Your grace upon us, and we praise You for it. Amen.”
And just like that, it was over, and my dad was aggressively serving himself slices of roast while glaring at me.
“So, what do you have to say for yourself?”
That was his way of asking how my week had gone. Actually, for my dad, that was fairly polite.
So I briefly ran down the highlights of my week. I didn’t mention the evaluation, of course. I hadn’t received the results yet, but I didn’t have high hopes. Actually, my dad would probably relish hearing that I was being targeted by an authority figure. Two peas in a pod, him and Anne.
Instead of giving my dad a chance to remind me how much I’d let him down by not following in his footsteps, I asked Katie how her week had been instead. I was never sure how much my parents knew about Katie’s morning visits to my house, so I always acted like I had no idea what was going on in her life.
She pushed her food around her plate animatedly as she talked about a new stunt they were working on in cheerleading, how it was frog week in biology so the entire school smelled like formaldehyde, and an upcoming field trip to Savannah.
“We’re spending the morning at the city archives, looking at primary source documents for our midterm papers. Then we’re going on a garden tour in the afternoon, and we might even go to an animal sanctuary after that, Ms. Beecham says.”
“Waste of time,” my dad growled. My mom, as usual, said nothing. She was so quiet in my dad’s presence that she might as well not be there at all.
Katie’s eyes flashed, but to my relief, she didn’t contradict my dad directly. Still, someone ought to say something.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think field trips can be important learning experiences. You connect classroom content to the real world. I’m taking my own class to McIntyre Beach this Friday as part of our science unit. We’re going to do a park clean-up, and talk about ecology.
“That’s cool,” Katie offered, but it was buried under my dad barking, “Waste of time,” again but louder, as if volume alone could prove his point.
He glared at both of us. Katie held his eyes for a second, then looked down at her plate and stabbed a green bean with her fork. She pushed it around her plate like she was channeling all her energy into not talking back to my dad. I was grateful.
Never one to let a silence stretch out when he could fill it with sermonizing, my dad cleared his throat and focused his glare on me alone.
“Field trips do nothing but divert young minds from discipline. They distract from the lessons children should be learning. Not that the content of our public schools focuses on what it should. It’s a disgrace, what young people are taught these days.”