Pygmalion's Art

Chapter 4 Making Connections

Joan sat very still, realizing that this was one of the most crucial conversations in her life. Give the wrong reply and she may lose her mother, or God, or both.

She decided from the start not to take the attitude that she was now a free adult. Both knew quite well that the secret started when she was 15, when Helen still deserved to be obeyed.

Nor would she demand to know now how Helen had found out. Rehashing that would probably make her mother even angrier. The real issue was betrayal.

Adam was silent. He knew that, though he was permitted to listen, this was between Joan and her mother.

"I never lied. I just never brought it up."

"Don't get legalistic with me, young lady. This isn't your law class. You concealed an immense secret from your loving parents."

"The first time I told a grown-up about God, I got sent to Crazy Camp!" Joan snapped.

The effect of that on Helen was much greater than Joan anticipated. Anger toward Joan was replaced with shock. "You mean, that's why the doctor – he said you were delusional, but wouldn't tell us how. Doctor-patient confidentiality. You mean, you were sane all along?"

"I don't know!" said Joan. "At the time I didn't know whether the visions were real or the effects of Lyme Disease. I asked him, thinking it would take just a few sessions in his office to straighten my mind out, not a summer in Crazy Camp."

"And we sent you there! Oh, my God. I'm sorry, Joan—" Helen seemed close to tears.

Now Helen had something of her own to feel guilty about, and Joan was tempted to lash out with her own accusations. But she resisted the temptation. This was the first opportunity in three years to deal honestly with her mother.

"It's all right, Mom. At least I met Judith there, gave some good ripples to the last months of her life, and maybe that was worth it."

"Thank you, Joan – let's talk calmly, now that there are no secrets between us. Tell me, who else have you told, besides the psychiatrist?"

"Adam and Judith, at that point. But they both thought I was crazy."

"Umm," said Adam.

"Don't apologize, Adam, I thought I was crazy too. Summer a year ago, Luke and Grace found out and I decided to tell them the full story. That Christmas, I told Adam."

"Yeah," said Adam. "Luke, Grace, and Joan kept having to freeze me out of their conversations, and things got awkward."

A B C – E – E F G

"Shut that damn phone off, will you Adam?" Joan asked irritably. "No phone call is as important as this."

"I'll take it." He took the ringing phone from his wife's purse and left the apartment.

"Where was I?" muttered Joan. "Oh, yes. Two of my girlfriends. Veronica Mars, and a Marghareta in Europe. But I don't think either quite believed me."

"But not your parents." This time Helen sounded just sad, not angry.

"How could I? Dad doesn't believe God exists; how can I tell him that I've been talking to Him for three years? And you – I've never quite understood what you thought about God."

"It's always been volatile. When I was growing up I went to Sunday School, Catholic school, believed what I was taught. Then IT happened."

Joan nodded somberly, knowing what her mother was talking about. The sexual assault, the first year of college.

"After that I had all kind of doubts. Why didn't the God I worshiped protect me better? Either He didn't exist, or He didn't care. Deep down I have always FELT that He existed, so it was a matter of figuring out why He failed. And I've never found a good answer."

"I hear that you attend Father Ken's church now."

"That's mainly to humor Lily. Even Will has agreed to go when she has her baby and gets it baptized. But being confirmed, taking an oath that I believe, I don't know if I can ever do that."

The rapport was now good enough that Joan decided to go back to the original question. "But you're convinced now that I go on missions for Him. How did you find out?"

"Long story. For all my life I've tended to have vivid dreams; you might even call them visions. Some I've turned into my paintings. The most recent one, an old lady appeared, identified herself as God – or should I say Goddess? – and said that our family had been serving Her for generations, all the way back into Biblical times. Including you. It had skipped me, because I had been tuning out the call."

"But that was a dream. Why did you believe it?"

"She gave me a sign. I was to contact a Cathy Xavier, who needed my help. I gave it a try, and Cathy Xavier really existed. She was extremely depressed, and with my experience I was able to figure out why. She had been raped by a cousin, during a family reunion."

"Oh, my God."

"And she was afraid to talk about it. No proof, and it would blow the family wide open. She wasn't pregnant, fortunately. I persuaded Lily to give her some confidential counseling, even asked Will if something could be done about the cousin. But after I had time to think, I remembered what the Goddess lady said about YOU. And then I thought back – all that wild behavior that started three years ago. Smashing Adam's sculpture. Fleeing the Christmas dance with the school bully. Offering to make love to Adam in the hotel where he worked! We used to blame that on your Lyme Disease, but the health authorities traced that to a horse pasture that you visited in the spring, and you were being weird long before that. As if you were marching to a different drummer, as Thoreau put it. The drummer had to be God."

"Yeah. Except He didn't tell me to make love with Adam; that was a big misunderstanding. But what made you so upset that you drove up here without warning?"

"Oh, Joan." Some of the anger came back into Helen's voice, but it was no longer directed at Joan. "Maybe you'll understand when you have a teenaged daughter, and you're trying to protect her from the world, and then you discover that Somebody is meddling with her behind your back."

"But, Mom, this isn't like that scary Lolita book. We're not talking about a child molester. This is God."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? I told you, I don't trust God. Maybe the ancient Greeks had the better idea, when they showed their gods as super-human but fallible. There's may be a lot more distance between God and good than just a letter. He's supposed to be a God of Truth, isn't He? But he encouraged you to lie to your own parents, whom He told you to honor?"

Joan could think of no good answer to that.

"Maybe He, or She, or It, is friendly as long as you cooperate, Joan. But if you think you can risk it, try saying No sometime and see what happens."

"Yes," murmured Joan. "Thanks, Mom."

"All right. Now, I've got to get back to Arcadia. Will doesn't know I'm here, and I gave a rather feeble excuse to be gone for several hours."

"You're not going to tell Dad?"

"Not now. I don't know how to explain it to him. Will you promise to be silent as well? Seeing that you've been doing that for three years anyway, it shouldn't be difficult.."

Joan winced. "Yeah, I promise."

"All right. I love you, Joan, and I hope that this will turn out OK, somehow."

"I love you, Mom."

They hugged each other, and then Joan saw her mother to her car. Then she ran back to her flat, threw herself on the bed, and cried.

Sounds from the entryway. "Jane, I'm back. I figured you two wanted privacy – Jane, what's wrong?"

Between sobs, Joan tried to summarize the conversation as best as she could. She left out the rape and referred vaguely to some traumatizing incident in her mother's youth. Some day Adam ought to know, but not now.

"But it looks like things worked out. I mean, she's not mad at you anymore."

"Oh, Adam, it's not Mom that's upsetting me now, it's God. Don't you see what happened? God snitched on me!"

TBC