THREE
* * *
Home. Mom, rushing to me like a little girl, weeping. I'm told there were hormone issues then, have been ever since. I got everything, suddenly, every favor and every advantage, and heaven help the others when they complained.
My prodigal child has come home, Mom said. You must all welcome her.
Home.
Matt, Simon, Ruthie, they hated me for it. I was a rival, suddenly, an outsider. But worst of all was Lucy, because she hated me too. Hated me enough to get thrown out of the house, out into the unfinished garage apartment. Matt and Ruthie didn't matter; I know what they are, what kind of people they are. With Simon I knew the hate wouldn't last, because even then I saw what was ahead for him, the struggle his own adolescence would bring.
But Lucy?
What happened to you, my sweet sister?
I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you. I should have joined you out there, out in the garage apartment. I should have taken a stand with you against Mom, against what Mom had become.
But there was still the Colonel, his shadow so heavy over me.
I just wanted love, don't you see? After all those months in Buffalo, where it was colder in the house than outside, the sudden love of my mother overwhelmed me.
I didn't know what my siblings and my father had been forced to live with.
How fickle her love had become.
In time, I got away.
#
Bad girl. That's what they say. In the house of God they say it.
You don't think I heard? You don't think it hurts to go back to the church where once people cared about me and hear them call me what they do? Do they not read the books that are kept in the pews? Are the words in the Bible nothing to them?
Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.
Love, and ye shall be loved.
But not Mary Camden. She bathes in sin.
#
Think back now. Remember. What did I tell Lucy that night, that night Matt chose to interfere, that night he dragged her from her date, dragged me from the coed party? What did I say to my sister when she asked me about sex, when she came to me, when no one else in our home would talk to her about what she was feeling?
Do you remember?
I said I wasn't ready. I said I was going to wait.
I was not going to have sex in high school.
That's easy to forget, isn't it? With all the talk about my failings and my mistakes, that little detail eludes you. The fact that I was no different from any girl, the fact that I knew I was pretty and that I could easily get sex if I wanted it, the fact that my own parents had already concluded once that I was pregnant and never apologized for misjudging me, these mean nothing.
But I kept my vow. It was the one thing I succeeded at when everything else in my life failed.
I waited.
Don't look so disappointed.
* * *
Home. Mom, rushing to me like a little girl, weeping. I'm told there were hormone issues then, have been ever since. I got everything, suddenly, every favor and every advantage, and heaven help the others when they complained.
My prodigal child has come home, Mom said. You must all welcome her.
Home.
Matt, Simon, Ruthie, they hated me for it. I was a rival, suddenly, an outsider. But worst of all was Lucy, because she hated me too. Hated me enough to get thrown out of the house, out into the unfinished garage apartment. Matt and Ruthie didn't matter; I know what they are, what kind of people they are. With Simon I knew the hate wouldn't last, because even then I saw what was ahead for him, the struggle his own adolescence would bring.
But Lucy?
What happened to you, my sweet sister?
I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you. I should have joined you out there, out in the garage apartment. I should have taken a stand with you against Mom, against what Mom had become.
But there was still the Colonel, his shadow so heavy over me.
I just wanted love, don't you see? After all those months in Buffalo, where it was colder in the house than outside, the sudden love of my mother overwhelmed me.
I didn't know what my siblings and my father had been forced to live with.
How fickle her love had become.
In time, I got away.
#
Bad girl. That's what they say. In the house of God they say it.
You don't think I heard? You don't think it hurts to go back to the church where once people cared about me and hear them call me what they do? Do they not read the books that are kept in the pews? Are the words in the Bible nothing to them?
Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.
Love, and ye shall be loved.
But not Mary Camden. She bathes in sin.
#
Think back now. Remember. What did I tell Lucy that night, that night Matt chose to interfere, that night he dragged her from her date, dragged me from the coed party? What did I say to my sister when she asked me about sex, when she came to me, when no one else in our home would talk to her about what she was feeling?
Do you remember?
I said I wasn't ready. I said I was going to wait.
I was not going to have sex in high school.
That's easy to forget, isn't it? With all the talk about my failings and my mistakes, that little detail eludes you. The fact that I was no different from any girl, the fact that I knew I was pretty and that I could easily get sex if I wanted it, the fact that my own parents had already concluded once that I was pregnant and never apologized for misjudging me, these mean nothing.
But I kept my vow. It was the one thing I succeeded at when everything else in my life failed.
I waited.
Don't look so disappointed.