Can I Get An Amen? (7 page)

“Hi, Ellen,” she said, almost formally, when I walked in the door. “How is your sister?” It was unnatural, her speech, forced.

“Good…,” I said tentatively, placing my keys on the
counter. I knew what was coming, and I stood waiting for my mother’s lecture like it was a flagellation.

She purposefully closed her magazine. “Ellen, I have kept my mouth shut over these past few weeks, but I’ve seen what you’ve been doing.”

“I know, Mom. I’m really,
really
sorry.”

She assertively raised one finger, her eyes flashing. “I’m not finished, Ellen. You are going to listen to me.” She had been waiting weeks to give this speech and was not about to let me rush her through it. “You have been running away from your pain, trying to pretend that everything with Gary never happened. Instead of pressing into the Lord, you’ve been looking for escape in all the wrong places.” She paused for effect. “You thought you could find comfort in
men
.” It must have been with a heroic effort that she maintained eye contact, for any reference to sex, no matter how oblique, never failed to embarrass her.

“Mom…” I felt my face flush in humiliation.

“Not to mention how you’ve been hanging out at the
mall
all day.” She said
mall
as if the word had a particularly offensive flavor. “You need to get your priorities straight. I know how much you have been through, but it’s time to face reality.”

“I know, Mom,” I said as I stared at the shiny granite counter. “I’m going to look for a job. I’ll start looking online today.”

“I don’t mean
start looking
for a job. I mean
get
a job. I don’t care if it’s at the supermarket.” My mother sat up straight as she went in for the kill. “Your father and I also want you to start coming to church with us.”

I sighed deeply and let my head flop back, but that was my only protest.

“I mean it, Ellen. That is our condition,” she continued, primed for more of a fight. “If you want to live in this house and
come and go as you please, all we ask is that you attend church and bring in an income. Your father and I can’t support you indefinitely.” There was an edge to her voice, a slightly hysterical twinge. Accurately interpreting my silence as acquiescence, she continued. “And the Arnolds are coming over for dinner tonight. We’d like you to join us.”

“The Arnolds?” I said weakly. I knew I was beaten but had to make my displeasure known.

“Yes, the Arnolds,” she said, daring me to push the matter further.

The Arnolds were the reigning monarchs of my parents’ church. Edward Arnold had started a company that several years ago rode the wave of the technology boom and sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. He was now content to invest and donate, both of which he did with equal acuity. Christ Church now had an enormous new wing for its, ahem,
contemporary
services, the funds for which came from an anonymous donor who was anything but anonymous. Lynn Arnold was on the board of every conservative charity in the state and ran a weekly gathering for well-heeled young women at her house, at which she provided tutelage on how to be a “fine Christian wife.” It was, she figured, the least she could do.

Only after my mother saw that her demands would be met with little resistance did she soften. “Come here, my baby girl,” she said, standing and wrapping her arms around me. “With all that’s happened, you’ve been trying to go it alone rather than relying on your
savior
, your heavenly
father
.” Her hand stroked my hair. “We live in a fallen world, Ellen. Terrible things happen all around us. They happen to everyone, whether we see it or not. But it’s Jesus who sees us through. He is the only thing that we can rely on always, for eternity.” Slumping, I buried my face into
her shoulder and, squeezing my eyelids together, felt tears escape from the corners.

I told my mother that I loved her and went upstairs. Turning the shower on hot, I let the bathroom fill with steam before I got in. Sitting on the floor, I watched great beads of condensation form on the mirror, growing heavy and fat before rolling down the glass, leaving thin lines of clarity. When I finally stepped underneath the soft, steady stream of water, I stood there motionless for a long time. It began without warning, as it always did. The words reflexively slipped from my lips as barely articulated whispers.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, God. Thank you.
It was a prayer of fleeting thanks in a moment when I felt grateful for everything I still had. I was home. I was safe. I was alive.

. . .

My mother spent the day preparing for the Arnolds’ visit, flitting nervously about the kitchen, cleaning, then cooking, then cleaning again. She declined my offer to help, insisting that the best thing I could do was stay out of her hair. She had never been the you-chop-while-I-slice type, so I made good on my promise to begin the job search. It was another vehicle for procrastination, as there was another, more grim task in front of me: calling Gary. I had been avoiding his calls, ignoring his messages, sending noncommittal e-mails about moving forward with the sale of the house, the divorce. But I was too emotionally drained to speak with him, so I sat in my father’s study and pored over the meager job listings.

Prospects were slim and my mother may not have been far off when she suggested a job at the supermarket. When I realized
just how little demand there was for my vague skill set, I toyed with the idea of taking a nap. I told myself that I didn’t deserve a nap, but I felt useless and weak and thought that maybe it was the best thing for me. I expected to see Ted when I closed my eyes, to smell his vodka-heavy breath and feel his thick slab of a body. But it was Mark who filled my mind.

My father knocked on my door at five o’clock.

“Come in,” I called with a sleep-heavy voice, hopping out of bed.

He poked his head in. “Have you been sleeping?” he asked reproachfully, surveying my disaster of a room. There were shopping bags scattered about and dirty laundry on the floor, and my suitcases still lay open and shoved into a corner.

“Just for an hour or so,” I lied. “I spent most of the day online looking for a job.”

He eyed me skeptically. “Why don’t you get ready and see if your mom needs some help.” It wasn’t just a suggestion, but an order. Dinner with the Arnolds would be the beginning of my penance.

. . .

“Well,” said my father, who was studying the label of a bottle of wine when I walked into the kitchen, “don’t you look nice.” He was always pleased when his daughters looked and behaved like ladies. My parents were both wearing their most flattering colors, and I knew that my mother had orchestrated their outfits, she in a nicely tailored navy blue shirtdress, while my father wore a salmon-colored button-down. I had selected a pencil skirt and a Lynn Arnold–friendly ivory twinset. The house looked beautiful, too, with the kitchen island already housing a spread of
plump shrimp, a board with several small and interesting artisanal cheeses, and a platter of charcuterie. At the wet bar sat a good bottle of scotch; a few different wines, including a nice Sancerre; and several bottles of San Pellegrino so that Lynn Arnold could make herself a spritzer. From what I understood, Lynn did not approve of women becoming inebriated. My mother saw me eyeing the bar. “Ellen,” she said, looking at me from beneath her brows as she pulled Saran wrap off a bowl of olives, “I want you to take it easy on the alcohol tonight, okay?”

“Yeah, I was planning on it, Mom.” My mother always got worked up before company came, but she seemed particularly on edge tonight and was clearly pulling out all the stops for the Arnolds.

“Good girl,” she said, sticking a spoon in a simmering pot of lobster bisque. “Your father and I really want tonight to go well.”

My parents seemed to have attached an inordinate amount of importance to tonight’s dinner and I wondered why. Aside from the occasional church gathering or event, I had never known them to do much socially with the Arnolds and was aware that my mother had her secret misgivings about them, as she had about many members of their church. “They may go through the motions every Sunday, but that doesn’t mean that they have a relationship with Jesus,” she’d say. It was no secret in my family that my mother preferred the flamboyant, charismatic Christian church that we had attended as children to the more staid, conservative Christ Church, where my parents were currently members. My father had convinced her to switch, and Luke, Kat, and I all gratefully echoed his wishes, hoping that my mother would learn to tone it down, to blend in. While both of my parents identified themselves as “born again,” my mother was unapologetically outspoken about it. She had never really fit in at Christ
Church, as her brand of faith tended to make everyone a little uncomfortable. While the rest of the congregation went to church each week and attended the occasional Bible study or prayer meeting, my mother rarely went more than ten minutes without mentioning Jesus. It wasn’t just about tradition or community for her; Christianity was the lens through which she viewed everything. And Jesus was as real to her as I was.

The front doorbell chimed and my mother’s eyes widened. It was showtime. “Roger, the door,” she commanded, though my father had already sprung into action.

I heard the greetings from the kitchen. From their tones, I could visualize the scene as easily as if I were standing right there. My father and Ed would engage in a robust, who-has-the-firmer-grip handshake, while Lynn waited, smiling, her scarlet lips never parting. Then my father would politely turn to Lynn and kiss her chivalrously on the cheek, helping her off with her jacket before hanging it in the foyer closet, which my mother had just straightened. I stood as they entered the room but let my mother rush to greet them first. After she complimented Lynn on her shoes, classic Ferragamo flats, she turned to me. “And you remember our daughter, Ellen,” she said in her most exaggerated southern drawl, cueing me to follow suit and charm the Arnolds.

“Mrs. Arnold,” I said, extending my hand. “So lovely to see you again.”

“Hello, Ellen dear,” replied Mrs. Arnold with practiced warmth. “What a pleasant surprise.” She was plumper than my mother, with full breasts and overly coiffed anchorwoman hair.

Mr. Arnold then turned on his campaign-trail smile and, like a politician, attempted to put the single fact he knew about me to good use. “How’s Boston?”

I saw my father shift uncomfortably, but I flashed a winning,
easy smile. “Well, I actually returned to the New Jersey area a couple of months ago, so I may need to get back to you on that.” Recognition clicked on Mrs. Arnold’s face and she shot her husband a discreet look, wordlessly instructing him to drop all talk of Boston.

“Can I get you a drink?” my mother offered.

“Thank you, Patty. I’d just love a glass of ice water,” answered Lynn.

My father and Ed immediately stepped off to the sidelines and stood shoulder to shoulder holding their scotches, easing in with talk of football. I stood with my mother, while Lynn regaled her with the trials and tribulations of planning the various charity events that were coming up during the busy holiday season.

“Every year, it just seems to start earlier and earlier,” sighed Lynn.

“Isn’t that the truth?” agreed my mother. “Why, half the stores in town already have their Christmas decorations up and it isn’t even Halloween!” Both women shook their heads as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse were going to arrive just after Labor Day, pulling a tinsel-festooned sleigh.

After studiously ignoring the spread of food for a polite interval, my father and Ed finally began slicing off great hunks of oozy cheese and dunking fat shrimp into horseradish-flecked cocktail sauce. They sipped their drinks a little more heartily, their voices got a bit louder, and Lynn finally made herself a spritzer. Fearful of being stranded with Lynn while my mother attended to dinner, I graciously offered to plate the soup. “Why, thank you, darlin’,” gushed my mother, playing up the happy family for the Arnolds.

“Ed,” began my father, when we were finally seated around the table, “would you lead us in prayer?” We formally held hands and bowed our heads. Though we always said grace before a meal, I thought this was a bit much.

Ed said a perfectly nice prayer and Lynn looked adoringly at her husband. She took a dainty slurp of her soup. “Patty, this is absolutely delicious; you
must
give me the recipe.”

“I’ll write it down for you, Lynn,” said my mother. “It really is so simple.” This was a lie. I had seen her painstakingly remove the meat from the lobster and boil the shells to make the stock.

We had just finished clearing the soup plates and getting ready for the second course when I heard Kat’s voice call from the foyer, “Elle? You up there?”

Fleeting panic washed over my mother’s face. Kat never dropped by unexpectedly, and though she had mentioned that she would check up on me later, I never imagined that it would be in person. My parents had no choice but to pretend that theirs and Kat’s relationship was placid and unstrained, that the long-standing issues and decades-long grudges had vaporized. Kat, on the other hand, was under no such obligation. The Arnolds were exactly the type of people whose hypocrisy Kat loved to flout.

“Katherine, sweetie,” called my mother, trying to disguise her unease, “we are in the dining room.” She glanced nervously at Lynn and Ed as she fiddled with a strand of her silver hair and forced her face into a look of pleasure. “We have company. Come and say hello.”

Kat walked tentatively into the dining room and, upon seeing Lynn and Ed, broke into a beaming smile. “Oh, it’s the Arnolds! How wonderful!” I was sure that everyone could identify her
sarcasm. Kat, like me, knew the Arnolds only nominally, so her overexuberant greeting was deliberately out of place. I shot her a pleading look, begging her to fall in line, but I could tell that she was feeling sadistic.

“Why don’t you join us for dinner, dear?” asked my mother, hoping to defuse the situation with camaraderie. “We’re just digesting a bit before the main course.”