Beyond Belief (26 page)

“Does she have to wear it in the house?” he asks, while peeling a grapefruit. I mean, it makes her seem so alien to me. I can kinda understand why Sarkozy banned it in France.”

I raise one eyebrow. The ban on the headscarf angers me and, usually, I am quick to argue about how utterly undemocratic such a prohibition is. But now, with a newborn to care for, I feel void of any fire, and I don’t want my husband to feel uncomfortable in his own home. “I can ask her to not wear it,” I offer.

David shrugs. “I just prefer it when she doesn’t,” he says, referring to the times my mother forgets to wrap her head in David’s presence. I agree. It seems silly that an elderly woman has to cover her hair to remain modest in front of her much younger son-in-law.

One night when Eva is crying inconsolably my mother comes flying into our bedroom with one hand on her head, holding down a piece of cloth that barely covers her skull, the other hand reaching for Eva.

“Ma, come on, David doesn’t care if your hair shows. Plus, it’s four in the morning. Really. Is it necessary for you to wear the
dopatta
in our home?”

The following morning, my bare-headed mother comes into the family room with a triumphant smile.

“I just spoke to the mullah at our mosque. He said I don’t need to cover my hair in front of David. A son-in-law is like a son, so there’s no problem.”

“Great, Ma, thanks.” I smile back at her, relieved and grateful. In that moment my heart softens to my mother and her conciliatory gesture.

Even though I was skeptical of my mother’s intentions when she first arrived—I assumed her true intention was to make sure that Eva was exposed to Islam—she has been surprising me during her stay. Each morning she prepares breakfast for us. She fries eggs, butters toast, and makes milky, spicy chai. She feeds me an assortment of nuts to improve my lactation and recovery. She holds Eva while I shower, and readily changes her soiled diapers. She waters our wilting plants. In the evenings, she cooks curry and rice before David gets home. She tells me how happy she is to finally be a grandmother and how perfect Eva is.

Her helpfulness eases the strain of my worries. And these days I worry about everything. Has Eva recovered from the delivery? Is she getting enough to eat? Is it okay for her to sleep with us at night? Why does she always cry in the car? Why can’t I make her stop crying? Why is David unable to soothe her? When will this get better? When will I enjoy this? Why can’t I stop worrying? Why do I feel joyless in motherhood?

I am bewildered by the depths of my joylessness. I am bewildered because I waited so long to find the right person with whom to have a child, and because I thought that I would happily manage all the life changes ushered in by a child. David and I both were thirty-eight when Eva was born. According to the medical world, I
was of “advanced maternal age,” but, in my world, I was only now financially, professionally, and emotionally ready for a child. David and I were thrilled when I got pregnant and couldn’t wait to be parents. We enlarged the pictures from our ultrasounds and taped them to our refrigerator. We chose Eva as our baby’s name in my second trimester because her name belonged to all three faiths in our heritage and because it means “life.”

But her complicated delivery traumatized me, and the grief keeps surfacing. One morning after breakfast, Eva starts fussing and my mother tries to placate her with no success. She tickles Eva under her chin and, laughing, says, “Oh, Eva only wants her mummy, right Eva
jaan
? Okay, okay, I understand. Mummy is your favorite.” She straightens Eva’s onesie and hands her to me. Taking Eva into my arms, I hum “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” which quickly settles her down. I smile as she gazes up at me with her large, brown eyes, and I feel such tenderness toward both my child and my mother.

W
HEN MY MOTHER HAS
been with us for two weeks, I decide to tell her the story of Eva’s delivery. I am hopeful that we can embark on a new relationship based on our shared desire to give Eva a happy family life. I sit cross-legged on the dark blue sectional sofa with Eva at my breast. I take off my glasses.

“Ma, you know, my delivery really shook me. My water bag broke, but I was not having contractions.” I pause, recalling the morning I woke up with my underwear soaking wet. “The doctor said that if I didn’t go into labor within twenty-four hours, I would need to be induced. I tried all day but nothing worked.

“They put me on Pitocin, which gives you artificial contractions,” I explain to my mother, who delivered all three of her children
naturally. “These contractions were so horrible and intense, I didn’t think I could make it. But after eight hours of these crazy contractions, I was only dilated by half a centimeter.”

I picture David’s face, his brown eyes ringed with dark circles, his forehead creased with worry. He held my hand through the contractions and kept me confident we were barreling down the path of labor.

“They said I had to be given an epidural.” A golf ball rises in my throat. “That got me dilated, but she was still very high up. I guess she just wasn’t ready to come out,” I say ruefully. “But each time I pushed, her heart rate decelerated. The doctor told me he would use forceps to get her out, and well, that’s how she came out. The doctor said we barely missed an emergency C-section.”

My mother sits stony and silent while I continue.

“After Eva came out and they placed her on me, I started having bad convulsions, so they sedated me. David held her for the first three hours of her life.” I decide to skip the part about how the convulsions started after the pediatrician examined Eva and told us the forceps had caused mild nerve damage on the right side of her face.

I pinch my lips together to stop trembling. I want to cry and scream at my mother that it wasn’t fair. After a blissful and uncomplicated pregnancy, this was not the glorious, natural delivery I had imagined for Eva and me. I want to tell her I was shocked by how little control I’d had over the situation. Through the tears coming to my eyes, I look at my mother’s face, seeking softness or warmth. I want her to hold me the same way I am holding Eva, cradled in my arms.

My mother remains motionless except for her head, which she shakes back and forth slowly. “I don’t know what to say, Leila. Next time, pray to Allah during your pregnancy. I can give you some verses that you should recite.”

I stare at her.
That’s it?
I scream in my head. But exhaustion and sleep deprivation numb me to the lack of sympathy in her response. I am too tired to get worked up, too drained to explain what I need from her. All I keep thinking is how I don’t ever want to be like her. I suddenly realize that, as I embark on my journey of motherhood, I will have to break these cycles of hope and disappointment, reconciliation and estrangement with my mother, because this is not the example I want to set for Eva. It won’t be easy, but if I am going to be the accepting parent I hope to be, I must start practicing now.

I look down at my tiny baby, her lips puckered around my nipple, steadily drawing milk, her head full of straight black hair. I stroke her right temple.
I will give you so much love. I will always offer you warmth and affection. I will always be your safe spot
.

I
WISH
I
COULD
offer her a religion as well, but my experience has robbed me of one that I would want to pass on. I don’t know a version of Islam or any other religion that is kind, gentle, and compassionate enough to give to my child. But these are the values I will pass on as a parent. And perhaps, one day, Eva will find the religion I always wanted but never had.

The White Lie

Nikki Smith

Fundamental Doctrine #20: Sabbath

The beneficent Creator, after the six days of Creation, rested on the seventh day and instituted the Sabbath for all people as a memorial of Creation. . . . The Sabbath is a day of delightful communion with God and one another. . . . Joyful observance of this holy time from evening to evening, sunset to sunset, is a celebration of God’s creative and redemptive acts.

F
riday night dinner, especially with guests, was always hectic. At times I wondered why I continued to put myself and my family through this gauntlet of housecleaning, cooking, bathing, and hair washing—all before that golden orb disappeared below the horizon.

Of course it was easier for me than for many of my friends since I taught at a Seventh-day Adventist University, which closed on Fridays at 2:00
PM
to allow us believers to go home and get ready. But regardless of this extra time, I always felt like I was running the fifty-yard dash and barely making it to the finish line.

I was nine when my mother came back to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. From fifth grade through graduate school, I was immersed in the Adventist way of life. Between the classroom, my church attendance, and my mother’s strict tutelage, the moral certainty of my church was instilled in me. I believed fervently in the church’s theology, followed all its precepts given through the Bible and Ellen G. White, our prophet, and, most assuredly, asked for forgiveness of every sin, big or small, so that I could claim my Christian salvation. This was why I continued to prepare for the Sabbath, to eat no meat and wear no jewelry, to avoid drinking and dancing. This was why I’d spent four years in the mission field—one on my own in South Korea and three with my husband, Lee, in Guam—and why I now spent my days educating the next generation of believers. I engaged in this weekly Friday night chaos because I had been raised to believe in the Truth: the capital-T Truth of the Bible and the claim that Seventh-day Adventists were the only church that followed God’s laws explicitly.

The Adventists’ emphasis on perfection was the reason I pushed myself to be the ideal mother, wife, university professor, Sabbath School teacher, homemaker, and hostess. In return for my faithfulness, God promised me eternal salvation in the afterlife and assurance and peace in this one. The only problem was I had not attained the promised serenity of this life. I studied, prayed, attended services, gave my tithes and offerings, donated my time, and followed all my church’s teachings, but still I couldn’t see God’s “well
done, my servant” smile. All I could visualize was His fiery eyes burning through my soul and saying, “You can do more. You’re not good enough.”

Where was this abiding happiness the preachers kept promising? Why couldn’t I attain that surety of God’s forgiveness?

M
Y HUSBAND
, L
EE, WELCOMED
in Barb, newly separated from her recently announced gay husband, and her two sons. She headed toward me with a tossed salad just as I finished putting the dishes on the table. “You boys can sit with the other kids at this table,” I pointed to the small card table I’d set up in the corner of the dining room.

Next, Doug, a fellow university colleague, and his school-teacher wife arrived, as did Bill, who had once been a minister but now sold Adventist books door to door. Bill stepped into our foyer with his new wife and their little girl. Soon all twelve of us (including the five children) sat down. We said grace and plunged right in to both our vegetarian potluck meal and our weekly religious debate. It was Sabbath, so our talk would be centered around biblical matters, and with this varied group I anticipated a lively theological discussion. But I wasn’t ready for the topic to be the one that troubled me most often in my private thoughts.

Barb, who was usually soft-spoken, started us off with a question. “Who do you think will be saved? Just us Adventists? Other Christians? What about non-Christians, or heathens?”

I sighed.
Here we go, again
. It had been a hard day and I wasn’t up for this one. Doug, our card-carrying Mensa member, cleared his throat and intoned, “Well, Dr. Maxwell, who teaches my Sabbath School class, believes that anyone whom God accepts as ‘safe to save’ will go to heaven. This means people who will be able to ‘fit’
into our heavenly paradise will be there. Those who would just be too unhappy won’t get in. The question is, will a person want things that are not available in heaven, like alcohol, cigarettes, or meat? Will they want to keep the Sabbath? He may not be an Adventist, but if his character is in keeping with God’s requirements, he may well want to fit in . . . to please God.”