Chapter One
Thomas Wolfe
believed that, ‘you can’t go home again’. He obviously hadn’t ever
been to my home; because, in ten years, precious little had
changed. In fact, my parents hadn’t altered the décor of their
house in over two decades. My bedroom was unchanged since the day I
left for college. My twin bed still had the predominantly pink
patchwork quilt laid on it. The cream drapes hung in the window. My
dressing table still had rosettes, for gymnastics and horseback
riding, placed neatly around the mirror. It was the room of an
adolescent girl.
So, the fact of the matter is, when I
finally accepted the cold hard truth; after three months of
searching for another job and desperately trying to make ends meet,
I did go home again. And it was as if I ’ d stepped back in time.
Mom and Dad professed they were happy to
help me until I got back on my feet, but they were also predictably
self-righteous, and I suspected it took everything within them to
not scream, ‘ I told you
so ’ from the
rooftops.
“Life in the city can be tough, ” Mom said. “ Your dad and I feared this might
happen. ”
Breathing deeply before responding, I tried
not to start an argument. “ You had a premonition about Blue Rock laying off a
hundred people? ” I
murmured.
Turning from the bread dough she was mixing,
she brushed her floury hands on her white apron. “ These things happen, ” she said tartly. She was only twenty-one
when she ’ d given birth
to me. Now, as she started to nudge fifty, she looked pretty good
for her age. She was slender, just as she ’ d been throughout my lifetime, and still
had most of her hair color, with just a hint of gray peaking at the
temples.
“You ’ re right, Mom, ” I replied, trying to focus on the laptop that sat
before me. “ They
do. ”
She continued to lecture me about how I
should have been satisfied to get a job locally. I didn’t see the
sense in arguing with her. It seemed fruitless to point out that
I ’ d been living and
working successfully in New York City for just under seven years.
She wouldn’t have listened. In her opinion, living in the city was
the surest way to ruin my life. So, while she relished telling me
that I ’ d made the wrong
decision, she was secretly glad that I was back in Woodbridge,
Connecticut. It was a sleepy, affluent town, a bubble (or so my
parents believed) that kept out all the nastiness of the world.
And God knows they tried to keep me away
from the “world”. At thirteen, I attended Sacred Heart Academy in
Hamden. It was an all-girls Catholic school, which offered the
obsessively religious, guilt-laden education that my mom in
particular was eager for me to receive. Mom and Dad were both
devout Catholics, as were their parents. They expected me to follow
suit and become a God-fearing woman, who retained her innocence
until marriage. They viewed sex as nothing more than a means of
procreation.
Sending me to an all-girls school was
intended to help on that front, to keep me away from temptation and
ensure that I didn’t create temptation in any young man. It worked,
at least for a while. By the time I left home for college, I was
socially awkward around boys and artless in my conversations with
them. I also learned to always be suspicious of their motives.
However, I didn’t buy into all the Catholic Church had taught me.
Gradually, I stopped attending mass on Sundays. Then, I met a guy
who pulled me even further from the faith my parents had so
desperately wanted me to follow.
Greg was a physics major, a staunch atheist,
and one of the most handsome men I ’ d ever met. He talked to me about the vastness of
the universe, and convinced me that creation myths have always
existed in some form.
“Organized religions are a human’s way of
trying to understand what seems incomprehensible,” he would tell
me. “Nothing more and nothing less.”
My own doubts, which I suspect had simmered
under the surface for at least a few
Thomas Wolfe
believed that, ‘you can’t go home again’. He obviously hadn’t ever
been to my home; because, in ten years, precious little had
changed. In fact, my parents hadn’t altered the décor of their
house in over two decades. My bedroom was unchanged since the day I
left for college. My twin bed still had the predominantly pink
patchwork quilt laid on it. The cream drapes hung in the window. My
dressing table still had rosettes, for gymnastics and horseback
riding, placed neatly around the mirror. It was the room of an
adolescent girl.
So, the fact of the matter is, when I
finally accepted the cold hard truth; after three months of
searching for another job and desperately trying to make ends meet,
I did go home again. And it was as if I ’ d stepped back in time.
Mom and Dad professed they were happy to
help me until I got back on my feet, but they were also predictably
self-righteous, and I suspected it took everything within them to
not scream, ‘ I told you
so ’ from the
rooftops.
“Life in the city can be tough, ” Mom said. “ Your dad and I feared this might
happen. ”
Breathing deeply before responding, I tried
not to start an argument. “ You had a premonition about Blue Rock laying off a
hundred people? ” I
murmured.
Turning from the bread dough she was mixing,
she brushed her floury hands on her white apron. “ These things happen, ” she said tartly. She was only twenty-one
when she ’ d given birth
to me. Now, as she started to nudge fifty, she looked pretty good
for her age. She was slender, just as she ’ d been throughout my lifetime, and still
had most of her hair color, with just a hint of gray peaking at the
temples.
“You ’ re right, Mom, ” I replied, trying to focus on the laptop that sat
before me. “ They
do. ”
She continued to lecture me about how I
should have been satisfied to get a job locally. I didn’t see the
sense in arguing with her. It seemed fruitless to point out that
I ’ d been living and
working successfully in New York City for just under seven years.
She wouldn’t have listened. In her opinion, living in the city was
the surest way to ruin my life. So, while she relished telling me
that I ’ d made the wrong
decision, she was secretly glad that I was back in Woodbridge,
Connecticut. It was a sleepy, affluent town, a bubble (or so my
parents believed) that kept out all the nastiness of the world.
And God knows they tried to keep me away
from the “world”. At thirteen, I attended Sacred Heart Academy in
Hamden. It was an all-girls Catholic school, which offered the
obsessively religious, guilt-laden education that my mom in
particular was eager for me to receive. Mom and Dad were both
devout Catholics, as were their parents. They expected me to follow
suit and become a God-fearing woman, who retained her innocence
until marriage. They viewed sex as nothing more than a means of
procreation.
Sending me to an all-girls school was
intended to help on that front, to keep me away from temptation and
ensure that I didn’t create temptation in any young man. It worked,
at least for a while. By the time I left home for college, I was
socially awkward around boys and artless in my conversations with
them. I also learned to always be suspicious of their motives.
However, I didn’t buy into all the Catholic Church had taught me.
Gradually, I stopped attending mass on Sundays. Then, I met a guy
who pulled me even further from the faith my parents had so
desperately wanted me to follow.
Greg was a physics major, a staunch atheist,
and one of the most handsome men I ’ d ever met. He talked to me about the vastness of
the universe, and convinced me that creation myths have always
existed in some form.
“Organized religions are a human’s way of
trying to understand what seems incomprehensible,” he would tell
me. “Nothing more and nothing less.”
My own doubts, which I suspect had simmered
under the surface for at least a few
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