courses like the one she took, Lindsay would be able to get a good job and hopefully she and Vanessa would be able to move out again. To hear Nancy talk about it though, you’d think that this schooling was the end of the world. Really, it just meant job security. Vanessa and Lindsay wouldn’t ever have to move back home again. They would be out of Nancy’s control once more, but she hated that almost more than she hated having them there.
“Well,” I said, feeling like poking the proverbial tiger with the proverbial stick. “Hopefully they won’t be there much longer. Lindsay will graduate soon and-”
“Do you know that these classes are taking Lindsay away from church?” Nancy fired at me. “She has missed four Sundays in a row now, and Wednesday night worship too. I keep telling her to drop out – she needs to keep her priorities straight – but she just won’t listen to me. She’s as stubborn as you are, Carrie.”
My family is very religious. We never missed church throughout my childhood unless we were sick, and even then the well members of my family went while the sick stayed behind. I have always liked going and listening to the discourses, even if I was the one relegated to sit next to Nancy, who insisted that I had to sit absolutely still. I couldn’t move a muscle. Before and after the sermon though, I was up and about playing with my friends and talking with older people who I liked and being sociable in general. Nancy, however, just sat in her seat and pouted, frowning like a beast. She had no real friends, though some people tried to be nice to her. On the way home afterwards, she spent each trip dissecting the faults of all the people I and my sisters liked. I swear, for all the time we spent at that church, she never once paid attention to anything the preacher said. And certainly, whenever he talked about imitating Christ in our manner of speech and action, she must have totally zoned out. Even then, standing in my apartment, I wanted to open a Bible and wave Ephesians 3:31, 32 in her face.
“Let all malicious bitterness and anger and wrath and screaming and abusive speech be taken away from YOU along with all badness. But become kind to one another, tenderly compassionate, freely forgiving one another just as God also by Christ freely forgave YOU.”
Nancy hardly ever forgave, and she certainly never forgot.
She was such a hypocrite.
But waving a Bible in her face wouldn’t do any good. Instead I pointed at the letter on my refrigerator. “You curious about that letter?” I was tired of waiting her out.
Nancy took a deep breath as if to fortify herself. “I see IT has written to you,” she finally said in a disgusted tone. “I got wind that she might contact you. I wanted to find out for sure.”
I suppressed a sigh. IT was my biological mother, the writer of the letter on my refrigerator. IT was the name my Dad and Nancy had given to Barbara Vitagliano because they were not the sort of forward thinking parents who didn’t talk badly about the ex-parent. They had, in fact, been downing Barbara to my face for as long as I could remember.
I asked casually, though I was seething at Nancy’s attempt at manipulation, “How did you get wind of this?”
Nancy waved my question aside. “That doesn’t matter. What does matter is whether or not you’re going to open that letter and see what IT wants.
“I’m not sure whether I’m going to open it or not,” I said carefully. “I assume that Barbara wants to get in contact with me the same way she did with Vanessa and Lindsay once they were of an age…”
Nancy threw her hands into the air as if she thought I was crazy. “You know, if she really cared for you, she would have had contact with you girls when you were growing up. Despite the fact that your father had custody she was never banned from seeing you, but after a few years she got tired of you girls and stopped coming around. I don’t understand why you’d even
“Well,” I said, feeling like poking the proverbial tiger with the proverbial stick. “Hopefully they won’t be there much longer. Lindsay will graduate soon and-”
“Do you know that these classes are taking Lindsay away from church?” Nancy fired at me. “She has missed four Sundays in a row now, and Wednesday night worship too. I keep telling her to drop out – she needs to keep her priorities straight – but she just won’t listen to me. She’s as stubborn as you are, Carrie.”
My family is very religious. We never missed church throughout my childhood unless we were sick, and even then the well members of my family went while the sick stayed behind. I have always liked going and listening to the discourses, even if I was the one relegated to sit next to Nancy, who insisted that I had to sit absolutely still. I couldn’t move a muscle. Before and after the sermon though, I was up and about playing with my friends and talking with older people who I liked and being sociable in general. Nancy, however, just sat in her seat and pouted, frowning like a beast. She had no real friends, though some people tried to be nice to her. On the way home afterwards, she spent each trip dissecting the faults of all the people I and my sisters liked. I swear, for all the time we spent at that church, she never once paid attention to anything the preacher said. And certainly, whenever he talked about imitating Christ in our manner of speech and action, she must have totally zoned out. Even then, standing in my apartment, I wanted to open a Bible and wave Ephesians 3:31, 32 in her face.
“Let all malicious bitterness and anger and wrath and screaming and abusive speech be taken away from YOU along with all badness. But become kind to one another, tenderly compassionate, freely forgiving one another just as God also by Christ freely forgave YOU.”
Nancy hardly ever forgave, and she certainly never forgot.
She was such a hypocrite.
But waving a Bible in her face wouldn’t do any good. Instead I pointed at the letter on my refrigerator. “You curious about that letter?” I was tired of waiting her out.
Nancy took a deep breath as if to fortify herself. “I see IT has written to you,” she finally said in a disgusted tone. “I got wind that she might contact you. I wanted to find out for sure.”
I suppressed a sigh. IT was my biological mother, the writer of the letter on my refrigerator. IT was the name my Dad and Nancy had given to Barbara Vitagliano because they were not the sort of forward thinking parents who didn’t talk badly about the ex-parent. They had, in fact, been downing Barbara to my face for as long as I could remember.
I asked casually, though I was seething at Nancy’s attempt at manipulation, “How did you get wind of this?”
Nancy waved my question aside. “That doesn’t matter. What does matter is whether or not you’re going to open that letter and see what IT wants.
“I’m not sure whether I’m going to open it or not,” I said carefully. “I assume that Barbara wants to get in contact with me the same way she did with Vanessa and Lindsay once they were of an age…”
Nancy threw her hands into the air as if she thought I was crazy. “You know, if she really cared for you, she would have had contact with you girls when you were growing up. Despite the fact that your father had custody she was never banned from seeing you, but after a few years she got tired of you girls and stopped coming around. I don’t understand why you’d even
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