before he relaxed into his usual hale-fellow-well-met demeanor, even going so far as to clap Kelsey on the back and cheerily boom, “‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well!’”
But I knew that all would be anything but. He didn’t say a word about Kelsey on the way home in the car, expounding instead on Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth-century Christian mystic after his own heart, being optimistic, practical, and British. I had heard him expound on Julian before and had always pictured her as a nice Englishwoman talking about her encounters with God while pouring tea and wearing sensible shoes. I tried to find an opening to offhandedly mention thatI hardly knew Kelsey, that we had never especially been friends, and that she was not a person in whose footsteps I would ever stoop to follow, and to also remind him that she wouldn’t even be on the team this year for obvious reasons, but the Dame Julian quotations were flying fast and furious, and I never got the chance.
For the next few days, I did my best to avoid my father, even though I knew that it was useless, that my fate had been sealed the moment Kelsey had turned and seen me, her arms full of breastfeeding books. Then, one morning, as I was walking by his office, he appeared in the doorway, snagged me lightly by the elbow, and said, “A word, my dear?”
The word, in a word, was no of course. He went on for several minutes about the sad moral state of America’s youth, and ended with, “It is as clear to me as I am sure it is to you, Willow, that the cross-country team is no place for a sensible, self-respecting girl. I suspected as much when you asked to join; I harbored deep reservations, but you were so adamant that I allowed it, which I regret. I take full responsibility for putting you in harm’s way, child, and ask that you forgive me.” His tone was contrite; ditto his smile.
I would like to pause here in order to state for the record that I’d gotten angry with my father before. I had disagreed with him, even vehemently. He wasn’t a dictator, and I wasn’t a mindless puppet. Far from it. But if there was a governing rule in our household, it was: civility always. Temper was for toddlers and the great unwashed. Yelling was for drunks and street punks.
But the second my father told me I could not be on the cross-country team, I understood that I wanted to be on that team more than I had ever wanted anything in my life, and I started to get so mad, madder and madder and madder, until I was boiling with rage. And then, then my father patted my cheek and said, “There’s a good girl.”
I screeched. I stormed and spit venom. I called him name after name and accused him of vile things: injustice, cruelty, kidnapping, imprisonment. I shouted that he was ruining my life and that I hatedhim. If my mother had overheard, if she hadn’t been in her studio in the back of our garden, she would have thought an insane stranger had broken into our house because I never screamed at my father like that. When he tried to take me gently by the shoulders, I pushed him away. I pushed my father.
And then I ran out of the room and out of the house, and if I could’ve run straight out of the world, I swear I would have. No place was far enough. But because I had run out the back door into our big, fenced-in backyard, my options were limited. I ended up at the pool house, threw open the door, and threw myself onto the sofa where I sobbed until the chambray under my face was soaking. It wasn’t even noon, but I fell asleep. If only I hadn’t. If only I had stopped crying and quickly made my guilty way back to the house, I might have found him before it happened and apologized and made it not happen. But I fell asleep.
I found him in his office, on the floor next to his desk. I thought he was dead. I can’t bear to say any more, but I could live a thousand years and never forget it, not the horrible stillness of his
But I knew that all would be anything but. He didn’t say a word about Kelsey on the way home in the car, expounding instead on Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth-century Christian mystic after his own heart, being optimistic, practical, and British. I had heard him expound on Julian before and had always pictured her as a nice Englishwoman talking about her encounters with God while pouring tea and wearing sensible shoes. I tried to find an opening to offhandedly mention thatI hardly knew Kelsey, that we had never especially been friends, and that she was not a person in whose footsteps I would ever stoop to follow, and to also remind him that she wouldn’t even be on the team this year for obvious reasons, but the Dame Julian quotations were flying fast and furious, and I never got the chance.
For the next few days, I did my best to avoid my father, even though I knew that it was useless, that my fate had been sealed the moment Kelsey had turned and seen me, her arms full of breastfeeding books. Then, one morning, as I was walking by his office, he appeared in the doorway, snagged me lightly by the elbow, and said, “A word, my dear?”
The word, in a word, was no of course. He went on for several minutes about the sad moral state of America’s youth, and ended with, “It is as clear to me as I am sure it is to you, Willow, that the cross-country team is no place for a sensible, self-respecting girl. I suspected as much when you asked to join; I harbored deep reservations, but you were so adamant that I allowed it, which I regret. I take full responsibility for putting you in harm’s way, child, and ask that you forgive me.” His tone was contrite; ditto his smile.
I would like to pause here in order to state for the record that I’d gotten angry with my father before. I had disagreed with him, even vehemently. He wasn’t a dictator, and I wasn’t a mindless puppet. Far from it. But if there was a governing rule in our household, it was: civility always. Temper was for toddlers and the great unwashed. Yelling was for drunks and street punks.
But the second my father told me I could not be on the cross-country team, I understood that I wanted to be on that team more than I had ever wanted anything in my life, and I started to get so mad, madder and madder and madder, until I was boiling with rage. And then, then my father patted my cheek and said, “There’s a good girl.”
I screeched. I stormed and spit venom. I called him name after name and accused him of vile things: injustice, cruelty, kidnapping, imprisonment. I shouted that he was ruining my life and that I hatedhim. If my mother had overheard, if she hadn’t been in her studio in the back of our garden, she would have thought an insane stranger had broken into our house because I never screamed at my father like that. When he tried to take me gently by the shoulders, I pushed him away. I pushed my father.
And then I ran out of the room and out of the house, and if I could’ve run straight out of the world, I swear I would have. No place was far enough. But because I had run out the back door into our big, fenced-in backyard, my options were limited. I ended up at the pool house, threw open the door, and threw myself onto the sofa where I sobbed until the chambray under my face was soaking. It wasn’t even noon, but I fell asleep. If only I hadn’t. If only I had stopped crying and quickly made my guilty way back to the house, I might have found him before it happened and apologized and made it not happen. But I fell asleep.
I found him in his office, on the floor next to his desk. I thought he was dead. I can’t bear to say any more, but I could live a thousand years and never forget it, not the horrible stillness of his
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