Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science by Lucia Greenhouse

intelligence, nor substance in matter …”
    And then the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth …”
    Somehow, I don’t think this is what Jesus had in mind. I know that what I’m doing is wrong. It’s hard to believe my father is falling for it. But I can’t dwell on it too much while he’s in the room with me, or I might crack a smile. Instead, I shiver again, just slightly, and ask if he wouldn’t mind closing the window.
    This is an incredible waste of time, lying in my parents’ bed all afternoon, when I know I have to study for my tests. I get up twice to “try” to use the loo, semi-buckled over, wrapped in Sherman’s comforter.
    I hear the front door open downstairs and realize that Mom has come home early. When I hear my parents whispering in Dad’s study, I start to feel guilty. Dad is worried enough that he called Mom home. The initial giddiness and subsequent boredom of my ruse have vanished. Now there’s a fleeting but not altogether unpleasant surprise at their concern, which is quickly replaced by the visceral fear of being found out.
    My parents’ room is very warm. The radiator hisses because earlier I told Dad I was
freezing
and asked him to open the valve. Now I am roasting. When Mom comes in and feels my forehead, it is totally sweaty. She asks if I’d like something to eat, chicken broth or buttered toast. The buttered toast sounds delicious—I’m starving—but I say no, I’m nauseous, so I don’t blow my cover.
    I wonder if Mom offers chicken broth and buttered toast to Hawthorne House’s guests, or patients, or clients—or whatever they call them. Does she press a cool, damp cloth to someone’s feverish forehead? Wouldn’t that gesture of kindness—an acknowledgment of the existence of fever—be forbidden?
    After another hour, it is time to execute a beautiful, gradual healing. It takes about forty-five minutes, two full intervals of my parents’ checking in on me. I time it perfectly so that I can miss my train, stay the night, and delay returning to Claremont. Mom lets me sleep in and study for my tests in the morning, and makes me Swedish pancakes, before riding the train with me all the way back to Claremont.
    G OD . The great I AM; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence
.
—M ARY B AKER E DDY ,
Science and Health
, Glossary
     

1977–78
C LAREMONT S CHOOL
P ASSING O N
     
    Susie and I
are in the dorm; everyone else has gone down to dinner. I am changing out of my school uniform, and she is lolling on her bed next to mine. The bell announcing dinner rang almost ten minutes ago. Susie will miss the headmistress’s grace, and her penalty may be kitchen duty, but she doesn’t care. She’s more of a rule breaker than I am. During Quiet Time in the morning, when we are supposed to be reading a section of the Bible Lesson, she fills out magazine questionnaires about personality type, carnal knowledge, and boyfriends, which she keeps folded up in the pages of her
Science and Health
. On Saturday afternoons, when we walk along Esher High Street, she wears thick black Mary Quant eyeliner and tight jeans and smokes cigarettes with equanimity, while I am nervously on the lookout for teachers.
    “What’s the occasion?” she asks, and I shrug my shoulders, but I’m not feeling as casual as the gesture implies.
    Mrs. Williams found me this afternoon in the library to say that Mum was coming to take me out for dinner, which is odd. It’s a school night. And it’s not my birthday—not that
that
would justify special dispensation at Claremont; Mary Baker Eddy says, “Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has neither birth nor death,” so birthdays are downplayed. What is most unsettling is the fact that Mrs. Williams didn’t say anything about Dad coming. Mom and Dad never come to see me separately. And they never visit