Fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science by Lucia Greenhouse Page A

without a clear purpose.
    I wait alone in the marble entrance hall, and my mind keeps returning to the reason for Mom’s visit. As I sit on my hands on the windowsill, I assume nothing good.
It’s Dad. Maybe he’s sick. Or maybe they’re getting divorced
. It’s hard to picture either possibility, because I never see Mom and Dad fighting, and Dad never gets sick.Of course, I hardly see them, period, so how would I know? Maybe he
is
sick.
    Then, I correct myself:
Am I going to allow mortal mind to whisper to me of evil?
    I think of a passage in
Science and Health:
“When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea.”
    I tell myself that in God’s kingdom, there can be no disease (dis-ease). There is only perfection.
    Right at six-thirty, Mom drives up in her Volkswagen Golf, and when I descend the school’s majestic front steps, she is out of the car, enveloping me with a big hug. Her embrace feels like a warning, but it reveals nothing right away. Our conversation during the short drive to the restaurant is nonspecific. Over fish and chips at the pub, Mom asks me about school, and whether the girls in our dorm are getting along better. She says that Dad’s sorry he couldn’t come; he’s working. Sherman won his rugby match yesterday. Olivia called the other day and likes Sarah Lawrence College. Whenever there is a lull in the conversation, Mom fills the void with a question about my studies.
    For dessert, we order trifle, with two spoons, and after a few bites, she puts her spoon down.
    “There is something I need to tell you.”
    My stomach knots up. Worry is all over her face.
    “Aunt Mary called this morning.”
    As my mother struggles to find the words for whatever it is she must tell me, my mind races ahead:
Something’s happened to Grandma, or Aunt Kay, or one of my uncles. Or Grandpa or Ammie
.
    “It’s about your friend James,” she says softly.
    For some reason, before my mother utters another word, my face flushes with emotion. I don’t know if it’s fear, anger, dread, or betrayal. My mother is on the verge of tears.
    “I—he—” Mom attempts, looking down in her lap and then again up at me. “Aunt Mary called to tell me that—he—is dead.” Mom shakes her head, correcting herself. “He’s passed on, Lucia.”
    “What?”
    I shake my head. James is fifteen, like me.
    I have letters from him. I see the handwriting—the
young
handwriting and misspelled words—of the cards he has sent me. I still picture him twelve, the age we were when we first met, when he pulled me back, back, back on the tire swing, and let go.
    Lowering her voice, my mother says that he has taken his own life.
    I cannot breathe.
    I feel like I’ve been pinned against the back of the booth.
    Mom reaches for my hand, but I pull it back.
    “What?” I say. I am angry. I am confused.
    We sit there in silence.
    “What?” I say again.
    The pub feels too small, the wood-paneled walls too close. Mom says nothing. I want information, but she gives me none. She can’t—or won’t—bring herself to tell me anything more.
    “Lucia, what we have to remember,” she finally says, now grabbing my hand against my will, “and really hold on to, is what Mary Baker Eddy tells us about death: ‘The belief in sin and death is destroyed by the law of God, which is the law of Life instead of death, of harmony instead of discord, of Spirit instead of the flesh.’ ”
    Mom drops me
off after dinner, and Susie is waiting for me. She can see that I have been crying, but when she asks me what’s wrong, what happened at dinner with Mum, I don’t feel sadness, or grief. I feel nothing, as in no sensation. In my mind, I hear,
there is no sensation in matter
, and I know it’s from
Science and Health
and/or Sunday school. Monotone, I tell Susie that James killed himself. Her eyes grow wide and her face turns white, and all of a sudden she is sobbing, and clutching me, horrified, and I’m