Riding Fury Home by Chana Wilson

“When are you going to get a job? Dad can’t keep this up!” Sometimes she would say, “Karen, you know I just can’t handle it right now!” and begin crying. Then I would feel awful, churning with guilt and anger and sadness all at once. Other times, she’d yell, “Go live with your father if you feel that way, but don’t talk to me about it!” I’d go to my bedroom and slam the door.
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    I LEARNED TO PLAY guitar from a TV class on the public broadcast channel. I perched on a chair, practicing chords in what had been my parents’ bedroom and we now used as a TV room. Mom had moved back downstairs to the study right after Dad left, as if she could not stand to sleep in that room. Soon, I had learned enough chords to accompany myself singing the folk songs and political poetry I learned from records: Peter, Paul and Mary; Bob Dylan; Joan Baez; and Pete Seeger.
    Folk music was being rediscovered, with hootenanny clubs opening up where kids went to sing along. Even though I sang alone at home, I felt part of something, a message that was shared. On Saturday nights, Mom and I watched the half-hour Hootenanny TV show filmed at college campuses.
    Playing guitar and singing was easy and fun compared with my years laboring at the piano, practicing the same fractions of sonatas over and over for meticulous scrutiny by my piano teacher. As I sang,
something happened in my body—my voice rode on my breath, my tight chest opened with song, the passion of the lyrics overcame my reticence and poured through me—something close to joy.

Chapter 20. Crossing the Demilitarized Zone
    THE SUMMER AFTER DAD moved out, I spent a month at Camp Birch Ridge. I’d been going to the small camp in the Kittatinny Mountains of northern New Jersey since I was eight. I loved having other kids to play with all day long, and fell into the familiarity of camp routine with deep pleasure, relieved of responsibility by the structured activities.
    Twice a day we swam in the lake. In the morning there were lessons, in the afternoon free swim. I was proud that by my sixth year at camp I’d advanced to training as a junior lifesaver. I swam a crisp crawl as Paddles, the swimming instructor, yelled directions over a megaphone for a practice rescue of a drowning camper. During archery, I stood with legs apart, bowstring drawn back, my focus keenly narrowed to sight along the arrow. All else fell away as I felt the power of letting the arrow fly, listening to the sharp whap as it landed somewhere near the bull’s-eye of the target.
    I even took an odd comfort in the dreaded inspections of our quarters, the check for neatly made hospital corners on our cots and
clothes folded in our trunks. Every morning, we stood at attention as the flag was unfurled and raised, then in the evening lowered and folded. At dinner, I ate with great gusto camp meals repeated from the same recipes each year, with ice-cold milk doled out by counselors in half-glass refills. And at night around the campfire, there was the group camaraderie as we sang together, flames sparking the dark.
    That summer, I brought my guitar. I had learned quite a few songs from the class on public television. During free period, I perched on my cot in my unit’s canvas tent, strumming and singing. Other girls joined me, sitting on the opposite cot. I felt almost giddy being at the center of their attention, leading them in song.
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    WHILE I WAS GOING ABOUT my days canoeing and making lanyards, back in Millstone, Mr. Fredrickson noticed that Mom’s car had not moved in the driveway for two days. He went to check on her. I will never know how it was that my mother was still alive, two days after swallowing rat poison. Was there blood, shit, vomit? Was her skin ashen? Did they pump her stomach again, like with the sleeping pills?
    Some things are beyond bearing, and so sink from consciousness, leaving no memory. When my month