“You have to be strong and true to who you are.”
“Whoever that is. Some days I don’t know.” She got more upset. “I hate this. It’s so hard. It’s so unfair.” She leaned her head against my shoulder. “Why couldn’t I have been like you? Why couldn’t it have been easy?”
“I’m not sure you want to be like me,” I said. “And my life certainly isn’t easy, and almost nothing that matters is easy. You and Janet can work things out if you are committed to do so. And if you truly love each other.”
She took a deep breath and slowly blew out air.
“No more destructive behavior.” I got up from her bed in the shadows of her room.
“Where’s the Book?”
“On the desk,” she said.
“In my office?”
“Yes. I put it there.”
We looked at each other, and her eyes shone. She sniffed loudly and blew her nose.
“Do you understand why it’s not good to dwell on something like that?” I asked.
“Look what you have to dwell on all the time. It goes with the turf.”
“No,” I said, “what goes with the turf is knowing where to step and where not to stand.
You must respect an enemy’s power as much as you despise it. Otherwise, you will lose, Lucy. You had better learn this now.”
“I understand,” she quietly said as she reached for the catechism I had set on the foot of the bed. “What is this, and do I have to read it all tonight?”
“Something I picked up for you at church. I thought you might like to look at it.”
“Forget church,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s forgotten me. It thinks people like me are aberrant, as if I should go to hell or jail for the way I am.
That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t know what it’s like to be isolated.”
“Lucy, I’ve been isolated most of my life. You don’t even know what discrimination is until you’re one of only three women in your medical school class. Or in law school, the men won’t share their notes if you’re sick and miss class. That’s why I don’t get sick. That’s why I don’t get drunk and hide in bed.” I sounded hard because I knew I needed to be.
“This is different,” she said.
“I think you want to believe it’s different so you can make excuses and feel sorry for yourself,” I said. “It seems to me that the person doing all of the forgetting and rejecting here is you. It’s not the church. It’s not society. It’s not even Janet’s parents, who simply may not understand.
I thought you were stronger than this.”
“I am strong.”
“Well, I’ve had enough,” I said. “Don’t you come to my house and get drunk and pull the covers over your head so that I worry about you all day. And then when I try to help, you push me and everyone else away.”
She was silent as she stared at me. Finally she said, “Did you really go to church because of me?”
“I went because of me,” I said. “But you were the main topic of conversation.”
She threw the covers off. . “A person’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy God forever,’ ” she said as she got up.
I paused in her doorway.
“Catechism. Using inclusive language, of course. I had a religion course at UVA. Do you want dinner?”
“What would you like?” I said.
“Whatever’s easy.” She came over and hugged me.
“Aunt Kay, I’m sorry,” she said.
In the kitchen I opened the freezer first and was not inspired by anything I saw. Next I looked inside the refrigerator, but my appetite had gone into hiding along with my peace of mind. I ate a banana and made a pot of coffee. At half past eight, the base station on the counter startled me.
“Unit six hundred to base station one,” Marino’s voice came over the air.
I picked up the microphone and answered him, “Base station one.”
“Can you call me at a number””
“Give it to me,” I said, and I had a bad feeling.