Chapter Twenty
March 20, age 13
“Mom?” I asked, voice quivering as I clutched the corded phone mounted on the back of my school’s gym.
“What do I hear?” she asked from the other side of the phone, and my heart plummeted. “In the background? What is that noise?”
This was supposed to be the best night of my newly teenage life. I was in lip gloss, a jean skirt, and a pink, sparkly top that I’d borrowed from Zoe—one of the few girls from my church who tolerated my weirdness from time to time.
She was hearing hit pop music and the high-pitched squeal of one hundred seventh and eighth graders.
“I didn’t know she would take me here, Mom. I didn’t know what was happening. As soon as we got here, I called you. I—”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she said, voice like ice. “Get out of that den of sin,now. Wait out front.”
I hung up the phone and looked helplessly at the teacher’s aide who’d volunteered as one of the school dance’s supervisors. From the pity in her eyes, she must have known the sort of trouble I was in. My family’s religious zeal was no secret.
I’d gone to Zoe’s for dinner with her family and a G-rated movie. Her father, an elder at our church, would be present throughout the evening, which would prevent things like sneaking through abandoned homes or surfing the internet for anything unholy.
Except Zoe’s parents hadn’t been there when I’d entered the house. Her aunt had been recruited to babysit. And that’s when I’d made my first mistake.
I should have called home the moment I’d walked in and spotted a stranger.
But I didn’t.
Zoe and I had eaten macaroni and cheese while her aunt had watched TV in the den. After dinner, we’d gone up to Zoe’s room to play dress-up. I’d only worn makeup twice, and both times had been stage makeup for church productions of nativity plays. Getting to play with Zoe’s cherry-scented tubes of ChapStick and purple eyeshadow while she’d played Top 40s radio was fun. It was rebellious. It would have been enough to give me a taste of anarchy.
She’d grabbed my hand and tugged me down the stairs. “Auntie, we’re going to the school dance. We’ll be back in an hour!”
“Okay,” the aunt had said without looking up from her program, “have fun.”
I must have blacked out while standing, because I didn’t remember exiting the front door. I didn’t remember the three-block walk to the school. I didn’t even remember making it to the gym. The moment we’d entered, she’d grinned and said she was going to get us punch. I’d walked directly to the aid and asked her for a phone. And the rest played out like a horror film.
“Please don’t be mad,” I begged, shivering in the passenger’s seat after fifteen minutes of clutching my skinny arms in the cold.
“I’m not mad,” my mother said without looking at me. Yellow-orange streetlights became more sporadic as we exited the town limits and began our winding way into the trees. “I can just never trust you again.”
“Mom,” I begged. “Please, you have to forgive me. I didn’t do this on purpose. I didn’t know it was going to happen! The moment we got to the dance, I walked straightto the phone and called you!”
“Donotyell in my car, Marlow Esther Thorson.”
My heart was beating so fast it hurt. My eyes stung. I was still shivering as I began to cry. “Mom, why won’t you believe me? I didn’t do anything wrong. I called you immediately. Please, you have to believe me.”
Her hands flexed on the steering wheel. “Let me tell you about a little thing called ‘guilt by association.’ It does not matter if you did something bad. What matters is that you put yourself in a situation where your integrity could even be called into question. And that’s as good as doing it, whether or not you’re guilty. You’re guilty in my eyes.”
“I just want you to love me,” I cried.
“I do love you,” she said. “But I don’t like you right now. And I may never trust you again. Not unless you prove it to me.”
Tears pooled at my chin, dripping onto the borrowed shirt. I wiped at the itchy, uncomfortable salt as I tried to remember how to breathe.
My punishment was her disappointment. Every day I would ask what I could to earn her trust back, and every day she would turn her head as she withheld affection. I wouldn’t be permitted to do anything social again for the rest of the year. I would read my Bible every day. I would clean the house every day after school before I started my homework. I wouldn’t ask stupid questions. I would never speak to Zoe again.
I would be good.
***
September 16, age 26
