Mom and Dad continued to pay college expenses, adding fifty dollars a month so Carolyn could pay her share of the rent on the apartment. When her grades dropped, they suggested she move back into the dorm. Chel said she wasn’t going back and have an RM breathing down her neck, telling her what hours she had to be in bed. But she agreed the apartment might not be such a good idea. Too many parties going on. She found a small, run-down American bungalow, furnished and within walking distance of the university, and talked Carolyn into moving in with her.
Carolyn sent her parents a change-of-address card and the new telephone number. Mom called and sounded furious. “We’re not sending rent for a house, Carolyn. We can’t afford it.”
“You can keep your money. Chel and I have it all worked out.”
“Worked out? How? She pays for everything?”
“I might quit school. Get a job. Protest the war.”
“For heaven’s sake, Carolyn. Don’t start rebelling now. We have enough to worry about with Charlie in Vietnam.”
“Which is precisely why protests are more important than classes!”
“Charlie believes in what he’s doing! Your father’s a veteran. How dare you speak against them! If you’re going to turn into some kind of hippy, don’t expect us to pay for it!” She hung up.
Carolyn held the receiver in her hand. She protested the war, not
Shaking, Carolyn downed the wine like medicine and let the phone ring.
11
1967
The small house became a gathering place for anyone disenchanted with the system. Carolyn went to classes when she didn’t have other things to do, like canvassing the neighborhoods for signatures on petitions to stop the war, or attending protest rallies or giving blood.
As the fighting intensified in Vietnam, Carolyn grew more distracted. She flunked her midterms and stopped going to classes. She worried about Charlie all the time. She couldn’t sleep. Chel encouraged her to smoke pot, but that didn’t help either. Only alcohol worked, when she drank enough of it.
Mom called again. “Come home.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Have you been drinking?”
She hadn’t slept the night before, and her head felt like cotton. “What’s it to you what I do?”
“Charlie would be ashamed of you!”
The words cut deeper than if her mother had wielded a butcher knife. Charlie had gotten drunk a few times after football games in high school. If Mom and Dad ever knew about it, they never said so. “I’m trying to stop the war! I’m trying to bring him home! But I guess that counts for nothing in your book! If you want to know the truth, Mom, you and Dad sent Charlie to Vietnam. All your talk of God and country.”
This time, Carolyn hung up.
Dad called a few hours later. Chel answered and held out the telephone. “It’s your father.” Carolyn took the receiver and slammed it down.
When a letter arrived from Oma, Carolyn dreaded opening it. When she read it, she found no mention of Mom and Dad other than the usual “working hard.” Oma went on about books she had read, the garden, and missing Carolyn every afternoon when she sat down to tea.
She must be the only one. Carolyn wrote back.
Carolyn thought she’d write back and argue.
Mom wrote and asked if she was coming home for Thanksgiving. Carolyn didn’t answer. Mom wrote again a few weeks later and invited her home for Christmas.
Carolyn couldn’t face them. She felt ashamed of her behavior, but also somewhat self-righteous as well. They didn’t understand her, and with Charlie off in Vietnam, she wouldn’t have an interpreter. She didn’t want to face their disapproval and submit to endless lectures about her political views, her loss of faith, or whatever else they would find to criticize. She couldn’t stand seeing them sitting in front of their television set, listening to the news reports and body counts. She didn’t want to watch them worry and then have them take it out on her. She was doing everything she could to end the war and make a better world for all of them!
She wrote home and said she and Chel planned to go skiing in Tahoe. They had talked about it, so it technically wasn’t a lie. They went to San Francisco, instead, the new happening place in America, and spent the night partying at a house in Haight-Ashbury. Cold as it was, they put flowers in their hair and danced in the streets to guitar music and bongo drums.
When they got back to the Berkeley bungalow, Carolyn had two Christmas cards, one from Mom and Dad with fifty dollars in it, and another from Oma with only a note.
Carolyn felt a sharp pang of guilt, realizing she hadn’t sent a card to anyone, not even Charlie.
She wrote back.
She sent it before she could change her mind and then felt eaten up by guilt, ashamed that she’d lashed out at Oma, who’d always loved her unconditionally.
1968
January blew cold and brought with it the Chinese Lunar New Year. While the Vietnamese celebrated Tet, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese army overran the city of Hue. Chel had bought a television, and a dozen friends and strangers were packed into their living room, high on pot and angst, watching buildings explode and wounded American soldiers carried out on stretchers. Conversation buzzed around Carolyn, but she felt cold inside. Was Charlie among the Marines trying to retake the city? She wanted to scream.
“What’s with her?” someone muttered angrily.
