The next morning, I woke up in John’s bed. I didn’t understand what had happened the previous night, but I was so ashamed of the way I had acted at the party and so convinced that there was something wrong with me that I wanted to just put it all out of my mind. I focused all my attention on how good it felt to wake up next to John and to be able to watch him while he was sleeping. I fantasized about what it was going to be like waking up next to him every morning.
I got out of bed and started making breakfast for him. I was caught up in the fantasy of us being married and me being a happy housewife, something that had never crossed my mind before—not even with John.
But when John came into the kitchen and I gave him a cheerful, “Good morning,” my fantasy ended. This wasn’t the same John I’d known. He was grumpy and cold and detached. When I asked if he wanted some breakfast, he scowled. “Are you kidding? I have a terrible headache.”
I continued to try to engage him, rubbing his shoulders, sitting next to him. But John wanted nothing to do with me, and he made this very clear by picking up a newspaper and hiding behind it.
I was devastated. He’s ashamed of me, I thought. I’d been too aggressive. I’d embarrassed him in front of his friends. The reason he fell in love with me in the first place was because I didn’t act like all the tramps he’d known. Now I’d acted just like one. I shouldn’t have drunk so much beer . . .
I wasn’t supposed to go back to Bakersfield until later that afternoon but suddenly John was up, stretching and saying, “Well, we better head for the bus depot.”
I didn’t say a word. I silently began gathering up my things. I felt so bad about myself that I didn’t feel I had the right to question him.
John drove me to the bus station without saying anything to me. He tried to be cordial when he said good-bye, but I could tell he couldn’t wait to get rid of me. He didn’t even wait with me for my bus; he left me there several hours before it was scheduled to arrive. I sat in the station, feeling completely rejected and unlovable. I was sure I’d ruined the best relationship I had ever had.
I cried most of the way home on the bus. I just knew John would never speak to me again. But even so, I waited around for days, hoping I would get a call from him saying, “I forgive you. I love you.”
The call never came.
chapter 42
Two weeks after my visit to San Luis Obispo, I found myself waiting for something else—my period. I had always been regular, so when it didn’t come I panicked. I was certain I was pregnant. My worst nightmare had come true. Just like my mother, I was going to be an unmarried woman with a bastard child.
I was sure God was punishing me. Once again I had been bad, and once again I was being punished for it.
I tried calling John several times but his mother kept telling me he wasn’t there. I didn’t know what I was going to do.
Late one night when I couldn’t sleep, I got up quietly and went into our little kitchen—the room farthest from my moth-er’s room. I took out my easel and the painting I had started of me and John the first night we met, when everything was easy and beautiful and full of promise. The painting was of us standing in the archway on the cliffs of Avila holding hands. All you could see was our backs as we gazed at the moonlit ocean below—the diamond water. I put the 45 of the Green Berets song on my little portable record player and turned the volume down low.
As I painted and listened to the record, I started to cry— over the loss of John, because I thought I was pregnant, and most of all because it was all my fault.
My mother burst into the kitchen, startling me. “What the hell are you doing!” she screamed. “Don’t you know I have to get up in the morning? What’s wrong with you? What kind of a crazy person starts painting in the middle of the night?”
I don’t remember what I said to her in response. I know I didn’t tell her why I was crying. I didn’t think she cared how I felt or why. I turned the music off but kept on painting. Art had become my salvation. It was keeping me from going mad.
My mother could have just gone quietly back to bed—but she was on a roll. She wanted a fight. It was no longer about me waking her up. Now her fangs were out and she could see I was in a weakened position. Time to strike.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “Why are you crying all the time? You’re acting like a crazy person.”
I tried to ignore her and just kept painting. I was too close to the edge to even open my mouth, much less let words come out.
But she kept on. “You know how crazy you look? Sitting there painting and crying in the middle of the night?”
When she couldn’t get a rise out of me, she grabbed the painting and flung it across the room. The fresh oil paint smeared and spread all over the wall. If she thought I was nuts before, she hadn’t seen anything yet. I completely lost it.
My mother didn’t know what she had done by tossing that painting. She didn’t know how precious it was to me, or how
