Claude was a Methodist minister, and Stepmother wanted to be one, too, if only she had been born a boy. Her father wouldn’t let her use the good tools because she was a girl, or because she was reckless and refused to follow directions, depending on whom you asked. She was only allowed to play half-court basketball, because females had different rules for everything. Her mother beat her with a switch until she bled when she didn’t practice piano. Stepmother swore that she would never hurt a child like that.
Stepmother had a sister, five years younger. Once her parents gave up on conceiving and adopted Baby Stepmother, her mother became fertile and gave birth to a sickly child. Stepmother chased her younger sister around with a butcher knife once, and another time she threw an axe at her sister’s head. Their mother tried her best to keep the two girls apart as much as possible. Stepmother laughed and laughed when she told Girl and Brother these stories.
Stepmother didn’t seem to like her parents very much, and Girl was intimidated by their stiff, formal demeanor. The grandparents didn’t like that Stepmother was gay, but they still invited them for Thanksgiving every year, and bought Girl wonderful presents that were always exactly what Girl wanted: baby doll dresses, or plastic horses, or coral-colored nail polish, depending on the year. Grandmother also yelled at Stepmother for inexplicable things. “Did you squeeze this bread?” she asked Girl. Girl shook her head. “Your stepmother must be up to her old bread-squeezing tricks again!” Girl knew it was unlikely that Stepmother had snuck into the kitchen and squeezed the loaf of bread, but she liked seeing someone yell at Stepmother, so she nodded her head.
Every time they visited the grandparents, the family had to go to church on Sunday and listen to Grandfather preach. Girl hated church—it was always cold and her dress was always scratchy and it went on forever. The last time they visited, Grandmother pulled Stepmother aside.
“I hope you are happy. Your father is upstairs writing his resignation letter. He’s quitting the church.”
“Why is Daddy quitting?” Stepmother asked.
“Because you are wearing a wedding ring, and everyone knows you aren’t married, and he doesn’t want to explain to the congregation that you are married to a woman.”
“Tell him not to quit the church, Mother. We’ll leave before the service.” They didn’t go back for Thanksgiving for seven years. From then on, they had Thanksgiving with just the four of them around the dining room table, or at Coco’s Carousel restaurant with a few friends. Someday, Girl told herself, she was going to marry someone with a big family and have Thanksgiving with cousins and aunts and uncles—so many people that they needed a kids’ table in one room and more than one kind of pie.
seneca army depot
Mother was born in 1944 and grew up practicing duck-and-cover drills at school.
“There was a lot of talk in the neighborhood about building bomb shelters in your backyard,” she told Girl.
“Did you build one?” Girl asked.
“My parents talked a lot about it, but decided not to. Their reasoning was that if you were in your bomb shelter and a neighbor came, you couldn’t let them in, because they could bring radiation in with them or eat your food and then your family wouldn’t have enough left to live on until it was safe again many months later. Some people were buying guns in case they had to shoot someone that tried to get into their bomb shelter. My father said that he could not refuse a neighbor, and if it came down to it, he’d rather they all died together than have to shoot a friend who tried to come in.”
Girl and her family watched the news together every night, even though Girl thought it was boring. Brother and Girl played somewhat quietly with Barbie dolls and Star Wars figures on the living room rug. They liked to be near their parents, and their parents liked them to pay attention when important topics came on. In the summer of 1983 a group of fifty-four women set up a tent city they called a “peace encampment” outside of the Seneca Army Depot because it was rumored that the army stored nuclear weapons there. The women were arrested in a peaceful protest and garnered national attention. A group from the family’s church, First Unitarian Universalist of Rochester, planned a trip to participate in the protest, so Mother and Stepmother decided their family would join them.
“Now, listen up, kids,” Stepmother said. She was driving the family an hour south to Romulus, New York, where the base was located. “There will be soldiers there with guns. It might be a little scary. We aren’t going to cross the line. It is only dangerous if you cross the line.”
“What line?” Girl asked.
“There’s a line painted on the pavement, dividing public property from the military base.”
“Oh. Will people tie themselves to the fence again?” A few women had been arrested for tying themselves to the fence surrounding the base and refusing to leave. It sounded like an uncomfortable way to protest, but Girl kind of wanted to see someone do it so she understood how it worked. Did they
