“That your car?” she asked.
“Yes.”
It wasn’t worth explaining that I’d borrowed it from my mother.
“Why d’you drive around with it in that ridiculous shape? Why don’t you pick a color and get it painted that color all over?”
“Can we please get back to the subject at hand?” I tried to keep my voice even. But I was growing peeved. And I’m sure she knew it.
“You want me to feel guilty,” she said. “But I don’t.”
“You don’t.”
“No. Not at all. I told her she could come back anytime.”
I stood a moment. Silent. Reeling. My mind was going a dozen directions at once. I gave up trying to follow any of them. An overriding voice reminded me that I’d known to expect the unexpected. I’d seen something like this coming. Some big piece of information that Molly had neglected to tell me.
Still, I had no special confidence that this woman would prove to be a reliable narrator. No more than I had in Molly. I knew her even less. And something about her statement wasn’t adding up.
“Wait,” I said. “Let me get this straight. You put her out of your home. But then you told her she could come back anytime? That doesn’t make sense. If she can come back anytime, why put her out in the first place?”
“There’s no welcome in my home for the devil,” she said. Flatly. The words sounded almost rehearsed. I heard no emotion behind them whatsoever.
It was a stunning statement. To me, anyway. A bit of cool sureness had come into her presence. She had found some kind of firm foothold in this conversation.
“You think Molly is the devil?”
“I didn’t say that. But she brought the devil into my home.” Her voice sounded even more solid now. Like a wall, holding me back from wherever she thought I meant to go.
“So she could come back home anytime . . . how?”
“Just so long as she doesn’t bring the devil with her. I don’t see how that’s asking too much.”
I held Etta more closely against my chest. I’m not sure why. I guess I wanted to protect her. I wondered what she was making of all this. I knew she didn’t understand the words. But she must have felt the energy of the conflict on some level.
“Let me just get this straight,” I said. “Let me just make sure I understand you correctly. What you’re saying is that she could come home . . . I mean, what does that even mean? She can come home if she doesn’t bring the devil? I don’t understand that.” Actually, I thought I might know what she meant. But it was such a wild theory. Still, I had to know. I had to get this clarified. “Do you mean you told her she could live with you again if she just stopped being gay?”
“Prayer can heal all things,” she said. Quiet and calm. Like it was a perfectly reasonable statement to end any discussion.
“That’s it?” I was raising my voice now. Trying not to, but failing. “And there was nothing else? That’s really the whole story? She wasn’t violent, or on drugs? She didn’t break the law? That was her only transgression against your values?”
“You get off my property now,” she said.
Her face didn’t change in the slightest as she said it. Neither did her voice. Which I found a little bit scary.
“You’re not even willing to discuss this?”
“I will not have a conversation with somebody who thinks that’s not plenty reason enough. Now you take your permissive ways and go back to California with them. They’re not needed here.”
And, with that, she slammed the door in my face.
Something strange happened as I was putting Etta back into her car seat. Her mood suddenly and utterly fell apart.
She waged a full-on tantrum.
I won’t say it had never happened before. She was a small child, after all. But it was rare for her. And when it did happen, it was usually for a very obvious reason. She was overtired, for example, and something stressed her to the breaking point. But she had slept almost all the way into Utah. And I was only asking her to sit still so I could buckle her in.
She resisted mightily. She stretched her legs out and locked her knees and used those straight limbs to push against the seat. To keep her upright. She would not relax into a sitting position so I could place the straps.
And she shrieked her displeasure.
At first I fought with her. I used my physical strength to try to overpower her. I was furious, but not with her. But I had no room for her tantrum in my current mood.
But she was so resistant. I couldn’t overpower her without hurting her.
My right ear was aching from her screaming into it. It felt as though she were jamming knives through my eardrum.
I almost lost it. I was right on the edge of losing it. I almost blew like an old steam boiler. But, at the last minute, I realized what was happening. I understood how much my fury was driving hers.
I stopped fighting her. I stopped struggling.
I sat down on the seat in the back, next to her car seat. I let her remain suspended above it. I stopped trying to buckle her in.
I sighed deeply. Tried to let some of my rage flow away.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not mad at you, baby. I’m mad at that lady.”
“Lady?” she asked.
Her demeanor transformed immediately. Every muscle in her body seemed to go slack. She sank down into her car seat.
“Yes, the lady we were just talking to. She wasn’t very nice and I guess I’m still upset about it.”
She reached out and took hold of a strand of my hair. She didn’t pull it angrily. Neither did she stroke it tenderly. I was left unclear as to whether it was a loving gesture or not. I suppose she just wanted to connect with me.
“You’re always welcome with
