Fathermothergod

Fathermothergod

April 1970
Wayzata, Minnesota

One afternoon a couple of weeks before my eighth birthday,
my five- year- old brother, Sherman, and I scramble out of the
school bus and race each other home up the steep hill, which we
only do— and always do— on Wednesdays. Wednesday is Caramel
Apple Day, because on Wednesday mornings, Mom volunteers at
the Christian Science Reading Room, and on the way home she
stops at the Excelsior bakery for their caramel apple special. We
drop our books in the front hall and dart into the kitchen to find
not only the white square cardboard bakery box sitting, as usual,
on the lazy Susan in the middle of the table but also our older sister,
Olivia, asleep on the tattered red and white love seat, with a blanket
up to her chin. Her long brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail. Her
chin, cheeks, nose, forehead, and both hands are covered in little
red spots.
“Hi!” Sherman says.
Olivia opens her eyes.
“Chicken pox,” she says miserably.
“Do they hurt?” I ask.
“They really itch,” she says, wincing.
Satisfied with her answer, our eyes turn to the caramel apples.
“You want one?” Sherman asks.
Olivia shakes her head no.
Mom appears as we help ourselves to the bakery box.
“Olivia has chicken pox?” I ask.
Mom doesn’t answer.
“Mom? Chicken po—”
“In Christian Science,” she reminds us gently, “we know that
there is no illness. No disease. No contagion. Olivia is not sick. She
is God’s perfect child. We are all going to work very hard to keep
our thoughts elevated.”
“Does that mean she doesn’t have to go to school?” I ask Mom.
“It means I can’t,” Olivia says.
“No fair!” Sherman protests. “How come?”
“Well, even though we know Olivia isn’t sick— can’t be sick,”
our mother says, “we need to follow the school’s policy on certain . . .
matters.”
“I can’t go back to school until the chicken— I mean, until . . .
they . . . crust over,” Olivia says.
We know from Sunday school that we’re not supposed to name
illness, because by naming something, we are giving in to the lie
about it. Mary Baker Eddy tells us to “stand porter at the door of
thought.”
For the next several days, life at our house is unbearably dull.
My brother and I go to school; our sister doesn’t, until her spots
crust over. After school, our friends don’t come to play kickball or
ride bikes in our driveway. We are told it’s because of contagion, a
scary thing other people worry about but we Christian Scientists
don’t believe in.

Reprinted from FATHERMOTHERGOD Copyright © 2011 by Lucia P. Ewing Published by Crown Publishers, a division of Random House, Inc.