Chapter 38 Charlotte
Charlotte
Charlotte Perkins didn’t have much to do in Savannah besides drive her golf cart around Palmetto Shores fretting about her daughter.
On Sunday, Charlotte decided to go to mass.
Easter was still a while away, but as she dressed in an ivory pantsuit, Charlotte considered what she was going to give up for Lent.
Maybe pickles! She’d never given up pickles before, and while she did like a tangy spear next to a grilled hot dog at the pool, she could make do for the Lord Jesus Christ.
(She could get onion rings.)
Charlotte had been brought up by very strict and worried Catholics and, after one summer of erotic adventures in France, had become a strict and worried Catholic herself.
As a child growing up in exclusive boarding schools where she’d been given very little love or empathy, she’d been overwhelmed by constant guilt, guilt that persisted to this day.
What the heck did Charlotte Perkins have to be guilty about?
Nothing, that’s what! She was just an old lady eating Triscuits and cheese, watching the Turner Classic Movies channel.
And yet, the sense that she was bad and in the wrong rarely left her.
She went to confession at St. James the Less, droning on about her petty indiscretions, her naughty thoughts, and how she sometimes wished her children were different—and frankly, better—people.
Much of the time, she could bear the guilt.
It rubbed against her heart like a pebble and she was used to it.
But Easter, Lord above! For Catholics (at least Catholics in Charlotte’s family network) Easter was the High Holiday of Guilt.
I mean, Jesus had allowed himself to be nailed to a cross for Charlotte Perkins’s sins.
Her mother, Louisa, cold and snooty on the best of days, had taken her harsh parenting to a new level over the Easter holidays.
While smoking Parliaments, her posture erect, Louisa would opine: Egg hunts were gauche, jelly beans emblematic of America’s sugar addiction, and “don’t even get me started on those revolting marshmallow Peeps!”
Charlotte, who returned “home” infrequently, was slavishly devoted to her distant mother throughout her early years, starved for any scrap of maternal affection.
Thus, she agreed with her mother enthusiastically when Louisa venomously attacked anything she deemed “childish,” “frivolous,” or “American.”
Charlotte was, of course, an American child who yearned for fun: As Louisa spoke and her daughter nodded vehemently, Charlotte began to dig herself into the hole of self-hatred where she’d remained ever since.
Charlotte’s own three children were rarely allowed Easter treats, hunts, parties with grown men dressed as pink bunnies, or those weird egg-dye kits with the wire holder that you dipped into colorful vinegar.
What did any of these American activities have to do with Jesus?
The Perkins kids chose what they would forgo for Lent (Lee skipped sugar, Cord denied himself Coke, and Regan tried—and failed—to give up her greatest pleasure: warm glazed donuts) and went to mass.
She taught them ruthless self-examination. The confessional, an ornate wooden cabinet, smelled of polish and sweat. Father Ambrose breathed audibly through the honeycombed screen. The children confessed, and received penance.
“I’m eight,” Cord said once. “I don’t have any sins.”
“Then you’re not being honest with yourself,” Charlotte told him. “Everyone has sinful thoughts.”
“Maybe thinking I don’t have any sins is my sin,” said Cord, seriously.
“Good boy,” Charlotte assented.
She’d indoctrinated her children out of fear.
Truly, Charlotte believed that sinners would go to hell.
Even the sermons of Father Thomas—before he had moved dioceses, breaking Charlotte’s heart—featured the hell that awaited them if they turned away from God.
“Do you want to be exiled for eternity from the source of all goodness, love, and joy?” Father Thomas would ask from the pulpit.
Charlotte and her children would shiver in their pew, terrified.
(Their father, Winston, felt himself immune from God’s judgment: He enjoyed his Sunday mornings getting drunk by himself while Charlotte took the children to church.)
A year ago, Charlotte had gone to Easter Mass at St. James the Less.
The new priest was young and adequate, but he shamelessly embraced the festivity of Easter, planning all sorts of graceless activities.
On his way out of the church, a young boy smashed right into Charlotte in his hurry to get to the egg hunt in the side yard. “Sorry!” he cried, not stopping.
She yelled “RUDE!” three times, then straightened her blouse, content.
A young mother in a sleeveless Lilly Pulitzer dress furrowed her brow. Her blond hair looked quite attractive pulled back in a low ponytail and tied with a bow. Charlotte nodded at the stylish woman, giving her Louisa’s distant smile, but the woman glared back. “Yelling at a kid?” she said.
“He was very rude,” noted Charlotte.
“It’s Easter,” said the woman. “What’s wrong with you, lady?”
The woman walked toward the egg hunt and Charlotte was overwhelmed with shame.
—
Now, sitting in her pew, Charlotte felt her usual unease—plus a sharper kind: maternal fear.
What if she could be helping, over there across the ocean?
And if she happened into Paros, that would be wonderful, but the point was that Charlotte needed to pack her monogrammed bag and go to her family!
As soon as mass was over, Charlotte drove her golf cart home, went straight to her phone book, called Skidaway Travel, and booked herself a flight to Athens, Greece.
She tried to reach Lee and Cord, her rich children, to get her an upgrade, but neither answered.
Charlotte went ahead and put a ticket she could afford on her AmEx.
Economy class—so gauche!