Chapter 7
Wind Shifting
Autumn
“What do you mean, you’re leaving for a few months?” My father threw his newspaper back down on the kitchen table, standing up in protest.
“I’m not leaving.” That was a sensitive word in my life these days.
My father looked at me with confusion and then his face was filled with concern and the familiar dash of pity.
Both of my parents looked at me like I was rejected by their dream son-in-law, which was very true, but hurtful, nonetheless.
“I was laid off from the church, maybe temporarily, but I’m out of a job.
Now, I’ve taken a last-minute job as a firewatcher for the remainder of the fire season.
The person who was performing this job had to suddenly leave for an emergency medical reason. ” A very valid reason for leaving.
“Well...” My father looked away, probably praying for the words to talk some sense into me.
Meanwhile, I felt God’s hand in my very unfortunate situation, leading me towards this.
I considered telling this to my father, but instead, I just let him speak.
“Where is it at?” He turned back to me, his face showing genuine interest. Perhaps just to use as ammo to talk me out of it.
Some morsel of information he could cross his arms at and forbid I do it.
“It’s in the wilderness outside of Maple Haven.” He nodded and then surprised me by following up with a smile.
“Good, still in Maple Haven, at least,” he said, like he was recalling his best memory as he closed his eyes.
Suspicious scents of cinnamon filled my senses, when I realized he was already drinking his favorite fall brew coffee.
“The fall colors of Connecticut have nothing on our pocket of Wyoming,” he said, before taking a long sip of his coffee.
As we stood there, I waited for his verdict on whether or not his twenty-something daughter could take a job.
I waited some more. I felt stupid for waiting, as I was wrestling with the fact that I was an adult and could still do the job even if my parents didn’t like it.
That was a part of growing up. But despite it all, there was still a deep, engraved part of my soul that didn’t want to go against my parents’ wishes.
Something about honoring my mother and father, taught to me from the Bible in Sunday school, that I still hoped to achieve.
“Well?” I asked for the second time this month.
The first being when Ray was stalling, before he told me about his real future wife.
Suzie, the homemaker from Michigan, who will also be a doctor, and will also run marathons, and write award-winning papers for medical journals, while raising their six children who will all be destined for athletic achievements because Suzie carries the genetics of a swan.
“I suppose it will be a good experience for you, dear. Get out of town for a bit. Have a different change of pace.” And just like that, my parents were on board with it.
To be fair, my mother didn’t know about it yet.
Because she was on the phone in the other room with Grandma, trying to explain to her that the wedding was off.
I didn’t think the disappointment was going to feel any less after Grandma heard the news.
It would only get harder from here. Surely, my mother would be worn out after another phone call where she had to break the news that she wasn’t going to be gaining the beloved Ray Lander as her son-in-law.
The only disappointment greater than my own was probably hers.
I had failed the family—robbed them of the experience.
Never mind that Ray was the one in the wrong.
“Thanks, Dad.” Before we could share a full heart-to-heart moment of father-daughter bonding, my mother stormed into the room, putting the landline phone back on the receiver.
My parents both had cell phones, tablets, smart devices that they could talk to in the house, but refused to get rid of their landline because it was the only number Grandma knew by heart.
It was actually sort of sweet. But right now, this moment felt anything but sweet as she threw her hands up in the air.
“I broke the news, and now she’s calling an ambulance!” She stifled back a cry as she crossed her arms and tapped her foot.
“Why is she calling…” I stopped asking midway, when I realized I didn’t need to. The full recap was coming.
“I explained how you and Ray,” she motioned to me with her finger, “decided to not get married, and not a minute later, she came down with heart palpitations.”
“Oh no. Is she okay?” I was equally filled with concern when it dawned on me that my mother was implying I was the cause of the palpitations. The generational shame I gave them was the reason that Granny needed to call 911.
“She’s not okay. No one is.” My mother walked over to the window and stared out at the lawn, blankly.
“So, if I called her right now, she wouldn’t be able to come to the phone because she’s on the other line with 911?
” My mother shrugged. “And if she really was calling an ambulance, wouldn’t you be calling your sister to rush over to her house?
Doesn’t Aunt Meg live like two blocks away from Grandma?
” My mother threw her hands up in the air.
“She hasn’t decided if she’s calling yet. She felt a few flutters. If only there was a doctor in the family that we could ask what to do!” This was it. This moment in time was when I hit rock bottom. My breaking point. I couldn’t take any more of this nonsense.
“You all realize that Ray left me for another woman, right? That this wasn’t my fault.
And maybe...” I paused, saying a brief prayer for God to hold my tongue, to clamp my mouth shut with the jaws of life if He had to, to have a hurricane Sharknado come rip the roof off of our house to end this conversation immediately before I said something disrespectful back to my parents, even if they did technically deserve it.
I sighed. “If you wanted a doctor in the family, either of you could have married one.”
My mom stood, frozen in time, with her back to me.
I knew she couldn’t turn to face me. We didn’t have the kind of relationship where she ever owned up to her rudeness.
We didn’t have the regular bond of parents who love their children who love their parents.
Not to say I didn’t love them; in my own way, sure.
But most of the time, it was like this. In fact, the only time we’d ever had a decent, or dare I say good report going, was after I started dating Ray.
Like suddenly they saw they had a second chance at success looming in the wings, if only they could marry their daughter off to the man she met at church.
The pastor whom they loved. The pastor whom they had been attending for years, who had a son away at a prestigious boarding school this whole time, funded by his wealthy grandparents in Montana, because everyone in the family believed he was some sort of savant.
Gifted from a young age. Destined to be something huge.
And then, he went to college. Completed a fabulous program, came home one summer and decided to attend the church potluck that I was also attending.
The rest is history. Truly history, as I wanted to leave it behind me now.
Leave it in the past, like our relationship.
“I just want it on the record that I couldn’t feel any more humiliated or depressed about it.
I didn’t know that this level of disappointment existed.
So, before you think that you are discovering despair for the first time in human history, I’d like you to consider that I have feelings.
And I am the one it happened to.” Okay, not my best work playing the victim card.
But sometimes with parents who couldn’t see anything outside themselves, it was the only thing they recognized.
I promptly headed out of their front door and into my car.
Stalling while I fumbled to work the seatbelt.
In my greatest fantasy, they would run out, lie on the hood of my car, and cry out multiple apologies for their shallow behavior.
For not recognizing that I was grieving.
I was the one who was starting over. That Ray was the biggest jerk on the face of the earth.
But they didn’t come. The front door remained shut tight.
The old wooden shutters on their home didn’t even move—the ones that now had no hope of being replaced, as I was also not marrying a handyman.
I pulled out of the driveway and headed back to my little apartment above a laundromat.