Chapter 10
Darkness
“Do you want to help me make raisin bread?”
Even a few hours ago, Jessie would have rolled her eyes at Mom’s offer. However, entertaining herself alone was proving more difficult than expected, especially given the narrow set of amusements she felt free to pursue anymore. So she shrugged and gave in. At least they couldn’t possibly have another roast-chicken-style disaster with Mom directly calling the shots.
She might have known Mom wanted to talk to her about something serious, and would wait until she had flour all over her hands to bring it up. Everyone around here seemed to have some pious ulterior motive to everything they did these days.
“Jessie dear,” her mother began, “I want to talk to you about something, and it’s not easy for me to do. Will you try to listen and not react?”
“Sure, Mom.” Jessie was already “reacting” on the inside, but hiding it sufficiently so far.
“It’s about the way we dress,” her mother went on, checking Jessie’s face for feedback. Her voice seemed to be shaking just a bit. How nervous could she be with her own daughter? “Have you noticed that I’ve gotten some new outfits?”
“Yeah, I have. They’re very pretty.”
“Thank you. You may not have noticed that I’ve also thrown away some clothes.”
“I hadn’t, no.”
“I know the idea of dressing modestly is quite foreign to modern girls. Actually it was foreign to me too, until I realized that the Bible says quite a bit about it. And Jessie, I realized something else too, something for which I must ask your forgiveness.”
Any time they start apologizing, Jessie warned herself, it’s going to be a major blow.
“I realized that I have bought you inappropriate clothes, and encouraged you to wear them in ways that attracted the wrong kind of attention. And I did this not just out of ignorance, but for a terrible, selfish motive.”
“It really doesn’t matter,” Jessie tried to intercept. “I can work on my wardrobe if you want....”
“I want to tell you this so you’ll understand,” Mom insisted. “You see, I vicariously enjoyed the attention you could attract. I wasn’t very pretty at your age, and I couldn’t attract that kind of attention myself. Do you understand?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Jessie countered. “All parents do a little living through their kids, don’t they?”
“Yes, most do. But what I did was worse, because I set standards for you that could lead you wrong the rest of your life. I want an opportunity to change those standards. I want us to go shopping tomorrow. I hope you’ll want to join me in trying to meet a higher standard of modesty. We can buy you some new clothes, and then have dinner on the way home.”
“Thanks for trying to cushion the blow.” Jessie’s tone was getting dangerously close to a bitter note she tried never to use with Mom.
“I realize that this is all my fault,” her mother admitted sadly. “And I want to do what I can to fix it.”
“And you’re pretty much making this decision, right?” Jessie explored. “That is, I’m being informed, not consulted.”
Mrs. Sparrow sighed. “Please don’t put it on that level,” she said. “Yes, if you get down to it, you are my daughter and you will need to dress according to the standards that your stepfather and I agree on. But I don’t want to just change how you dress outwardly. I want to help you change the way you think about clothes. Will you work with me on this?”
“You know I can’t say no, Mom,” Jessie assented, but she was seething on the inside. The Sergeant strikes again, she thought to herself. Even when he’s not here, he’s controlling everything. At least she would get some free clothes out of this deal. If the Sergeant were running the wardrobe department personally, he’d probably make her wear a starched uniform – and pay for it herself.
The balance of the bread-making project passed in uncomfortable silence for Jessie, punctuated only by her mother’s occasional humming. As soon as the dough was set to rise, Jessie made her excuses and took off for her favorite home-away-from-home, the mall. There she found Izzie and some other friends hanging out. The moment she appeared, Izzie immediately wrapped her in a sympathetic hug and began to tell the others what a terrible situation Jessie was in, with her beastly stepfather squeezing all fun from her life and even turning her own mother against her – “Just like Hubert Winslow on Grandshield!”
Up to this time, Jessie had exercised some restraint around her friends when talking about her parents. Today, however, she felt the need – indeed the right – to let off a bit of steam, to take a vacation from being “good” and just tell somebody how she felt. So she laid it on them. The Sergeant was just that, a drill sergeant. A controlling tyrant bent on bending everyone else to his will. He had made her mother religious and uptight. He had made her brother crazy. He would never be happy until she herself was walking to church in an ankle-length black dress and singing Rock Of Ages with a pipe organ. The more Jessie talked, the more they listened and sympathized. The more they sympathized, the more she talked.
“The real problem,” Jessie finally concluded, “is that the guy is over forty and never had children, so we’re his only shot at validation. He wants to be our ‘dad,’ and the only way he knows how to do that is make us his own private regiment, governed by his own private rules. In a way I kind of feel sorry for him,” she added with contempt.
Having distributed her odious attitude among all her friends, Jessie was feeling a rebellious high. “Let’s go do something fun,” she suggested. “The cat’s away at my house.”
“Can’t have real fun while the sun’s up.” The sinister observation had been made by Monica, who was a grade up from the rest of the girls and their acknowledged leader in worldliness and sophistication. “But I do happen to have something in mind for tonight.”
“What?” they all chorused eagerly.
“You know Limelight 911 is premiering at the Cinema 12 at midnight,” she suggested slyly. “Well, I have a friend who can totally get us in.”
The suggestion brought Jessie an exciting chill. She had only a vague idea what the movie was about, but knew that even Izzie’s parents didn’t want her to see it. As for the Sergeant and Mom, they would barely mention its name in polite conversation. Which, in Jessie’s current frame of mind, was more than enough reason to go.
That night, Jessie waited until her mother was asleep, then sneaked out the back door. Monica and the other girls picked her up, and they drove to the movie theater. They watched the movie, or at least some of them did. Jessie left so many different times on so many different excuses that she actually didn’t see much more than the credits. Even that was more than she really wanted to see; the point was simply doing something forbidden.
She arrived back home after two, carefully locked the door behind her, tiptoed to bed, and then lay there a long time, sleepless in the quiet darkness. She had completely gotten away with it. She had trashed her parents to everyone, defied their rules, sneaked off, watched a bad movie, and sneaked back in without anyone seeing. And she felt absolutely filthy about it. Suddenly she found herself wishing wildly that she had gotten caught, wanting to see the Sergeant’s strong outline in the doorway growling, “Where have you been, young lady?”
But there was nothing. Just Jessie, and her darkness.
The Sparrow Found A House (Sparrow Stories #1) Page 10
