by CW Ullman
“No, he’s not a mermaid, and Charlie’s your real father because he raised you.”
“Is it okay if I send a card to my other father and Charlie?” Molly asked. Cindy began to protest, but then agreed that Molly could send a card to her other father, as well as Charlie.
Molly drew a card for her other father and gave it to Cindy to mail, which Cindy never did. What Cindy thought was an innocent question turned out to be much more in Molly’s life. The stammering of her teacher and her mother had a greater impact on Molly than Cindy recognized. Because Molly saw how uncomfortable it made them, she never brought it up again, however it did not stop her from thinking about it. She wondered what he looked like and where he lived. When she would meet older men, she wondered if they either were her father or at least looked like her father.
She had many questions, but felt her mother did not like discussing it even though Cindy assured her she should was open to it. Molly did not ask Cindy again, but the absence of inquiry did not preclude her from forming her own thoughts and opinions. Why had not this man try to contact her? Was it because it made her mother uncomfortable? Did he ever call to see how Molly was doing and her mother not tell her? Did he miss Molly?
While walking with her mother on the Strand in Hermosa Beach, Cindy pointed out the Mermaid Restaurant. Molly wondered if her father was still working there. One day when Molly was nine-years-old, she went to The Mermaid by herself to see if her father was there. Molly knew his name was Jack, so she went in and asked the bartender if his name was Jack. He said he was not his name and that Molly was too young to be there and should leave. She left, only after taking a long look at the bartender to satisfy herself that he did not look like her father. To Molly, not knowing what he looked like was as bad as not knowing him at all.
As Molly grew older she listened to her girlfriends’ conversations about their parents. One talked about her stepfather and how mean he was, surmising that if her real father were around, he would not let the stepfather talk to her like that, which made Molly wonder about Charlie. He seemed to let Bryce and Jordan get away with murder, and she was convinced he did not like her as much as the boys, which caused Molly to bank resentment for both Charlie and Cindy.
As she entered her teenage years, she became resentful of her friends and their “rad” relationships with their fathers who lived at home. Molly’s experience with Charlie played out differently. From her perspective, he seemed only to speak to her when he wanted something done, like when he told her to do homework and she shot back it was already finished. When he asked to see it, she would refuse, causing her mother to scold Molly not to talk to Charlie like that. Molly would storm off to her room, slam the door, and throw herself on the bed believing no one in the house liked her. She felt like her mother never took her side on anything. She had no one to speak up for her, nor did anyone really want to know how she felt; all they cared about was for her to follow their orders without arguing.
Once Molly discovered speed, she was arrested in adolescent no-man’s-land. Teenagers who become regular stoners, alcoholics, or addicts stop maturing. The capability to be comforted by their drug insulates them from caring about anyone or anything. Speed may be the worst of all drugs, because speed addicts also imagine they are smarter than everyone else, while in truth, they are being stunted in the learning, coping, and compensating. Speed physically rewires the addict’s nervous system. Molly was an addict and no one in her life understood addiction except Darla and one of Molly’s teachers, Sister Marie Celeste.
Sister Marie Celeste knew alcoholism and addiction were not moral failures. She knew what all addicts know: it’s not that they drink too much; it’s that they cannot drink enough. She recognized Molly as a kindred spirit when she started falling asleep in class. Sister Marie Celeste had an inkling this was not due to late night studying. It was confirmed for Sister Celeste when the bell ended class and Molly remained in the back row asleep at her desk. She went back to Molly’s desk and called her name, but Molly did not budge. She repeated her name five times and still Molly did not move. When she finally awoke, it was not with a start but groggily.
Concerned, Sister Marie Celeste asked Molly if she was feeling well, to which Molly replied she was, as she grabbed her bag to leave. Sister asked her to stay for a moment.
“Molly, is there anything you want to talk about?” Sister Marie Celeste asked.
“No, everything’s fine. I was…just up late last night,” Molly said.
“Well, if you ever want to talk, you know where I live,” Sister Celeste kidded. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Yeah…sure,” Molly replied.
“When I was your age, I got in a lot of trouble. In fact, I ran away from home,” Sister Celeste said.
“You? But you’re a…nun. Why did you run away from home?” Molly asked.
“Because my parents were driving me crazy and I was crazy,” Sister Celeste answered.
“What happened?”
“Well, without going into details, I surrendered to the Lord and he saved me. He wants to save us all,” Sister Celeste offered.
Molly was good at disguising her reaction to Sister Marie Celeste’s reply. Whenever one asked the nuns for help it was always, “Ask the Lord; pray to Jesus.” While she was hoping for details, she patiently listened to the nun and then excused herself.
Sister Marie Celeste could sense Molly’s disappointment. Until she became a nun, her own life was driven by a core of ruthlessness. Her intentions to live in the moment and have fun foundered when her actions would eventually go awry. She could not escape the cycle of repeating the same mistake.
She wanted to die after her husband was killed in Vietnam. She imagined that everyone gaze was judgmental. The unrelenting self-flagellation had painted her into a self-loathing corner. Not being able to carry out a suicide lead to the only other alternative, getting drunk, high, or both.
When she ended up at the convent, she had been on a three week bender using any substance available. She had been rooming in a series of hotels with “friends”, a group of low level drug dealers and thieves. They stole food, bicycles, cars, or purses. She did not have any money, so she exchanged sex for drugs. When her friends got tired of having sex with her, they pimped her to strangers who took their turns. One night after passing out, she was the object of multiple sexual partners and humiliations. When they finished with her, they dumped her naked under the pier in Manhattan Beach. She awoke predawn next to a semen-encrusted blouse and blue jeans not knowing where she was. Shoeless, she walked from the beach up Fifteenth Street where she found a patch of grass and went back to sleep. The patch of grass was in a convent courtyard, where some nuns discovered Teresa and brought her to a bed, where she slept for three days.
When she awoke, sitting at her bedside with a cup of chicken soup, was a young nun, Sister Marie Pierre.
“Here, you need this,” Sister Marie Pierre offered.
After Sister Pierre fed her, Teresa was still lying in the bed when an older nun came in and sat down. She introduced herself as Mother Superior Augustana and asked for her name.
“Teresa, are you feeling stronger?” asked Mother Augustana and Teresa nodded.
“I don’t care about your story, Teresa; that’s why I am not asking for it. I have heard your story many times before, and I can tell by looking at you that you’ve been coasting your entire life. You coast by going downhill and, Teresa, you’ve reached the bottom.
“Our mission in life is to serve. Here at American Saints, I am serving the people of Manhattan Beach. If I do my job, I will help some of them. In this affluent community, my job also includes helping them to serve the poor, either by contribution or directly like helping out in soup kitchens or our thrift shop.
“This church has a finite set of resources and you’re using them up right now by eating our food and sleeping in one of our beds. This means you need to give us something in kind for our generosity. See, if I’m feeding you
that means you took food meant for a poor person. Do we understand each other?” Mother Superior inquired and Teresa nodded.
“For the next two weeks you’re going to work for this church to pay your debt. You’ll do dishes and you’ll help our custodian, Mr. Swanson, clean classrooms or any other thing he orders you to do. You’ll go to Mass every morning. Are you Catholic?” Mother Superior asked.
Teresa meekly answered, “No.”
“It would probably be good idea in the next couple of weeks to learn about Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and how he died on the cross for our sins. Then you’ll get baptized,” Mother Superior ordered and again Teresa nodded.
“Now, before I leave I want to tell you one last thing. You are very, very lucky. You were probably a week away from dying. Jesus is watching over you right this very second, protecting you. Do not squander this opportunity.” Mother Superior ordered.
The sternness of the nun, the message she was giving, and the setting moved Teresa to tears. She felt lucky to be alive and she knew Mother Superior was extending a lifeline that she needed to grasp.
“After you get out of this bed, go downstairs to the church and thank Jesus from the bottom of your heart and beseech his mercy. Let us pray,” Mother Superior said. She put one hand on Teresa’s head and prayed aloud.
“Dear Lord, we thank you for your generosity and love. We thank you for saving Teresa from her pathetic, sinful ways and we are grateful you brought her to us in her time of need. Let your mercy manifest in her and let Teresa recognize it. We pray in the name of your everlasting son, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
After Mother Superior left, Teresa dressed in clothes the nuns had provided her from their thrift shop. She went downstairs into the cavernous church. As she walked down the aisle, she noticed relief placards on the walls every few pews showing images of Jesus in his final hours. She learned later these were the Stations of the Cross. There were fourteen stations, but only a few stood out to her: Jesus with a crown of thorns placed on his head; being whipped; falling with the cross, and then being nailed to it.
When she arrived at the front pew, she sat down. Before her was an altar and a twelve foot cross with a larger-than-life human figure nailed to it. The figure of Jesus had a wound in the rib cage that drew her focus and made her tear up. There was something that struck her about the final indignity of the chest wound. For what reason? It just seemed excessively cruel and that started her thinking of all the terrible things she had done. She did not want to go through the litany of horrible events again and blurted out, “Jesus, Please! I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want it!”
She sobbed and repeated her desire to forget. Though rested, she was still tired and worn from the self-contempt that still harangued her. She was enveloped by the mental chatter; beaten and wounded by it. She felt hopelessly doomed to live with this cacophony to the end.
But now, for the first time, she was wide awake and there was no internal conversation. This momentary cessation of sound seemed enormously loud. She stopped crying and listened and there was nothing. There was no criticism, no dialogue, and no reprimand, just silence. She waited for the chatter, but it did not start. In the pew, looking up at Jesus, she waited for the disparaging condemnation, but it did not come. She leaned into the front of the pew, knelt and kept repeating, “Thank you, Jesus, thank you.”
Sister Marie Celeste believed if Molly would give her problems over to Jesus, she would have the same peace of mind. She wanted Molly to feel the message, because she knew just speaking the words would prevent Molly from ever receiving it. Molly would eventually realize the message and Sister Celeste could never have imagined how absolutely integral she would be to that end.
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The view of life from the Molly’s methamphetamine perch was quite clear; she did not need to finish school, get a job, or listen to her parents. All she had to do was not get caught, but as a speed addict, that is an oxymoron. Because speed works on the decision-making area of the brain; not all ideas have a sound basis in reality. When a fourteen-year-old addict gets caught in a grocery store stealing a bottle of vodka, she may wonder aloud, “What’s the big deal?”
Chris and Colleen received the call from the Hermosa Beach Police Department when Molly was arrested. She was coherent enough to know her grandparents would be easier on her than her parents. The police told the grandparents they had a Molly Margaret Palmer booked on charges of attempted theft, trying to hit a police office, and underage drinking. After Chris called with the news of Molly’s arrest, Charlie drove home and told Cindy, who immediately sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor and cried. When the boys came downstairs and saw their parents both sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, they wondered if their mom had fallen. They were stunned and sat down with them when they heard the news.
“Are you going to ground her?” Jordan asked.
Charlie smiled and said, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now we have to go get her.”
“Can we go?” Bryce asked.
They were told they could go but not say anything, and Cindy asked them not to tell their friends. They went to the police station, where the boys waited out front, while Charlie and Cindy went inside for Molly, who was released on her own recognizance. She ran to her mother’s arms crying. It was an unpleasant surprise to find out what was causing her tears.
“These cops are jerks. They handcuffed me and were very mean. By the way, I didn’t hit any of them, I just pushed one of them when he tried to grab my bottle. I think we can sue for police brutality,” Molly said.
“We’ll talk about it when we get home,” Cindy said.
Cindy wanted to talk when they got home, but Molly said she wanted to shower first. They waited an hour downstairs and Molly did not appear. Cindy went upstairs to see what was taking so long and found Molly in her bed, sleeping with a wet towel wrapped around her head. Later, they would find out Molly hadn’t slept for three days prior to her arrest.
When Molly awoke a full day later, she, Cindy, and Charlie had a one-sided conversation. Molly said she was sorry and it would not happen again. Then, she just sat and listened. They told her she was facing a felony for striking a police officer. Cindy lost her temper when Molly accused the policeman of lying. The conversation went downhill after that. While Cindy was harping, Molly got up and went upstairs. Cindy asked her where she was going, but Molly did not stop or answer her, she just walked to her room, closed the door, and went to bed. Charlie and Cindy looked at each other in disbelief.
Charlie asked, “Did she just walk out while we were talking with her?”
Cindy was at a loss and said, “What is wrong with her? It’s like, ‘Okay, I’ve heard enough, see ya.’”
“When I was growing up, if we were to ever get in trouble with the police, it would have been the height of shame, and if someone were to tell us this is going to be on our permanent record, our lives would’ve been over,” Charlie added.
Charlie sensed that his last comment had made Cindy defensive. Anytime he criticized Molly, she always defended her daughter or downplayed the severity of the problem. Cindy felt every incident where Molly caused a problem reflected her own parental failure. She wondered what engendered the behavior issues. Did Molly have innate behavior problems? Did they come from her biological father, from Cindy, from Cindy not having Jack in Molly’s life, from putting her in school at the age of four and a half, from not breast-feeding her, from feeding her the wrong food, from being too lenient, or too hard, or not vigilant enough? She had to defend Molly when she felt the prickliness of judgment from others.
“Well, you grew up in Mayberry RFD. We’re in a different time and place,” Cindy snapped back. Charlie did not engage her, but nodded in agreement, knowing if he were to defend his statement, it would only set off an argument between the two of them. Instead, he tried to joke about it.
�
��That’s true. Andy Griffith and Barney were never accused of police brutality.”
Like a lot of men, Charlie wanted to fix things. He viewed all problems as entities in search of solutions. While Charlie thought he was avoiding mines by offering good proposals, Cindy viewed them as a list of stupid ideas that she entertained as a courtesy to him until the detonations wore out her patience. After most of these discussions, Charlie found himself stranded in the middle of the mine field. Mahatma Ji used to call these “mind” fields.
He felt she sent mixed signals to Molly, and that lack of consistency led to perpetual debates which inevitably ended with Cindy surrendering to Molly. Charlie was only asked to intervene when things had gotten completely out of control. By the time Charlie got involved, it was in the role of enforcer, a job he did not like.
Cindy’s descent into uncertainty created a conundrum. While she wanted Molly to like her, she also wanted Molly to do what she was told. But if she told her what to do, it interfered with their friendship, and the friendship hampered Cindy’s ability to act in the roll of a parent. On top of that, Cindy feared if she did not prohibit Charlie from correcting Molly, Molly would feel abandoned by Cindy. For all of Cindy’s effort to befriend her daughter, it created the opposite reaction, causing Molly to hold her in contempt. Parenting Molly eventually came down to not parenting her and just hoping she would not get in trouble. While Cindy had given up any chance of guiding Molly, she had also effectively neutered any influence Charlie might have. Cindy, in effect, had made Molly her sister with Charlie as their father.
All of this had a dampening effect on their marriage. Cindy and Charlie had fallen into a silent truce. They both felt frustrated and resentful and the mood in the house caused a palpable tension that made Bryce and Jordan uneasy. They would talk in their room about the arguments their parents were having and wonder if their older sister was okay. Bryce worried about divorce.
All of the arguing, and handwringing made no difference. After everyone went to sleep, Molly got up, dressed, loaded her backpack with clothes and her favorite stuffed unicorn, and drove off in Cindy’s car.
