Sunlight on My Shadow

by Judy Liautaud

  Even though I could hear Annie’s mom shuffling around in the other room, she didn’t come in and talk to us. I had a weird feeling about her, kind of like she could smell the rotten aroma of a lie.

  Many years later, Annie told me that when I left that day, Mrs. F. quizzed Annie.

  “Ann, what was wrong with Judy?” she asked.

  “She had some kind of kidney disease,” Ann said.

  “But why did she have to leave home for so long?”

  “I guess because her mom is sick and couldn’t take care of her.”

  “I never heard of such a thing,” she said. “Tell me what really happened to Judy.”

  “She was sick, Mom, I told you. Quit asking about it. She was sick, that’s all I know.”

  Years later, Annie confessed to her mom, and told her the truth about me. She was a good friend to stand by my story, and I feel rotten that I asked her to lie for me. I shouldn’t have gone out in public until my chest shrank, but I didn’t know if it ever would. I guess I had hoped no one would notice that my breasts were large, but Mrs. F. was no dummy.

  When I first got home, I hid behind an invisible wall that gave the message: off-limits. I think Dad had instructed everyone, too, to keep a tight lip and just act like I had never been gone and nothing had ever happened. This was the best way to ensure the secret was preserved, like it was stuck in formaldehyde: dead and isolated. Each time I saw someone for the first time after being gone, I dreaded it; as minutes and then hours went by without any reference to my absence, I’d relax with silent relief. Everyone seemed to be playing the hush-hush game, and I was thankful.

  Anytime my mind lit on the vision of Catherine Cavanaugh leaving the parking lot with the baby, or the pull of the forceps, or the hot dogs and ketchup at Helen and Ed’s, I just stuffed it down and didn’t dwell on it. Like a burning rise of fluid in my throat, I continued to swallow until it formed into a dark feeling, like something was wrong, but I couldn’t name it. I wrapped my emotions with a protective coating and buried them deep within me.

  The silence let me grieve in some dark unknown place within my own heart, alone and secret. I don’t even think I knew I was grieving. Perhaps I felt nothing. I was numbed by stuffing the grief of losing my baby, and my shame. I tried to put it all behind me like I was told to do.

  My brother-in-law, Jackie’s husband, Dave, was an exception to the silence. Although he didn’t say much, I could tell by the tone of his voice that he understood. The first time he saw me, he walked up with arms outstretched and gave me a substantial hug. Then he said, “Awww … God bless ya, Jude.” He had tears in his eyes. I knew he understood. I felt like he accepted me and didn’t judge me either. I never forgot that precious moment when I needed the understanding and love the most.

  After a week at home with Dad and Jeff, I went back up north to spend the rest of the summer with Mom. When I walked in the cabin, Mom said she missed me. She gave me a big hug and said something like, “It’s all over now, honey. No need to look back. Now you can get back to your normal life.”

  “Yeah,” I said, and felt relieved because of the way she hugged me. It meant that she still loved me. No further references were made to my time away. Not that day and not ever.

  After I arrived at the cabin, it was sunny and pristine but my heart was heavy with a mustiness that thickened the air with an unfamiliar gloom. I didn’t understand my sadness and internally lashed out at myself for feeling that way. I thought I should be happy it was all over. This was what I had been yearning for the past nine months. After all, I was getting back to normal. My breasts had dried up and now they were back to their tiny selves. My stomach was almost as flat as it was a year ago. I should be happy for my child. I should be happy she had parents who were taking care of her. Most of those summer days were gray and colorless. No ups and downs, just steadily flat. I had no friends to hang out with at the cabin. My days were filled with reading books, swimming, and some waterskiing whenever I could get Jeff to tow me behind the boat. Mom always went to Mass in Minong or Gordon and I felt obligated to accompany her. So I went each Sunday, but I wasn’t getting any spiritual uplift from my visits. I just sat there, going through the motions and waiting for the Mass to be over. I didn’t go to communion because I hadn’t been to confession—and I knew you had to have your soul clean to accept the sacred host. Perhaps it was because my sins were too weighty to confess, but I never did return to confession.

  In the past, I had always been excited about school in the fall. Childhood summers at the cabin were isolating and lonely for the most part. I loved getting back to my friends and the days of having too much to do. This fall was the same, but I had some serious apprehension as I worried about someone asking me about my sickness and details of where I was and what I did. I was thankful to have had the summer vacation as a buffer between the two months of school I had missed. Regina was situated in a quiet neighborhood in Wilmette, Illinois. It was a sprawling building with a bridge that connected the auditorium with the classrooms. Large, grassy areas with stately maple trees surrounded the school. The freshly waxed linoleum made the halls shine. We had lockers that were assigned alphabetically. I had the same kids next to me and also in some of my classes, the ones whose last names started with “K, L, or M.” So the first person I saw when I came back was my friend Katie K. She wasn’t in on the secret but knew I had been gone. She said she was glad I was better and back to school. Then she wanted to know what was wrong with me. “I had nephritis,” I told her. But I said I was better and asked if she remembered the assignment for French class.

  I watched my classmates, but didn’t see any expressions of suspicion. I came to believe that I had pulled it off. I was sick and now I was back. I resumed my spot at the lunch table with Annie, Jane, and Carol, but was serious and heavy hearted. I didn’t seem to come up with any clever words or jokes until I had been back for several months. Still it was good to see them again and all be together. Each said, they had kept the secret but none asked what I did, where I went, or what happened to my baby. It was better to keep it all unsaid. I was glad at the time but oh how I needed to talk. I eased back into my senior year, clunky and unsure of myself, but present and having a period every month.

  Forty years later at my high school reunion, I asked some distant friends if they knew what happened to me back in 1967. Not a one of them had any idea I went off and had a baby, which is just a testament to the great friends I had in Annie, Jane, and Carol. I loved them for “crossing their heart, hope to die, swearing to God, no peein’ in the pot, and no pickin’ your snot.” They were the best a wayward girl could ever hope for.

  CHAPTER 39

  MICK AGAIN

  For the first year after I got back, I didn’t contact Mick nor did I hear anything about him, but I often wondered what he was up to. I had a date or two with friends of friends and patted myself on the back for not being interested in sex, having learned my lesson. I’d wait for marriage. Of course, I wasn’t tempted because I wasn’t in love and my resolution was easy to keep. I was finally pure and good, but for me, it felt a little too late. I was still grieving over my loss of virginity and didn’t quite know how to purify myself.

  It was time to apply to colleges. I had taken the ACTs in my junior year but my scores were mediocre, probably because I was preoccupied with my horrible secret. The rejection letters were a blow to my already fragile ego, and I took the news as evidence of my lacking. I had applied to Michigan State and the University of Illinois but had to read those nasty letters, “We regret to inform you … do not have the qualifications we are looking for….” I decided Southern Illinois was the best of my options, so I planned to attend school in Carbondale in the fall. It was a shame because I had mostly As and Bs before I took the plunge into the darkness.

  I graduated with my class of ‘68 in June: it had been a year since the birth. It was a strange summer because I had decided to forgo Bond Lake for the opportunity to
work in downtown Chicago in a high-rise office. It was my first job and Dad thought it might be a good experience for me. I would be leaving for college in the fall.

  One summer evening my girlfriends and I went over to the old Glenbrook kids’ hangout, Roosevelt Park. Wouldn’t you know, I ran into Mick. When I saw his brown eyes and his tight body with its air of confidence, the sparks flew. I still loved the way he squinted his eyes when he laughed and his lips parted, exposing his straight white teeth. He said I should come by his apartment sometime. He was living in Chicago near the “L,” so I could hop on the train and only walk a few blocks to get to his place.

  The excitement of reconnecting at his city apartment was dampened by a sick feeling in my gut. Of course, I couldn’t tell my parents that I was seeing Mick again. I had been directed to be done with all that. So the dread of hiding and worrying about getting caught came back in full force. Again, like before, I did it anyway.

  The view of the city from the train was a culture shock for me, being that I was raised in the clean, shining, and affluent suburbs. The litter between the buildings, clothing pinned to lines on the porches, and the shabby curtains hung to block out the passers by gave me a gritty-city feeling that nicely framed the guilt and dirtiness I felt as I walked over to Mick’s apartment. I walked fast, looking at the ground, then consoled myself by thinking that nobody I knew would be running into me here—in the heart of the windy city.

  Mick was like a mangy dog that kept following me: I loved the thing even though I knew I would get cooties if I petted it. I loved him enough that I couldn’t help myself. I don’t remember us talking much about what happened to me. I told him that yes, I had the baby, and it was a girl. I thought about telling Mick that she looked just like him, but I was afraid it would make him feel bad that he should have been the daddy and he couldn’t remedy that. So I kept most of the details quiet. He didn’t ask me what those three months were like when I went away. I was relieved. I was happy to get off the subject and leave my sacred secret in the silence. I was afraid that if we talked about it, the sound waves would creep over the planet and people would know. I kept quiet.

  Mick was off to new adventures. He was smoking pot now. The last I heard about marijuana was from the grade-school movies that featured pushers lurking around in alleys near school yards, ready to grab our souls and take away our free will. The movies told us to stay away from marijuana or we would soon be addicted to heroin.

  “Pot? Really?” I asked.

  “Yep, it’s cool. It doesn’t hurt you. Teaches you to be in the moment. Everything looks good on pot. You should try it,” he said.

  “But aren’t you afraid you’ll get addicted?”

  He chuckled in a way that seemed to say, How could you not know? Then he said, “You don’t get addicted to pot. That’s just propaganda. It’s like smoking a cigarette. You can quit when you want. It’s no big deal. My friends really dig it.”

  “Like who?” I asked.

  “Oh, Lennie and Kurt. We get together and smoke and laugh a lot. It’s a kick.”

  “Aren’t you afraid it’ll make you want to try hard drugs, like heroin or something?”

  “Oh, no, that’s dumb. I’d never do that.”

  “Really?” I said.

  For several days I thought about Mick’s presentation and my fear started to soften. It sounded like fun if it made you laugh. I wanted to share the weed with Mick. I wanted to be part of the group.

  As an office clerk in my summer job, I sorted stacks of delivery tickets for a trucking company. I felt unimportant and bored much of the time. I watched the clock and eagerly cleaned off my desk at 5:00 when I could punch out and then take the L over to Mick’s. It was easy to do this without Dad knowing. I was just home from work a little late. I could have been shopping or whatever.

  The next time the boys passed the joint, I took a puff. It felt like barbs of hot steam poked my lungs and ended in a coughing fit. They looked at me like I had committed a mortal sin. I was wasting the expensive and coveted weed. The next time I took a tinier puff and was able to hold the smoke in my lungs for several seconds. Then, with practice, I could hold it longer to get the full effects.

  At first I couldn’t feel anything and thought it must have been wishful thinking that made them high. But then, around the third time, I said something like, “This stuff blows your mind.” And the friends laughed because they knew I was finally high. My eyes landed on some object in the apartment and I found myself staring, entranced by the intricacies. It seemed like I could actually feel the beauty my eyes took in, somewhere deep in my body. It was astoundingly sensual. And I loved the friends in the room. I felt close, like we were in a special club: The Enlightened Society of Weed Worshipers. We knew things others didn’t. We were hip. Then someone said something that made us all laugh hilariously. What? It didn’t matter. Sweet or salty food tasted like the first bite after a forty-day fast, the first bite, over and over again as I devoured a whole bag of salty crunchy things.

  The mornings after, when I got ready for work, I felt dark and criminal for smoking pot. I was tossed into that gloomy feeling of guilt and remorse when I got back with Mick. Now I had an added arrow in my quiver of shame: I was doing drugs. But I liked the stuff. It took away the angst when I was high and I felt loving and light. Until, of course, the effects wore off, and then I was depressed and looked forward to the next joint that evening.

  After Mick and I got back together, I made a visit to Dr. Keller and got the birth control pills he promised he would prescribe if I ever needed them; so much for my pats on the back.

  A few weeks before it was time to leave for college, I got a call from Mick. He had been on a road trip with Kurt and had some bad news. He met a girl in Colorado, he said, and fell for her. He was surprised at how it hit him off guard. Did I really need to know these details? I couldn’t believe he was telling me this. I remember his words: they crushed me. He said, “I never knew love like this before. Love is like a rock.” All I could think was, “He found something better than me.”

  That fall, I was supposed to be excited and happy to be leaving home and on my way to college. But I felt like I had to settle on third or fourth best because of my rejection letters. I was also mentally sick with the loss of Mick. I couldn’t help thinking about him and the girl from Colorado and imagining them together: holding hands as they hiked through meadows, stopping to look at wildflowers, laughing with their rocky mountain high. Daggers of anger and jealousy pulverized my tender heart. When I think back on it now, I should have seen it coming. Mick was not committed—and where was our love going to go, anyway? We couldn’t get back together in a public way because of my father’s prohibition. It was a doomed love affair.

  I stared out the window as we drove through the cornfields on our way to a school that I didn’t even pick for my first choice. I thought it was a school for dummies. I thought the good schools were the ones that didn’t want me, along with a bunch of schools in California and other exotic states to which I’d applied. I thought it was just so not cool to be going to SIU.

  My year at Southern turned out to be a year of changes. I must have been placed in easy classes because of my ACT scores. I whizzed through the courses and got all As. Compared to the nuns at Regina, the professors didn’t demand much. I lived in a dorm and had a sweet roommate named Lucy, and just before Christmas I hooked up with Johnny.

  Johnny was an old acquaintance from back home in Glenview and too cool for me back then. He had wavy blonde hair and blue eyes, and resembled John Lennon. His body was tall and well defined. I was flattered that he took a liking to me, this outrageously cute guy who loved to draw and take movies. Johnny attended SIU for the fall quarter, but dropped out and moved to California. He asked me to come visit him during spring break.

  Mom and Dad were appalled. I suppose they were scared I would get in trouble again and didn’t like me going off to the other side of the country to s
ee a strange boy. In spite of their disapproval, I hopped a jet plane headed for LA. I was 18, after all.

  During my visit, I took my first slice of orange wedge, LSD. Johnny and I camped at Big Sur next to a large river that flowed into the ocean. We took the acid when we got up in the morning and then walked to the sea. The path to the beach wound through towering pines and thick ferns. The forest was thick with the sappy pine smell and the humidity from the sea. By the time we got to the ocean, we were flying high. It wasn’t anything like pot because it physically changed how things looked. Stars and sparkly traces flew off Johnny’s arm as he moved, like a falling star or a comet. The visions delighted my senses. I wanted to cry in awe and my body vibrated like it was in a state of orgasmic wonder.

  Johnny took my hand and led me to a large rock that was just off the shore. We climbed on top. The sun was bright and warmed my skin. We sat perched up there, several feet from land, out in the blue sea. The waves came in and crashed, spilling over our bodies and releasing their salty spray as we held on tight, afraid we’d be washed away from our stronghold. We held on to each other and laughed after each wave passed: laughed that we stayed put, and laughed for the refreshing feeling of the waves washing over our faces, arms, and legs.