Dad’s travel schedule added a bonus to our Friday night tradition. A half hour before The Twilight Zone, Mom, Kit and I took our positions in the kitchen, as usual, only now it was the hum of the automatic garage door that would announce FD’s arrival. Just like Dad coming home from work, FD’s Chrysler sedan would disappear inside. And just like Dad, FD would enter the kitchen from the garage. He would change out of his work clothes, just like Dad, the cassock replaced by the “civvies” he wore underneath—black pants, white tee, and a gold crucifix sliding over his tanned chest.
For a few precious hours, my mother would be happy—relaxed, radiant, giggly, affectionate. She might even pet my hair as I sat on the floor next to the couch. Instead of her face drawn in resentment, it would soften and make her look closer in age to Kit than thirty-five.
The Cavanaugh family had found a savior, a redeemer who descended not from on high, but through our garage with Dad’s automatic opener.
*
Ten o’clock Friday morning. The air raid siren sent a high-pitched shriek through the classroom. On cue all twenty of us dropped to the floor and covered our heads. I said three Hail Marys. Praying wasn’t included in the “Drop and Cover” exercise. I threw it in for good measure.
I peeked under my arm. Greg smiled from two rows over. I rolled my eyes and smiled back at the utter humiliation of holding the leap-frog position for three minutes. The exercise was a widely-adopted reminder that an actual nuclear attack could occur at any time. Dad joked the “Drop and Cover” exercise was pointless because if the Russians bombed us, no one would survive anyway.
In spite of Mom’s facetious remark that our family had benefited from the Cold War because of Dad’s job in defense, political uncertainty brought its own kind of anxiety. I asked Dad what we were fighting over with the Soviets. He explained it had to do with protecting a way of life in which Mom could buy a new car every year. Dad’s teasing didn’t fool me. I had overheard enough conversations at church to sense grown-ups, including my parents, were plenty worried. Tension between the United States and the Soviet Union increased every day.
It was hard to understand. We saw no soldiers on the evening news, heard no reports of civilian death. I decided anxiety over an invisible war half a world away added to the palpable one between my parents was too much. Given there was no way to avoid the latter I chose to ignore the former. Humiliation during the “Drop and Cover” exercise at school was the extent to which the Cold War had anything to do with me.
That was about to change.
The zigzag trail to the beach lay hidden behind scrub brush at the end of our street. Greg and I raced up the steep path to warm up. Two hours wading in tide pools in search of sea anemones for his biology class had left us cold and wet.
At the trailhead I staggered to the first patch of crab grass and collapsed. Greg dropped beside me. We turned our faces to the sparkling Pacific as our lungs filled.
“Mission accomplished,” Greg said. He patted the rucksack.
“I’m not helping you once it starts getting cold.”
He ignored my comment. “Did you know that a fertilized egg from a sea anemone can attach itself to a rock and survive for fifty years?”
“Nope.”
“If we were annihilated by an atomic bomb, sea anemones, one of the lowest forms of life, would survive.”
“Without ever having done ‘Drop and Cover’.”
He swatted me on the head with his rucksack strap. “What that means is any surviving humans could start over.”
“I thought the whole point of the drill was for everyone to survive.”
“Not according to my dad. He says the only survivors will be in bomb shelters.”
I propped on my elbows. “The only ones?”
“It makes sense. Look at what happened to everyone when we dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That’s how people will end up unless they can protect themselves underground.”
“Well, that’ll be me. Mom said for the price of a bomb shelter she’d rather have a pool. Besides, my dad says President Kennedy won’t let things go that far with the Russians.”
“My dad disagrees. That’s why we built a shelter. “He broke into a grin.
“Really?”
“C’mon.”
The sprint up the street helped warm us after lying on the grass in wet shorts. We tiptoed single file along the side of the house. Greg brought his index finger to puckered lips with a shooshing sound before taking a peek in the kitchen window. He signaled me to crouch and follow. I wondered why we were sneaking.
His backyard was all one level unlike my three-tiered one. We walked past the kidney-shaped swimming pool, which didn’t appeal in my damp condition. We walked past a guest house toward a clump of trees in the far corner. Greg checked to make sure no one was watching. He needed both hands on the metal ring to drag aside a 4’ x 4’ steel lid. He knelt down and switched on a light.
“Why are we sneaking?” I whispered.
“Dad says we shouldn’t broadcast this because everyone will want us to let them in if we’re attacked. You won’t tell anyone though.”
Another secret.
We leaned down and stared into the mouth of hell. The stairway was wide enough for one person. I wasn’t sure my dad could fit with his broad shoulders. A metal grid protected the single fixture halfway down. It was too dark at the bottom to see anything. I struggled harder for breath than I had racing up the trail or sprinting to Greg’s house.
He went first. Our heads bobbed as we descended the stairs. One moment we were eye level with the yard, the next we disappeared into earth. The patch of daylight above us shrank with each step. I tried to control rising panic in the hot, dense air. All I could think of was someone finding the steel plate off and shoving it back into place.
The darker it got the more tentative my steps. I felt for the edge of each stair. Greg offered me the tail of his shirt. Down, down, down we went until we stopped at a small landing. The two of us stood pressed against each other in the cramped space. Greg turned around. I could feel his breath. He brushed my bangs aside with his fingers and leaned down. His lips grazed mine in the dark.
Without warning he turned away. Neither of us said anything. A moment later, Greg threw his shoulder against the door. It opened into total darkness. Greg switched on a light, this one a bright fluorescent.
The place looked like doom, an apocalyptic dungeon. It was about the size of our garage except for the low ceiling.
“Wouldn’t you smother in here?” I waved my hands in front of my face to move the air.
Greg stepped a few feet to a panel in the wall. “Nah, there’s a mechanical air circulation and filtration system. Maybe it’s not on.” He lifted the metal cover. “This is where we keep the key. The lid and door both lock from inside to keep people out. We’d be toast if we lost that.”
My heart jumped at the idea of being trapped underground in the dark. Greg pointed out two sets of bunk beds in an L-shape, each with a blanket and pillow sealed in plastic. A bookshelf was loaded with paperbacks, playing cards, crafts and board games—Monopoly and Scrabble. A box of extra batteries next to a radio occupied the top of the bookshelf.
I didn’t know what to say.
“Hey, check this out.” Greg led me to the kitchen area. “Fully stocked.” He flipped open one cupboard after another of canned soups, vegetables, boxes of macaroni and cheese, powdered milk, powdered cheese, Vienna Sausages, Spam, Tang—“The ‘drink of astronauts,’ my dad says.” Greg beamed, as if he were showing me a remote mountain cabin instead of a death bunker. “A family of four could survive for two weeks. Not bad, huh?”
I stared at Life Magazine on the table: Fallout Shelters: A New Urgency. The cover depicted an exploding mushroom cloud superimposed over a letter from President Kennedy with big block words in red, ‘Be prepared’.
“Your dad really thinks it might happen?” I hoped the fear in my gut didn’t show on my face.
Greg closed the cupboards. He smiled that sweet smile of his and took my hands. He swung my arms side to side in a gentle sway. “Hey, my dad’s a Boy Scout leader, remember? He has to be prepared. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. It’s not like he has a crystal ball.”
My shoulders loosened. Far in the distance a muffled sound caught our attention.
“Ah, jeeeez. My mom’s calling.” He dropped my hands. “We’d better go. And Reese, remember, you can’t tell anybody about this. If we’re at school just say, ‘the day we had a cigarette in your backyard’. No one will get it but us.”
Greg let me go first up the stairs. An ominous clunk echoed through the stairwell as the door closed. The passage felt even narrower than it had fifteen minutes earlier, cold concrete walls pressing against me. I was sure my lungs would collapse before I reached the top.
The sunlight was joyously blinding. I gulped fresh air while Greg dragged the metal plate back into place. He wiped his hands with a quizzical smile.
“See you tomorrow?”
I felt special in a way I had never felt special in my life, even with Father Donnelly.
“Yup.”
I took my time walking home. There had to be a way to convince Mom we needed a bomb shelter, not a pool. That would lead her to ask why I was trying to convince her out of the blue. That would lead to questions about the bomb shelter, about Greg. She never asked what I was doing by myself all those hours after school. She must’ve been content having the house to herself, no doubt immersed in a fictional world very different from the one that would demand her attention by dinnertime.
3 The Need for Shelter
As we got deeper into fall I became more excited about my upcoming fourteenth birthday in January. Fourteen was the magic number I needed for going to supervised parties. The timing was perfect for the freshman dance the Friday before Valentine’s Day in February. Greg would be there. We had already agreed to dance every dance together.
I was ready to consult Kit on what to wear. Today wouldn’t be a good time to ask. Kit got home late from school. I could hear her and Mom arguing in the living room followed by the stomp of footsteps in the hall. Odds were good Kit had gotten in trouble. She would be in a sour mood. The fashion consult would have to wait. I shoved Cyrano, my stuffed Spaniel, under my head and resumed reading.
“For cryin’ out loud, do you always have to be in here?” Kit reached over and flipped back the cover of my book. “Little Women. What can you possibly learn from a book that doesn’t even have sex? Real life teaches you more than you could ever learn in books. No wonder your life is a bore.”
“If I want to get into a good college—”
“Another waste of time. The minute I graduate, I’m getting as far away as possible from that bitch. I’ll take off with any boy I feel like. We’ll shock the lipstick right off Mom.”
“Why do you hate her?”
“I think you have that the other way around. And I’m not the only one she hates, or haven’t you noticed? If you were smart you’d get away too.”
“Dad says with my grades I can get a scholarship to any college I want.”
“I swear, Clarice, you have zero chance for excitement holed up reading and studying. You’ll be one of those pathetic people who go through life without anything ever happening to them.”
I had no doubt lots of exciting things would happen to Kit. She was wrong about reading. Books were how I learned about everything. The characters were always someone I knew, at least in part. Kit was Lydia in Pride and Prejudice. She would run away with her Mr. Wickham and live out of wedlock. In contrast to fictional Lydia, Kit wouldn’t care what anybody thought, least of all Mom and Dad.
Mom’s character was Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, Boss of the World, Breaker of Hearts. My dream dad was Atticus Finch. I had to admit mine was more like Mr. March in Little Women. It wasn't a real war that had taken him from his family. It was the Cold War in his own home.
I wasn’t sure who my character was, not yet. The closest was Jo in Little Women, the sister who becomes a writer minus the tomboy, the swearing, the temper. Jo and I had the same Life Plan, a future built on writing and love. The first part I could achieve with education and hard work. Love, that part was the stumbling block. If my own mother couldn’t love me, no one else could. I didn’t understand what it was about me she couldn’t love, so I had no clue how to change so she could. That meant the second part of my Life Plan was doomed to failure. And I had a feeling that was more important than the first.
I would keep searching for the version of me Mom could love. Until I found that character, my Life Plan was sketchy.
*
The strange sound awakened me. I whispered to Kit. No answer. I remembered she was at Jackie’s. Dad was in New York. Cold fear gripped my stomach as I strained toward muffled cries from the living room. Mom was hurt, crying. No one else could help her. I had to go.
My silhouette mimicked every move down the hall. Hidden in darkness I waited for my eyes to adjust. The image that came into focus caught my breath. Mom wasn’t hurt. A man was on top of her in a scene my brain refused to calculate—two bodies merged as one, groans stifled but inescapably audible.
The man tilted his head to the street light. It was Father Donnelly.
A tiny gasp flew from my soul. I steadied myself against the wall, certain they had heard me. Sounds of passion overpowered my whimper. I couldn’t budge. One teetering step at a time, I commanded my body to retreat. Instead of getting back in bed, I crawled under it with Cyrano and buried my face in his flanks to silence anguish deep in my own.
That journey down the hall ended life as I had known it. An invisible threshold had been crossed, the line beyond which childhood ceased. I could never go back. Now I would wander the Land of InBetweendom, lost in a foreign place where nothing made sense.
Then and there, I knew God had abandoned me.
*
The next morning I woke up just as I had every other morning of my thirteen years. The earth had continued to roll around the sun in spite of my childhood having come to an end. Our morning routine was the same, everyone acting as if nothing had changed. Kit and I took turns in the bathroom getting ready for school. Mom buzzed around the kitchen making our lunches. They all looked normal. I was the one transformed—an alien from another planet disguised as human. I had entered my own Twilight Zone.
With a sick feeling in my stomach I ventured into the kitchen and perched on a stool. Mom stood at the counter with the usual assembly line of bread slices for sandwiches. She glanced at me.
“Clarice, why aren’t you dressed? You’ll make us late.”
I faked an impassive tone. “Kit’s still in the bathroom.” I paused. “Would you and Dad ever get a divorce?”
Mom stopped fixing lunches. She stared at the wall, a mustard-slathered knife suspended in mid-air. Not a muscle moved. She resumed her work, mustard sliding across Weber’s bread in smooth swirling motion like an ice skater doing figure-8s.
“Whatever made you ask such a question?” Her tone was dismissive.
“We were talking about it in class yesterday. I just wondered.”
“If you were talking about it in class, then you know that in the Catholic Church divorce is grounds for excommunication. Now go get dressed. Kit has to be at school fifteen minutes early today.”
And that was that. She was as cool as lemonade on a summer day and said exactly what she wanted me to hear, and in truth, what I wanted to hear. Even though she brushed it aside, her momentary hesitation confirmed that what I hoped had been a dream was not. It was real.
A terrible transgression had taken place last night. I knew it, she knew it, and now she knew that I knew it. However innocuous our exchange, I had crossed some boundary. I had intruded on Mom’s private world, the world she now shared with FD.
Kit bolted from the car as soon as we pulled into the drop-off zone at school. I was tempted to see if I could crac
k Mom’s icy demeanor by telling her where Kit was really going, which was behind the baseball field to smoke with her friends.
I got out and turned to say goodbye. Mom’s expression made my knees buckle. There was fury in that look, cold, deadly rage. I closed the door and watched as she jerked the car away from the curb and disappeared around the corner.
I thought I knew what it meant to feel alone. I hadn’t even come close. I felt constricted as I walked to class like a zombie. I was numb, a new realization sinking in with each mechanical step: I had lost everything. Kit couldn’t help me, Dad couldn’t help me, there wasn’t a soul on earth I could confide in, and worst of all, the two people I most adored were complete strangers to me now. I was utterly and completely alone.
The world as I knew it had ended overnight. Nothing could turn back the clock.
*
School that day must have looked as normal as any other day, my classmates and teachers going about their business. I was somewhere far away, detached, separate. The clock ticked in slow motion. At the last bell I made an excuse to Francie and the others that I wasn’t feeling well. I took the early bus home.
My shoes might as well have been bricks with the effort it took making my way from the bus stop to the back stairs. Halfway up, I pressed my nose to the garage window. The black sedan was there. I gathered strength and opened the back door.
“And how is my favorite high school freshman this afternoon?”
FD and Mom sat drinking coffee in their usual places at the table, FD in Dad’s place at the head. I forced a smile, mumbled something about having a ton of homework and kept walking. I was into the living room when FD called me back.
“Hey! Hold on a minute. I’ve been eyeing your mother’s chocolate cake for half an hour, holding off until you got home. You can’t tell me you’re going to hit the books right away.”
My stomach lurched. I backtracked to the kitchen.
The Road at My Door Page 3
