Rose-Colored Glasses

The dust is a lot thicker here than I remember.

I keep my eyes down as I meander down the sidewalk, sparing glances out of the corners of my vision. On Sundays this place becomes a ghost town, one of the things I can definitely remember. Parked cars and shuttered windows, it’s a day of rest for both the religious zealots and those who’ve never crossed the church’s threshold. Respect and fearful reverence mean the same thing here.

The pavement is cracked and bleached white from the sun. It was a sprawling town-wide canvas when we were little, our hands covered in pastel-colored chalk powder and our knees scraped from the concrete, paying no mind to the neon puddles of melted popsicles that stained our sticky fingers and chins. When we got older we rode our bikes over the cracks and past the dandelions sprouting in them, crossing the street when cars slowed to a stop and let us go. Now I stop and look up in the blinding sunlight to make sure there aren’t any vehicles coming, pausing even in the midst of the hushed silence.

I see the house of a woman who still grows knockout roses in her flowerbeds. A taupe Toyota is parked in the driveway, and the screened-in porch is made of peeling white beams, practically sagging off the front of the blue-clapboard home. She would bring flawless coconut cream pies to church functions, the whipped topping covered in perfect golden-brown peaks, something straight out of a Martha Stewart photoshoot. There’s a stone statue of the Virgin Mary standing beside the roses, her robed arms outstretched. Twin trails of black grime from the elements run down her serene face like tears. I have to force my eyes away when a feeling like cotton gets stuck down my throat.

Across the street is the laundromat, a squat concrete building that I can smell when I walk by, the warm heat of fresh laundry coming from a vent out the back. Beside it is the pharmacy that isn’t really a pharmacy; it’s an ice cream parlor that used to be the town drugstore a couple decades ago, but the sign out front is old and beloved and the current owners wouldn’t dare take it down. We’d all drop off our bikes on the pavement and clamber inside, sweat cooling in the AC as we piled like puppies along the wooden counter. An older widowed woman with kind brown eyes would give us root-beer floats on the house. One time, her teenage son hurt his back in a roofing accident and the preacher came by the house to pray over him. The son accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior that day, so the woman praised God and the preacher for saving both the boy’s back and his soul.

If the preacher was royalty in our town, then being his only son, I was treated something like a prince. A soft, quiet boy with blue eyes, curly blond hair, and a lisp that didn’t go away until middle school, he seems like a distant memory now. He believed every Bible story he read and he had no reason not to do exactly what he was told. Parents would get their kids to play with me as if some of that divine influence and good parenting would rub off on their own children, mold them from a young age, set them off on the right path. I doubt that the woman from the ice cream parlor would even recognize me now, with my dyed hair and piercings and tattoos. If I run into her, maybe it’s for the better if she doesn’t.

When I lift my eyes and see the white-steepled church on the corner, the normal greeting on the big white sign replaced with a time and a date for a funeral, it makes me stop in my tracks. A heartbeat pounds in my ears and all the blood in my body seems to pool in my legs. The parking lot is empty—thank goodness. I’m not ready yet. I force my eyes back onto the battered toe-tips of my combat boots, hands deep in the pockets of my jeans, like avoiding eye contact with a stranger who used to be a close friend. Still not ready yet.

I wonder if the inside looks the same. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow. A curious glance towards my peripheral vision confirms that they haven’t replaced the beautiful stained-glass windows, vibrant mosaics that dazzle on the glossy pew-benches in the early morning sunlight. The carpet in the sanctuary was always a deep, grand shade of crimson from the wide front doors all the way to the altar where the pulpit stood, almost purple. Just like the grape juice they handed out in little plastic cups with saltine crackers for the Lord’s Supper. I’d slip down the pews and collect them all after the service while the preacher stayed behind, talking to lingering guests in the foyer. And Jesus told his disciples during the Last Supper, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Then he took the cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table.” I wonder if Judas always had a tiny inkling of darkness hidden away in his heart long before the betrayal in the garden, or if when he was little, too, the idea of being a traitor to his Father was unthinkable.

Blue-raspberry popsicles. Free root-beer floats. Sweet, tangy grape juice in a miniature plastic cup. Him. River baptisms and bitter anxiety, cherry-flavored Kool-Aid mixed outside with hose water and cherry-flavored lozenges in the school guidance counselor’s office. Blood from my father’s fist smashing against my mouth when he found everything out. HIM.

All I taste now is the thick, heavy feeling of my tongue in my mouth, and it’s almost too much of an effort to swallow.

I got a motel room for the next couple of nights because I refuse to stay in that house. Call me selfish. Maybe I’m still remembering the night I left and he told me to never come back, that my bad decisions had consequences and I was too immature to realize the price I was paying. It was the last thing he ever said to me. I always told myself I’d come back once the dust settled to make amends, sit down at that kitchen table again with coffee and tissues and apologies. Hoping the apologies would come from both ends. I told myself I’d find him again and apologize for different things, but the thought of coming back gave me that quick, panicky feeling in my chest and the sense that my stomach was going to give out like rotting porch floorboard collapsing. Now I’m back and it’s not my choice.

Ripping off the band-aid, what my therapist told me. I’m living in a big city like I dreamed about for years, paying too much for therapy and medication and a crappy apartment and a half-finished art degree I still don’t know what to do with. I was sitting on that blue vinyl armchair in her office when a thought stained my mind through the grief, and no matter how much bleach or how many rags I waste trying to scrub it out, it’s left an ugly tinge on the inside of my skull—God is bringing you back because you wouldn’t have come on your own. You are the prodigal son, just like from the Book of Luke. You will repent and turn from your sinful ways.

And then I got scared that it was His last chance of calling me home, home as in Heaven, eternal life, the straight and narrow way rather than the wide one. I found myself praying again as I made preparations for the weekend trip, looking through the syllabus for each of my classes to see what textbook reading I’d need to catch up on. The heavy, overpriced books are still sitting in the passenger seat of my car and I definitely won’t be picking up any of them while I’m here. I’m procrastinating. I’m already standing in front of the house.

Flower arrangements have been left on the porch, lilies and gerbera daisies and roses with fresh, sweet aromas. There’s only one vehicle parked in the yard, my mom’s big red suburban. The old blue pickup isn’t there anymore. The Easter wreath we’d get out every year is hanging on the front door again, a hoop of fake green branches wrapped in purple fabric and a rough-hewn cross in the center. I don’t want to knock. I do it anyway.

It’s an agonizing minute as I stand and wait, listening for footsteps inside, any suggestion of noise or movement. Nothing. I knock again, wait another eternity-long minute with an angel and a demon arguing back and forth on my shoulders:

This is your house. They’ve always kept the door unlocked. He’s not here anymore. Your mother didn’t kick you out—he did.

But don’t you remember the tears in her eyes the night you left? That look on her face as she openly cried in front of you for the first time in years, and how you knew you’d betrayed her?

I open the door and it feels like a dream as I walk inside.

The glossy orange floorboards are the same, and so are the pastel-yellow walls of the foyer. There’s still a plush oriental rug I can see in the living room, and the same paintings of Jesus Christ hanging up on the walls, commissioned from a local artist and in Biblical chronological order: first the Nativity, then Him feeding the crowd of five-thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish, His arrival into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the Crucifixion on Good Friday, and finally, at the end of the hallway, His resurrection on Easter. In the living room they still have the big leather couch with the worn, sagging cushions. I don’t pause in my tracks until I see the mantel, the pale brick fireplace with the rough wooden board above it that displays family photos from years past. They haven’t taken any down since I left. I don’t know if that makes things better or worse.

I see that little boy who’s a stranger to me, a school portrait with a blue backdrop. His blond hair curls around the nape of his neck and he’s in a striped red shirt with a stiff white collar. One of his front teeth is missing. Then there’s the photo of my parents on their wedding day, age spots eating at the corners of the film. I see us as a family from when I was eight or nine, posed in front of autumnal trees at the pumpkin patch around October. We’ve never celebrated Halloween, though; just Harvest Festival because Methodists don’t condone pagan holidays. I’ll never forget the way my jaw dropped open in a World Religions class during my freshman year, hearing about yule logs and Christmas trees in ancient pagan rituals before Christianity ever spread to Europe.

I’m not sure why she isn’t here; I told her I’d visit around noon, and maybe it’s because I’m a couple minutes early, but it feels like I really shouldn’t be here. It gives me a start and a flinch when the door opens, and I see the familiar slender shape of my mother in her flower-print sundress, my breath hitching in my throat.

“Casey?” she calls out, and I blink fast to fight back sudden tears.

“Mama?” The sound of my own voice is jarring, because my mouth hasn’t formed the shape of that word in years.

She stands there unmoving at first, frozen in shock, her arms full of paper grocery bags. She practically drops them on the floor and I rush for her, and she doesn’t seem to notice or care that I look like everything she hates, the chunky combat boots and black ripped skinny jeans and the pierced ears, the dyed undercut and all the tattoos. She just gently weeps when she holds me in her arms, as I breathe in the scent of her perfume, face buried in the crook of her neck. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. What a stupid promise, I realize, because I still don’t feel like the prodigal son, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel like I’m home.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t visit sooner,” I apologize, blubbering, pulling away from her just long enough to look her in the eyes. “I didn’t know what to do, or say, or what… I’m so sorry. I missed you so much.”

She shakes her head as she laughs softly, and she kisses me on the forehead. I’m choking back a fresh wave of tears.

“Don’t be sorry,” she smiles, her voice cracking. “You’re back. That’s all I care about. I love you.”

We’re still both crying and rambling as I help her bring the groceries inside, even if the kitchen counters are lined with a condolence potluck from the entire town. I haven’t eaten since I stopped at a McDonald’s yesterday night, and she tells me to fix myself a plate. We settle down in the living room on the big ugly leather couch, and I tell her everything from the last four years between bites of glazed ham, stewed greens, and a cheesy hotdish with tater-tots. At first I try to mince the parts she probably doesn’t want to hear about.

Maybe we should be talking about her husband. She’s a widow now. But I can’t interrupt her when she excitedly asks how my classes are going, which ones are my favorites, how I did on my semester finals. As if it’s always been this way. It might be a façade, but it’s a lot better than anything I expected, and I’m grateful for it.

We don’t even talk about the funeral until later in the evening. She starts a pot of coffee and we sit out on the front porch, admiring all the flower arrangements people have left. The late-afternoon sky fades to dusk and I even see a young couple walking their dog along the sidewalk, probably the town heretics crawling out of their Sunday hibernation.

“The service is at noon tomorrow,” she says. There’s an air of somber dignity that I recognize from her, calm and practical even in the face of tragedy. It’s one thing I wish I’d inherited from her. “And the reception will be at the church, too. People have been very kind but I don’t want any more visitors at the house.” She pauses, peering down into her fragrant, steaming mug of coffee, the strong stuff cut with milk and sugar. I still drink mine black. “They already put an advertisement for a new pastor in the paper. Andy Scott’s son is about to graduate from Bible college and he’s going to come in this Sunday to do a message. He’s not permanent, though.”

I nod and drain the rest of my coffee from the mug. Deep down, I hate the unspoken relief that’s come from the man’s death. I’ve hated him for years, resentment festering inside me like an infection, but I still cried like a baby when I got the phone call from my mom at my apartment. He keeled over from an aneurysm one day at home—quick and painless, according to the coroner. I remember hanging up the phone and wishing I still believed in Hell so he could scream and burn in it for all of eternity. Just like he warned me about.

Sitting on the swing with my mother, though, my Mama, I don’t wish those things upon him anymore. I’m not not glad he’s dead; it’s more of a begrudging acceptance, I think. I don’t voice any of these thoughts to Mama, even though as we’re talking, I’m being more honest with her than I have in years. She asks hard questions and I answer them objectively, and sometimes all she does is nod before the subject changes.

“I’m seeing somebody,” I tell her, and I’ve been working up the nerve for it since the moment I saw her, but the worry is eating me alive. Everything else has gone smoothly, anyway. When I look up at her face, her eyebrows arch in pleasant surprise and she asks me something I never thought I’d hear her say in a million years.

“What’s his name?”

I have to clear my throat and play it off casually, because I guess this is how we’re doing things now. I keep telling myself that this is all real, it’s not just a dream, that maybe things are going to take a turn for the better for once.

“His name is Michael. He’s a psychology major, and we’ve been dating since the end of my freshman year. I’m a junior now. I think we’re going to be together for a while—there’s something really special about him.”

She nods thoughtfully. “I’d like to meet him someday, then.”

And that time I can’t hold back the tears, and she’s hugging me again, crying, too, telling me that she loves me and that she’s proud of me for standing up for myself even if she doesn’t believe in the same thing. What a hilarious sight it must be, a pierced, tattooed punk-rocker in scuffed Doc Martens being held like a little boy by his preacher’s-wife mother, both of them weeping and surrounded by memorial flowers on a quaint front porch. Good thing everyone else in town is praying at home.

Later that night, I call the motel and ask for a refund. I’ll be staying at Mama’s until I go back to college. When I knot my tie in the bathroom mirror the next morning, I think about taking out my black stud earrings. I do, and then I replace them with the nicer ones Michael got me as an anniversary gift last year. My hair is dyed black with a couple blue streaks, and my sleeve tattoos are covered up by my button-up shirt and coat, but an inked spiderweb and a few Roman numerals are visible above my collar. Still wearing my Doc Martens, because I’m too broke for dress shoes. And I like them better, anyway.

I stay for an extra day after the funeral service and the reception at the church. Next week is Easter, and Michael and I drive back to stay for the weekend. Mama hugs him as soon as she meets him and we all talk on the front porch like it’s how things have always been. She even brings out a bottle of wine that she pours into her nice thin-stemmed crystal glasses, and I don’t think she drank in front of me once when I was growing up. She sips from her glasses, giggles mischievously, and cracks a joke that makes me laugh a lot harder because it’s unexpected: “Look, the Baptists drink, too, but the difference between us is that they condemn it in public and do it in private. I think they forgot that Jesus turned water into wine at one point.”

I still get nasty looks from people I used to know when I visit home, especially when Michael comes with me and we walk around town together. And I typically go by the church cemetery and leave a flower bouquet by my father’s plot, even if it pisses me off. Ha. I’m being the bigger person. Something you could’ve learned a thing or two about.

I used to regret those tumultuous, nightmarish two years of living in my parents’ house, when I was sixteen and they found out that I’d kissed a boy. At church camp, no less. His name was Trevor. I saw him at the gas station during a trip back home once, walking out with a case of Bud Light in his hand as I was filling up my tank. He caught me staring and gave me a tight-lipped smile and a wave, the standard greeting for a stranger, because he definitely didn’t recognize me. Then I told Michael about the encounter when I got back to Mama’s house and we had a good laugh over it.

That’s what I do about most things, now. It’s either laugh at the absurdity or get angry at the injustice of it all, and the latter is what I used to do, but I’ve apologized to everyone involved and there’s nothing more to do—except poke fun at the memories of being raised in a town like this, because laughter that bubbles up from the stomach always spills out like pure, warm sunshine, a better cure for any ailment than I can imagine. It’s right up there with overpriced medication and therapy, at least.