I'm Glad My Mom Died(73)

“Wait, Jennette, this is good work. Important work.”

“I’ve gotta go,” I repeat over my shoulder as I pull open the door and speed out as quickly as I can.

Tears fall down my cheeks while I drive home, trying desperately to process everything. Laura suggested that Mom was abusive. My whole life, my entire existence has been oriented to the narrative that Mom wants what’s best for me, Mom does what’s best for me, Mom knows what’s best for me. Even in the past, when resentments started to creep in or wedges started to come between us, I have checked those resentments and wedges, I have curbed them so that I can move forward with this narrative intact, this narrative that feels essential to my survival.

If Mom really didn’t want what was best for me, or do what was best for me, or know what was best for me, that means my entire life, my entire point of view, and my entire identity have been built on a false foundation. And if my entire life and point of view and identity have been built on a false foundation, confronting that false foundation would mean destroying it and rebuilding a new foundation from the ground up. I have no idea how to go about doing this. I have no idea how to go about life without doing it in the shadow of my mother, without my every move being dictated by her wants, her needs, her approval.

I pull up to my lonely house and sit in my car with the engine running. I pull out my phone and draft an email to Laura.


Laura, thanks for all your help this past month, but I will no longer be attending therapy. Thank you, Jennette.



My finger hovers over the send button for a few seconds before I tap it abruptly and click off my phone. I rush up my front steps and, once I’m inside, run to the bathroom. I make myself throw up repeatedly. I jam my fingers down my throat harder and harder and harder until I cough. Some blood comes up. I keep going. Vomit streaked with blood pours out of my mouth and into the bowl. It slides down my arm. Chunks of it get in my hair. I keep going. I need this.

I take a bath afterward, attempting to relax. By the time I get out, my body feels achy and feverish, the same way it feels after every purge.

I crawl into bed with my sore, tired body and curl into a ball. I swipe open my phone. Three missed calls from Laura and one voicemail. I delete Laura’s number. I guess I won’t have a plus-one for my next event.





73.


I’M STANDING BY THE DOOR, running my hands along my pants anxiously as Steven’s taxi pulls up in front of my house. Steven got a project out here in LA—a six-month project—and he’ll be staying at my place the entire time. We are living together. This is huge. And that part’s great, it really is.

The part that isn’t great, however, is the part where I have to tell Steven that I’ve quit therapy. I have no idea what his reaction will be, but I’m sure it won’t be good since he’s the one who instigated it in the first place.

He opens the cab door and spills out of it in his crewneck sweater and chinos. The cab peels away as Steven bounds up the steps with his canvas bag and rolling carry-on. He’s got more energy than usual. Steven is not typically a bounder. Steven is typically a saunterer, a wanderer, a sidler. I figure the extra energy must be from how excited he is to see me, which compounds the guilt I already feel about telling him the news. Once he gets through the front door, he scoops me up into a big squeeze.

“?‘Jenny, Jenny bo Benny Banana fanna fo Fenny Fee fy mo Menny, Jenny!’?” He sings while he flings me around.

I start to do the jingle back but bail halfway through because… it’s a lot. Steven sets me down and I brace myself for what I’m about to do. I’m gonna tell him. I’m gonna do it.

“Steven…”

Before the words can come out of my mouth, Steven starts talking a mile a minute about how excited he is—but not about being in LA, not about the project he’ll be working on, not about us living together. None of the things I expect him to be excited about. Steven says he is excited… to take me to church.

Church? I haven’t been in a church since Mom’s funeral, and I didn’t plan on going back to one anytime soon (ever). I know Steven grew up Catholic, but supposedly his family never even went to service. I didn’t think religion carried any sort of significant weight to him even in his youth, let alone nowadays. I’m confused. Steven explains.

“I don’t know, I just feel like there’s more to life. More depth, more meaning.”

I don’t understand the connection. How does Steven expect to achieve more depth through Catholicism? I don’t want to tear him down while he’s so lit up, so I throw on my best gentle tone and remind him of our early dating conversations, where he seemed to agree with me that religion is a thing that stunts growth, not a thing that promotes it.

“Right.” He nods. “But I completely disagree with that now.” Okaaaay. I ask him to elaborate.

“Well, I saw God’s Not Dead on Netflix, and it really resonated with me. I just think there’s a lot of truth to it, Jenny. A whole lot of truth. And I want us to try going to church. I want us to try finding some kind of religion.”

“Hang on. You saw a shitty Christian movie on Netflix and now you want to abandon your whole life philosophy for Jesus?”

My tone hurts Steven; I can see it in his eyes. There’s a moment of silence. I start to wonder if Steven’s okay. He doesn’t seem like himself. Then again, we’re only a few months into our still very-new relationship. Maybe this shift is the natural shift that occurs when the honeymoon phase is over. Maybe this is who he truly is.