Sunlight on My Shadow (7 page)

The thing was, I didn’t care so much about doing the wrong thing when I had the softening effects of alcohol in my bloodstream. Alcohol served as an effective off-switch to my annoying conscience. I was new to drinking. A few months ago, I’d been introduced to gin when, Lennie and Kurt, Mick’s friends brought some spiked cokes to a Glenbrook South tailgate party.

At first the taste was gross. I sipped it slowly. By the time the bottle was half empty, it went down easier and my body felt like marshmallow. My words came easily and seemed enlightened, on the verge of genius. I was finally the person I always wanted to be: confident and self-assured. I had a couple more. It was all good until the next morning, when I suspected that my drunken happy was more of an obnoxious blunder. I cringed with embarrassment. Did I tell Mick I wanted to be his forever? Oh, geez.

We were all underage, but we could score booze by waiting in the liquor store parking lot for a likely prospect. We approached the weathered wino-men who looked like they needed a drink or the very young, hip, and cool looking types. Mostly we put Mick’s friend Lennie up to it, because he was tall and looked the oldest. Lennie would do anything for a friend: he was a bit klutzy, hence the nickname from the character in
Of Mice and Men
. He was spontaneous, and a likeable guy.

Once I experienced the appeal of alcohol, it was cheaper and easier to lift it from my father’s liquor cabinet, which was well stocked for his poker parties. I took a little of each type to fill my 7-Up bottle so the lowered levels would go unnoticed: an inch of gin, one of vermouth, and just a splash of scotch. Dad drank the scotch; if the bottle was noticeably empty, it would be a red flag. Then came some Jack Daniels, Kahlua, and, to top it off, Cointreau. It was a nasty concoction, but we called it “Love Potion No. 9.”

If my line of morality was muddy, kissing and drinking were the combination that erased the line altogether. I walked out of my house on Friday evening with a freshly whipped-up bottle of The Potion.

My life would never be the same after this free-for-all open house party. It was September 30, 1966, uncommonly chilly and damp, like winter was in the wings. The parents were out of town, and there were beater cars lining the street. It was a teenaged free-for-all with no adults to keep us in line.

Mick and I started kissing on the couch and then he grabbed my hand and led me down a hallway. I was shy about anyone seeing us go into the bedroom, yet I was buzzed enough to ridicule myself for caring what other people might think and followed Mick to a room in the back of the house. Mick had gotten a condom from his friend John, so we wouldn’t have to worry about the “pulling out” routine. After we kissed a bit, he took out the “gift” and put it on. Perhaps it was stale and stiff, purchased years ago, safely tucked into John’s back pocket as it waited for its call to duty. Or maybe we didn’t have it on right: leaving some looseness in the tip. At any rate, the condom lacked integrity. And, maybe, so did Mick. Maybe he felt it, maybe he didn’t, but he failed to pause when the thing blew up inside me. I had no clue, but I thought it was awful wet down there if the rubber was supposed to be catching the fluids. I didn’t feel it break.

With wide-eyed surprise, Mick popped up when he was done. He held the shredded rubber between his thumb and forefinger, waving it like a dead mouse held by the tail. “Jude, look what happened,” he said.

After the party, I was morose and numbed by the alcohol as Mick drove the snowy roads back to my home. I stumbled into the house and knocked on Mom and Dad’s bedroom door to say, “I’m home.” I opened the window in my room to let the winter air freshen my drunken stupor, threw my clothes on the floor, and crawled under the covers. The electric blanket felt warm on my skin, but the inside of me felt like freezer meat.

Morning drifted in with a cloud of gloom. I could hear the tree branches scraping on the roof shingles from the heavy winds. Each time my heart pumped, I could feel it in the veins on the side of my head. My mouth felt like powdery sand. An aching thirst wrapped around my tongue and throat. Water, water, where was some water? I reached over to my French desk and fumbled for the glass. It had dust speckles floating on top, but I couldn’t get up for a fresh refill or I would puke. The more I drank, the thirstier I got. I might as well have been gulping air. Then I remembered the night before.

I drank too much. I lost my mind. I lost my protection. Was it true? Did it really happen like that? Did the rubber break? Even if my mind was foggy, my gut told me the nightmare was real.

Icy air blew the curtains on my window. I reached over and turned my electric blanket to high. I looked at the clock. It was 10:00 am. I hardly ever slept this late. I could hear Mom and Dad in the kitchen. Dad was on the phone making plans for a fishing trip, and Mom was wheeling around in her electric chair.

How could I face them ever again? The rubber shredded. How could that have happened? “That was one big boo-boo,” I thought. I could cry and I’m using baby language. This is no joke. It’s more than a boo-boo. More like a natural disaster. It would have been better if we used the pull-it-out routine. Sex felt a little better this time; there was no bleeding. I still felt dark. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

The truth smothered me like a soggy blanket. I sighed. I yawned. I couldn’t get enough air or water. I took another drink. I wondered how I could have let myself go along with the rubber idea. I screwed up. I was screwed. I am screwed. If only I could erase the reality. If only fairy tales were true. If only I could go back to sleep or back to last night and do it differently.

The horrible part was the feeling of blackness and filth that came with my lack of self-control. All the guilt I was squelching came forth in relentless stabs. After the first time, I kept telling myself over and over, “I’m not a virgin anymore.” My soul was blackened with mortal sin. I don’t know why I expected to have self-control. I never set out telling myself I wouldn’t do it. It just kind of happened. I didn’t think ahead. But yet, I beat myself up with my lack of self-control. It started back in second grade when I got those black marks on my report card for “lacks self-control” because I was talking to my neighbour. It was a long-lasting character flaw, branded right into my heart.

Now the real arrow struck the center of my soul—what about the chance of being pregnant? Oh, God, I couldn’t even go there. Another wave of nausea stabbed at my stomach.

I knew from the Maturation Booklet we got in seventh grade that on the fourteenth day after your period, you are fertile. When was my last period? I got out of bed and checked my notebook calendar where I marked my periods. They were always twenty-eight days apart, just like clockwork. The date circled was September fifteenth. Oh, God, NO. That was two weeks ago. I grabbed my feather pillow and stuffed it to my face so I could cry without Dad or Mom hearing me. I sobbed until the pillowcase had a puddle the size of a pancake, smeared with streaks of leftover black mascara.

“Judy, come on now,” I told myself. “Pull yourself together. Don’t jump to conclusions.” Then I prayed, “Please, God, just this one time. I promise I won’t ever do it again. Please let me off the hook on this one.” I felt a sense of comfort and knew He would answer my prayers. Up to now, I had almost anything that I really wanted in my life. This would be no exception. I mustered up some faith and started to believe it would turn out okay. “Lots of people have sex and don’t get pregnant,” I thought. “It can’t happen to me. If I get away with this, I will never, ever go there again. I promise, dear God, I will be pure until I get married someday.”

I felt some hope after praying. I felt that God must love me because He had been good to me. I could have been killed the time I fell out of Jeff’s Model T, but I survived with just some bruises. Even when I fell off the pier, Uncle Phil was watching and rescued me from the lake. God had been watching over me. I had been mostly a good girl too. I knew I had missed confession lately, but I would go back soon. What about those mornings when I got up in the dark, grabbed my white leather missal, and took the city bus into town so I could attend Mass before school started? I used to do that for weeks on end during Lent. God would remember that. I had some good deeds in my bank. I should be allowed a withdrawal. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. The inside of my head felt like there was a razor blade churning on the end of a drill.

I shivered from the open window’s icy breeze as I got out from under the warm covers. I found my robe on the floor and shuffled to the bathroom to find some aspirin. I put two tablets in my mouth and leaned over the sink faucet to fill my mouth. I swallowed. I crawled back into bed. The wind was wailing and moaning, shaking the window-panes. I pulled the covers over my head to get out of the draft and snuggled into a fetal position. I lay there awake until the aspirin dissolved into my veins and quieted the throbbing in my head.

Still in bed at 3:00 pm., I noticed that my fancy dresser had the skirt popped open, clothes dripping from the drawers. I was such a slob. The phone rang.

“Hi, Goonsfield. How are you?” It was Mick. I was annoyed that he sounded so cheery, like nothing happened, and that he was calling me that name. It was his term of endearment for me.

“Not so good,” I said. “I got the worst headache and I feel like I’m gonna puke.”

“Oh, man, me too,” he said. “I think we drank too much yesterday. That was a wild party.”

“God, if my parents knew why I was sick today, they’d kill me,” I said.

“Do they know you’re sick?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve been in bed all day, told ‘em I got the flu.”

“Do you think your dad noticed some of his booze was gone?”

“Oh, I don’t care about that. That’s the least of my worries. I have a monster headache.”

Then I started to worry about tonight when Dad went to pour himself the nightly scotch and soda. I didn’t take very much scotch, did I? Well, even if he noticed his scotch was low, I didn’t think he would suspect me. If he did, what would I say? It could have been someone else in the house who drank it, like Hugren, our housekeeper. But Dad knew she only drank beer. I just hoped he didn’t notice. Dad trusted me and would never suspect that I would steal or abuse alcohol. That thought made me feel short of breath, queasy. He didn’t trust me as far as boys went, but with booze he trusted me.

Mick didn’t bring up the breaking-rubber incident, and I couldn’t bear to go there.

“Do you want to go for a ride later?” he asked.

“No, Mick, I feel too rotten. I think I’ll just stay in bed.”

The rest of the evening I ached with the ominous feeling that something was terribly wrong. I knew what it was. I knew an impending disaster was on the crest. I rode the fear like a seesaw. My thoughts went from crushing worry to pleas to God that He would dispense my sins and make it so I got my period in two weeks. That was when I promised God I would say 500 rosaries the day my period started. Then I thought that wasn’t good enough: I had to show my faith in His answer to my prayers and pray the 500 rosaries right now. I would start tomorrow and make a tally sheet. I even considered promising to join the convent. Then I wondered if that drastic a bargain was all that necessary and if it really would make any difference. Then I decided, no, I couldn’t go that far: 500 rosaries, if that didn’t work, the convent wouldn’t work either. I would say 500 rosaries now, and if I got my period I would go to Mass every day for a year. I felt better, like I was doing what I could to make my period happen. I could hardly wait two weeks to get the good red news.

Three weeks later, I had become a bathroom junkie. My trips numbered up to ten a day. I didn’t have diarrhea or a urinary tract infection. Those would have been simple to cure. I didn’t go in there to smoke cigarettes or do drugs. I just went in to look. I looked for my salvation.

I knew I should pay attention in class, but the dates for history’s milestones had no relevance to me. Perhaps I had a learning disability specific to American history. Sister Mary Joseph didn’t pause to ask us questions, for that would be too engaging and interesting for her students. She was bent on sucking us into her gray and plain life, spewing mundane historical facts. Sister’s voice droned into a solid hum. My eyes wandered and fixated on her pale lips; crusty deposits of spittle had accumulated in the corners of her mouth.

I had to flee. My mind returned to my looming problem. What if I was pregnant? My father would kill me. The kids at school would shun me. Nobody in my school had ever gotten pregnant. We just didn’t do those things. I was a freak. I was preoccupied with my state of dryness down below. I wanted to feel a gush of red coming forth and didn’t even care if it messed up my whole uniform and everyone saw. Oh, how I wanted those cramps. Now I noticed there was an ever so slight emerging wetness. I detected that old familiar cramp in my lower gut that always came with my “friend.”

Hope pumped through my veins with adrenaline of impending relief. The moist feeling was like a lottery ticket with the first four numbers matching. I raised my hand. “Sister Mary Joseph, may I be excused?”

I quietly closed the door behind me and shuffled past a neat row of classroom doors. I liked the feeling down there; it was even a little cold from the wetness. I wallowed in gratitude. The rosaries had worked. This meant I would go to Mass every day for a year. I would do it with joy every day, recalling how I had escaped the holocaust of doom.

The Regina halls were painted white; the floor was shiny gray linoleum, smelling like freshly applied floor wax. It was silent and empty. Everyone would be in class for ten more minutes. I picked up my pace as I cut the corner by the library. A silver plaque with black letters read, “GIRLS.” I leaned my shoulder into the swinging door. The familiar creak heightened my anticipation.

I chose the stall all the way at the end of the row. I closed the door and slid the metal latch into the slot. I lifted my pleated uniform skirt and sat down. With my underwear at my knees, I leaned over to take a look. It was dark in there. I squinted and saw a hint of pink there in the wetness. I moved my body to let more light shine in. Blessed day! Pink was the precursor to red. The sight made me giddy. Mass, here I come. Rosary beads—they’ll be a permanent fixture between my fingers. I looked again. What was that squiggle shape to the pink? A simple pink clothing thread was responsible for the color that smeared the white wetness.

It had been ten days now that I had been coming in and out of this bathroom during every class change and even during class. Truth replaced my fervent wish with doom. My period was seven days late now and I had always been on time in the past. I couldn’t kid myself. The worst possible nightmare was true. I was pregnant. My body bent in half as I muffled the sobs that erupted from my chest. I let the tears drip down until they fell and collected in a pool on my brown penny loafers.

A few weeks later, my breasts were sore. Then I remembered this is what happened just before I got my period. Like a one-armed man dangling from a cliff, I held on to the impossible. I prayed on my way to school, on my way home from school, before my nap, and at night when I went to bed. I prayed that my monthly friend would visit. I couldn’t admit it, but with each passing day I came to know that the sore breasts really meant my body was preparing to nourish a baby.

Then the nausea set in. As I rode to school in a car full of Regina girls, I hung my head out the window, gasping for the fresh but frigid air. The cigarette smoke made my stomach turn. It would be too conspicuous to tell them to put out their foul-smelling sticks, so I hung my head out like a floppy-eared dog.

“Judy, close the window. It’s freezing in here,” Diane said.

“I can’t. I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”

“You should stay home then. Do you have the flu?”

“No I just kinda feel sick—it’ll pass.”

I crammed my body to the car door and pointed my nose farther out the window. My mouth tasted like metal and watered profusely. My stomach needed food, but I couldn’t eat breakfast. Nothing tasted good. By lunchtime I managed some cracker and cheese packets from the vending machine, then washed it down with a Coke. This became my lunch routine.

By the time I got home from school, the nausea had eased and I was famished. I began a love affair with the round, red and white box: Quaker Oats. The gummy porridge soaked up the foul acids welling in my gut. It was my saving grace: creamy, gooey, glorious oatmeal, two heaping bowls.

After my tummy was full, I became unbearably tired and longed for a nap. Each step up the stairs was like walking through water; fatigue had its grip on my muscles. Sleep came fitfully, but as I finally slipped away, the black cloud lifted. Most of my dreams had to do with some sort of conflict I was frantically trying to solve, like finding my math homework when I knew I did it, or being called on in class and realizing I forgot to get dressed that morning and was horrified that I was naked.

When I first woke from a nap, I’d feel deliverance at the end of my fitful dream, but this was short-lived as the predicament of my waking life settled its darkness on my heart. Something was not right. I would ask myself just for an instant, “What was it?” Then I remembered—I’m pregnant—and the dread squeezed like man-hands on my throat.

Then my thoughts turned dark. What about that coat-hanger abortion I learned about in the movie at school? One girl was performing her own abortion and she ended up on the verge of death. Then I thought, “No, as much as I hate my life right now, I still don’t want to die.”

The debilitating shame froze all action as I waited for some miraculous turn of events. In the meantime, the baby continued to grow. When the period-producing prayers failed, I prayed for a miscarriage, but it seemed God had forsaken me.