That Time You Were Gone
By Wendy Lestina

My mother is a Christian Scientist and my father refuses to be wrong. The philosophic difference between the two, as far as I have been able to discern, is that my mother believes bad things do not exist and my father believes bad things do not exist because he says so.

When Bret was six and I was four, my father announced he was buying us a horse. At the Mexican’s ranch near town, a chestnut mare nuzzled Dad when he rubbed her nose.

“This one,” he said.

“This one best,” said the Mexican. He led a bay over for my father’s inspection.

“No,” said my father. His lips curved.

The Mexican stroked the mare. “This one,” he said, “she don’t look so good.”

“She looks fine to me,” my father said.

The Mexican shook his head. “Nobody here we don’t think she look too good.”

My father chuckled, took his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket, and withdrew a handful of bills.

The next afternoon, the Mexican drove a horse trailer up the hill and unloaded the mare in the corral. Dad took the reins and led her around the arena. She stumbled, shied, and stumbled again. The Mexican had spoken truly. The mare didn’t look so good; in fact, she didn’t look at all: she was totally blind.

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“What was the deal?” I asked my father. I was driving him to a doctor’s appointment, the third one that week, three afternoons I’d  X-ed in the office calendar. Once a year, my mother retreats to a mind-and-spirit seminar in North Carolina. While she is gone, my father goes to the doctor.

“There was no deal,” my father said. “Just be thankful you’ll never have to go to war.”

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The yellow linoleum floor of the convent kitchen was worn in front of the woodstove. I crouched by the warmth and watched black clouds billow above me. When the nuns put us to bed, Bret cried. A year later, we were sitting on our stools eating egg sandwiches when my mother walked in with bright red lips. I yelled, and a chunk of celery lodged in my throat. I coughed until I threw up. Outside, my eyes hurt. We sat in the back seat of a station wagon and I saw sweat on the patch of tanned neck between my father’s hat and the collar of his suit. We were driven to a house on the side of a mountain where the trees were as tall as my bedroom window. I could hear Bret cry at night, or maybe it was only the first night.

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When the war had been over long enough for a measure of forgiveness, the movies made a national confession: behind the tear-stained V-mail were English, French, Greek, Italian women. My father had been a paratrooper at Anzio. I squinted up at Gina Lollabrigida, Sophia Loren, Pier Angeli, and chose Anna Magnani as my father’s wartime mistress, the one he must have honorably forsaken to return to us. My father and Anna Magnani. It didn’t hurt so much.

“I have unresolved anger about 1946,” I said to my mother. We were storing lawn furniture in the summerhouse. “My therapist says I have abandonment issues.”

“That’s just too bad,” my mother said. She shoved a wicker chair against the wrought-iron table. “Your father and I - our marriage - you need to grow up.”

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“How’s your arm?” Tuesday’s appointment had been with Dad’s primary care physician, who used to be called Jack.

“Much better.” My father wriggled his wrist. “He gave me a cortisone shot and told me to keep it exercised."

“Back to the club.”

“I’m not sure I’ll play golf again, Kit.” He was whispering. I was changing lanes.

“Don’t be silly. The pain will go away.”

“There’s no pain.”

“Well, then.”

“Kit, do you believe in God?” He was staring ahead intensely, as if his concentration were the sole navigational instrument in the vehicle.

“Dad?”

“Do you believe in God? You know, I haven’t, until recently.”

I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, what my father believed. We passed the entrance to the orthopedist’s office.

“God is whatever we want him to be,” I said. “Or her.”

Dad had never trespassed on our souls. When I confided to him that I was getting a divorce, he didn’t ask why, although I knew he would question my mother later. Not that she knew, either. I had tried to tell her one afternoon while she was setting up a drive off the second tee.

“Alison makes me very happy,” I said. Mother paused, laid her driver on the turf, and walked over to where I was holding her bag of clubs.

“You are such a lovely woman,” she said.

I laughed. “Mom, I look like you.” “Yes, you do,” she said. “Sweet Kitty.” She removed a five-iron from the bag. “I don’t think I’ll use my wood. Maybe I can clear the sand.”

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