wagon, watching Mother’s face bulge and distend, unable even to touch her
because electrified cables were sending a deadly pulse through the metal.
Out of shame or anger, I fled. I drove without stopping back to BYU. My
father called a few hours later. I didn’t answer. Screaming at him hadn’t
helped; maybe ignoring him would.
When the semester ended, I stayed in Utah. It was the first summer that I
didn’t return to Buck’s Peak. I did not speak to my father, not even on the
phone. This estrangement was not formalized: I just didn’t feel like seeing
him, or hearing his voice, so I didn’t.
I decided to experiment with normality. For nineteen years I’d lived the way
my father wanted. Now I would try something else.
I moved to a new apartment on the other side of town where no one knew
me. I wanted a new start. At church my first week, my new bishop greeted
me with a warm handshake, then moved on to the next newcomer. I reveled
in his disinterest. If I could just pretend to be normal for a little while, maybe
it would feel like the truth.
It was at church that I met Nick. Nick had square glasses and dark hair,
which he gelled and teased into neat spikes. Dad would have scoffed at a man
wearing hair gel, which is perhaps why I loved it. I also loved that Nick
wouldn’t have known an alternator from a crankshaft. What he did know
were books and video games and clothing brands. And words. He had an
astonishing vocabulary.
Nick and I were a couple from the beginning. He grabbed my hand the
second time we met. When his skin touched mine, I prepared to fight that
primal need to push him away, but it never came. It was strange and exciting,
and no part of me wanted it to end. I wished I were still in my old
congregation, so I could rush to my old bishop and tell him I wasn’t broken
anymore.
I overestimated my progress. I was so focused on what was working, I
didn’t notice what wasn’t. We’d been together a few months, and I’d spent
many evenings with his family, before I ever said a word about mine. I did it
without thinking, casually mentioned one of Mother’s oils when Nick said he
had an ache in his shoulder. He was intrigued—he’d been waiting for me to
bring them up—but I was angry at myself for the slip, and didn’t let it happen
again.