I thought of my dorm room—of the murky walls and frigid tiles, but also
of the sunflowers Drew had sent, and of the textile wall hanging a friend from
Zimbabwe had brought from his village.
Mother said nothing. She stared at the dirt, her eyes glossy, her lips pursed.
Dad prodded me for a response. I searched myself, reaching deep, groping for
the words he needed to hear. But they were not in me, not yet.
Before we returned to Harvard, I convinced my parents to take a detour to
Niagara Falls. The mood in the car was heavy, and at first I regretted having
suggested the diversion, but the moment Dad saw the falls he was
transformed, elated. I had a camera. Dad had always hated cameras but when
he saw mine his eyes shone with excitement. “Tara! Tara!” he shouted,
running ahead of me and Mother. “Get yourself a picture of this angle. Ain’t
that pretty!” It was as if he realized we were making a memory, something
beautiful we might need later. Or perhaps I’m projecting, because that was
how I felt. There are some photos from today that might help me forget the
grove, I wrote in my journal. There’s a picture of me and Dad happy,
together. Proof that’s possible.
When we returned to Harvard, I offered to pay for a hotel. They refused to
go. For a week we stumbled over one another in my dorm room. Every
morning my father trudged up a flight of stairs to the communal shower in
nothing but a small white towel. This would have humiliated me at BYU, but
at Harvard I shrugged. I had transcended embarrassment. What did it matter
who saw him, or what he said to them, or how shocked they were? It was his
opinion I cared about; he was the one I was losing.
Then it was their last night, and still I had not been reborn.
Mother and I shuffled around the shared kitchen making a beef and potato
casserole, which we brought into the room on trays. My father studied his
plate quietly, as if he were alone. Mother made a few observations about the
food, then she laughed nervously and was silent.
When we’d finished, Dad said he had a gift for me. “It’s why I came,” he
said. “To offer you a priesthood blessing.”
In Mormonism, the priesthood is God’s power to act on earth—to advise,
to counsel, to heal the sick, and to cast out demons. It is given to men. This
was the moment: if I accepted the blessing, he would cleanse me. He would
lay his hands on my head and cast out the evil thing that had made me say