sure what to do. There was no precedent for this: my father had never
visited my room before.
He strode past me and sat on my bed, then patted the mattress next
to him. I took my seat, nervously, my feet barely touching the floor. I
waited for him to speak, but the moments passed silently. His eyes
were closed, his jaw slackened, as if he were listening to seraphic
voices. “I’ve been praying,” he said. His voice was soft, a loving voice.
“I’ve been praying about your decision to go to college.”
His eyes opened. His pupils had dilated in the lamplight, absorbing
the hazel of the iris. I’d never seen eyes so given over to blackness; they
seemed unearthly, tokens of spiritual power.
“The Lord has called me to testify,” he said. “He is displeased. You
have cast aside His blessings to whore after man’s knowledge. His
wrath is stirred against you. It will not be long in coming.”
I don’t remember my father standing to leave but he must have,
while I sat, gripped by fear. God’s wrath had laid waste to cities, it had
flooded the whole earth. I felt weak, then wholly powerless. I
remembered that my life was not mine. I could be taken out of my
body at any moment, dragged heavenward to reckon with a furious
Father.
The next morning I found Mother mixing oils in the kitchen. “I’ve
decided not to go to BYU,” I said.
She looked up, fixing her eyes on the wall behind me, and whispered,
“Don’t say that. I don’t want to hear that.”
I didn’t understand. I’d thought she would be glad to see me yield to
God.
Her gaze shifted to me. I hadn’t felt its strength in years and I was
stunned by it. “Of all my children,” she said, “you were the one I
thought would burst out of here in a blaze. I didn’t expect it from Tyler
—that was a surprise—but you. Don’t you stay. Go. Don’t let anything
stop you from going.”
I heard Dad’s step on the stairwell. Mother sighed and her eyes
fluttered, as if she were coming out of a trance.
Dad took his seat at the kitchen table and Mother stood to fix his
breakfast. He began a lecture about liberal professors, and Mother
mixed batter for pancakes, periodically murmuring in agreement.