rejected, and that God would punish me for applying, for trying to abandon
my own family. But whatever the outcome, I knew I would leave. I would go
somewhere, even if it wasn’t to school. Home had changed the moment I’d
taken Shawn to that hospital instead of to Mother. I had rejected some part of
it; now it was rejecting me.
The admissions committee was efficient; I didn’t wait long. The letter
arrived in a normal envelope. My heart sank when I saw it. Rejection letters
are small, I thought. I opened it and read “Congratulations.” I’d been
admitted for the semester beginning January 5.
Mother hugged me. Dad tried to be cheerful. “It proves one thing at least,”
he said. “Our home school is as good as any public education.”
Three days before I turned seventeen, Mother drove me to Utah to find an
apartment. The search took all day, and we arrived home late to find Dad
eating a frozen supper. He hadn’t cooked it well and it was mush. The mood
around him was charged, combustible. It felt like he might detonate at any
moment. Mother didn’t even kick off her shoes, just rushed to the kitchen and
began shuffling pans to fix a real dinner. Dad moved to the living room and
started cursing at the VCR. I could see from the hallway that the cables
weren’t connected. When I pointed this out, he exploded. He cussed and
waved his arms, shouting that in a man’s house the cables should always be
hooked up, that a man should never have to come into a room and find the
cables to his VCR unhooked. Why the hell had I unhooked them anyway?
Mother rushed in from the kitchen. “I disconnected the cables,” she said.
Dad rounded on her, sputtering. “Why do you always take her side! A man
should be able to expect support from his wife!”
I fumbled with the cables while Dad stood over me, shouting. I kept
dropping them. My mind pulsed with panic, which overpowered every
thought, so that I could not even remember how to connect red to red, white
to white.
Then it was gone. I looked up at my father, at his purple face, at the vein
pulsing in his neck. I still hadn’t managed to attach the cables. I stood, and
once on my feet, didn’t care whether the cables were attached. I walked out
of the room. Dad was still shouting when I reached the kitchen. As I moved
down the hall I looked back. Mother had taken my place, crouching over the
VCR, groping for the wires, as Dad towered over her.