hours later entered Palmyra. Near the grove, off the highway, there
was a shimmering temple topped by a golden statue of the angel
Moroni. Dad pulled over and asked me to cross the temple grounds.
“Touch the temple,” he said. “Its power will cleanse you.”
I studied his face. His expression was stretched—earnest, desperate.
With all that was in him, he was willing me to touch the temple and be
saved.
My father and I looked at the temple. He saw God; I saw granite. We
looked at each other. He saw a woman damned; I saw an unhinged old
man, literally disfigured by his beliefs. And yet, triumphant. I
remembered the words of Sancho Panza: An adventuring knight is
someone who’s beaten and then finds himself emperor.
When I reflect on that moment now, the image blurs, reconstituting
itself into that of a zealous knight astride a steed, charging into an
imaginary battle, striking at shadows, hacking into thin air. His jaw is
set, his back straight. His eyes blaze with conviction, throwing sparks
that burn where they lay. My mother gives me a pale, disbelieving look,
but when he turns his gaze on her they become of one mind, then they
are both tilting at windmills.
I crossed the grounds and held my palm to the temple stone. I closed
my eyes and tried to believe that this simple act could bring the miracle
my parents prayed for. That all I had to do was touch this relic and, by
the power of the Almighty, all would be put right. But I felt nothing.
Just cold rock.
I returned to the car. “Let’s go,” I said.
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?
In the days that followed, I wrote that passage everywhere—
unconsciously, compulsively. I find it now in books I was reading, in
my lecture notes, in the margins of my journal. Its recitation was a
mantra. I willed myself to believe it—to believe there was no real
difference between what I knew to be true and what I knew to be false.
To convince myself that there was some dignity in what I planned to
do, in surrendering my own perceptions of right and wrong, of reality,
of sanity itself, to earn the love of my parents. For them I believed I
could don armor and charge at giants, even if I saw only windmills.
We entered the Sacred Grove. I walked ahead and found a bench
beneath a canopy of trees. It was a lovely wood, heavy with history. It