Chapter 4

My mother has always been particularly susceptible to what I will cautiously call spiritual advice. Simply put, she was always on the lookout for a guru who promised to lead the way to a better, more satisfying life. She consulted spiritual guides who earned their money by promising to put people who participated in their seminars or meditation and transformation workshops in touch with their true nature, their inner child, or whatever they longed for at any given moment. My mother would practice with one for a while, frantically driving from one weekend seminar to the next until her mood switched. Then, she would demonize those she had blindly followed and been slavishly devoted to. This inevitably happened when she was supposed to apply what she’d learned with the guru to real life. The exalted guru was suddenly unmasked as a charlatan whose seminars were simply a cash grab. My mother was ready to change everything and everyone—just not herself. Dad and I watched her spiritual journey take her from tarot card readings to primal scream therapy to systemic family constellation workshops in which entanglements from previous generations are resolved to make peace with the ancestors. Behind her back, Dad called all of it exorcism.

The latest craze was the Force at Your Center seminar given every first weekend of the month in the forests west of Tacoma by someone who claimed to be a Puyallup tribal elder. Far from modern civilization, there would be access to the inner force during meditation and discussion groups—or something like that. My mother was totally enraptured after the first weekend. She was convinced she had finally found the holy grail and was only a few weekends away from true bliss. Dad and I were all too familiar with this initial euphoria, and we secretly bet on how long it would last this time. I hoped it would be over soon. The pervasive stench of incense for her meditation exercises was almost unbearable. Our house reeked more than a New Age bookstore.

This was another weekend on which my mother drove off to her woo-woo find-your-inner-force seminar, meaning basically I had the run of the house because Dad would be in his shop late into the night, fiddling with his 1966 Stingray Corvette. Having Seth over seemed obvious.

It rained buckets that Saturday afternoon, so we cooked together, ate in front of the TV, and binged on Tarantino movies. When Four Rooms ended and Seth started to play Pulp Fiction, I decided to take matters into hand. When he sat down on the couch next to me, I spread a wool blanket over us and cuddled up to him. I laid my head on his chest while I took his hand and kissed it. Then, I looked up, kissed the side of his neck, and traveled with my mouth along his cheek to his lips.

“What are you doing?” he asked grinning. I flung a leg over him as my answer and sat in a riding position on his lap. Then we really kissed. He grasped my hips with his hands. I slipped my arms around his neck, and our tongues began to play with each other. Suddenly, his mouth broadened into a grin.

“Stop it. We’re going to miss Pumpkin and Honey Bunny,” he said, looking past me at the TV.

Really?

“What’s wrong, Seth?” I asked in a surprised tone. I looked straight at him, but I was still sitting on him—not an ideal position for a clarifying talk. So, I slipped off his lap.

“Why? What do you think?” he answered innocently.

I took a deep breath. OK, time to face the music.

“Why don’t you want to sleep with me?” I squeezed out in a voice that was anything but firm.

Seth’s demeanor hardened. He let his head drop and stared at his hands. He didn’t say anything. I moved away a little, putting space between us.

“Why not?” I asked again.

He took a deep breath. “I don’t think you want to sleep with me.” In the background, Samuel L. Jackson was starting his scriptural jumble about the path of the righteous man.

I looked at him startled. “But I do, Seth. I want to,” I answered with honesty and vulnerability. Hadn’t I told him long ago with my body language? As I saw it, I virtually threw myself at him.

Suddenly, he raised his head and looked at me. Thousands of emotions played across his face.

“Do you even know how I feel because of that?”

The way he said that left no doubt he meant our failed attempt at sex.

He stood up quickly. “Like a loser!” he answered his own question.

“Don’t, Seth,” I said, standing up to put my arms around him. He didn’t defend himself but also didn’t respond to the hug. He just stood there rigidly, letting me touch him.

“Please don’t say that,” I whispered. “It wasn’t your fault . . .”

“Really? Really? ‘It wasn’t your fault, it was my fault.’ Are you really going to say that?” His tone flipped in seconds from sad to angry.

“What do you want to hear?”

“Nothing, Annie. Just nothing at all.”

“Do you think I wanted it that way?” I snapped at him. “Don’t you think I imagined it differently? Don’t you think I feel shitty because of it?”

Seth was silent for a minute. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said quietly while looking into my eyes.

The longer we looked at each other, the more a feeling between anger and determination grew inside me.

“I . . . ,” he started, but I clasped his face between my hands.

“Shut up,” I commanded, letting my lips fiercely impact on his. He stood there motionless, but I continued to kiss him and dug my fingers firmly through his hair until he let out a subdued cry of pain. I saw something spark in his eyes. He took me by the hips, deepening the kiss. Stumbling, he maneuvered me to the couch. It had to work this time. If this went wrong again . . .

Suddenly, Seth turned rigid, and he stared at me through narrowed eyes. He was breathless. So was I.

“What’s the matter?” I wanted to know.

I followed his look down to discover that I was pressing my arms against his chest, keeping him at a distance. I hadn’t even realized I was doing this. Seth took a step back to create an unbearable chasm between us.

He stared at me, then swallowed with an effort.

“See? You don’t really want to sleep with me,” he said in a sad, flat tone. He was out the door before I even was able to recover from the shock.

He didn’t answer his phone. When I called his house, Holly told me Seth had driven back to Bellingham. I left countless messages on his voice mail and asked, no, pleaded with him to call back. He didn’t. To be honest, I couldn’t hold it against him. I couldn’t make sense of my behavior. It puzzled me to no end why I’d taken that defensive posture. Sheer nervousness? The pressure that it simply had to work this time? Was I still not ready? Or, was Seth right that I just didn’t want to? The carousel of thoughts churned in my head, and I didn’t get a wink of sleep that night.

Sunday was one of these foggy, damp, and chilly days I’ve experienced hundreds of times in Lakewood. As so often, the mood outside reflected the feelings inside me. Sadness. Mourning. Loneliness.

In the shower, I decided not to call Seth anymore. I’d begged enough. When he was ready to talk, he’d call. I did see his name on the display late in the afternoon. It took all my willpower to not answer at the first ring. I looked at my phone, counted to ten, and only then pressed “Accept.”

“Hello?” I said as if I didn’t know who was calling.

“Hi, Annie.”

“Hi, Seth.” It was impossible to miss the longing in my voice.

“Sorry I didn’t pick up yesterday. I just was so . . . confused.”

Confused? Suddenly and without warning, a rage took hold of me. My temples pounded. My cheeks flushed. Suddenly everything came bursting out, and I couldn’t hold it back.

“Oh, you were confused? What do you think I was? You let me stand there like an idiot after I’d thrown myself at you, and then you took off for Bellingham without saying a thing. I had to call your mother to find out where you were.”

Seth was silent for a moment. “I know.” The tone in his voice slowed me down.

“I was worried,” I finally said.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry about?”

“Worrying you.”

I snorted. “Is that all you’re sorry about?”

“Of course not! Do you think I wanted it to turn out this way?”

“I have no idea what you want. You’re not talking to me.”

“Stop it, Annie.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop being so mad.”

“Oh, now I’m mad? You’re the one who took off!”

“I . . . I need . . . some time to myself,” he said.

His words thrust a knife into my chest. I stood there slack-jawed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I could hear Seth let out a long breath. “That I’m staying in Bellingham for the time being.”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

“No,” he quickly answered. “I just need some time to reflect a little.”

I was silent.

“Annie?”

“What do you want to hear now?”

“I—haven’t got a clue,” he said quietly. I could imagine him rubbing his face in frustration. “I’ll call again, OK?”

“Do that,” I retorted curtly and hung up. It took all my self-control to not throw my phone against the wall.

Because I didn’t know what to do with my rage, I fished my old running shoes out of the closet and went jogging. Or better put: I ran until I no longer could, then walked home. I spent the rest of that stupid Sunday in bed. At least I was home alone, so no one was bothered when I alternatively cried and screamed my rage into my pillow.

By the next morning, most of my anger had evaporated, and an oppressive melancholy enveloped me like a fog. School dragged on forever, and tutoring in the afternoon used up the last of my questionable strength. When I’d finally gotten through it all, I slipped with a sigh into my old Toyota Corolla and puttered home. I just wanted to sleep.

If I’d known my day had been a cakewalk so far compared with what was to come, I would have just kept driving.

The sickly sweet stench of jasmine incense stirred a wave of nausea as soon as I walked through the front door. The next thing to assault me was that music—if that’s what you want to call the strange nature sounds that mixed with the droning hum of a deep male voice and oozed out of the stereo speakers. My mother sat at the kitchen table. She never did that.

“Hi,” I said, almost sounding like it was a question. What I really meant was: Are you approachable?

She pushed out her chin like she always did when she was about to clobber me with some prepared speech. I sighed. What would it be this time? I wasn’t doing enough housework? My marks weren’t good enough for her? She thought one of my girlfriends was bad company? None of that made sense. We’d discussed my parents not supporting my studies. So, what darts and arrows were in store for me this time?

“Sit down,” my mother said coldly.

I slowly settled into the chair, not letting her out of my eyes. She couldn’t withstand my stare. Apparently, she wasn’t comfortable. My mother likes being attacked so she can retaliate without restraint. A clear, objective discussion is not one of her strengths. Like always when I saw her in this state, when I saw how uncomfortable she felt, I felt a spontaneous urge to say something to make her situation somewhat more bearable and to offer her an opening for a conversation. Like: How was your weekend? Or something else that essentially didn’t interest me. But right now, I had neither strength nor inclination. To be honest, it was even too much for me to be sitting at the table with her. So, I was silent and looked at her unperturbed.

Suddenly, my mother drew in a fast, deep I’ll-just-say-it breath.

“This just has to be said,” she started in a narrow-lipped way. “I cannot and will not continue as before.”

She looked at me as if she were waiting for a reply from me, so she could interrupt me and really let loose. I said nothing. She clenched her teeth, taking another I’m-so-determined breath.

“You’re an energy thief, Anna-Marie, and I’m no longer willing to let you suck me dry.”

“A what?” At first, I didn’t grasp what she had just said. It sounded too absurd. Like something one says in a dream but is complete nonsense once one wakes up. Like: The blue grasshoppers always sit at the back of the bus. Then I saw her ice-cold green eyes: she really believed what she’d just said.

“You’re an energy thief, and I’m no longer willing to let you suck me dry,” she repeated, pounding out every single word.

The unexpected pain came sharp and fast. An iron fist gripped my heart.

“What?”

“You’ve sponged off me long enough. Look for someone else to suck dry.”

“What?” I asked again. My eyes burned.

“It hurts to be confronted with the truth,” she commented on my tears. “But to continue to grow, you first have to look reality in the eye.” Her words sounded hollow. Like some practiced mantra. This wasn’t real, wasn’t honest. It was only hurtful.

It took ages till I found my voice again.

“When, if you’d please tell me, did I suck all your energy?” I asked sobbing.

“When?” She raised her brows as if my question were indolence. “Your entire life. You’ve been doing it since you were a baby. You live at the expense of others.”

I opened my mouth but hadn’t a clue what to say. Another disbelieving “What?” was all I could muster.

She closed her eyes and breathed out for a long time, almost as if she were meditating. “Maybe you don’t yet understand, but, when you think about it, you will recognize the truth. You must learn to draw your strength from yourself.”

I couldn’t quell my tears, but, still, I raised my eyes and looked at her.

“Why are you doing this?”

“You will thank me one day for this . . .”

“Why are you doing this to me?” I cried. “Why don’t you love me?” I sobbed my ugly cry, and my nose began to run.

She handed me a tissue like a therapist might. “You must learn to draw your strength from y . . . ,” she repeated her mantra, but I swatted the tissue aside, jumped up so fast that the chair tipped over, ran out the door, and let it slam shut behind me.

I had no idea where I was going, and I really couldn’t see through the veil of tears and darkness. As if that wasn’t enough, it was pouring. I drove around, turning from one street to the next. Aimless. The only thing I felt inside was a sense of being alone in this world. The feeling of being loved by no one. I briefly considered driving to my father’s repair shop. But, like always, he’d tell me I knew what my mother was like and she’d calm down eventually. He treated her like a bomb about to explode and defusing her was everybody else’s problem. Which basically meant: stay quiet, take cover, wait her out.

Suddenly I heard his voice in my head: Of course, she loves you, she just doesn’t know how to show it. No, today I couldn’t bear the way he always defended her. My next thought was to drive to Seth in Bellingham, but I rejected that idea quickly. I didn’t even know if we were still together. Before I even registered it, I’d turned into Corinne’s driveway, shut off the engine, and put my head on the steering wheel. I listened to the rain hit the car roof with thick, heavy drops. The uniform noise enveloped me, comforting me with the feeling of being invisible. I don’t know how long I sat there. I was startled when someone tapped against the window. I hastily wiped my face with my hand before looking up. Corinne’s brother was looking through the window, completely soaked, wearing jogging pants and a hoodie. Colin opened the door, took my hand, and pulled me out. For a moment, we just stood in the rain. His worried look rested on my teary face. Then he pushed me under the house’s awning.

“What’s the matter?”

I looked at him, started to cry.

“My life is shit!” It was a bit melodramatic, but that’s how I felt at that moment. It was all totally shitty.

He took me in his arms without saying a word and pressed me tightly against his firm chest. I exhaled a quiet sigh. I couldn’t remember when I was last held like this. I put my arms around his waist, leaned against him, and inhaled deeply. Safety. Comfort. Friendship. It felt awfully good. I closed my eyes when he put his finger under my chin and gently raised my face. Then he kissed me, and I let it happen.