“Bullshit! This is all Dad’s fault.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything to him. Can you forgive me?”
“Stop that! You’re not the one who should be apologizing here!”
It didn’t matter what she said. I realized that you can’t forgive someone for this sort of thing. You can say you do, and even believe it yourself, but deep down you will never forget.
We rested our foreheads together and cried.
* * *
That winter, I needed Amina more than ever. Mom felt like crap and spent most of her time hiding in her office. Sometimes it seemed like she would rather talk to Amina than me. I got it into my head that she would have liked to trade me for Amina. While I brought disappointment after disappointment, I think Mom saw a lot of herself in Amina, the smart, good girl who never did anything wrong.
At the same time, Dad became more and more paranoid. He went through my pockets, my bag, and my room. He ordered phone records to see who I’d been calling. He went through the search history on my computer and demanded access to all my passwords.
I quickly developed strategies to meet Dad’s requirements even as I continued to live a relatively unrestricted life. I was over weed, but there was so much more: guys to kiss, nights to enjoy, parties to have. I let Dad go through my clothes, smell my breath, peer at my pupils, and believe he had insight into everything I was up to. It’s much easier to hide something when you give the impression of being transparent.
* * *
When the chatter about confirmation camp started going around, my ears pricked up right away. There were a lot of tempting rumors thanks to last year’s camp. Alcohol and sex and cigarettes. A ton of ungodly activities. And above all, the icing on the cake, a camp leader called Robin, who was, all sources were unanimous, the hottest being you could imagine.
The Christian elements of confirmation left me completely cold. Of course I didn’t believe in God, but neither did anyone else who was going to camp. Most of them didn’t care, as long as they got presents and a sweet week of camp. Maybe there was some higher power somewhere, but it had about the same significance in their teenage lives as whether there was life on Mars. I was about the only one who would take any sort of active position the few times questions of belief came up at school, and my hostile attitude toward the church and religion mostly had to do with Dad, of course.
I knew exactly how to lay it out. If Dad was given the tiniest shred of hope that I might develop an interest in the Bible, it wouldn’t take much to convince him.
“What do you think?” he asked Mom at the dinner table. It was only a few days before the application had to be turned in. “Should we let her go?”
Mom responded with an empty gaze.
“Don’t know. Maybe.”
Her standard answer of the past six months. She was sleeping poorly at night, ate like a size-zero model, and wandered around the house like a zombie. I had a hard time dealing with her apathy, not least because I felt responsible for it. Instead of putting my tail between my legs and trying to reach out to Mom, I pulled farther and farther away from her. Even if it was my behavior that had set Mom on a decline, it seemed to me it was her job to fix it.
“You’re the one who had me. I never asked to be part of this family.”
Childish? Sure, but I was practically still a tween.
When Dad talked about Mom’s exhaustion, that she had hit a wall and ought to take time away from work, I protested.
Mom dropped her fork on the floor and took an extra-long time to pick it back up. Dad bit his lower lip.
“She says she’ll work less, but she stays up late working every night. Don’t you get it?”
I could tell that Dad agreed with me, but he didn’t say anything. Was this some sort of strategy? Like, it was better for this to come from me.
In any case, it was soon decided that I would be allowed to go to confirmation camp. Mom and Dad agreed, they claimed, and I set about planning right away.
We brought along a variety of tobacco and alcohol products. When you’re only just fifteen, you can’t afford to be picky. Someone had filled a shampoo bottle with whiskey and liqueur from their dad’s liquor cabinet. Someone else had nabbed half a bottle of mulled wine from their grandma’s cellar. And a couple girls had managed to get a wino to buy them a small bottle of Explorer vodka. The cigarettes were hidden in our bags, wrapped in foil, packed up in plastic jars or tin boxes.
I still remember the feeling of freedom in my chest as the bus pulled out of the parking lot.
* * *