“Amen,” my mother and I said in unison. I glanced up at President Ford on the wall. His smile seemed tinged with anger.
My father read the paper during dinner and my mother didn’t speak. I wasn’t hungry but I ate everything on my plate. After I cleared the table and helped my mother do the dishes, I returned to my room.
I’d heard about depression before but couldn’t conceive of what it felt like until that week I spent in my room. I was tired all the time but I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t read. I didn’t want to sing or listen to music or even watch TV. Not that I could have anyway （the TV was in the den and the hi-fi was in the living room）。 I wondered if I was a bad person for having deceived my parents, or if I was a bad person for allowing myself to criticize my parents for being racist （and square!）。 But I couldn’t not feel critical. I was unable to unsee what I’d seen of them this summer.
On Sunday morning, my mother came in without knocking and woke me for church. I had fallen asleep when the sun was already up, so likely had only slept an hour.
“I expect you to wear pantyhose with your dress today.” My mother was as upright and stiff as a broom. This was her way of telling me she was still angry and I was still being punished.
“Okay.”
“And I want you to stand in the front row of the summer choir. You need to let the congregation know you haven’t changed.”
“Okay.” I had changed. But what would anyone see? That I knew my parents were racist? That I now understood that cleanliness and order were nice, but giving love, feeling love, and showing love trumped housework? That I had seen that adults weren’t always right and could be just as confused and make just as many mistakes as kids? That I knew that when people messed up, they still deserved our love and affection? That I had been listening to amazing music made by many different kinds of people? That I was certain that sex wasn’t just something to be ashamed of or to hide, and that some people navigated it in ways I’d never before imagined （open marriage!） and that didn’t make them perverts? That I’d experienced how good it felt to wear a bikini and feel air and water on my skin? Or that it was okay when I thought of a penis while looking at a cucumber （or a zucchini） and knew I wasn’t a sex addict?
“If anyone asks you about the picture in the paper, I want you to say that you were working as the summer nanny for Izzy Cone and just happened to be pulled into the picture.”
“Okay.”
“If they ask why you were in that neighborhood, I want you to tell them that Dr. Cone had requested a certain record that was only sold there.”
“Okay.” I couldn’t imagine anyone other than my mother asking why I was in that neighborhood, though maybe someone would ask why I was in the photo. The caption below the photo had said that Jimmy and Sheba were “passing through” town, and that they loved Baltimore and loved Night Train Records: The Greatest Record Store in America. No one else in the photo, besides Gabriel, was named, though the caption did list a couple of the records Jimmy and Sheba had bought.
“Do you have a pair of pantyhose with no runs?”
“I’ve got a new pair of suntan-colored L’eggs.” They were sitting in the white plastic egg they were sold in.
“Good. Store them neatly back in the egg when you’re done with them.”
“Okay.” In sixth grade I went to a slumber party where the birthday girl took all her mother’s L’eggs pantyhose eggs and handed them out so the empty open halves could be used as fake breasts under our nightgowns. One side of the egg was slightly pointy and one was round, so we swapped until we each had a matching pair.
“And maybe a hat.”
“Mom. It’s 1975. No one wears a hat but the eighty-year-old ladies.”
My mother was unmoved. “We need to restore your reputation.”
“You’ve never worn a hat to church. The only hat I own is that pink one Grandma Dillard gave me and I’ve only ever worn it in Idaho.”
My mother looked at the ceiling as if she were working this through. “Fine. Pantyhose. And no runs!” She shut the door behind her when she left.
The kids at Sunday school acted like they hadn’t seen me for months, though I’d only missed a single week when we’d been at the beach. They were all cute and funny, but I was missing Izzy terribly and would have rather not seen any kid if I couldn’t see her.
Mr. Forge, the choir director, was also excited to see me. “Mary Jane! You were fraternizing with Jimmy and Sheba!”