Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [59]
Whitney had other problems too. She was working too many hours and worried about balancing her time. She loved her boyfriend, but they fought almost daily and Whitney wanted to talk about improving that relationship. She didn’t bring these things up with her mother because she was certain she’d be blamed for her troubles.
At the end of that first session we all met together. Evelyn said, “The basic problem is I don’t respect Whitney’s morals.”
Whitney said, “No. We need to communicate more. I need you to understand me.”
Evelyn was white-lipped as she talked. “I’ll never approve of what you’re doing. That’s not the way things were done in my family.”
I thought to myself, But Whitney is not you and the world isn’t the same. I searched for a way to end the session on a positive note. This was an unusual case because the mother had broken her bonds with the daughter. Evelyn seemed more fragile than Whitney and more rigid in her thinking. Until Evelyn felt better about herself, she couldn’t care for Whitney. Evelyn needed more friends and interests, a life besides waiting for Sam to come home. I asked if Sam could come with them next time, and I complimented Evelyn on her honesty. I would have to nurture her before she would nurture her daughter.
Chapter 6
FATHERS
My father grew up in the Ozarks during the Depression. He was a good-looking, slow-talking Southerner. He left the South for World War Two, and his military service took him to Hawaii, Japan and, later, Korea. In San Francisco he met and married my mother, who was in the Navy. When I was young, he attended college on the GI Bill and developed a taste for big-band music and trips to Mexico. But he remained Southern in his beliefs about race and women until he died in 1973.
I was his first child and he insisted I be named Mary after the Blessed Virgin and Elizabeth after the English queen. He woke in the night to check on my breathing. By the time I was six months old, he had a Benny Goodman record that he played when he came home from work. I would hear that record and flail in my crib. He would pick me up and dance me around our small living room.
When I was five he taught me to fish. We walked to a pond filled with bluegill and sun perch. He hooked a worm on my line, sat beside me waiting for a hit, and then he helped me take the fish off the hook. He untangled line, chased away snakes and picked off the ticks I acquired en route to the pond. We could sit all afternoon along the bank, listening to frogs, watching turtles and filling a gunnysack with keepers.
He taught me to drive a blue 1950 Mercury on the back roads of Cloud County. Smoking Chesterfields and drinking Dr Pepper, he sat beside me, his black curly hair blowing in the breeze. He was an anxious teacher, always grabbing the wheel and shouting, “Steer, steer, goddammit.”
When I was twelve I told him I loved the smell of new books. I said I loved to hold them to my face and breathe in their aroma. He looked alarmed and said, “Don’t tell anyone that. They’ll think you are a pervert.”
When he and my mother drove me down to the state university, he was full of advice. “Don’t date anybody but freshmen and don’t get serious with them. Don’t get in with a crowd that smokes or drinks. Stay away from foreigners. Don’t get behind in your studies.” When he left he hugged me, his first hug in years, and he said, “I’ll miss you. I talk more to you than to anyone else.”
I had my last conversation with my father the day before he died. Much to his relief, I was married. He called to see if I had passed my comprehensive exams in psychology. I told him yes and he was pleased. Then I begged on—people were coming to dinner and I needed to fix a salad. He said, “I’m proud of you.” The next day he had a stroke and went into a coma. I was with him in the ICU when the machines bleeped to a stop.
My father was the best and worst of fathers. He would have given his life to save mine. He was embarrassingly proud of my accomplishments and naively certain that I would succeed. But he had a double standard