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Show in my father's house/ 204 and irritated that I was wearing trousers instead of a dress for my entrance into God's kingdom. "I don't know why I didn't think to make you something appropriate," my mother had apologized as we left the cottage. My father placed an arm around my shoulders and took my right hand with his. "Are you ready?" I paused and the fears of my sleepless nights throttled my brain. Would my baptism push them away or bring them closer? Would my father hold me under long enough to stifle them? Would he hold me under too long? I felt bent beneath his remote gaze, felt he held me too surely, too tightly. I wouldn't be able to struggle or save myself. I trembled. Certainly he would not let me drown. But something in me would die as Marie had - the child that believed in going home would drown and drift heavenward. Only a grown-up would surface and stand in the lake. There would be no more simple mistakes or white lies; there would be only sins. I would be washed of my childhood - my hearfelt world of hope and miracles, of things quickly broken and mended - into the world of adults, with evil all about. But I was not grown! I felt an impatient tremor in my father's fingers, heard him hiss as he studied the clouds. My body quaked. It was too late to turn back. "I'm ready," I gasped. Afterward, I felt clean and refreshed, much as always after a dunking. My father had not kept me under for more than a second, and none of my parts had bobbed the surface. Then I saw my mother |
