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Show 7?o I've had too many of my own." Although we had visited 'the school' before, Brian and I had some difficulty finding the turn-off in the dark. We arrived well after the program and made our way into the lower story of the sprawling building where group meetings were held. The big room was decorated in powder blue and white - AuntElsa's handiwork making it seem as elegant as a reception hall. On the speaking platform was the wedding line, people thronging so that I couldn't see Melissa or my father. My mother sat at the palino in a pastel green dress, playing soft music; people milled around eating and talking. The group was gregarious enough among themselves, but they were reserved and even sullen in their suspicion and fear toward outsiders. I was watching to see how I would be treated - as a member or an outsider? Since my teen-aged years, I had been regarded with suspicion, but unable to determine the source of the veiled hostility, I had assumed that group members only responded to the hussy my father had seen. Now that I understood something of their motives -- the Paranoia and extraordinary need for a self-righteous aspect toward the world -- and now that I understood more about myself, that I was a complicated but basically well-intentioned person, I wondered if I would be treated differently, or would the staunchest members maintain the severe expressions which lacked only the high lace collars and black broadcloth suits and beards to counterpart photos of our Mormon ancestors? |