The First Ninety Days Ch. 04

Jon wanted to add that the frosty expressions on their faces were part of the reason they hadn't been informed, but he held his tongue.

"We haven't come to discuss why we got married," Caitlyn said. "We came to discuss why we got married soquickly—why we went from fiancée to spouse in a matter of hours. We wanted to... To share some observations with you."

"I can't think of anything you could say that I'd want to hear," said Mrs. Delaney.

And why do you think we'rehaving these problems, Jon wanted to say, but he didn't.

"Be that as it may," Caitlyn said with surprising calm, "there are thingswe feel we want to tell you. And we have agreed that it might be to your benefit to lis—"

"First off, young lady, there is no 'we,'" said Mrs. Delaney. "You are our daughter, and we haven't given you our blessing for this marriage. Until—"

"I'm sorry," said Jon loudly, "am I hearing that you are denying your twenty-year-old daughter her right, as guaranteed by law, to choose her own husband?"

"Mr. Stanford," said Mr. Delaney, speaking for practically the first time all night, "You are not helping your case with these outbursts. Kindly—"

In might've gone downhill from there if someone hadn't rung the doorbell. Mrs. Delaney looked up, annoyed. "Who in—"

"I'll get it," said Caitlyn, who had deliberately placed herself near the door. It was, unsurprisingly, Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy: that was what happened, when one's progenitors lived a mere two minutes' walk away.

"What areyou doing here," said Mrs. Delaney.

"We heard there was a party," said her father with a broad grin.

"How are you, Caitlyn," asked Grandma, giving her a hug. "It's hard to believe my tiny little granddaughter is all grown up."

"You're not the only one for whom it's hard to believe, Grandma," said Caitlyn, and Jon suddenly wondered if the old woman had said that just to set Caitlyn up for that response. Eighty though they were, and slow of movement, Mr. and Mrs. Cassidy were still too clever by half. He was just glad they were on his side.

Barely had the grandparents gotten settled (Jon and Caitlyn obligingly giving them half the couch) when the doorbell rang again. It was Uncle Max, followed mere moments later (while the door was still open) by Larry Pendleton. Jon (unasked) grabbed two chairs from the dining room to get them all seated, and of course it took some minutes to get Rex to sit down and stop drooling on everyone's pants. By now Mrs. Delaney was looking around with a wariness bordering on fear. All of these people (with the sole possible exception of Pastor Pendleton) had given her a piece of their minds regarding her treatment of her daughter at some point in the past couple of years. Caitlyn was clearly planning something. The question was, What.

"All right," said Caitlyn. "Now that everyone's here."

"I think it's a bit presumptuous to invite people to a house you don't even live in," said Mr. Delaney.

"It is," said Caitlyn. "But they're part of our conversation. If they leave, I leave."

Mrs. Delaney's face was stone. She didn't want these people here, but this was her best (and maybe only) chance at getting her daughter to abandon this folly, and Jon knew she knew it. They had been counting on it. "Then let's talk," she said.

"All right," said Caitlyn. "I wanted to tell you about how Jon and I met. We knew each other at Greenfield, but we weren't really friends until last March, when I took a risk and decided to open up to him. He was a psychology major, so I thought I could trust him. And so, I told him..." She drew a deep sigh—this was something that only Jon and Larry Pendleton knew. "I told him that I'd been thinking about killing myself."

There was a complete and absolute silence. Even Rex was still, his liquid eyes inexpressibly sad.

"Jon, of course, was alarmed. He'd never suspected that anything like this was even remotely true about me—"

"We never suspected!" cried Grandma Cassidy, who was, outside of Jon, probably Caitlyn's closest friend.

"I know," said Caitlyn. "I hid it from people. I didn't let on. I took a huge risk in telling Jon—one that paid off, because he was my loyal friend from then on and eventually a lot more—but for the most part I didn't tell anybody. And this was even after having friends at school—Brandon and Christa and all those—who had experience with this sort of thing. But I didn't know that at the time; I only found out after I'd told Jon." She gave him a smile. "Good thing for me that I didn't.""Funny," said Mr. Delaney. "When you invited them over last Christmas, they didn't seem that messed-up."

"Because theyaren't," said Jon sharply.

"Well, they must be," said Mrs. Delaney. "Who else would try something as stupid as suicide?"

"Why does a fox chew off its own leg," Jon retorted. "Not because it's stupid—because it's caught in a situation, in this case a trap, that will lead to its death, unless it somehow escapes. Sure, losing a leg is a crippling blow, literally—but better thatdying."

"Most of the time, suicide isn't about actually killing yourself," said Pastor Pendleton. "It's about asking for help. It's a rather backward but very effective way of telling the world, 'Look, I can't take this anymore, I need to escape, I need tochange something.' Maybe the person actually succeeds at killing themselves. Well, something's changed. Or, maybe their plea falls on the right ears, and someone, let's say Jon, steps in and tries to make things better. Well, something's changed. Either way you achieve your goal. But you're right about one thing: you don'ttry it unless you have nothing to lose. You don't try it unless something's really, really wrong."

"What could've been wrong?" asked Mrs. Delaney in anger. "Caitlyn, you had the perfect life. You won the Cartier Prize for Musician of the Year when you graduated. You're an excellent harp player, you're an excellent oboe player, you— Your grades were wonderful—"

"And was Ihappy with any of this?" Caitlyn retorted. "Did you ever stop for one moment and ask, 'Is Caitlynhappy with all this?'"

"Well— Well, of course, we—"

"You didn't." It was like an iron door slamming closed. "You took a quick look around and never thought to ask why I was wearing all black, or why I wanted to spend more time at school, or why—"

"Caitlyn, be fair," said Grandma Cassidy. "You're a very close-mouthed young lady. You didn't tellme these things until I'd been asking you for months."

Caitlyn took a deep breath. "Yes. Yes, that's true. I'm not the kind of person who speaks up."

"Well, then!" cried Mrs. Delaney.

"Do you know why?" Caitlyn asked.

Mrs. Delaney blinked.

"I'd like to recount a conversation to you, Mom. You may recognize it. You and I were sitting in the exact same places we are now, and I said to you, 'Mom, I'd like to talk to you about why Jon and I got married so hastily.' And you said...?" She gestured for Mrs. Delaney to fill in the gap.

"Well, I... Why, I'm sure that I asked for you to continue."

"You said, 'I can't think of anything you could say that I'd want to hear,' " said Jon.

"That isexactly what you said, Mom," Caitlyn agreed.

Mrs. Delaney looked at her husband, whose face was stone.

"Mom, Jon and I did something kind of stupid," Caitlyn said. "We've been working on marriage plans for almost as long as we've been dating, but when this crisis happened we jumped the gun. I don't regret it, not in the slightest, but I also know that if we had waited a few months or even aweek to get married, things would have been a lot easier. We're paying for it, now, as we speak, and we will probably continue paying for it for a long time.

"Knowing this, I came to you to talk about the subject—one which is sensitive and will probably result in hurt feelings. I came to you to try and strike up a real conversation. And look how you responded. That'salways how you respond, mother. So is it any wonder that I don't tell you anything?"

"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Mrs. Delaney. "My mother forced me to tell her things all the time—"

"And you appreciated it?" said Grandma Cassidy. "Did you truly now, Linda? I seem to recall a certain incident when you were twelve, where I forced you to tell me that you'd kissed Roger Gorman behind Building Twelve, and you threw beets at me and swore not to speak for me for a month."

Uncle Max laughed. Mrs. Delaney turned red.

"You may appreciate itnow," Grandma Cassidy said, "but at the time, youhated it. And you may remember that I didn't punish you, not for kissing Roger Gorman and not for wanting to keep secrets. I let your red face do that. If you're going to try to pin these problems onme, and on your terrible upbringing—Lord knows enough people try to do that these days—I will fight you on it, and you'd better believe my memory's sharper than yours when it comes to those times."

"So, we've established that I can't talk to you," said Caitlyn. "And I can't talk to you because you can't listen."

"Yes I can!" said Mrs. Delaney.

"Thenprove it!" Caitlyn shot back. "Listen to what I'm telling you!"

"I won't listen to you if you won't talk sense!" Mrs. Delaney declared. "I am not— I am not some stupidchild, to be confused with nonsense!"

"Are you?" said Uncle Max, who heretofore had been silent. His voice was gentle. "Then what happened to the older sister who used to tell me to grow up and admit that someone else could be right, and that I could be wrong? Now, obviously, that's an older sister's prerogative, but—" He gave a light laugh. "—sure looks bad fromthis angle, doesn't it?"

"Mrs. Delaney," said Pastor Pendleton. "What you are exhibiting is what my psychologist friend Ned Stanton calls, for better or for worse, 'the religious mindset.' He is a self-proclaimed scientist: he examines the facts, builds a hypothesis, and tests one against the other. If the hypothesis is false, he claims, the scientific thinker changes the hypothesis. The religious thinker, on the other hand, changes thefacts."

Grandpa Cassidy gave a great guffaw.

"Your daughter is currently presenting you with a number of facts that you find inconvenient," Larry Pendleton continued in a calm voice. "So you are choosing to ignore them. That's an understandable reaction—certainly, we all have things we wish were untrue—but ultimately a dangerous one. Because, if you ignore too many things, you risk losing touch with what is truly, honestly, actually going on. What would Jesus ask of you in this situation? Would he tell you to continue sheltering yourself and attending to your own safety at the cost of other people's feelings? Or would he tell you to step out, to tear down your safety and go out and love people and face the painful truth?"

"Back when I was in college, getting one or the other of my six degrees," said Uncle Max, "I heard of this guy named Ockham. Old English fellow. Designed a razor. This razor wasn't very good for shaving, but it was a useful in circumstances like these. Ockham's Razor is a mode of thought, or a philosophy: it says that, if there's more than one possible explanations for a thing, the simplest one is the most likely to be true.

"So, consider your situation. Your daughter has left the house. She is married and living on her own. She has all sorts of crazy ideas about why she left, and about the mistreatment she has evidently suffered at your hands.Your theory is that she's lying, trying to mess with your head—or, even better,Jon has somehow bewitched her and put ideas into her head to hurt you.

"That theory requires Jon to be a liar—which we know he is not—and furthermore requires Caitlyn to be susceptible to that sort of con—which we know she is not. The next theory, thatCaitlyn is lying, requiresher to be a liar—which we know is also not true. The final theory, that she's telling the truth, is the only one that stands up, because it requiresnothing. Except that you pull your head out of the clouds andlisten."

"How can you say that to me," said Mrs. Delaney. "Your own sister!"

"I can because someonemust," Uncle Max snapped, and Jon jumped involuntarily—he had never before heard this man raise his voice. "Linda, do you think this is theonly conversation we've had on the topic? Weall have our concerns over how you treat Caitlyn, especially after Nathaniel left the way he did. We all knowwhy he left, all of us but you, and there's a really simple reason for that. Want to apply Ockham's Razor tothat little conundrum?"

"It can't be true," said Mrs. Delaney. "Itcan't be."

"Oh," said Uncle Max. "So you're going to tell us we're wrong. Me, your brother, and your mother and father, whose advice you always turn to whenever you have questions. Larry Pendleton, whom you followed to another state because you respect him so much. Your own daughter, Caitlyn, whom you love more than life itself. You're going to stand here and tell us all that we're wrong."

"Mrs. Delaney, please don't think we're simply out here to hurt your feelings," said Pastor Pendleton in a gentler voice. "Because we're not. It's always hard to confront our own mistakes, especially ones that might've hurt someone we love. If we follow Christ, we will be sympathetic to you, and forgive you for your sins. But ifyou follow Christ, you mustface them first."

"Everyone's pointing you in that direction, Linda," said Grandma Cassidy. "Everyone's agreeing. Maybe it's something you should open your mind to."

Mrs. Delaney sat silent for a long moment.

"Tell me," she said.

Everyone relaxed, which Jon thought was a bit premature: she hadn't agreed to listen, only to hear. But everyone seemed to think it a victory. Had they really been that pessimistic about the likelihood of bending her ear? Maybe he should be more joyous.

"It starts with Nathan," said Caitlyn. "And, actually, we may be able to finish there, because everything else was more of the same. So let's start with Nathan. Do you know what he did?"

"Yes."

"Do you know howhe would describe what he did?"

Mrs. Delaney was silent.

"That's what I thought," said Caitlyn.

"I thought you said this was about you and Jon," said her father.

"It is," said Caitlyn. "Mom, could you describe what we did aswe would describe it?"

Once again, Mrs. Delaney was silent.

"So let's examine that difference," said Caitlyn. "Mom, I'd like you to describe, in your own words, what Nathan did."

"He packed up and left," said Mrs. Delaney immediately.

"All right," said Caitlyn. "What else? I seem to recall some words passing between you and him prior to his departure."

"Yes," said Mrs. Delaney.

"What were they?" Caitlyn asked.

"I... Well... He told us about a month before his departure that he was leaving. And I was very hurt that he hadn't consulted us or told us about it or asked our advice."

"And you had every right to be," Caitlyn said, surprising Jon and her mother both. "I've never lost a son, obviously, but I can imagine how I'd feel if Jon just upped and left me for no reason. But let me ask you: what would you have told him if he had actually asked your advice?"

"I... I would have... Asked him if he wanted help packing, or, or—"

"Really, mother? They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I think they're right. I'm not accusing you of lying," she added firmly, as Mrs. Delaney opened her mouth to protest. "I'm just saying that sometimes people mis-remember. So let me ask it another way. When Nathan told you he was leaving: if you could have told him just one thing, and had him obey it, what would you have told him?"

Mrs. Delaney opened her mouth.

"Honestly," said Caitlyn, and Mrs. Delaney shut her mouth.

She was silent for a long moment.

"I would have told him not to leave," she said.

"Why not?" Caitlyn asked.

After a moment, Mrs. Delaney said, "I didn't want him to."

"Why not?" Caitlyn said again.

Her mother flared. "What, is there anything wrong with wanting a son to stay close?"

"Nothing at all," said Caitlyn. "But as you yourself proved, a child can have their own family and still stay close to their parents. So, what other reasons did you have for wanting him to stay? Youshouted at him, mother. Something as simple as where he's moving doesn't provoke that kind of reaction. Why else did you dislike the idea of him leaving?"

"I... I was... Concerned," said Mrs. Delaney. "He's far away, he's in Idaho. It's hard for me to... To keep an eye on him."

"Yes, it is," Caitlyn agreed. "But I'm sure Nathan was aware of that. If he had wanted your eye on him, he could have moved somewhere closer. He didn't. He must have decided he didn't need your help."

"But what if he'swrong," Mrs. Delaney protested.

"Then he's wrong," said Caitlyn, "but isn't that his choice? It'shis life, to do with as he pleases."

"But he might make a mistake without someone to help him," Mrs. Delaney protested.

"So?" said Uncle Max. "There's nothing wrong with making mistakes, Linda. The problem is making them after you should know better."

"Look who's talking," said Mrs. Delaney. "You married the same woman twice."

"Yes," said Uncle Max easily, "I did. I'm very happy to have my wife back, and Larry and Heath are glad to have their mother back."

"I never understood what you saw in her," said Mrs. Delaney.

"Of course you didn't," said Uncle Max. "Nobody does. I didn't tell you most of what goes on between me and Velma, neither last time nor this one. I don't tellanybody what goes on, for the most part. And, for the record, I never quite understood what you saw in Roger Gorman, or Jim Pritsker, or any of the men you ever showed interest in. But I also know there's a lot you don't tell me, so I trusted you to make up your own mind, and to know, a lot better than I would, what's best for you."

"But it's not the same," Mrs. Delaney protested. "Ido know what's best for Nathan."

"Do you?" Jon said—a little more sharply than he had intended. But... This was just such a stupid idea! "Do you, really, Mrs. Delaney? Tell me, then: what do you know about being Nathan? What's it like to be Nathan? What does he think when he wakes up in the morning? What does he think when he looks in the mirror? What does he think when Caitlyn talks to him over the Internet? What does he think when he goes to work? What does he think when he goes to bed? Do you know these things?"

Mrs. Delaney was silent.

"If you don't, then how, in all honesty, can you claim to know what's best for Nathan? You don't know him anywhere near well enough to make such judgments."

"And there's nothing wrong with that," said Pastor Pendleton, sliding smoothly into the gap. "I have three children of my own, and they still surprise me every day. I don't know them well enough to predict their actions. And that used to bother me, until my wife Amber pointed out that there are only two people who can ever know or even have achance of knowing what a person will do before they do it: that person's spouse, and God. And even the spouse is wrong sometimes. Seeing as I am neither God nor my children's spouses, I have no chance. And that's something both Amber and I have had to accept, no matter how hard it was to do so—and believe me, it hasn't been easy."

"So, we've established that you wanted Nathan to stay," said Caitlyn. "And we've established that you were scared for his future—which is understandable. But let me ask you a question: how didyour mother react when you got married?"