Chapter 16

"I'd rather go back to the orphanage to live, than spend another five minutes here, discussing Brenda. Maybe that's what you need to do, Mama, send me back, and go find another boy, one who would be happy to start all over again with Brenda."

I stood up from the table then, asking to be excused, and half ran, half walked, to the front door. I heard Dad calling after me, and I heard my mother, angrily yelling at me, demanding that I come back, so she could finish discussing this with me. I ran out into the front driveway, wishing it was winter instead of summer. It would be another hour before it got dark, and I really wanted to be alone somewhere in the darkness. There are some emotional states that seem to require darkness, and I found myself in one of those. I was already crying, convinced that the pattern of behavior that had plagued me my entire life, had once again returned. This time, the everything I stood to lose, actually meant something to me. In my mind, this was happening because, once again, I'd allowed things to get too good for me, and losing all of it was going to be my punishment.

I had come to realize something else though, that it wasn't just outside forces that controlled this happening to me. I was almost always the one who set up these all or nothing confrontations. What I'd just said to Mama, was a classic example of how I did that. There was something inside me that seemed to hate it whenever things were going well for me. It was almost like I was my own worst enemy.

The situation with Brenda was bad, and I did need to do something, take some action, but it certainly didn't need to be as drastic as what I had proposed at the dinner table. I'd gone through these same situations at St. Cecelia's, a hundred times before. It always started out as something small, a contest of wills, or my deciding not to do something, something that I'd been willing to do in the past. The thing that got it going would be quickly forgotten, as it turned into an angry confrontation over who was in control of me. Always before, in these confrontations, I had been willing to pay any price, to suffer any punishment, to ensure that, in the end, I was the person in control of me.

Never before though, had I had anything important to lose, not compared to what I now had. I now had a family. I didn't care that much about the lifestyle or the money that I stood to lose, but, I had been accepted as a son and nephew by Mama, Dad, and Uncle Bunny. I loved all of them. I believed they all loved me too. Was it really worth so much to me, this need to be in control?

I had been walking and thinking for a long time. I was already on the other side of town, with no idea of where I was heading. It was starting to get a little darker now, more in keeping with my brooding thoughts. I kept coming back to something I had always known in the back of my head, that none of this had much to do with Brenda. She was the focus of it, but it was always more about the relationship I had with Mama, and the need each of us had to get their own way. Our styles were different, but in the end, it was simply a contest of wills. I was the immovable object, and she was the irresistible force. Classic confrontation model. Given my life to that point, one filled with adult female authority figures, and my history for being willing to pay any price for retaining control over my thoughts and actions, something like this was bound to occur. It had already occurred once before, but that time, we had reached a temporary solution, one short of total estrangement. That had been arranged by Dad and Uncle Bunny though. Mama and I had little to do with salvaging anything from that.

I started building walls up in my mind, walls I thought I could hide myself behind. My first wall was Brenda. I wasn't going to let anyone but me dictate how much or how little we had to do with each other. Mama could hope all she wanted to, but I wasn't going to permit her to scheme, or to force me to keep a relationship going with Brenda. Unless Mama respected my decision on this, she wasn't going to be able to reach inside my wall, to get back into contact with me. I didn't know that she'd want to, but I did know she couldn't penetrate this mental wall I'd erected. No one ever had been able to do that. The second wall I built was to keep out Brenda and Emily. I didn't need for it to be as strong, because all I was trying to protect was my heart. With Mama, it was my heart and my mind, but my heart was already filled with love for her. She could have my heart, but not my mind. The third wall I built was the hardest for me, but it was a wall I'd built many times before. This was the wall that kept me inside, preventing me from reaching out to others. With this wall. I'd be emotionally insulated again. I'd used this wall for most of my life, closing myself off from caring about others. Maybe not from caring, but from showing them anything I might feel for them.

I looked at my watch, it was ten thirty, and I had completed construction of all three of my walls. I felt an emotional numbness. My legs were tired from my long walk, but I knew now where I was, and where I'd been heading. I was on the road to Holton, no more than six or seven miles from the Clement Academy. I wasn't sure if they'd even let me into my old apartment. I still had clothes and other belongings in my room, stored there until the new school year began. There were at least sixty boys staying at the Academy over the summer. These were kids who lived too far away to go home for vacation, or ones whose parents didn't want them home for one reason or another. Most of these were in "Search Hall", but I knew Jerry was staying year round also.

When I got to the academy, one of the 'special counselors' intercepted me, and asked me what I wanted. I told him I'd returned to school early, and that I was tired and wanted to go to sleep. Since my name was still on the student lists, and because my room was still in my name, he let me into the building. I went in, going right to bed, not waking anyone else up.

It was Wednesday before Uncle Bunny found me. He had called out to the Academy, to try to get names and phone numbers of any friends I might have made at school. When he identified himself and asked for the information, the administrator's secretary told him I was back in residence at the academy. I'm not sure why he did it, but Uncle Bunny didn't tell Mama or Dad that he'd found me. Instead, he drove out himself, to speak with me. I was surprised when they called me over to the administration building, and I saw Uncle Bunny standing beside his car, waiting for me.

"I'm not going back there!" Uncle Bunny didn't say anything. "I don't want to see them anymore. You'll just have to get another boy for them."

"Nobody wants another boy, Kenny. You have to stop thinking that way. Do you think you're some kind of interchangeable part, someone that we can all plug in, and unplug, whenever we feel like it? Your mom and dad have been worried sick about you. Bertie's been in her room ever since you left. The only reason she isn't under a blanket in her closet, is because she needs to be alert, so that we can tell her when you're found. I came out here as soon as I found out where you were. You've really had all of us worried, Kenny. I have a message from your mother. She asked me to let you know this, as soon as I found you. She gives up. No more Brenda, no more interfering in that part of your life. You can do what you want to about Brenda, and she won't say or do anything to change whatever you decide."

Just like that, it was over. I had won. In the past, my winning had never been a reason for celebration. At best, it was simply a cessation of punishment, or some nun deciding to take no further notice of my recalcitrant behavior. When Mother Superior had been forced to take notice of one of these situations, and get involved herself, there had always been a time when I'd find myself standing in front of her desk, with her going into a big, long explanation, which she claimed was for my benefit, letting me know that, while I was wrong, they simply didn't have the heart to continue punishing me any further. Instead of further punishment, she always told me, the sisters were all praying for me, and hoping that God or Jesus would change my behavior for them.

After Uncle Bunny told me what Mama had said, I started crying again, partly in relief, and partly in sorrow that I had caused all of this to take place. It was a good thing that Mama gave in, because I had already learned that those walls I'd built up, somehow weren't working. They only worked when you didn't actually love people, or when those people didn't love you back. It was something I had used at the orphanage, to pretend to be stronger than I was. I needed to be emotionally detached, to appear more self sufficient than I really was. I could still run away inside my mind and hide, I just couldn't do it without feelings now. I had lost the ability to do that. I was now just as vulnerable as anyone else. Maybe that had always been true, but now I knew that it was. I felt exposed.

"I can't just go back there, not after this. I need some time to think about things. Tell Mama I love her, and I'm sorry, but I need to still figure a lot of things out. This thing with Brenda is causing me problems, and I need to get myself to where I'm able to accept what happened better. Right now, I'm very angry."

"That's certainly understandable, Kenny. All of us are angry about different aspects of this situation. Several unfortunate events had occurred in your absence. Walt and Georgia have separated, with Georgia and Brenda occupying the apartment we keep in Bolling. Walt and Richard remain in their home. Walt is aware of what went on at your house this past weekend, and that Georgia was an actual sponsor for Brenda's activities. Emily Carstairs has been coming over to the house or calling there, at least five or six times a day, asking about whether you've turned up. She is blaming herself for everything that has happened. Tommy has been rather upset as well. First, by your absence, but also at Bertie for orchestrating this whole debacle. I find myself in complete agreement with him. None of this should have been allowed to happen."

"Uncle Bunny, I'm not sure if I should even tell you this, but Mrs. Connor told Mama that she was your father's daughter." I expected him to get really excited when I told him that, but he simply smiled at me.

"I assumed that she might have. It was really the only answer that explained Bertie's recent actions, and her sudden concern for Georgia and Brenda's welfare. Another dark family secret revealed to you, Kenny. Sometimes I wonder at the many complications we're all so busy throwing at you. For purely selfish reasons, I've tried to keep this last piece of information from Bertie. I knew, if she ever had her suspicions confirmed, that our mother might have had a motive for suicide, she would find some way to make Mother's suicide somehow her fault. I didn't want that, and I didn't care to deal with the other questions this raises about my relationship with Georgia. It is too complex for me to understand it, let alone for me to try to explain it to someone else."

"You already knew? Mrs. Connor told Mama you didn't know. Mama thinks you don't know."

"Of course I knew. Do you think I would have submitted to that vasectomy if I hadn't known the reason for my father demanding I have it done? I knew about it before he ever told me. What he said, merely confirmed for me what Georgia had told me years before. The attraction I had for Georgia was too strong for me to resist. I've tried, many times, to resist it, but, in the end, it is something I have been unable to get completely away from. I worry that you might be developing a similar attraction for Brenda. While we're talking about this, there's another family secret. This is one Bertie almost certainly hasn't shared with you. Vasectomies are reversible. Two years after I had mine, I thought I might marry another woman, one that I was then seeing pretty exclusively. I had always wanted children, but not so much that I was willing to stand up to my father, or to give up Georgia. I had mine reversed. Georgia and I are both reasonably certain that Brenda is my daughter. Part of that near certainty is the timing of the pregnancy, and part of it is the profusion of recessive genetic characteristics that Brenda has shown. Her hair coloring being one example of this."

"Mama doesn't know?"

"I'm certain she has suspicions. I'd be surprised, given Georgia's recent revelations to her, if that topic hadn't also been raised, and discussed, at some length, by the pair of them. If she does believe that Brenda is my own, natural daughter, then her surrender to you concerning this situation with Brenda, is an even greater act of love."

"If Brenda is your daughter, you've sure got a spoiled child. She doesn't care about anyone else, just herself, and what she wants."

"I don't disagree, not from what I have found out about some of her recent activities. On the other hand, knowing all of this, weren't you also indulging her, as long as this meant you were getting what you wanted?"