The First Ninety Days Ch. 02

"We have time!" said Dacey brightly.

Caitlyn looked at Jon, feeling a sinking in her gut. Jon had been pushing her to start telling people. She knew what he was going to say before he said it, and he did not disappoint her.

"Do you trust them?" he asked.

Well,that was a loaded question—they were right here in the room, after all! But there was also that thing about 'Thou shalt not lie.' "Yes."

"Then I think you should tell them," said Jon.

"You think I should tell them."

"I think you should tell them all of it," said Jon.

Caitlyn closed her eyes. "I was afraid you might say that."

Jon was not a self-disclosing person by nature either, but he knew the value of trust. It was he who had taught her that the basis of all friendship is vulnerability, that the only way to start a true friendship was to tell the potential friend something they could use to hurt you. Before that, though, you had to choose the right person—which Jon was a lot better at than she was. Evidently he trusted Dacey and Gerald, and even Mrs. Lippmann, evidently—if he hadn't, he wouldn't have said to go for it. But it wasn'this family at risk, or his reputation, if any of this somehow got to Mrs. Delaney through the grapevine.

"You don't have to tell us anything you're not comfortable with, Caitlyn," said Dacey, sitting down in the nearest chair.

Oh yes I do, Caitlyn thought. "I know," Caitlyn said.

All right.

"I don't know how much you know about myself and my family," Caitlyn said. "I mean, I know what we show to the outside world, but, as with most families, that's not half of what actually goes on."

"Is this something we want to hear?" Gerald asked. "Is this something that might possibly change opinions, hurt feelings, undermine respect... That sort of thing?"

"Yes," said Caitlyn bluntly, "but I wouldn't be speaking of it except in direst need."

Gerald nodded. "So, in other words, we didn't have this conversation. Nobody knows anything about you or Jon or Linda or Sam Delaney that isn't apparent on the surface. Are we agreed?" He looked around the circle and got a confirmation from everyone. This was an old policy with the church's small groups: that anything could be spoken of, in strictest confidence. Caitlyn had never expected to be the person speaking. Caitlyn had never wanted to be the person speaking.

She didn't try to explain the truth of her need: not to be heard, but to speak. She needed—Jon was right about this, she realized—she needed to be able to speak out and have her opinion be respected. She needed to be confident her voice would be heard.

"Well, as I'm sure you know, my brother Nathan moved to Idaho the summer before last, a year after he graduated. What I'm sure youdon't know is the circumstances surrounding that move. I'm sure you don't know it because, to my knowledge, none of us have ever spoken of it." Well, Nathan had probably spoken of it to his girlfriend Shanelle—no, hiswife Shanelle, now—but Boise was a little far away. "To explain the events of the last twenty-four hours, I need to speak of it now.

"When you saw the four of us in church, you saw a happy family. We were all of us active in the church, and especially in music." Nathan with his ebullient confidence; her father as implacable as an iceberg; her mother, first teaching the children's chorus and then moving on to head the bell choir; and Caitlyn herself, as harpist, pianist and oboist. "What you didn't see was how strictly my mother controlled us. Her word is absolute law in the house, and if you try to protest you just get in worse trouble, even if you're right. Either you fall in line or you get squashed.

"There wasn't much way to resist. We couldn't appeal to Dad because he always just kept silent. Or, if he did speak up, it was to agree with Mom. Even if Nathan and I were to ally together, Mom would just ground us both. She had all the power, and all we could do was cry about it." Which they had. Or at least she had.

"It wasn't so bad until Nathan went to college. We were both home-schooled, so for a long time we figured that things at our house were just the way things were. But then he got out, and two years later I got out, and we both discovered that things could be really, really different. You could raise your kids on television. You could be permissive. You could be strict. You could be overprotective. You could be loving. You could be so busy with your job that the only way you could relate to your child was by buying him toys. Or, more often than not, you weren't any of them, but rather a little of all of them. You were normal."

"This is all enlightening," said Gerald, with his usual gift for tact, "but how does it relate to that ring on your finger?"

"Don't worry, I'm getting to that," said Caitlyn.

"After we started meeting other kids and finding out what their lives were like, the rebellion really picked up. Nathan and I realized just how much we disliked the way our parents were raising us, and he at the very least told them that in no uncertain terms. Mom's response was to ground him for a month, and furthermore declare that, since he was a child, he was not allowed an opinion on the matter." Nathan had raged and stormed and slapped things off shelves, but there was ultimately nothing either of them could do about it.

"After a year of working at the 7-11 on Polk Street, Nathan decided he'd had enough. He packed up, opened negotiations with his girlfriend, and planned the move to Idaho. If you ask Mom what it was like, getting all his things packaged up to be shipped out, she won't tell you. She can't tell you. She doesn't know. Nathaniel did it all himself. He didn't eventell Mom and Dad until two weeks before he left. He just sat them down and said, 'Hey, I'm leaving,' and didn't give them a choice in the matter."

"What did Linda say to that," asked Dacey.

Caitlyn had the line from memory: " 'If you walk out that door, don't expect to ever walk back in.' " She could still hear it, in her mother's voice.

"And what did Nathaniel say," Gerald asked.

Nathan had smiled that great, cocky grin of his, and just shrugged. " 'Fine with me,' is all he said."

Her audience said nothing.

"And so now Mom uses Nathan as this example of everything bad. I think she's privately convinced that he does drugs and sleeps with prostitutes. Any time I do something she doesn't like, she's all, 'You're turning into another Nathan.' And now she prays daily to the Lord. She prays to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost—whom she doesn't believe in, but just in case. And she prays that Nathaniel loses his job. She prays for his girlfriend to dump him. She prays for his lease to dry up. She prays for his life to go so catastrophically wrong that he has no choice but to return home. To her."

Mrs. Lippmann said, "I think we see where this is going."

"What was it your mother found out... What did you say it was, twenty-four hours ago?" said Gerald.

Thirty, by now. "She found out that Jon asked me to marry him." She had said those words twenty or thirty times over the last two days—heck, she and Jon had gone and actuallygotten married—but she found that they still sent a thrill of happiness through her.

There was silence.

"And you didn't tellus!" Dacey exclaimed.

"When exactly did this happen?" Mrs. Lippman asked.

"Jon, what's so funny?" said Gerald.

Jon was laughing. "That's exactly what my co-workers said whenthey found out."

"Which was?" Gerald said.

"Yesterday."

"We didn't tellanybody," Caitlyn protested. "No one except Nathan, and Jon's friend Beth who helped him pull it off. We didn't want it to somehow accidentally get back to my mom. We wanted to use it to our advantage, not have her find out at random and then blow her stack."

"And what did she do when she found out," Dacey asked.

"Blew her stack," said Caitlyn.

Jon was smirking again. Was this still funny to him?

"So, your mom found out," Dacey said, "and blew her stack. How did Jon get involved?"

"Nathan brought me in," said Jon from her right. "Mrs. Delaney called him and asked if he knew. And of course he said, Yeah, he'd known ever since it happened three weeks ago. And of course she was incredulous."

"That she wasn't told?" Dacey asked.

"Or that you said yes at all," Mrs. Lippmann asked.

That was the far more pertinent question. Caitlyn hadn't known the old lady had it in her. "That I said yes. Mom doesn't approve of— Well, she doesn't approve of me dating in general, and sheextra-doesn't approve of me datingJon. I think she kept hoping it was just a phase I'd get through. —Keeps hoping."

"Well, I can only speak for myself, but I think that's a rather misguided hope," said Dacey. "If you had told me—in a timely manner, thank you very much—that you two were engaged, all I would've said was,It's about time."

Caitlyn felt a blush and a smile spreading on her cheeks simultaneously.

"I think that if the others in the group were here, they'd also agree that the two of you are very good for each other," said Gerald. "I certainly think so, and I know my sister does as well. It's there for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Why does Linda have such problems accepting it?"

"It's hard to accept your children growing up," said Mrs. Lippmann. "It's hard to accept that they don't need you anymore, especially if your husband has passed on, like my Frank did. Who are you without someone to mother?"

"Yes, but, shouldn't she be happy as well?" Dacey said. "I mean, I have toddlers of my own, and I can't imagine how I'll feel when they grow up and leave, but I like to think I'll pray that they find someone who is good for them, and live happy lives with them. And Caitlyn and Jon complement each other. We only see them a couple hours a week, but even we know that. How could Linda, who has probably seen a lot more of them, possibly have missed it?"

"Willful ignorance," said Mrs. Lippmann. "I faced enough of it from my mother, and my children faced enough of it from me. She doesn'twant to see it, so she doesn't. You can lead a horse to water..."

"So, Jon came in," said Gerald, trying vainly to keep the discussion on-topic. "He came in because Nathan called him. What were you trying to accomplish, Jon?"

Jon was opening and closing his mouth like a fish. "Uh, oh, well, uh... Truthfully... I was just there because Nathan asked me to step in."

"And what didhe want you to do?" Gerald said.

Jon took a deep breath. "He wanted me to help Caitlyn leave. He said that Mrs. Delaney would be in disarray, and this would be the perfect time to conduct a little snatch-and-grab, before she came to her senses andreally dropped the heavy end of the hammer on Cait.I didn't knowwhat to think. I mean, yes, anything I can do to keep her safe, but... That's a bit drastic, right? But Caitlyn made the choice in the end. She said, 'Get me out of here.' So, I did."

"What did Linda say," Dacey asked.

Caitlyn gave a tired sigh. " 'If you walk out that door...' "

"Of course," said Jon, "we snuck in earlier today using the house key that Mr. Delaney thoughtfully provided in his care package, so, that threat seems to have been null and void."

"And what happened after you left," Gerald asked.

"Well..." Caitlyn shrugged. "We weren't sure what to do. I mean, I still live at home, Jon still lives at home, we don't really have that much money... He's been working since he graduated, and once he met me he says he really started saving up. But that didn't help the question of where I was going to stay. I couldn't go home—"

"You probably didn't want to, either," said Dacey.

"Not hardly. But Nathan's in Idaho, and Uncle Max and Grammy both live too close, Mom would've hunted me down and I don't know if they could've stood up to her. I don't really have any other friends, because I was home-schooled for so much of my life. And I needed to escapesomehow."

"So, Jon," said Dacey.

"Except for the Bible," said Mrs. Lippmann. "Old Testament and New."

"Right," said Gerald.

"And so... You got married?" said Dacey.

Caitlyn grimaced. "It sounds pretty stupid when you put itthat way."

"Well, then, let me drop an obligatory reference to Britney Spears's fifty-five-hour fiasco and make you feel better," said Gerald, grinning.

"And I guess this was... Yesterday," said Dacey.

"In the chapel," said Jon, pointing, "about... Twenty-four hours ago."

"How did your mom take it," Dacey asked.

"I... I don't know," said Caitlyn, feeling another wave of shame. "We... We didn't tell her. I invited my dad, but, I asked him not to tell until after the ceremony, and... Well, Dad keeps quiet sometimes. Maybe he hasn't said anything at all."

"Is that all, or, are you guys taking a honeymoon, or, doing a reception, or..." Dacey asked.

"My sister just wants to know when the party is," Gerald said, with a deadpan look that gave away the joke.

"Probably in... March. —ish," said Caitlyn. "We're still working on the plans."

"Honeymoon is out until we manage to find a little more income," said Jon. "Which we need to find anyway, because, we can't just keep living in my parents' house."

"Wow," said Dacey. "Sounds like you folks are getting dropped into the real world."

"Kind of," Caitlyn agreed. "I think... I think we knew some of it beforehand. But knowing is a lot different than experiencing."

"Do you regret it?" Gerald asked. "I mean, I really doubt we're about to see another 55-hour marriage here, but... Any feelings, anything like that?"

Caitlyn and Jon looked at each other for a long moment.

"We've had... Doubts," said Jon, without looking away.

"We've definitely had doubts," said Caitlyn, turning back to the others. "No one knows better than we do just what a big step we took."

"I think reality has a way of intruding on even the most well-intentioned of plans," said Jon.

"But what Jon brought up—while I was spazzing out, too—what Jon brought up was that we haven't really done anything but speed up the timeline. Itwas about time for him to ask me, we'd been talking about it for over a year." She'd been wondering for months when he'd finally ask, and was even getting a bit nervous. She almost didn't dare to ask. What a relief it had been to find out he'd been in collaboration with Beth for months, and had delayed only because he couldn't get the plan right. "We've just... Known. For along time. That we would end up married. I don't think we ever really questioned it after about our third month together. So, what's wrong with a year and a half earlier than expected?"

"Would you have married him even without the pressure of your mom going off the deep end?" Gerald asked.

Caitlyn looked at Jon.

"I would have married him a long time ago," she said softly. "But... We could never get the other ducks in order."

"Like?" said Dacey.

"Like... Money, mostly," said Jon. "Housing. All those practical things."

"But also figuring out how to tell it to Mom, in a way that wouldn't make her blow her stack," Caitlyn said.

"We essentially pulled a Nathan," said Jon. "Which was something we'd vowed never to do, unless at last resort. Caitlyn wants to somehow leave her mother in a peaceful way. She wants to be let go of. She wants Mrs. Delaney to be okay with her leaving. As opposed to praying to God that her marriage ends in messy divorce. Which she is probably doing right now."

Huh, thought Caitlyn.I guess great minds think alike. "What wereally wanted to do was to approach her with a sort of coalition. We'd tell her that we'd gotten engaged, and then give her a choice. Jon says—and I think he's right about this—Jon says that she tries to control us the way she does because she's scared of us. Somehow. She keeps us locked up in chains because, if we break free, she's scared we'll hurt us somehow."

"Which makes sense," said Gerald. "Remember in the beginning ofJurassic Park, how they kept all the dinosaurs in tight little cages so that they couldn't hurt anyone?"

"Ignoring the fact that being crammed in a tight little cage makes onewant to hurt people," said Dacey.

"I think it's what you said, Mrs. Lippmann," Caitlyn said. "Mom wouldn't know what to do if she wasn't a mother. That's why she teaches second-graders, that's why she wants Nathan back, that's why she can't, she can't abide the idea of us growing up..."

"So, you use the engagement as..."

"As an ultimatum, basically," said Jon. " 'Your daughter has grown up, and there is nothing you can do about it.' Butnow we're operating from a position of strength. We have something she wants—her daughter—and she has something we want—a grown-up, free-to-leave Caitlyn. We trade. We tell her, 'You have a choice. You can let Caitlyn leave—and come back—as she pleases, or you can cling to her so hard that she never wants to return, just like Nathan.' And then we'd have a bunch of other people—Rev. Pendleton, Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy, Caitlyn's music teachers—who could tell her just what they thought of her parenting methods. One person you can ignore, but that many..."

"One person shedoes ignore," said Caitlyn. "I never expected Grampa to take my side in this, but he did, and he gave Mom a piece of his mind. And she basically told him to shut up and butt out, her own father, because it wasn't his business."

"And so that's the sort of thing you were planning to do," Gerald asked.

"We're still hoping to do that, actually," said Caitlyn.

Jon turned to her. "We are?"

Mrs. Lippmann cackled: a single "Ha!"

"Jon, I know you're going to say I don't have to go back there if I don't want to," Caitlyn said to him. The thought filled her with hope and joy. But... "Well, I want to. She's my mother." This was the woman who had given birth to her, after all. Who had held her hand when she broke her arm at six years old. Who had let her write a book report on flowers, just because she knew little Caity loved them. There was so much history there—too much to just abandon, even if some (most) (all) of the recent stuff had been so terrible. This was family. "You went up againstyour mother, but you didn't just abandon her. You love her. You needed her to change, yes, so that you and your sister could live, but that didn't mean you left her entirely. It's the same with me. I don't want to stay, but I don't want to leave things like this."

Jon said nothing. Then he fetched up a deep sigh, as if contemplating some arduous piece of work, and she knew she had him.

"How many people have you recruited," Gerald asked.

Caitlyn grimaced. "No one, so far."

"Well," said Gerald. "Good thing you just recruitedus, then. I mean, you didn't tell us Jon proposed to you, you didn't invite us to the wedding— You better not leave us out ofthis one." He grinned.

"Absolutely," said Dacey. "I'm not entirely sure what we can contribute, but if you need us, we're yours."

Caitlyn felt her heart thudding in her throat.They said what?

"Toldja," said Jon, smirking.

"Look, stop that," she said, smacking his arm. "You don't have to be so smug about everything."

"What did he tell you," Dacey said.

"He told me... Because, getting people to agree to help with the plan... I'd have to, like, tell them the whole story, you know? And Jon... Jon always said..."

"She never believed me," said Jon. "But what I told her was, 'There isn't a person alive who wouldn't be sympathetic to your cause.' "