Lydia Kiesling - The Golden State

We didn’t have any kind of service here for Dad. He wasn’t religious and his family was Catholic, a suspect faith, and he wasn’t from here and it would have been utterly strange to have any kind of thing for him here in this building. But we did have one in our Anglican church in Athens, when we finally left Altavista and braved the reentry, the wives from the embassy ladies’ group flanking Mom as she unlocked the door of our apartment. I sit in the pew and try to put myself back inside that church, a beautiful stone building near Syntagma Square. A place for travelers and pilgrims since the nineteenth century, it advertises itself—for Philhellenes, for drifting colonials. I remember sitting in the pew thinking how strange it was that Mom and I were sitting there without him like we did every Sunday, but that this time it was his very absence that we were commemorating, marking that absence permanent. That we wouldn’t swallow cake and lemonade and make the hot walk home and find him waiting back at the apartment doing a puzzle. That he was just… absent. I close this window in my consciousness and think how odd it is that Honey has never been to that church with me. She’s never seen Syntagma, she’s never roamed the warren of the National Garden with its permanent fug of cat pee, its rusted playground equipment, the clamor of peacock screams and maybe a brass band sounding through the dusty foliage. She’s never been anywhere that matters to Engin or me, except here.

We are onto the Confession of Sin now and Honey scoots down off the pew and is again running toward the rumpus area which I feel is fine except she is holding the pencil sharp side up and I run after her and take it away and she issues a “NYO” that echoes through the building. I return to the pew get her sippy cup trot back out hand her the water and she flings it and is back down the aisle, with a detour into Benny’s pew to pat winsomely at his knee and although I have misgivings I allow this to happen as it lets me get out the prayer book and hymn book and uncrumple the liturgy and try to figure out where we are.

We are in a Psalm and I see Benny handing his Book of Common Prayer to Honey as though she might follow along and then looking bemusedly at Honey while she tears a page from it and I spring across the aisle to his pew to collect her and say no no no and smooth the page and whisper “sorry” again to the room over the sound of Sarah’s incantations. I carry her into the rumpus area and set her down and give her a plastic cup from a sleeve of plastic cups on the table. I return to the pew. First Lesson is read by Benny. During Second Lesson read by Gladys or is it Mary I see Honey zip up the aisle and again begin climbing the stairs to the altar and again I zip down the aisle and grab her and whisper “sorry” and we have reached a point where I feel it would be equally rude to leave and to stay. I want someone to say something like “It’s all fine!” or “Bless the children,” but the service is proceeding with what seems like a lot of ceremony given the size of its congregation. Sarah asks me to press Play again for a hymn. Honey joins me in the pew and begins pulling things out of the diaper bag. Sarah begins her sermon which I listen to with one ear as Honey heads back to the rumpus area and I hear something about the troops but then I also hear things about American Exceptionalism and I think Huh, interesting, and I want to hear more and whether or not American Exceptionalism is something we support in the congregation—I don’t think I have ever heard the phrase used to connote something positive and I would be glad to know the spirit of dissent is alive in the small-town church, but Honey falls down and cries and I take her outside the building and then we come back in and I let her run in circles making small squawking sounds for the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer which is the prayer I used to say every night before I went to sleep. I recite the words and rather than a balm on my soul or the breath of God or something I just feel the relief of knowing the words to something without even having to think about it, knowing the beginning the middle the end, the way I want to speak Turkish, the way I want to raise my child, knowing and assured. In Turkish “fluent” is from the verb meaning to flow but I guess if I think about it that’s true in English too. Anyway, Dear God, let me be the one who flows.

I hear banging and run to the rumpus area and find Honey pulling bowls out of a cupboard. I collect her and return to the pew and Benny in my absence has been called to press Play for the Offertory hymn and I’m mortified to remember that offertory means offering and this is the time for the baskets and I don’t have even spare change to put into one. It feels so tacky to come as a guest to this moribund congregation and let my child wreak havoc and not even leave a dollar and I see with deep shame Benny pulling twenty dollars out of his wallet to put into the basket that he himself is carrying around. Mary and Gladys put their contributions in, even Sarah the Worship Leader, and when he comes my way I whisper “I’m so sorry, I forgot about this part,” and it seems clear that Benny has no children because he holds the basket in front of Honey as though it will be a fun diversion for her and Honey of course grabs the money and I have to wrest it from her and put it back into the basket and she begins her chorus of “NYO NYO” and kicks and writhes and I know that it is time to go.

I wave ruefully at everyone and scurry toward the door and I see Sarah look questioningly and put a hand up but I don’t stay long enough to see whether she is going to say “Wait” and we are back out into the heat of the day and I feel suddenly choked by the smell of juniper and I think I’m glad my mother my grandparents my grandparents’ grandparents aren’t here to see how small the church is now. I put two blocks between us and the church and then I sit down on a crumbling curb off Main Street and wrench another muscle deep in my side trying to get Honey onto my back into the Ergo.

We walk toward home, Honey sweaty and limp and heavy on my back, and I worry about how hungry she must be since it is lunchtime and I try to pick up the pace to the extent possible in the heat. But halfway there I feel the buzz in my pocket that means service and I look at a photo of Engin and the gang on the Kordon at dusk and then I think I ought to call Uncle Rodney back and tell him how much I liked his letter but I decide I’m not up for it, favorite uncle, only uncle though he may be.

We straggle the rest of the way home and I’m ready to collapse, it’s so hot, but finally we mount the steps to the screen door and I lay Honey down on the floor turn on the AC take my shirt off and rub the red grooves of my flesh. I decide against frozen pizza because of the oven and make a quesadilla instead even though that’s basically another fucking string cheese sandwiched between carbs and I stuff her full of blueberries too and try to get her to eat some browning avocado. She goes down docile for her nap and I stretch out on the bed and fall into a sleep so deep I wake up with drool on my chin.

Honey wakes up at the same time and I decide against Antelope Meadows because I don’t feel like getting her into the car seat but then I think the light is turning pink and it would be nice to go for a drive. That’s what my mom did with Rodney and her parents when she was little, she told me—they’d get in the pickup and drive out to someone’s ranch and drop in unannounced and be received with coffee and a piece of cake and normally that would sound horrible to me, that’s the one thing about Turkey I can’t really deal with, there’s a lot of visiting, but right now it sounds so so nice and I wish I knew someone to do it with.