"Fina-fricking-lly!" I exclaimed, pulling off my tie as I walked through the front door of my family's house.
"Watch your language, Seth," my mother warned, following behind me in one of her best dresses, a bright blue affair with a shawl draped over her shoulders.
"I'm sorry," I replied, not disingenuously. "It's just that Dad makes us stay for so long after the service ends. The congregation members are interested in talking to the pastor, not the pastor's family. And I hate wearing ties."
"I know, I know," Mom assured me. "But we have to stay for the sake of appearances. Now go ahead and change if you want, I'm going to start the oven for dinner."
"OK," I replied, starting my way up the stairs, grateful that another Sunday service was behind me.
Overlooking the stair landing was a family portrait, depicting a father and a mother along with a young son and daughter. All of them were wearing the clothes that were both literally and figuratively their Sunday best.
You see, I am Seth, the eight year old boy in that picture. It had been a decade since that photo was taken, and I was now an 18 year old recent high school graduate. It was summer and I had decided to take a gap year while figuring out exactly what I wanted to do for college. Not that there was any doubt in my parents' minds on that subject.
To understand why and to understand my family, you have to start with my father, the older man in the portrait. His name was Adam, and he was a Christian minister as his father had been and his father had been. Being a man of the cloth had, in essence, been the family business going back at least six generations.
My grandfather and father had both served at the local church in a small town in the American South. I won't say what town or even which state, but suffice it to say that it is one of those really rural areas that's deeply conservative, religious, and about 99.999 percent white.
It is the kind of place where the family of a preacher is treated almost like royalty. That does come with certain perks; authority figures are often willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when you get in trouble, for instance. But it also comes with certain expectations, like being seen but not heard before, during, and long after Sunday services.
Me and my sister Grace, who's older than me by about four years, both chaffed under those expectations. We were children of the internet age, and got a lot more exposure to the wider world via social media and other outlets than our parents' generation did. I wouldn't call us liberals or atheists, but our political and religious views didn't really match up with the rest of our town's.
That was the reason why Grace had elected to go to college on the other side of the state from our hometown. She was in a five year nursing program, so she was now a single year away from graduating with her degree.
Unfortunately for me, I was under significantly different pressures than she was. Because she was a daughter, Grace wasn't expected by our parents to become a preacher. Chalk it up to old fashioned sexism or tradition or whatever, but my parents expected me, as my father's son, to be the seventh man in the family line to take up the cloth. I didn't really want to though, not that I ever had the guts to tell my parents that. So they assumed that my indecision about college was over which seminary program I wanted to go to, when in reality it was about what I wanted to do instead of seminary.
I had been staring at that portrait for an extended period, pondering that very issue, when the front door opened.
"Evangeline, I'm home," my father said as he entered, calling my mother by her given name.
"The oven's on for dinner," my mother replied, walking up the bottom few steps of the stairs. "I'm going to change out of this dress while it's heating up."
My father nodded and walked to the living room, no doubt to put his feet up and read newspapers while he waited for dinner to be ready. He always locked himself in his study to work on his next sermon during the latter parts of the week, so there always more newspapers piling up for him to catch up on once Sunday was past.
"What you looking at?" my mother asked me as she reached the landing, where I was still staring at the family portrait.
"Oh, just...thinking," I replied, tiptoeing around the subject of my own doubts.
My mother turned her eyes to that decade old photo, slowly nodding her head. "Yeah, that picture is a little out of date. We should do a new one next time your sister's in town. You've both grown so much."
"Yeah, sure," I replied, in the back of mind wondering if she would really approve of the way in which Grace and I had both grown over the previous ten years.
"Come on, move your feet," my mother ordered, gesturing for me to continue the path up the stairs.
"Oh, sorry," I replied, realizing that I was blocking her way. I hurried up the stairs and to my room. I closed the door behind me, eager to separate myself from my parents and the weight of their expectations, even if only for a moment.
***
After I had changed my clothes to something more comfortable and casual and after my mother had finished cooking, I was called down to the dining room to join in the family meal. We didn't always eat together as a family, but we always did for dinner on Sunday. To hear my mother tell it, it was the first chance every week for us to be a family again after two or three days of my father holing himself up in his study, preparing for his next sermon.
For me though, any meal with my parents was endlessly awkward, afraid that I might say the wrong thing and betray my inner doubts to my parents. That's why I'd become used to these meals being silent since Grace left for college. Iwas surprised when my father actually spoke to me during this meal.
"Have you given any thought on where you want to go after your gap year?" he asked me.
"Hm?" I grunted, a forkful of food in my mouth. I hurried to swallow it to answer him. "I'm...not sure. There's a lot of...variables to consider."
"I understand," my father began, a comment that almost caught me off guard. Had I been giving my parents too little credit?
"I dealt with a lot of indecision over this when I was your age," he continued. "Picking the best seminary program for you can take some time, but I'm sure you'll figure it out."
Of course I hadn't given my parents too little credit. They were still the same ignorant, presumptuous assholes they'd always been. I silently berated myself for that thought. Whatever I thought of my parents, I still loved them, and I understood that they were the products of their environments as much as anybody else.
"Actually," I began as an idea popped up in my head. Unfortunately, the words had started coming out before the idea had reached completion, leaving an awkward silence for my parents to wait in.
"Yes, son?" my mother prompted me.
"Um," I continued, getting my bearings. "I was actually wondering if I could live with Grace for a while." While my sister would come back home during summers for her first couple of years of college, by her third year she had started earning enough as a waitress to rent her own place year round. Now she only came back for the holidays, and if my parents agreed to my request then it would at least get me out from under their thumb for a while
My father leaned back in his seat, thinking. "Yes, there are some big programs at the colleges near her. It could be a good opportunity for you to see what they have to offer." My hopes soared, wondering if my hastily put together plan was going to work. "Though," my father continued, causing my heart to sink. "I don't really agree with some of the doctrines that they teach at those schools." Ah, there was something I hadn't thought of when I hastily came up with this scheme: my father's narrow minded views.
"Oh, honey, let him go," my mother interrupted. "At the very least it will be chance to see what life away from us will be like and if he wants to stay near home or not." She put her hand on my mine, adding, "and in any case, I think spending time with your sister is a wonderful idea."
