My mother decided to buy a new house. She had been working at the Post Office, making good money. Not as much as Dirk, but together they had enough for her to imagine something bigger than our three-bedroom, one bath "starter home." Up above Pacifica, on Sweeney Ridge, a new development was selling lots and models were already built so we could see what the subdivision would look like when it was finished.
We drove up to the top of the hill. A billboard advertised the new area. A woman with a cloche hat clutching a long string of pearls, looking like someone from the 1920s, graced a sepia-toned background with the name, "Portola Highlands," in big black letters with the instructions, "Turn Here."
The models were built on a cul-de-sac with a great view of the San Francisco County Jail building, which had a center section ten stories tall and two wings with seven stories. It was massive, impressive, and not at all elegant like the vision the developers were trying to sell.
All the model houses were split-level. To get inside, you had to walk up a short flight of stairs to the front door. Once inside, the living room and bedrooms were upstairs, the bonus room and garage downstairs. The back yards were minuscule, not like our plot of land in Pacifica, which was narrow, but long. Dirk and Mom picked out a model and paid extra for the bonus room and another bedroom. Final total, four bedrooms and three baths, The new house would have a dining room (in Pacifica we ate in the kitchen) and a deck which looked over the edge of the jail property.
The land they bought was at the very end of Sneath Lane before it went into the Nike Missile Base on Sweeney Ridge. We'd seen the three white missiles up out of their silos during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which scared the hell out of everybody. If the Russians decided to take the missiles out, we'd be even closer to the impact than we were in Pacifica. On top of that, the section of development next to Skyline Boulevard which was left as "open space" had the San Andreas Fault running right through it.
I didn't want to move. Although I liked the idea of an extra bathroom, both Jim and I loved our little house. We could walk around the neighborhood and actually get somewhere, like school or the movie theater matinees on Saturday. It was pretty clear that once we moved, we would have to rely on somebody to take us anywhere except the school bus stop, which was up and over a steep hill. And, although I'd given up on my father finding Jim and me, moving again would be yet another hurdle he would have to overcome if he wanted to make contact. But our opinions didn't matter, the move was already decided.
Another selling point was the Skyline Junior College being built two miles away. Mom figured we could live at home and continue our education at a reduced price. Again, we were not consulted.
Mom and Dirk were able to use the equity in the Pacifica house as a down payment. After we moved, they rented out the smaller house to help cover both mortgages.
Once construction started, we drove up the hill to see progression of the house. First the footers, then the foundation, then the framing. Once the wood was placed on the frame, it looked more like a house than a bunch of big sticks. Chimney, aluminum windows, doors. Paint. I picked out a bright yellow for my room. Jim's room downstairs would be wood paneled. The choice of exterior paint would have to conform to Home Owner's Association rules tan, brown, and white were allowed.
Jim didn't have to change schools, but I did. It was my last year of junior high. For me, just living as a teenager was embarrassing enough. It was even more embarrassing to be new in the middle of the year. I kept my head down and tried not to be seen. The math class was all done on computer, something new to me. The teacher mostly left me alone because he could see I was working through the problems. I spent a couple of months on my own. When it became obvious that I was going to finish the program before the end of the year, I asked my mother to write a note saying I didn't find the work very challenging and please place me in something more advanced.
When I finished the last project, I told the teacher I was done. He told me to go on to the next unit.
"There are no more units," I said.
He told me that was not possible, so I showed him where I was on the computer and then gave him my mother's note. It turned out I'd been put in remedial math for assessment and then forgotten. Then I was placed in advanced math and forgotten, but I was happier there.
At the new school, I rode the bus. Both middle school and high school students met at the same bus stop, but different buses took us to different schools. The bus also stopped at Pacific Heights, an older subdivision, to pick up more kids. A tall, skinny girl with dirty blonde hair liked to sit next to me. Sara said she was a "preacher's kid" and she went to church regularly.
"You should come," she said. "It's a lot of fun."
I shook my head. I'd been to Vacation Bible School when we lived in the City. An old woman with a wattle neck took great pleasure in telling us kids that we were going to hell if we didn't love Jesus. There we would be on fire for ever and ever. Amen.
I wasn't convinced Sara's church would be any different. She worked on me for weeks, slipping church into our conversations between discussing various teachers and assignments. "We have a teen group that meets on Sunday evenings," she said. "We talk about everything then."
That did sound interesting. "I don't have any way there," I objected.
"Oh, that's no problem," Sara said, "We have room in our station wagon."
"Your dad wouldn't mind?"
"Of course not. He likes to take a full car."
I knew she had an older sister and two younger brothers. With her and her mom, that sounded like a full car already.
When I said that, she said, "It seats eight."
"Well, maybe. I'd have to talk to my mom."
My mom was thrilled. It was a conservative church, the kind she approved and was comfortable with. She said as long as I got myself ready and didn't wake up anybody in the process, she would let me go.
I waited outside on Sunday morning and ran down the steps when I saw the station wagon coming. Sure enough, there was room for me in the second row with Sara and her sister. The boys were in the back, in age two years apart but looking like chubby twins, except one boy had blue eyes and the other brown. Sara, her sister, and I sat in the middle. I was shocked meeting Sara's parents and her sister: "Brother Al," Sara's mother, and her sister (both named Barbara) were all overweight. I don't know how Sara escaped being fat.
Brother Al liked to drive fast. Usually, the family took the gentle ride, the long way around the hill. Brother Al turned right, gunned the engine and blasted up the grade, then down on the other side. He drove across Skyline Boulevard, past the old Rollingwood development, then turned left on El Camino Real. We passed the National Cemetery and turned right into South San Francisco.
The church was split level, the bottom half-buried into the ground with just the windows peeking out at eye level. We entered, then walked downstairs to the Sunday School rooms. Sara whispered, "Did you bring your Bible?"
I didn't have a Bible, nor had I been told I should bring one. I must have looked embarrassed.
"I'll share with you," Sara said.
We joined the "younger teen" class, which had about eight students. Sara explained the "older teen" group had kids who were junior or seniors in high school. Most of them drove their own cars or hitched rides with someone who could drive.
The Sunday School teacher was very well dressed in tailored clothes, had recently coiffed blonde hair, and even sported a scarf around her neck that made her look like a stewardess. As the teacher mentioned the verses we would study, Sara flipped through the pages of her Bible, finding the quoted passages without trouble. I mostly watched as she and the other kids discussed the topics as if they had been doing such things all their lives.
Sunday School finished, we trooped upstairs to sing hymns and listen to more Bible readings and the sermon. Brother Al soft-pedaled the hellfire and damnation, however, he did say you'd have to accept Jesus and be saved in order to spend eternity in heaven.
"Fire insurance," one of the teen boys quipped.
I didn't much care about eternity; I was hoping to live through the next four or five years and escape from home. Church was a way to get out of the house and learn how other people lived.
Brother Al was willing to take me to church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night Bible Study. My mom lent me her Bible. Eventually I "walked the aisle" and "gave my life to Christ." With all the fervor of a new convert, I talked Jim into coming with me, using the same line Sara had used with me: "There's a teen group it's really fun." I breathed a sigh of relief when Billy said he wasn't interested there wasn't enough room for nine although Mom and Dirk might have taken him if he'd wanted to go.
Once Jim joined us, sister Barbara moved up with Brother Al and his wife and Jim, Sara, and I took over the middle seat. The boys stayed in the back, which was just as well for us, since they had a habit of getting into a slugfest somewhere along the drive.
I used to look back at the house as Brother Al careened around the turn to go up the hill: Mom, Dirk, and Billy the family they were meant to be, without interlopers.
We did a lot of things in that Youth Group visiting other churches, snow trips, youth choir tours, a trip to Angel Island. Things we wouldn't have done in the family.
After about a year, Brother Al asked the church attendees to sit down after the last hymn. He read a letter stating he had accepted a new pastoral position in another state.
"It wasn't my idea," Sara complained to me. "I wanted to stay here and finish high school. But this building is finished and HE wants to build another church."
"I'm so sorry," I said. I tried to imagine what life would be like without Sara. It meant giving up church, too, because no one else would go out of their way to take Jim and me. Unless Billy got interested, Dirk and Mom wouldn't bother.
"Well, that's that," I told Jim.
"It's okay," he consoled me.
But it wasn't okay. I liked school, I did well, but there wasn't much time to spend with friends, to joke around, and goof off. School was serious business. If I could study hard enough and get a scholarship to college, I'd be set. That was the best way to leave home. I wanted it badly. Church added something else to my life, something spiritual, yes, but also social. And it gave Jim and me other people to study, to see what made them tick, and compare them with Mom and Dirk.
Most of the families were "normal," at least to the outside world. The parents loved each other and loved their kids. However, one family stood out to me. They were a mess. The man had "taken pity" on a woman who was pregnant with another man's child when he married her. They subsequently had other children, but the husband made the oldest boy's life miserable. Nothing the kid did was good enough. He was never allowed to forget he was not biologically the father's child. And the mother never said anything, in public, anyway. Jim and I stayed away from them as much as possible.
But all that was done, anyway.
At least Sara was able to finish the school year. The last day at church, we said goodbye without crying.
Brother Al took Jim and me aside. "The Suzukawa family is going to pick you up from now on."
"What?"
"Deacon Hank and his family. They live in Rollingwood and he said he'd give you a ride to church."
"Oh."
Rollingwood was a mile south of our house. Deacon Hank would have to drive out of his way to come get us. But if he was willing to do it, we weren't going to say no. We knew the Suzukawa family had five children: one son away at college, one girl who rode to church with her boyfriend, two boys about our ages, plus a younger girl. With the three younger kids and the two of us, we'd fit in their station wagon.
Saved again.
It was tough to be at church without Sara. I was happy to have Jim with me. The teen group kept going and growing. The Suzukawas got in the habit of asking us to stay for Sunday dinner after church. That way they didn't have to make another trip to drop us off and pick us up later. Deacon Hank often cooked. He made things we'd never eaten at home, like beef stir-fry with rice or chicken teriyaki cooked on a hibachi. The boys taught us how to play card games like Spades, Hearts, and even Bridge. We never thought about how much our food and transportation cost their family and they never mentioned it.
Our time with them lasted for years.
Jim graduated from high school in 1968. Every boy graduating that year had to make a decision. The United States was in the middle of the Vietnam War. Jim could choose which armed service to join or he could wait to be drafted. He chose the Air Force, which meant he was obligated for four years. He left home in November.
I was glad he had escaped. At the same time, I hated him for leaving. Neither home nor church was the same without him. He ended up in the Phillippines, working in communications. I was grateful he wasn't in Vietnam, in combat.
My family wasn't big on labeling emotions. Angry, sad, happy: that was about it. No one had the word for grief. I grieved for Jim. I grieved for myself. I was bereft for a whole year.
When I was seventeen, the oldest Suzukawa son came home from Vietnam. He had been in the infantry, was wounded, and had spent some time at a MASH unit in country, then in an Army hospital in Japan. Then he was transferred to Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco in the Orthopedics Ward.
When the family went to see him Sunday afternoons, I went, too. Hank Jr. was in traction, his leg up at an angle with a heavy weight holding it under tension. He didn't talk about his injuries, but it was obvious he'd been pretty banged up. Everybody kept the conversations light. He mentioned he was happy to visit Japan, where his father's parents were born, even though he couldn't see much of it from his hospital window. While he was there, he rode through an earthquake. He said the weight at the foot of his bed swung back and forth. That couldn't have been comfortable!
Eventually, Hank was released from the hospital and was well enough to buy a car. It was a little Fiat, a manual transmission, and I couldn't figure out how he would shift with his leg in a walking brace. He asked me out to dinner and I said yes. He managed driving by unhooking the brace at the knee and then hooking it back straight after he parked.
We got pretty serious right away. He was scheduled to start graduate school at the University of California, Irvine, that fall. I'd been accepted to my dream school, Berkeley, but I hadn't received a scholarship because Dirk and Mom made too much money. Besides, Dirk said, there was no point in sending a girl to college, because "she would just get married and have kids." My mother was okay with letting me live at home and go to Skyline College to get an A.A. degree. But I wanted out.
Hank and I agreed to get married. We had a lovely church wedding that was way too big for what we wanted. My wedding day was the weirdest day I'd ever spent at church. It was the first time Dirk, Mom, and Billy were there. Jim was still in the Air Force, stationed in the Phillippines.
Hank and I went off to new adventures. I got my B.A. in History and Hank got his Ph.D. in Chemistry. We moved every year for awhile until he got a "real" job with a research and development company based in Santa Monica. I worked at different jobs until we had kids and then I was able to stay at home and raise them. In spite of Dirk's prediction, I felt I'd reached my goal. I was an educated person.
Jim finished his four years in the Air Force. He moved to San Jose where he got his B.A. in Accounting. He eventually joined the Peace Corps, where he met and married LeAnn in Fiji, where they were stationed. They moved around for awhile, eventually settling in the Central California coast.
Jim had just turned forty years old when he collapsed and died while running on the beach.
As an adult, he'd always had high blood pressure and had taken medication. He watched his diet and was an avid runner to help keep his blood pressure down. "No pain, no gain," was his motto.
After his death, the autopsy found he had atherosclerosis of the heart arteries. The coroner said running brought on the heart attack. Of course, telling us that was not helpful.
I'd made a good life for myself: I had a husband I loved, two children I adored. But it all felt like nothing without my partner in crime. Jim and I had been through hell together as children. That's what saved us: we were together.
We were playing cards one time in his room and I admitted to him I felt bad about us ruining our father's life because, as our mother told us, "Your father couldn't take the responsibility of having children."
Jim wasn't having any of it. He said, "I didn't ask to be born. And you didn't, either." I'd never thought I could reject that burden until he said so.
By leaving home, his example made it possible for me to get out, too.
I couldn't help thinking about our childhood when I thought about him. Billy was Dirk's favorite, of course. I was my mother's favorite, because I was a girl and I looked like her side of the family. But Jim had nobody to stand up for him. Their indifference hurt me all over again.
I kept thinking, "If you had known he was going to die so young, wouldn't you have been nicer to him?" But no one knows the future. Our mother and Dirk were wrapped up in their troubles and frustrations and Jim and I were left to get by emotionally as best we could.
It was tough going for a couple of years, learning to go on without him. It didn't seem right. Eventually I found my footing, no longer Jim's sister. But always Jim's sister. We endured together and now endure apart.
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