The Company of Women- Chapter: Quinn
She fingered the cross around her neck. Quinn Chan, the devout Christian, the most faithful, the good Protestant fundamentalist daughter- she it was who now had no faith. Looking at the bible on her table, she turned her face away and stared at herself in the mirror.
Her once long, thick black hair had been cut short, close to her chin. It was now more fashionable, as Mr. Quentin said, her Geography teacher, longer at the back and short at the front. Like a horizontal upward sloping slash. She watched carefully the gap between her two front teeth, her pale almost purplish lips, her mole just above her chin that stuck out slightly. Where was He?
She'd sat with Cosima, crying her eyes out. Her sallow hands clutching at darker ones, wringing them again and again. Where was He? Cosima shook her head, I don't know.
I don't know.
She'd always felt this inescapable sense of people leaving , always leaving her life. Johnny had left, and for months afterwards, she saw chocolates just like the ones she'd bought him. Everywhere. She could never make them stay, and still she had faith. Her parents told her she should become a scientist and still she prayed, had faith. And then- today, the Faith seeped away, like tea from a teabag.
Her results had come today, in a brown paper bag, it was thin and heavy.
'Has it come?' asked her mother, on the phone, her reedy voice quivering with tremulous excitement. She imagined her diminutive mother, pushing her tortoiseshell glasses above her wide nose, on the rocking chair, in the living room, clutching her bible.
She hadn't told her mother she'd dropped all her sciences, let alone her father.
Mmmnnyes, she muttered. They've come.
She told her mother, three As.
'In what?'
Geography, History and French.
The creaky noise of the rocking chair has stopped. Even the shush-a-shush sounds of her mother's breathing pauses ominously.
'You lied, Quinn.'
I know, but I'm happier this way-
'Happy?' her mother becomes frantic, 'HAPPY? Your father works so hard to send you to that godless boarding school so you can become unemployed?' The last word rises in pitch. It stings her ears, bores into her brain, searching for this elusive happy.
Quinn holds the phone away from her face.
'Pray, Quinn- I don't know what else to tell you. Wait-till-I-tell-your-father-'
Enough! she shouts. I pray and pray and you never understand. How can you go out and preach in Church for love for understanding when you can't even see your own daughter is suffering.
But that was months ago. There is another boy to cry about, Faith is back, her parents have reconciled with her small rebellion, Quinn goes to church, Cosima is her friend. The order of her cosmos is restored.
She argued with the Atheists, threatening to throw things again. She was not happy, but not sad.
And for now, she said carefully to Cosima, Anjali and Shermina, she was in the good company of women.
Her once long, thick black hair had been cut short, close to her chin. It was now more fashionable, as Mr. Quentin said, her Geography teacher, longer at the back and short at the front. Like a horizontal upward sloping slash. She watched carefully the gap between her two front teeth, her pale almost purplish lips, her mole just above her chin that stuck out slightly. Where was He?
She'd sat with Cosima, crying her eyes out. Her sallow hands clutching at darker ones, wringing them again and again. Where was He? Cosima shook her head, I don't know.
I don't know.
She'd always felt this inescapable sense of people leaving , always leaving her life. Johnny had left, and for months afterwards, she saw chocolates just like the ones she'd bought him. Everywhere. She could never make them stay, and still she had faith. Her parents told her she should become a scientist and still she prayed, had faith. And then- today, the Faith seeped away, like tea from a teabag.
Her results had come today, in a brown paper bag, it was thin and heavy.
'Has it come?' asked her mother, on the phone, her reedy voice quivering with tremulous excitement. She imagined her diminutive mother, pushing her tortoiseshell glasses above her wide nose, on the rocking chair, in the living room, clutching her bible.
She hadn't told her mother she'd dropped all her sciences, let alone her father.
Mmmnnyes, she muttered. They've come.
She told her mother, three As.
'In what?'
Geography, History and French.
The creaky noise of the rocking chair has stopped. Even the shush-a-shush sounds of her mother's breathing pauses ominously.
'You lied, Quinn.'
I know, but I'm happier this way-
'Happy?' her mother becomes frantic, 'HAPPY? Your father works so hard to send you to that godless boarding school so you can become unemployed?' The last word rises in pitch. It stings her ears, bores into her brain, searching for this elusive happy.
Quinn holds the phone away from her face.
'Pray, Quinn- I don't know what else to tell you. Wait-till-I-tell-your-father-'
Enough! she shouts. I pray and pray and you never understand. How can you go out and preach in Church for love for understanding when you can't even see your own daughter is suffering.
But that was months ago. There is another boy to cry about, Faith is back, her parents have reconciled with her small rebellion, Quinn goes to church, Cosima is her friend. The order of her cosmos is restored.
She argued with the Atheists, threatening to throw things again. She was not happy, but not sad.
And for now, she said carefully to Cosima, Anjali and Shermina, she was in the good company of women.
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