Knowing Glances(Short Story)(Introduction: Part I)

"Oh my god, did you see the way she insisted carrying those bags up those stairs with such a weak back?"1

"yeah she doesn't seem to have any common sense." 2

"I try to tell her, but she just doesn't listen."3

To outsiders, this conversation seemed harmless enough.  But Cindy knew the people talking inside and out.  "Hurrah for her." Cindy thought.  "Did it ever occur to you to mind your own business?  Did it ever occur to you that maybe people know themselves better than you know them?"   Exasperated, Cindy sighed.  4

Realizing this was just the beginning and the gossip would get more vicious, she got into her new pose, her own armor against the wolves in her church in order to tune out their  grating voices.  Leaning up against the kitchen counter in the dingy looking church she was a part of,  Cindy put her hands across her chest, and mirrored the leader of the gossip perfectly in body stance, but with a definite air of indifference, that her nonchurched friends would  have picked up on, but that was too subtle for these gossipy ladies to notice.   She couldn't leave, so she had to learn this careful trick of pretending that she looked liked she was listening, but letting everything that was said evaporate before it reached her ears.  It was wrenching to the psych, and she wasn't about to let it into hers.  She learned that some talk was equivalent to  food poisoning, making  her physically nauseated.5

Cindy liked to stick up for the so called odd people, though she knew it did not  have any effect on anyone.  She tried it many times, and they just looked at her as incredulously as she looked at them.  6

"You think Gladys is strong, and healthy, and beautiful?"  They all thought she was deluded.  "Can't you see she is mentally ill?"  one person tried to explain to her as if somehow she just wasn't smart enough to understand what they were saying. 7

"Why?" Cindy looked her straight in the eye.  "Because she lashes out in anger at you?  That makes her mentally ill?"  Cindy pointed at the woman's real motives.   "Because she is poor and you don't like the fact that people you think are inferior to you dare to stick up for themselves,"  Cindy thought, keeping this part to herself.8

"Yes in fact it does,"  Barb retorted.  She went over to the drawer underneath the telephone,  and pulled out the DSM-IV...the psychiatric Bible that they kept as handy as the phone books, and used as often as them too.  9

Before Barb  could corner her and point out her facts, Cindy used her step away to escape.  "Sorry Barb, I really have to get going.  Bye."  Cindy was careful to leave out 'nice chatting with you' so as not to erode her own integrity, as she dashed out the door.   10

Cindy leaned into the back seat of her mother in law's car.  "Escape from what?" she thought to herself.  From one  pasture  of bleeting sheep  to another.  11

At the dinner table at her in laws' home, Cindy tried to start a conversation about the war going on.  Everyone looked at each other first, and then all eyes politely looked at her, and smiled.  But the conversation quickly changed back to more pressing matters.12

"Did you see what Edith wore today?  I don't she has washed that dress in a week."13

Cindy humorously noted to herself how  their  voices blended in with the clanging silverware, so you couldn't tell the difference.   "No extra defense needed at the dinner table,"  Cindy thought to herself as she happily tuned into her food.14

"Cindy," would you please read today's scripture before we serve desert?"15

"Sure."  Cindy took the leather bound Bible that passed her way, and her eyes fell on the opening passage.  "If we have not love, "  Cindy read in a slow even tone, "we are like nothing but clanging symbols and empty brass."16

"Amen", everyone said in unison, and the clanging noise started up once again.17

"Did you guys notice how Sarah answered all my rhetorical questions with an amen?"  Everyone responded to Pastor Shallow's vicious tone with a vicious laugh of their own.  There was no good will detected.18

_19

Cindy excused herself, and went upstairs to take her Sunday nap.  She lay on her comfortable bed, and stared up at the ceiling as she reflected on her own life.  Today, she would get up two hours later, and get ready for church doing her Sunday routine all over again this evening.  She wasn't yet mature enough to realize that she did not have to fit herself into the circumstances she was in, but could create her own, based on her own personality and values.  She was still thinking she either had to fit in or hide that she didn't fit in.  Slowly she fell asleep and awakened in a dream world of nothingness, where the air around her was moving in towards her with more and more pressure, until she  felt suffocated by it, instead of giving her life, as is the normal function of air.20

Waking up to the alarm clock buzzing in her ears, Cindy  pulled the blanket over her head, and groaned.  She reached over and turned off the alarm clock, looking at the time.  "Wow,"   she must have slept right through the evening,  into the morning.  No one came to wake her up.   She groaned again, and trampled downstairs and into the kitchen.   Everyone was already gone.  Her mother and father in law off to the church where they were ministers, her husband's younger brother Stephen, off to high school, and her husband off to work.  21

She opened the fridge and poured herself a glass of  juice.  She stared at the glass of orange juice in her hand.  'If I didn't make the decision to drink this orange juice myself, no one would notice or care.  I could starve myself on a daily basis, and they wouldn't notice.  And yet if  I tried to do something good for myself, they would immediately interfere.  Why does it work that way?'   22

Cindy, depressingly went and sat on the lazy boy chair in front of the TV.  Switching channels with the remote, she settled on watching Martha Stewart discuss which colors were best for curtains this Spring.  She found Martha Stewart an interesting character to study.  Suddenly she heard an increasingly loud cry from upstairs.  Her baby, Aerial was awake now.  23

She quickly ran to the stairs,and jumped them two by two, until she reached the Nursery.  Her daughter was already standing up in the crib, delighted and clapping when she saw her mommy's face.    Beaming, Aerial reached out her arms to her mother, practically jumping right out of the crib.  She had no sense of danger, just pure trust that she would end up in her mother's loving arms.  Cindy gave her daughter a warm and tight hug, both faces beaming at each other.24

"Are you hungry?," Cindy asked,as she bounced down the stairs with Aerial.  Opening the fridge, she took out a bottle, microed it for 20 seconds, tested it on her arm, and settled down with Aerial in front of the TV.  Aerial hungrily grabbed the bottle from her with both hands, and fed herself.  She gulped the whole thing down in a matter of minutes, and then with pleading eyes  held out the bottle to her Mommy for more.  Cindy put Aerial down in front of the TV to watch Sesame Street, and went to get her daughter more milk.  25

Happily now, her daughter sucked her second bottle at leisure, exchanging full glances between  mom's face, and Big Bird on the TV screen.  Nipple between teeth like she was trying to rip it off, she stared at her mommy,and laughed along with Ernie and Big Bird, eyes searching expectantly for her mom to laugh too.  26

Cindy grinned at her daughter, and gave Aeriel's tummy a little squeeze.  This made Aerial laugh even more, as she rolled along the floor, trying to hide her tummy so her Mom couldn't do it again.  Then she boldly,turned over, with belly in the air, and with mischievous eyes stared at her mom, as if to say, "I dare you."  Of course, Cindy took her dare, and the squealing started all over again.27

Cindy sunk back into her arm chair, and watched her daughter, as her daughter stared intently at the TV screen while sucking on her bottle.  She loved being a mother.  It was the one thing in her life where she felt like she could be herself.  Something that no one else noticed, though unfortunately...not even her husband.28

Cindy looked around at the living room.  What a reflection of deep harmony and happiness, with every little thing in place, and all colors coordinated in perfect matches.  All the people that lived there were as color coordinated as the walls, furniture, and curtains.  "This was the image they have of themselves,"  it suddenly dawned on Cindy.  They fight anyone who doesn't outwardly reflect this image, and yet they don't have any awareness that it is just an image, and nothing more.  An image they have because they can afford it.29

Cindy's mind wandered back  to her best friend Kelly's home that she was lucky enough to be welcomed into.  It looked similar in taste and design.  But it wasn't just an image.  It was a true reflection of character.  All sorts of people were welcomed.   Poor people,  like she herself had been,  mingled with the richer people all in a harmonious sense of mutuality, kindness and love.    Nobody was judged by their economic status, or their personal quirks.  The people her husband's family would call eccentric would be considered by her old social world as colorful, and creative, and as worthwhile as the people who controlled and ordered the system.   Cindy felt sick in her stomach about the fact that she even had to note these differences to herself.  Just to think about it and attempt to defend it, stripped it of it's equality, and made it sound like she had been living in some sort of fanciful  illusion.  She could see her husband's whole family staring blankly at her.  That is how her husband's family would see it.  Indeed, they could not see it in any other way.  Mutuality was a reality that just didn't make any sense to them.30

Cindy's thoughts were interrupted by her daughter tugging on her shirt.  Her daughter looked up into her face, stretched out her little chubby body in an arch, and showed her the empty bottle, with a pleading look in her eyes.  'And they say telepathy doesn't exist,' Cindy thought.   She took the bottle, and after rinsing it out, she filled it with water.   It was almost time for lunch anyway, she thought.  31

>>>>>>32

Later that evening, the house was once again filled with people.  At dinner that night she offhandedly told her mother-in-law that she ironed the clothes that were in the dryer.  Instead of responding to her, everyone around the table gave each other knowing glances that Cindy could only interpret as condescending.  Her mother-in-law then turned her her, and politely said, 'you didn't have to do that.'  33

'I realize that.  But I wanted to.  If I am going to be home all day I miswell make myself useful.'34

Again, instead of responding to her, everyone looked at each other with that inside glance which finally Cindy realized meant, 'how can we politely talk her out of not touching anything in our home.'35

Cindy ignored the looks, and smiling cheerfully said "I love to cook and I will make supper for everyone so you don't have to do it when you get home."36

More glances exchanged with each other, leaving her on the outside of the invisible circle they created.  "Okay dear,"  Cindy heard, shocked and happily surprised by the response.  37

The next day though, Cindy's mom had the roast in the oven before she left, and made it clear in every way but direct, that on all subsequent days she alone would do the cooking.  38

Instead of taking offense, Cindy decided she would try to then 'help in the kitchen.'  Unfortunately they did not want this of her either.  So what did they want her to do with her days?  Did they have any idea what it was like to be home all the time with a 9 month old baby?   It was wonderful.  Cindy was not complaining, but it could get quite boring at times.   39

After many months of feeling like she didn't exist, Cindy finally realized that they had a place for her in the family, and she could not change it.  It was not her family to change.  It was not going to be up to her to decide what role she wanted to play in it.  So, she began trying to figure out what she could do on the outside.  Making a loose decision based on a buried undeveloped interest in psychology she made the decision to go to University.  40

When she announced her decision over dinner one day, the knowing glances once again came.   41