Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund Page A

kiss.”
    Uncle loaded our valises onto a hand truck and paid the boy to trundle them to our hotel, while Mother and Father greeted Frannie, whom Father had never seen before. Frannie was unafraid, and she shook my father’s hand as though she were as tall as he was.
    Then my mother put her arm through my father’s elbow and held out her hand to me. As we started toward the hotel, I joined with them. Then I held back my free hand for Frannie. She took it and grabbed her mother, who in turn playfully took Uncle’s hand, so that we made a chain with six links in it as we walked along.
    I think my father had eyes only for the churches of New Bedford,for as we passed them, he stopped to read the sermon topics tacked to the doors. We all stood patiently, still holding hands, while he read. He looked like a dark minister seeking a home for his little flock.
    â€œWe could play crack the whip,” Frannie said, all smiles, for that was a game that all four of us sometimes played on the beach. I shook my head solemnly at her.
    At Seamen’s Bethel Chapel, after Father read the sermon notice tacked on a blue-painted door, he announced, “This will do.” My mother moved beside him in front of the door also to read. Then we moved on, but we did not take up our linking of hands again.
    When I had the chance, I inquired of my mother what was the promised sermon topic. She said that the next day we were to hear a discourse on loving obedience and loyalty. Her eyes looked into mine with such love and loyalty that the protest which rose to my tongue subsided. All evening, I felt fixed in the admonition of her gaze, and I tried to please my father as the six of us ate supper. I asked him about the horse that pulled the buggy and about his fishing in the Ohio, of catfish and bass and bluegill, and I reminded him of when I had fished with him, and as I spoke of these things, I discovered that I did indeed care about them. But I felt as I imagined an old person might, reminiscing about times long gone and far away.
    Sunday morning found the six of us entering the Seamen’s Bethel, an odd church with a pulpit shaped like the prow of a ship. No sooner had we seated ourselves in a pew about halfway down, on the left, than the minister ascended the pulpit. To do so, he climbed up a rope ladder, then hauled the rope up into the prow. He began by reading from the Book of Ruth. During the night, I had slept off my acquiescence to the tyranny of religion and paternity. I listened to the reading grudgingly, sitting between my parents, instantly in hot rebellion. When, in the sermon, the minister began to generalize on the application of Ruth’s words— Thy people shall be my people and thy God, my God —the words hit my heart as the sea hits the headland rocks—to be turned away with its own force. I thought, Thy people shall not be my people—I choose my own—and thy God shall certainly not be mine, for I have my own allegiances . I seemed to grow taller, as though my shoulders had shot up to the level of my parents’ ears. I felt fiercely gigantic, and I knew that I could begin to roar, if I chose, that neither they, who sat so close, nor the congregation as a whole could keep me from roaringone gigantic No! in the face of the high minister. After that, they might drag me out, true, but really I could say whatever I pleased.
    Yet I knew my words themselves would dash senselessly against the pulpit. That ship would sail right over me. Instead of roaring my dissent, I studied the minister, who was tall, lined, and battered in appearance, as though he himself had often been to sea. While his words seemed foreign and offensive to me, he himself was a pillar of dignity. I could not help but like him. His figure contrasted with that of my father, who was short and powerfully compact. The minister was silver like driftwood, not the certain black of my father.
    Down the pew was the blazing head of