Under the Light - By Laura Whitcomb Page 0,1

daily examples of walking with Christ,” he said, “but it seems we’ve been giving you too many freedoms.”

He set the diary on his chair and slipped a shiny black square from his pocket. As he unfolded it, I saw that it was an extra-large garbage bag. I felt like a kitten about to be sacked and drowned.

He didn’t command us to come, but when he walked out into the hall, my mother followed, so I did too. She glanced back at me, and I thought her face would be stiff and angry, but she looked afraid. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who had a secret diary tucked away.

When we got to my bedroom, my father was already sliding around hangers in the closet, examining my clothes. He studied my skirts and sweaters, dresses front and back, leaving some items on their padded hangers and slipping others off, letting those drop into the sucking black hole of the garbage bag.

I knew why he took away my blue tank top and the cotton camisole; the necks were a little low, the straps narrow. But I could only imagine why other items were unacceptable. My black jersey jacket. Was the cut too rock-and-roll for him? And my brown knit skirt. It was expensive, from Nordstroms, one my mother picked out. She gasped as he unclipped it from the hanger, but when my father paused, not even looking at her, she put a finger to her lips and said nothing. Was it because that skirt came more than an inch above my knees?

He opened my dresser drawers and began to rifle through my underwear. I felt dizzy. Not because my father was touching my panties and bras, but because I was afraid that when he got to the lowest drawer he’d discover the false bottom and the secret compartment below. I stepped back and sat on my bed, breathing slowly, in through my nose, out through my mouth, trying not to throw up. That bottom drawer might seem too shallow to him. He might rap on the bottom, knock the cardboard loose, and find those few black-and-white photographs that he’d missed before. And the Polaroid camera I could use without getting the pictures developed at the store or downloading them on the computer. I felt my knees shaking and clamped my hands over them.

Both my demi-cup bras and the black cotton one went in the garbage bag. I could feel my mother longing to object, seeing as how neither of my parents would want a white bra showing through under a black dress. But Mom held her tongue and the black bra, perhaps a sign of goth tendencies, disappeared into the plastic bag.

My father hesitated in earnest about the pantyhose. My mom stiffened, folded her arms, afraid he would make a mistake and I would be caught in Sunday School with naked legs like some pantheist. But he left the stockings and moved on to the pajamas. He passed over the long-sleeved flannel nightie, but banished the thin white cotton one. He felt the jersey pajamas between his fingers perhaps to test how flimsy they might be. Did he imagine I would answer the door in them some Saturday morning and seduce a Mormon missionary?

He left the pajamas, an innocent color of pale yellow, and moved to the bottom drawer. I held my breath. But all he did, when we saw the mass of mittens, gloves, knit hats, and mufflers, was pull out a black lace shawl. He slid the bottom drawer closed without disturbing the secret chamber.

I was sure it was over, but he stepped to my dressing table and started picking things up. He stole my violet perfume and lifted the lid of my jewelry box. I didn’t have pierced ears, so there wasn’t a lot to choose from. Still, he took a silver bracelet formed from a row of running figures holding hands, a cheap mood ring, a plain gold anklet chain, a pendant of a pewter feather. He left the crosses and the birthstone hair clip from when I was ten.

I already missed my tank tops, my soft black jacket, but more heartbreaking, he went to my bedside table and unplugged my CD player. I had already learned to check out books I wanted to read from the school library and to leave them in my locker until I returned them. My parents were not novel readers and seemed suspicious of literature. But my music, it was so safe.