The Longest Trip Home by John C. Grogan

Author:John C. Grogan [Grogan, John C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061769597
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

PART II: Breaking Away

Chapter 18

By 1982 I was three years out of Central Michigan University, where I had finally gotten serious about academics and graduated cum laude with twin majors in journalism and English. I was working as a reporter at a small newspaper in the far southwest corner of the state, covering murders, robberies, rapes, and lesser crimes. I lived alone in an apartment carved out of the second story of a turn-of-the-century house perched on a bluff above Lake Michigan. And I was still dating Becky. Or perhaps more accurately, Becky was still dating me.

Just as she had instigated that first kiss in the hallway of West Bloomfield High seven years earlier, Becky continued to be the driving force that kept us hanging on as a couple. I followed the course of least resistance, going along for the ride—and for the sex, which finally came to pass in my dorm room at Central Michigan after Becky went on the Pill and persuaded her mother to drive her the two hours to campus to spend the weekend.

That visit marked a watershed in my struggle for candor with my parents. I had never grown comfortable with the lies and deceit, and once in college I was determined to be more forthcom-ing. But my parents seldom rewarded my attempts at honesty. I learned that over and over, but never as much as I did during that Homecoming weekend when Mom called while Becky was in the room with me, waiting for her mother to arrive to take her home.

“So what’s new?” Mom asked.

“Oh, not much,” I said.

“Nothing at all?”

“Not really.”

“Surely you must have something to report,” she said, not accusatorily but with enough zeal to make me think, Oh God, she knows.

“Well,” I said, “Becky’s here for the weekend.”

Long pause.

“Becky? There with you?” Mom asked.

“Yes. Her mom brought her up for Homecoming.”

“For the day?”

“No, for the weekend.” I glanced over at Becky and could tell from her expression that I was making a grave mistake. But my pride was on the line. I wasn’t going to lie to my mother in front of my girlfriend and roommates. Besides, I was an adult now, old enough to vote, and figured it was time to be my own man. “She’s actually here right now.”

“She is? Where did she stay last night?” Mom asked.

“Here at the dorm.”

“Where at the dorm?”

“Here in my room.”

“Your room? Then where did you stay?”

Now it was my turn to pause. It was the moment of truth. I could easily lie and tell her I bunked across the hall, or I could be a man and tell it straight. “Here in my room, Mom.”

A drawn breath, and then: “John, what are you trying to tell me?”

Before I could answer, she started in about the sanctity of marriage, and the need for God’s blessing of sexual relations, and the repercussions of one irresponsible act. It was time to abandon ship. The SS Honesty was going down.

“Mom,” I interrupted. “Nothing happened. Nothing at all, okay? She slept in my bed and I slept in the beanbag.

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