Sensing Light by Mark A. Jacobson Read Free Book Online Page A

murdered by Klansmen. The danger bred fear, but it also fueled their idealism. Gwen was intoxicated by the political discussions and by Daniel, a master at debating the issues. She consented to marry him after graduation.
    Their marriage fared well while the rigors of medical school and internship distracted her from Daniel’s pettiness, the judgmental comments aimedat her. She didn’t fully understand her mistake until Eva turned one, and she was ready to find a job. Gwen wanted to hire a nanny. Daniel, now a public defender, was adamantly opposed. He wanted Eva in day-care, like working-class children. Their kitchen became a courtroom where she was pilloried for her reactionary tendencies and bourgeois conventions. Civility disappeared once Gwen, concerned that Daniel rarely held Eva, started criticizing his failure to bond with their daughter. His attacks on her selfishness and privilege escalated. The day he categorically refused to try couples therapy, she faced reality and began looking for an attorney. Daniel fought it like a death row case. It took them three years to settle the divorce terms. Meanwhile, both her parents had died. She used her inheritance to buy a two-bedroom bungalow in the Oakland hills.
    Angry with herself for replaying the same old complaints and rationalizations, Gwen turned off the cassette. She thought about being a medicine resident. She wasn’t ambivalent. She had to change her life. That decided, she fell asleep.
    Just as the sky lightened, Gwen awoke from a dream. She had been in her childhood bed, almost asleep, when startled by loud noise. Her parents’ voices were raised in argument, unheard of in this household. Over and over, they shouted, “Larry! Larry!”
    The dream had been eerily precise. Every detail—the feel of her pillow and blanket, the plaid pajamas she was wearing, the pine odor of the cleaning solution her mother used to mop the floors—was identical to the real event, except for the name they had shouted.
    Gwen’s older brother, Jack, had been sixteen at the time. His temper was igniting at the least frustration. The morning after her parents’ argument woke her, Jack slammed a window shut, shattering the pane. He was still upstairs when she left the house. At recess, a girl with an older sister at Pasadena High told her Jack had been suspended from school for fighting.
    Jack’s name continued to be shouted behind her parents’ bedroom door. A week later, her father moved out of the house.
    Jack went back to school, briefly. He was arrested for car theft and sent to juvenile hall. Her mother wept fiercely, but Gwen didn’t offer comfort.She was infuriated by her mother’s incompetence and terrified of the consequences. Jack was a criminal, her father had abandoned them, and her remaining parent was falling apart.
    After three months in detention, Jack came home. Her mother wouldn’t discuss Jack with her, yet she demanded Gwen’s presence whenever she spoke to him, leaving Gwen to wonder if she needed her daughter’s moral support or simply a witness in order to confront him. The same day Gwen received a letter from her father announcing he was divorcing her mother and moving to New York City, Jack informed them he had flunked out of high school.
    Her mother finally took a stand. She refused to give Jack spending money. He got a job as a dishwasher in a drive-in restaurant. Jack had odd hours and often didn’t return at night. Then he stopped coming home at all.
    When Jack eventually did reappear, his lips were dry and cracked. His hands trembled, and he smelled of vomit. The few words he said were untethered to each other. Her mother sat speechless, dabbing her eyes.
    â€œWhat are your plans?” Gwen asked him meekly, prepared to receive a volley of verbal abuse.
    Head down, Jack didn’t answer. He gave her a furtive, hangdog glance.
    â€œPlease, Jack. We need to know.”
    â€œI’m