Mollie

Now I've been out of college for a long time, but my roommate has always kept up with me. I'm not a person who "keeps up." If you're here, in my life, I connect. Otherwise, I find it difficult to do that from a long distance. I'm glad Mollie wasn't that way.

Mollie has called me once or twice a year for the past 50 years. The calls were initially very similar to each other - late at night, greeting me cheerfully and asking how I was. She was always fine, everything was wonderful. This would go on through the typical questions, "how are the kids and Gordie?"

"Oh, they're just wonderful!" Then the truth would come out. She was troubled by something her husband, Gordie was doing. He was an intimidator, she, a rather shy, very self-effacing person put in this world to please others. I knew she didn't have many friends, at least not of the sort I was. People liked her, polite, friendly, supportive and very reserved. It was the reserve that always got to me. She was such a tight personality, but a wonderful roommate for me. She was structured, studied hard and had a schedule. I was unstructured, cramming at the last minute, in every sport and activity possible. It was a women's junior college, about all I could bear. I disliked school.

The environment was protective, run by a lot of gay women faculty who were in the same womb as we were. And they controlled what went on. Don't get me wrong, I loved them all, they were a wonderful faculty. It was just that we finally figured it out and were fascinated by it all. Crushes on one particular faculty member were rampant. Faculty kept their private lives very private.

Mollie and I met on a bus trip. I was currently rooming with a girl from Aruba with whom I had nothing in common. She moved in with another friend and Mollie and I roomed together the second term and all the next year.

She and I both smoked so we spent a fair amount of time in the butt room with the other smokers. Mollie sat in the corner while I interacted with others. She was my rock and made my insecurities more bearable. I opened the door to people and situations that were difficult for her. We admired each other for the strengths each of us lacked.

The tight-knit faculty chose me to be the President of Student Government in my second year. This also made me the head of the Disciplinary Board and awarded me the Penn Hall Girl honor. The college also contained a girl's prep school.

I used to sneak out to go horseback riding with one of the teachers. It was a passion of mine and she had a couple of horses stabled nearby. The last time we went, she invited another girl who was a friend of mine and the three of us headed out on the trail. "Paula, why don't you ride "Speedy" and I'll give Elaine "Pokey" because I don't know how she rides?" I was proud of that, it was quite a compliment. Somewhere down the rainy trail a cloudburst opened. Elaine, on Pokey was in the lead and I was second. Pokey spooked and took the bit. My view of him galloping toward the barn was obscured by the fact that "Speedy" stumbled in his attempt to do the same and when we came back up, my right shoulder was out of joint (it had been doing this for some time, but I would tenderly put it back), I had lost a stirrup and barely had reins. I couldn't put the shoulder back and I was terrified. My decision to jump off of Speedy onto a bank on the right brought a quick end to my riding at college.

We limped back to the dorm somehow and Mollie was dismayed when she saw my condition. "Moll, you have to wash my hair and help me get dressed. Tonight Annapolis is coming for a dance and I'm a hostess." Against her better judgement, she tried, while I just screamed and moaned. A good thing the knock at the door brought the house mother. Mighty Mouse had come clean with her confession of sneaking students out to go riding.

After my surgery in Philadelphia I returned to school with my shoulder tied up and fastened to my body. I don't have to tell you who got me through that ordeal. There was no rehab in those days and the doctor gave me exercises to do, but they hurt so I didn't do them. I was okay, playing tennis left handed and ultimately back to my life of sports and activities. That came to a dead stop years later when my shoulder froze.

Mollie and I kept in touch and I was ultimately the maid of honor at her wedding to Gordon, the boy she was always expected to marry. Her parents did everything they could to ensure this. So did his. I visited Mollie at the farm where her father raised ponies. Her parents were delightful; her mother couldn't have been more accepting and accommodating and her father was kind and gentle. At least that's what I saw. Their letters to her at school with instructions for taking the bus home (school was outside Harrisburg PA, she was from Ohio, I from suburban Philadelphia) were full of very explicit instructions on exactly what she must do and when, in order to get home safely. We got a good laugh out of the letters. I saw them as caring and loving, if a bit patronizing. Mollie never said what she thought, we just chuckled. We always argued on where we would spend vacations. I wanted to go to the farm, Mollie wanted to come to Philadelphia. We did some of both, but mostly the farm.

I was living in New York City after school and a call from Mollie brought about a wonderful evening for me. She had met a man named Byron and dated him a bit. I forget how this was possible for her, as I don't remember her ever living away from home, except for college. Byron was headed to NYC for business and she was quite excited for us to meet. A tall, rugged, handsome man picked me up and took me to a very fancy french restaurant at Rockefeller plaza. Since I lived on a shoestring, it was quite a treat. He was absolutely charming and dinner was a lovely experience, except for the waiter who was rude and dismissive of us. As we left the restaurant the waiter came running outside after us and gave Byron something. At my quizzical expression, Byron produced the dime he had left as a tip. "I guess he didn't like it" he said with a loud laugh. I was shocked and delighted.

I told Mollie she should marry this guy and begged her to give him more time rather than just marrying Gordon. But the families' pull was too strong, his and hers. I spent some time with Gordon's family and his Mother and brother were delightful. His father was a tyrant who controlled everyone. Dinner table discussions were littered with corrections from the father who didn't like the vernacular his son was using. I think the word was "guy" which quickly became "fellow" to please the father. He was intimidating and scary unless he turned on the charm. Gordon was a stiff, serious, nerdy boy. His seriousness made him difficult to converse with. I was always full of antics and teasing and he took it from me. I think he knew he was not the most important person to Mollie when I was there.

Mollie and Gordon had two children and I visited them once at their home in Virginia. The children were preteens or young teens, I can't recall. The images that are left from that visit are of a severely repressed family. Father ruled all, especially the son. The daughter seemed to have more leeway but was affected adversely also by his domineering behavior. I was uncomfortable, mostly for Mollie.

I visited in later years when the kids were out of the house. Mollie's daughter visited and I remember being impressed by how bright she was. It was a good visit. Gordon wasn't around much except at dinner. You see, he was high up in the CIA. I think he was fifth down from the top. He was an analyst and traveled to Russia occasionally. Mollie kept her vow of silence about anything related to Gordon or his work. At dinner, however, I finally asked where he worked and he told me. My only question was, "well are we safe?" He smiled and said, "yes we are." Mollie said later how surprised she was that he told me. But I was asked to promise that if I ever told his name to anyone, in speaking about Mollie, that I wouldn't mention his last name, no matter who I was talking to. I always kept that promise.

The late night phone calls continued for several years, always with the stress that Mollie was going through and finally said it was getting physical in her marriage. It had always been psychological and emotional abuse. And it finally came out that she was alcoholic and didn't remember all those phone calls. I never once suspected that as I didn't hear any slurring in her speech. She always said she felt better after we talked, and I always felt like I had bullied her because I assured her that she was a valuable person who needed counseling and that she was being abused. What I realized many years later was that Mollie had been abused all her life. Back then it was the norm for raising kids, seen and not heard. For Mollie, a shy, insecure kid anyway, it served to break her down.

The phone calls continued well after her divorce when Gordon had an affair with another CIA agent. They eventually married. Mollie never got over it and the yearly phone calls were painful for her and for me. She finally got some counseling but it was brief, I believe. I begged her to continue but she couldn't. And taking antidepressants was out of the question because then it would appear on her records and she couldn't let that happen. Shades of the CIA conditioning, I always thought.

Mollie's father died and she had yearly visits from her mother. I always delighted in the fact that her mother and I had such lovely chats while she was visiting. A nicer person was hard to find, I thought.

Until I got the calls that told me Mollie was being abused by her tyrant of a mother. I was never more shocked. She was ordered around, told what to do and it didn't sound "nice" at all. Her mother eventually died after Mollie cared for her to the best of her abilities, which were always topnotch as far as I ever saw.

Then the phone calls about men ensued, probably some during the years her mother was there also but after her death, Mollie was lonely. She even contacted Byron, who was married with a family. He came to see her though and I think it was a love affair. I was glad to see her have some fun, but I knew it was going to end in pain, having been there myself.

So I heard about different men, some she met in AA when she finally started going. She had a difficult time with men (who doesn't?) and wound up with a permanent partner in Wayne, another abusive, controlling man whom she lives with today. She eventually moved from Virginia to Texas to live near her daughter.

One of the phone conversations revolved around how she was going to tell Bruce, her son, that she had made the decision to go live near her daughter in Texas. She said she was going to tell him at Christas when she as visiting him at hes home. Bruce was married at that time, with a baby, I believe. Mollie didn't have a comfortable relationship with her daughter inlaw or her parents and we spent many hours sharing our feelings on that type of relationship. I tried to convince her that she was not alone in those feelings at all. She was the mother of the boy and that was usually an uncomfortable position for any woman. I begged her to tell him before the Christmas visit, not only because of the nature of the holiday but because she was planning to move in January of the next year, only weeks away.

She didn't heed my advice, I think she was too nervous to call and tell him, knowing he would be very upset at the news. So instead it created a rift over the Christmas visit. I also begged her to not take Wayne with her to her new home. I was so hopeful that she would be able to make a new start with someone she deserved. But her children were encouraging the relationship. As children do, they saw it as a safety net for their mother.