I looked down over the City. The pointy houses poked into the blue sky. The bay seemed so still and wet, as if the artist had just finished painting the water.

Still holding my mother’s hand, we stepped into the crosswalk. I looked over and up into the gleaming grill of a green Chevy Camaro. It gently rolled into me, and I remember experiencing the strangest sensation, like the bottom of my body was being sucked under the Kermit green mass of metal. Then I heard my mother screaming and pounding the hood of the Camaro. The car stopped and my mother grabbed me, hysterical, but she always kind of was.

“Are you okay?” Are you okay?” she asked, one hand gripping my shoulder the other hand gripping my wrist. She was always very uneven.

I was okay, but I had lost one of my shoes. Those were my favorite shoes, mainly because they were my only matching pair. And they were red.

Not a lot of people have hazel eyes, but my mother did. A dark turquoise, with brown specks, long brown lashes. Curly red brown hair. More brown now than red.

When she calmed down I looked up into the peering faces of a group of people. There were two women in long printed skirts — pastels, floral — and two men wearing shirts with ties. They were together, couples, two couples. Four of people.

The man in the red tie told my mother that God had saved her child from death. The other three people agreed, enthusiastic. After my sister died my mother thought I was some kind of holy child, so, she agreed to come to their church, and then looked at the bridge and thanked God for sparing me.

I never knew my father, but I didn’t care. My mother was all I needed. She would take me to work with her at Free Love Fabrics. After Kindergarten, every day, at 12:30, there she was. And on weekends we would go to Golden Gate Park.

But not that Sunday. As I was lacing my shoes (new red shoes, a gift from Jesus), my mother came into my room and told me to change into something nice. She told me that we were going to church. If I went nicely, she promised me ice-cream after church, at Bud’s.

We went to church. The building was white and pointy, with chipping paint. There seemed to be an endless amount of cement steps that led to two large wooden doors that opened into the church. As soon as we stepped inside, awoman appeared and asked if we were new, obviously knowing that we were. She had bright blonde hair pulled back into two pink plastic barrettes, like I wore. Her lips were red and her eyelids were blue. She wore a pink shirt, buttoned to her neck, and around the collar hung a gold cross. The cross had roses on it, around the edges.

“I’m Minnie, the Christian Girls’ Sunday School Teacher.” She grabbed my hand and led me through The Church. The Church was unlike anything I had ever been enclosed in, but just like all the churches I was enclosed within afterward.

We went to church Sunday & will tomorrow. We went to Bible study on Wednesday. Last Tuesday we had a problem we couldn’t work out & Bob called them & and they were over here in 5 minutes. I know if there’s any problem they will help me. So, don’t worry. I want to get this off before the mailman comes. Love, Kathi

She kept leading me, between two long rows of benches. On the back of each seat perched a big blue book with HYMN printed in gold. The floor descended as we approached the front of the large room, which caused me to trip over my new, now untied, shoelaces. Never mind that. She drug me down, through the rows, down the stairs, into a subterranean room, under where the pastor stood on a stage.

1979
Dear Mother-
Sorry I didn’t get this off to you right away, but you know me — always late. Everything is fine. Bob really sees how he was & blames no one but himself. He takes total responsibility for everything. He realizes he was a very sick person. The Lord led me to some very wonderful people (not at all a cult). They merely operate a kind of a kind of retreat where people can come & live for however long it takes to work out their problems. (If you look at cults, none of them live according to the Bible or say to be followers of Jesus Christ — they all claim to follow their own leaders.)