Terra Orndorff

Commandments

I. Stay in your lane.

My dad, Floyd, runs a tight ship, maintains a firm grip, expects things done a certain way. My mom, brother and I comply, obeying the edicts. Growing up among eleven siblings left a mark on Dad. He and eight other siblings saw their father lose his wife, their mother. Losing a mother as a teenager is an experience no one should have. Later, a stepmom entered his life. Then two more siblings. The perceived betrayal surely stung, and Dad never developed a relationship with my Mammaw Mae, his stepmom. I wonder if he feared losing another mother or if he felt only animosity. His own father, emotionally distant but always a provider, remained as his sole role model, teaching four simple rules to life: Work until the job is done. The job never really gets done. Men work outside. Women take care of animals and the house.

Keith, my brother, gets all the chores I love, and he hates. The outside work. Wood chopping, yard mowing, work on the ponds. The baby and only girl, I get the housework. Laundry, dishes, dusting, cleaning, cooking. I also get animal care so not all is lost. I love the chickens, geese, turkeys, goats, and dogs. Mom works a full-time job over forty miles away and somehow cooks a full dinner, setting it on the table as Dad walks in the door at 6:00 each evening.

My uncle Charlie, Dad’s brother, sees me for who I am, and offers me a shotgun for 4-H. The answer from Dad, of course, is no. His daughter’s fair projects will only be clothing, childcare, gift wrapping, and crafts. Nothing adventurous.

II. Pink is for girls.

School shopping creates anxiety. Style lives no where in my brain. That changes after Mom and I take Dad shopping with us. In sixth grade we return home with a pink skirt, pink slacks, and a pink and white striped shirt. I hate pink.

“Pick your battles,” I hear Mom say. She tolerates a lot from Dad. Some days I see that as weak. Most days, only strong. Understanding when and how to pick those battles is her strength. Mom exudes a fierce calmness and uncompromising love both for her husband and her children. If Dad’s rules cause no harm, no need exists to fight. If what he says proves detrimental, emotionally or physically, she uses her verbal skills to convince him another way exists.

I say nothing of the pink clothes.

Mom never invites Dad clothes shopping again.

III. Sleep in your own room.

Keith sleeps in the basement. Dad thinks he will appreciate his privacy while I covet the finished, walk-out basement, view of our pond, and the ability to listen to music with no one to bother. The benefits of that room scream out to me. Of course, given my fear of tornados, I practically live in the basement anyway. Keith hates it. It terrifies him and induces nightmares. He gets caught one night coming back upstairs and sleeping at the foot of my bed.

“Do not sleep in your sister’s room,” Dad criticizes. “You have your own room.” The rule made clear. He never raises his voice, but our fear builds with every order anyway.

One night later, Keith wakes me. Plagued by my own nightmares, I refuse to turn him away and let him sleep at the foot of my bed. Being an early riser serves me well. I wake Keith before Dad stirs. He returns to his basement bedroom. There are knowing looks from Mom at breakfast, but no words. Keith and I maintain the ritual until his nightmares stop.

IV. No car dating.

The rule is clear, and I comply with no complaints. Boys see through me anyway. Too nerdy for jocks. Not nerdy enough for nerds. Too rule-abiding for everyone else. No prospects existed in my small school of White River Valley High School or my sixty classmates. One guy, Matt, dumped me and told everyone it was because I wouldn’t “put out.” I was fourteen. Of course, I wouldn’t. I always thought it said more about him than me. He moved on to my best friend. The possibility of meeting someone from the surrounding towns is nonexistent without being able to drive.

Every Friday Dad insists we eat out at Stoll’s, an Amish restaurant. It is just Mom, Dad, and me. Keith moved out shortly after he turned sixteen. Mom and Dad get the buffet and sweet tea. I get vegetable soup, Mt. Dew, and chocolate pie. Buffets repel me. Too many hands in the food. But the veggie soup at Stoll’s is incredible and the pie even better. Decadent. Whipped cream on top. Shaved chocolate mints on top. Looking back, I wonder: Is it tradition Dad is trying to create or an excuse for me to not ask about going out with friends?

V. No working past seven.

I cannot date, but I can work. Dairy Queen hires me just before I turn fifteen. Short shifts thanks to labor laws. I quickly become adopted into a second family whose rules consist of doing what needs to be done, having fun, and respecting each other. The assistant manager takes me under his wing, the daughter he doesn’t have, and quizzes me daily until I learn my Social Security number. I warm to everyone and work hard, despite only making $3.10 an hour. It cuts into Stoll’s Fridays, but Dad allows it. Work trumps everything. Mom drops me off for every shift and picks me up after. Maybe it provides a short reprieve for her, too.

A month in, I master all aspects of the restaurant. I run the counter and ice cream, make cakes, and work the grill. Drive-through, despite my shyness, becomes my superpower. I take an immense amount of pride in how well I control it. Take the order. Make the order. Get the money. Hand the order. Done. Next. The best nights are busy. Multi-tasking: My brain thrives on it. One 1992 summer Saturday night I barely notice the same car coming through for the second time. The driver appears a little too giddy, though, gives his friend a few too many sideways looks. I laugh at them, watching them enjoy their freedom. Our store is at one end of the cruise strip. Hand the order. Tell them to have a great night, to stay out of trouble. Done. Next.

Then they are back.

Get the money. Hand the order. Do-

“My friend wants to know if he can have your phone number.”

“Oh.” Impulsively, I write it on an order sheet, noting when I’ll be home. Hand it. Done. Next.

They continue to come through my drive-through, again and again. My heart flutters all night. Face gets redder every time with each handed order. Mine and his. Why did I give him my number? I don’t even know him.

Mom pulls the teal Grand Am in shortly after 7 p.m. Labor laws for a 15-year-old remain as strict as Dad’s own laws. “How was work,” she asks distractedly, maneuvering around the cruising teens.

“Um, it was fine. I gave someone our phone number.” Saying it aloud, putting it into the world, creates a whole new reality. What on earth was I thinking just giving someone I didn’t know our phone number?

Mom breaks into my anxiousness, “Oh? What’s his name?”

“Xavier. I don’t think you know him. He goes to Linton, not WRV.”

“Well, that’s interesting. Is he nice?”

“I guess so. I’m not sure, yet. I don’t really know him. I don’t know why I gave him our number”

“You deserve to meet people, Terra. To have some fun. You know what your dad will say, though,” she says, giving me a quick sideways glance.
            “I know. No dating until you’re sixteen. But it’s not a date. It’s talking on the phone.”

VI. No talking to boys on the phone

Mom pulls the car into the garage around 7:40. Jumping out of my flesh at the first shrill ring of the telephone at 8:00. I holler down the hall, “I’ve got it!” I could feel Dad’s eyebrow raise from across the house. As soon as I got home, I told him a boy might call. Better than him interrogating me after I answer the phone. Junior high had created a rule about talking to boys on the phone. It wouldn’t happen. “Unfathomable betrayal” describes the revelation of Dad recording my phone calls. He decided he didn’t like the way they talked to his little girl. As an adventurous child raised on a farm with only males (and Mom and Mammaw), I categorize none of it as inappropriate, but he sure does. After my fifteenth birthday, that rule gets repealed. Mom worked a form of verbal witchcraft I can only hope to master, verifies nothing is recorded, and I am allowed to talk to boys again. Dad’s unhappiness reverberates until tiny tremors ran through the walls.

“Hello?” I ask, sliding down the wall in the dining room, scrunching up in the small gap between the wall and the desk, big enough only for me.

“Terra?” the tentative voice on the other end asks.

Forty-five minutes later, minutes that felt like seconds, we hang up. It’s almost 8:45.

VII. The house closes at 9:00.

One rule holds our entire household hostage. Shut it down at 9:00. Every night. Weeknights. Weekends. Holidays. Summer. Every. Night. 9:00. Done. Next. Mom observes this without complaint. Getting up at 5:00 every morning to get to work makes early nights beneficial. Weekends just present as extra weekdays. Pick your battles. It isn’t the darkness that gets under my skin, though. It’s the silence. No matter how low I try to keep it, Dad always catches me trying to leave the radio on and shuts it down.

Immersed in dark silence, I replay the conversation. Xavier works at Stoll’s, the restaurant we always go to. He busses. I’m observant, but in public I get nervous and notice nothing. Focusing on my soup and pie, I am friendly to the server who, lo and behold, is Xavier’s mom. Hopefully I earned a bit of approval from her. Polite. Respectful. Tidy. Check. Done. Next.

He admits to silliness and staring, being teased by the kitchen staff. Once, he confesses, he and a friend found themselves in the car ahead of Mom and me on the road. They stop at a stop sign, put the vehicle in park, jump out, switch places, performing a well-executed Chinese fire drill. Xavier ran around the back, looking directly at me.

“Oh my, Lord!” I laugh. “I cannot believe that was you! Mom and I just laughed at your ridiculousness. And how I ‘should never do that.’ Wow! Well, you were right. It was us.”

VIII. Underage girls do not date “adults.”

I am six months from sixteen. Xavier accepts that. His willingness to wait surprises me. Boys err on the side of impatient disrespect in my experience. We can spend time together if an adult drives, not him and not friends. His mom picks me up. Four months later, when he turns eighteen, Mom and I tell Dad he turns seventeen. We both preemptively hear an until now nonexistent commandment forming and head it off at the pass. Dad’s rules were created at his discretion. Dishonesty necessitated by circumstance. Pick your battles. Done. Next.

Only one problem persists. How to go to his senior prom? It’s a month before I turn sixteen. Slowly, methodically, Mom, Xavier, and I start our work. I maintain the best behavior. No sass. No chore left undone. Xavier and I respect every decision from Dad. We even end our phone calls early. Mom whittles away at Dad’s resolve. She owns words. They are her superpower. Words, calmness, and her ease of conversation. She has an uncanny ability to make him think ideas come from him.

“Terra has been working really hard, don’t you think?” I overheard her say to Dad once. “She takes all the shifts she can, keeps up with her housework, and is still getting straight A’s in school. I don’t know how she does it. I wish she would take time to relax and have some fun.”

Dad grunts in reply.

Finally, before running out of time to find a dress, we ask. The process of getting permission progresses, bit by bit. Days that feel like weeks. At last, Dad consents to my going. I must be home by 10:00, and it does not change the rule. This remains an exception, not a repeal. My mom says, “Floyd, there is nothing after 10:00 she can’t do before 10:00.” Listening from the other side of the door, I internally groan, knowing curfew will be 9:00.

In the end I am home by midnight. Like Cinderella. Mice, men, pumpkins, pretty dresses, and daughters. All returned safe and sound. All rules magically back in place at the strike of twelve.

That night of freedom provided a taste. The following month flows as quickly as sap from a maple in the middle of winter. Matters made worse; my birthday falls on Thursday. One more torturously slow day.

IX. Leave at 6:00. Be home by 10:00.

The rule is clearly stated. Every minute late equals a week of grounding. No one tests the law, and resistance is futile. Four hours of independence twice a week call out to me. Xavier pulls in our drive, and I feel like it’s our first meeting. Butterflies overtake me. You’re acting silly, I tell myself. You’ve been talking over six months. But this presents differently. This is an escape. This signifies independence.

Then I see Dad approach.

And hand Xavier a quarter.

X. Call if you’re going to be late.

“Now you have no reason not to call if you’re going to be late.”

“Yes, sir. Of course,” Xavier replies, taking the quarter.

Final words spoken by my dad to my boyfriend. He never says another one to him. Done. Next.

XI Bonus. Make every moment count.

Quickly, almost skipping, we head to his car. The red Chevy Cavalier synonymous with shaking off the strict set of commandments. Sliding in the front seat and pulling out of the drive, we begin our journey to town. On the way, we create our own law and etch it into stone. We make a promise to enjoy every moment, to not let the rules and stresses of life ruin our bits of freedom.

The next time Xavier picks me up, I notice a quarter, wire threaded through a newly drilled hole, hanging from his sun visor.