“The most important element of love is…what? Mary Pat?”
“Obedience,” the obedient Mary Pat said.
“Correct. Love is obedient and long-suffering, just like Jesus on the cross. And disobedience invites the devil into your life.”
I hate this kind of talk SO MUCH. It makes my blood boil. Do these nuns really expect us to suffer like Jesus and never fight back? To never defend ourselves? How sick is that?
I raised my hand.
“Yes, Jane?”
“I don’t understand. God spoke to St. Joan, and she obeyed. But that was her big mistake. She obeyed him right up until the end, and he didn’t save her. Why? What is the difference between burning on a stake in a village square and burning in hell?”
“Burning in hell lasts for all eternity,” Sister Mary Joseph said. “Joan suffered at the stake for a short time, but she was rewarded with an eternity in heaven.”
“You don’t know that. How do you really know that?”
“Jane, that is what is called faith.”
“I call it stupidity—”
“God’s mercy is mysterious to our weak human minds. St. Augustine said that we can’t understand God any more than a hole on the beach can understand the ocean.”
“That’s a convenient excuse. You know what I think? I think that sounds like bullshit. I think maybe there is no God. NO—I take that back. I know it: There is no God. And if there is a God, I hate him.”
The classroom fell silent. Outside in the school parking lot I heard a bus rumble to life. I was doomed and I knew it.
“Jane Sullivan, that is blasphemy,” Sister Mary Joseph said. “Report to Sister Cecilia immediately.”
Sister Cecilia is the principal. She is not as scary as Sister Mary Joseph. I left Religion class as fast as I could. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Even Bridget looked shocked.
I waited outside Sister Cecilia’s office for a while. In the waiting area she has one of those pictures of Jesus where his eyes follow you all around the room. Creepy.
She let me into her office and closed the door. Even though she is a nun, Sister Cecilia has a worldly, sophisticated air about her. If she hadn’t decided to be a Bride of Christ, she might have been a fund-raiser for a modern art museum or something like that.
“Sister Mary Joseph told me what you said in class. Jane, do you really believe there is no God?”
“No. I don’t know.” Sitting there across the desk from her, I suddenly felt like crying, but I didn’t know why. It seemed like I wanted to get in trouble all the time but when trouble actually came I didn’t like it. “What difference does it make whether I believe or not? If he exists, he’ll still be there. If he doesn’t, he’ll never know I don’t believe in him.”
“I’m sending you home with a letter to your parents. Tell them to come in and talk to me soon. I’m suggesting you get some spiritual counseling.”
“Great. That’s just what I need.”
“And I’m going to suspend you from school until after Christmas. Perhaps you need some time to think things over.”
Suspension. For saying something in class. I didn’t get suspended for stripping in front of the whole school, but for saying there is no God…well, at least they didn’t kick me out altogether.
“I’m going easy on you, because I don’t think you’ve committed true blasphemy.”
“Yes, I have. I said—”
“Sister Mary Joseph told me what you said. But I don’t think God is the one you are angry with.”
“How would you know?”
“I don’t know. I suspect. That’s what I want you to think about while you are suspended.” She tapped some papers on her desk. I noticed a copy of the Sun in one of the piles and realized she’d probably read the story about you and my blog.
“Stop fighting, Jane,” she said. “Take mercy where you find it.”
And with that I was dismissed. Sent home. Suspended.
I knew everybody in the family would be thrilled to hear it. Especially you.
NINE
myevilfamily.com
Farewell to Wallace
I’m going to lay off my evil family for once out of respect for Wallace. He was Almighty’s husband and he died this week. The funeral was yesterday. Everybody was sad and crying and the family is in some kind of crisis, though I’m not sure what exactly is going on. I don’t know if Almighty is sad about it or not. She’s not easy to read. She doesn’t look very happy, though. I wonder if she’ll get married for a sixth time?
Then there’s the fact that I was suspended from school for blasphemy—also known as TELLING THE TRUTH—which didn’t make anybody too happy either. And I kind of get the feeling Norrie and Sassy are keeping secrets from me, but I can’t be sure. If they are, I wish they’d talk to me because we’re sisters and we support each other. Really, you can talk to me! As long as you don’t mind hearing the TRUTH back from me.
Anyway, here’s to Wallace. He was a good man. I wish I’d paid more attention to him before he died. It was all very unexpected.
Then today Takey’s goldfish, Bubbles, died. It’s November. Death is everywhere.
JANE OUT
My first week of suspension, I spent a lot of time alone in the house. I sat in Takey’s room and stared at his talented goldfish, Bubbles. I was hoping to catch Bubbles practicing his tricks but he wouldn’t do anything unless you dangled food in front of him. I’d never really been alone in the house before, not for long. It’s pretty echoey when you’re the only person in it.
Then Wallace died and that overshadowed any trouble I was in. I have to assume you were more upset about your husband dying than my suspension from school.
We were all kind of numb, except for Takey, who seemed confused, and Sassy, who couldn’t stop crying. I don’t know about you, but you looked grim. Your red lipstick slashed across your mouth—not a Mr. Yuck frown, just a straight, flat line. Do you do that on purpose to signal your feelings, like a mood ring? Norrie and I tried to guess what your grim expression meant. Were you grieving? Depressed? Angry? Resigned to your fate as a five-time widow? Out to make somebody pay? We really couldn’t tell.
I was torn between wanting to steer clear of you and feeling I should offer some sort of granddaughterly comfort, however lame. But you’ve always made a show of your independence, so I decided to steer clear. If you wanted your grandchildren to run up and hug you, you should have pinched our cheeks once in a while. Not that we would have enjoyed that.
I felt sad for old Wallace. How can you not like a guy who grows flowers? He was the only grandfather I ever really knew. But he was so quiet he seemed more like an extra arm attached to you than a grandfather.
At the end of the funeral service, Norrie—who’d been tense—suddenly burst into tears as we filed out of the cathedral. Between basket-case Sassy and now sobbing Norrie, I felt like the hard-hearted one. I felt sorry that I wasn’t all wrecked over Wallace. But what could I do, fake it?
The day Wallace died, Sassy started crying and pretty much didn’t stop. Her room is next to mine and I could hear her crying through the wall. The night after the funeral, I went in and found her facedown on her bed, sobbing.
I rubbed her back. “Why are you so upset about Wallace?” I truly wanted to understand. He was a nice man, and Sassy had been closer to him than the rest of us had been, but her reaction still struck me as extreme. “He was pretty old, you know.”
That only made her cry harder. I didn’t know what else to say to her. When I was five and my kindergarten teacher died, Miss Maura soothed me by telling me Ms. Seipp was looking down on me from heaven, and I shouldn’t feel sad because she was blissfully happy. But I couldn’t comfort Sassy with that, now that I’m on record as not believing in heaven. I’m beginning to see how useful the idea of heaven can be—even if it doesn’t exist. Without heaven I had no words to say. And so she cried and cried and cried, and all I could do was rub her back while she soaked her pillow with
tears.
Me being me, I couldn’t resist taking a stab at it anyway. I can’t stand it when she cries.
“Since there’s no God, that means no devil either,” I said. “So at least we know Wallace isn’t in hell.”
She kind of screamed into her pillow and pounded her fist on the bed.
“You’re wrong about God.” Sassy choked out the words. Her face was all red. “There is a God. There must be. Because He’s made me unkillable for some reason.”
“What?” It took a second for her words to sink in. “Hey, did you get hit by a car again?” I brushed her hair aside to check for head wounds. She didn’t answer me. “Why would God make you unkillable and not Wallace?”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “That’s what’s making me crazy.”
“You’re crazy all right,” I joked, but she didn’t laugh. She just kept on crying. I stayed with her until she cried herself to sleep, just like Takey used to do when he was a baby.
After Sassy fell asleep, I went downstairs to get a glass of milk. The house was quiet, but I saw a light on in Daddy-o’s study and went in to say good night.
He sat at his desk, his back to the door, studying a picture with a magnifying glass and concentrating so hard he didn’t hear me come in.
“What are you doing, Daddy-o?” I asked.
He turned and saw me and smiled. “Hi, Janie. Look—it’s your favorite saint.” He moved his chair aside so I could see the print he’d been studying: a young girl in armor—Joan of Arc—riding a white horse past a medieval city and carrying a pennant. Joan looked awfully calm and happy for someone riding into battle. Even the horse grinned with anticipation.
“It’s a miniature from a manuscript dated around 1505,” Daddy-o said.
I sat down in his St. John’s College chair. The prints of medieval icons and framed family photos in his study are a funny combination. Next to a primitive etching of Mary and the baby Jesus is a color photo of the young Ginger holding baby Sully in a Louis Vuitton Snugli. Baby pictures, Halloween costumes, the eight of us lined up on the stairs like the Brady Bunch, and my favorite, a funny shot taken on Nantucket: six of us riding one tandem bike. Norrie’s curled up in a basket in front, Daddy-o and Ginger are pedaling, St. John and Sully ride in child seats on the back, and I’m an eight-month-old fetus in Ginger’s swollen belly.
Daddy-o put down his magnifying glass. It felt strange to sit alone with him in a quiet house. That hadn’t happened in a long time.
“Tough day, wasn’t it, sweet pea?”
I nodded and sipped from my glass of milk.
“I know Almighty can be tough on you kids,” Daddy-o said. “But her life isn’t always easy. Imagine burying five husbands.” He shook his head. “I’d be lost if your mother died. I really would.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’m not used to seeing Daddy-o get so emotional. His feelings for Ginger baffle me. What does she do for him? It’s a mystery.
I love Ginger. If she died I’d be devastated, and yeah, I’d miss her. She can be pretty funny. But I wouldn’t be lost. Ginger doesn’t let us depend on her too much—that’s Miss Maura’s job. But that night I realized she makes an exception for Daddy-o. He really does depend on her for…something.
And now, Almighty, I will give you a little glimpse of how your son really feels about you.
“What about when Almighty dies,” I asked. “Will you be sad?”
“She’s my mother,” Daddy-o said. “I’ll grieve for her. I’ll miss her. But I’ll tell you a secret.” His eyes fell on my glass of milk. I passed it to him and he took a swig. “I’m afraid of what will happen to the family when she dies. She’s our anchor. I’m afraid we’ll fall into…chaos.”
“Chaos?” I didn’t understand. He just shook his head like he didn’t want to explain.
I thought about poor unkillable Sassy upstairs in her tormented sleep. “Maybe Almighty won’t die. Maybe she’s immortal.”
“No,” Daddy-o said. “If anyone could achieve immortality, it would be Almighty. But I wouldn’t wish it on her. That would be a terrible curse.”
“Why? Wouldn’t it be great to know you could do anything you wanted with no consequences? You could jump out of airplanes without a parachute, swim far out into the ocean, eat ice cream for every meal….”
“Yes, but how long would you enjoy those things?” Daddy-o said. “Your life would lose its meaning. That would be a tragedy.” He polished off the rest of my milk and slammed the glass on his desk with an “Ahhh. How’s your suspension going, Miss Blasphemy? Nice having a little break from school, isn’t it?”
“It’s fine,” I said, though it was actually lonely and boring.
“I don’t mind that you roughed up the nuns. That’s pretty hard to resist,” Daddy-o said. “And I like that you question authority. But you have to start asking yourself this: Is it worth it?”
“Sure it’s worth it.”
“So far, maybe. But remember St. Joan. She paid for her beliefs with her life. Are you willing to go that far?”
“I don’t know.”
“How far are you willing to go?”
“I don’t mind being suspended. Beyond that…it depends.”
“Good answer. A little advice: Choose your battles carefully. Something to think about. One more thing: I don’t agree with you that there’s no God. Want to hear how I’ve worked it out?”
“Okay.” Ever notice how Daddy-o treats everything like it’s a math problem?
“Well, if there’s no God, then everything’s allowed. Right? There’s no right or wrong. No consequences to your actions. Like immortality: If there’s no death, then you can do what you like. It’s the same thing. No God means no death. But clearly death does exist. We were just at Wallace’s funeral today. Since death exists, that must mean God exists. Hmm? Hmmm?”
He grinned triumphantly, but I was still skeptical.
“I’ll have to think it over. You went too fast for me.”
“You think it over upstairs in bed. Nothing like a good epistemological puzzle to put you to sleep.”
“All right.” I got up to kiss him. “Good night, Daddy-o.” I took one last look at the print he was studying and added, “Sleep tight, St. Joan.”
A few days later I went into Takey’s room to visit Bubbles and found him floating in his aquarium, dead. Takey was shooting him with a water pistol, pretending to have killed him. At least, I think he was pretending. It’s hard for me to see how a goldfish could be killed by a water pistol.
“Should we give him a funeral?” I asked.
“No,” Takey said. “I’m sick of funerals.”
“Me too.”
The next time I looked, Bubbles was gone. Miss Maura must have unceremoniously flushed him down the toilet. For the rest of the week I couldn’t go to the bathroom without first checking to see if Bubbles wasn’t somehow swimming in the bowl.
I don’t agree with Daddy-o. Just because we can die doesn’t mean there’s a God. How can God let his creatures be flushed down the toilet? And that’s not even the worst thing that happens on Earth.
TEN
myevilfamily.com
The Story of Norrie
She did it. She broke free. And in very dramatic fashion too. As you will soon be reading in the Baltimore Sun, Miss Louisa Norris Sullivan was presented to society last night at the Bachelors Cotillon in the Belvedere Hotel. However, as soon as she made her curtsy, she ran off, leaving her escort in the lurch, and met her true love at Penn Station. They jumped on the next train to New York and disappeared. Norrie thoughtfully left a note in Daddy-o’s coat pocket, explaining that she’d be back before Christmas and not to worry. She called, too, as soon as she got to New York, reassuring us that everything was fine. It’s just like a honeymoon.
I wonder if she’ll forgive me for writing about all this…now that she knows what it feels like to rebel against your own family.
Way to go, Norrie! I’m proud of her. She has temporari
ly replaced me as Family Badass.
JANE OUT
COMMENTS:
Norrie: I told you not to blog about this. I hereby officially declare—publicly, since you love the attention so much—that I am never speaking to you again.
myevilfamily: But I’m on YOUR side! I’m only trying to defend you!
Norrie: Never. Again.
Was it worth it?
I have no idea what was in Norrie’s mind the night of the Cotillon, but there was something in the air. I felt restless. I hadn’t seen anyone from school since my suspension, not even Bridget. I missed all the school holiday parties, the Christmas Concert, and the Holiday Pageant. So when Bridget told me the Bowies were having a “Screw the Cotillon” party, Sassy and I fired up the Mercedes and drove out to the farm. We could see the bonfire from the road almost a mile before we got there.
I met Bridget at the bonfire. We left Sassy roasting marshmallows and went inside the big house to see who was around. In the living room this girl in Norrie’s class, Shea Donovan, was sitting on a boy’s lap, kissing him. Bridget stared at them, then pretended not to look.
“Thank God you’re here,” she said. “This is worse than school. I never have anyone to talk to there, now that you’re not around. And there’s no one to talk to here either. I miss you so much.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Is that tattoo still there?” I bent my head and lifted my hair to give her a good view. For weeks I’d been trying to wash it off. Sassy said it was still there. I tried to look in the mirror but it was hard for me to see it for myself.