A Theory of Expanded Love

by Hicks, Caitlin;

  It wasn’t like his personality would change now that he was going to be a priest. For instance, he was still fat, and he still held the record as the quickest one to snitch anything edible. This morning the idea that he was now going to be a priest didn’t stop him from hiding my geography book as I tore through the house looking everywhere for it, while the whole family waited in the idling car, late for school. It didn’t stop him from saying, “Annie, are you having a geography test today? Would you be missing your book by any chance? It’s right here!” in front of everybody. Then, producing the book, it didn’t stop him from gloating (“If it was a bear, it woulda bit you!”) then smacking me on the back of the head as I climbed into the bus.

  So now he makes this dramatic entrance wearing his cassock as we sit around the dining room table stacking envelopes.

  You think you’re God’s best buddy now? You’re still John-the-Blimp! There’s no way I’m going to confession to you: you need to ask God’s forgiveness for all the harassment you do to us All. The. Time.

  “John, would you do all of us the honor of opening this gathering with a prayer to Almighty God?” Daddy asked him. Like we need his blessing to stuff envelopes! John opened his arms like he was up on the altar. I felt like I was going to suffocate.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said quickly, before he could get started, and ran down the hall and up the stairs to my room, slamming the door. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I just wanted to get out of there and catch my breath. And have some privacy for once. If I had to say anything it would be this: Leave me alone. Let me be. Clara and Madcap were so lucky to have their own rooms. I went down the hall to Clara’s room, hoping she’d let me sit there. Sometimes she was in a philosophical mood and she’d say things about her exciting life as a teenager or let me try on her clothes or use her nail polish while we listened to her clock radio.

  I knocked on her door at the end of the hall. Her bed was neatly made and there were three yearbooks next to her bed. I opened one from 1960 when she was a freshman, looking for her picture. The girls in the black and white photos were so grown up. High school was so daring. There was a club for everything I wanted to do but knew I would never be able to do in real life because it was probably bad for your soul. Like drama. Which ultimately would lead to Hollywood, a “den of iniquity,” according to Mother and Daddy. At St. Andrew’s High there was a drama club with 25 girls! A singing club. Even a dance club. Those were things I really wanted to do, but they were absolutely useless in terms of getting ahead in the world and making points in heaven. I closed the book, more irritated than ever. I went to my bedroom to find my diary, because writing down how I was feeling would at least make me feel better.

  In the bedroom, the first thing I noticed was Jeannie’s bed creeping over the line again by about a foot! She does this on purpose, so she can have more space. Her little kingdom around her bed is so perfect. I could hear her in the closet, the hangers making little tinny sounds against each other. Why isn’t she downstairs stuffing envelopes like the rest of us? Mother probably gave her a dispensation for helping in the kitchen. Mother always favors her. So now Jeannie stepped out of the closet with my new dress on that I just made! The dark blue shift with the bib around the neck. I worked so hard on that one. The one I wanted to wear to Candy Kohler’s pool party.

  “Take off my shift!” I accused her.

  “You said I could try it on.” I pushed her bed back to her side of the room, right on the line we drew on the floor. Something crashed to the ground. I didn’t care.

  “And keep your bed on your side of the room!” I yelled. Finally, some satisfaction. Jeannie went over to the crashed shards.

  “Now you’ve done it,” she accused me. “It’s my statue of the Sacred Heart that Mother gave me! Look what you’ve done! It’s all broken!”

  “Well, don’t put it on your bedstead that’s a foot over the line next time!” Yeah, that felt good. She walked over to a small shelf above my bed with my collection of porcelain penguins. She took the Daddy penguin and threw it to the ground and stomped on it. It splintered under her sneaker.

  “There!” she screamed triumphantly.

  That’s it! The one thing Mother gives me, and Jeannie deliberately breaks it. I rushed over to her, yanking on her hair. She still had my dress on, so I started unzipping it off her back. She swung around and pushed me away.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Take my dress off!”

  “Make me!” My arm went back to smack her face, but she was already in action, lunging at me. We both toppled to the ground, socking and pinching and straining. If I’m wiry, Jeannie is strong, but I couldn’t seem to get a grip on her as we rolled over each other. My legs flailed under her; I felt a sharp pain on my arm near my elbow, like glass stabbing me.

  “Owww, Jeannie!” She leaned across me, her arm just within reach of my mouth. I opened and chomped down. She screamed and walloped me across the face. The floor around my arm was wet. We both sobbed, and I twisted my whole body with a great effort to topple Jeannie. When I rolled over, it was Daddy, pulling her up.

  “She broke my statue, and then she bit me!” Jeannie blurted in short breaths, her chest heaving.

  “She deliberately smashed my penguin!” I blubbered. Blood dripped off my arm. “And she’s wearing my new dress without permission.”

  “You said I could try it.”

  “I did not!”

  “Did!”

  “Did not!”

  “It’s my new dress! I’d never let you wear it, you big ape!”

  “Pipe down kids!” Daddy’s bellowing voice shut us right up.

  “What are you doing up here, fighting?” he asked. “While the rest of us are downstairs, working hard to put the food on the table, you’re up here bickering over a dress?”

  “Look at my Sacred Heart!” Jeannie knelt down to assemble the pieces, which by now were swimming in my blood. “She broke it!”

  “Annie, that’s a statue of the Sacred Heart. How could you go to Mass with me on First Fridays and then break the very statue of the Sacred Heart?”

  “Her bed was over the line!”

  “This is not Christian behavior.”

  “It was accidental!”

  “It was not!”

  “I was pushing your bed back over the line! Where it belongs!”

  “Annie, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Like it was all my fault!!!!! Like Jeannie is Miss Perfect. Holy Moley. Holy Moley, Holy Moley I said over and over in my head. Then Daddy launched into a poem, directed mostly at me. As if eloquence was of any use at this particular moment.

  Here lies the body of William J.

  Who died maintaining his right of way

  He was right, dead right as he sped along

  But he’s just as dead as if he were wrong.

  Daddy stood there like the ref at a boxing match. We held our corners, sweating and breathing our way to our next move.

  “You’re both going to get the glue out and put that statue back together, one piece at a time.” I held my elbow, dripping with blood, but even that wasn’t enough to make him notice my suffering.

  “You’re not coming out of this room until you’ve apologized to each other.” As he walked out the door, his shoes crunched on my broken penguin. But of course, what’s a penguin statue compared to the Sacred Heart?

  Their theory was, “Don’t let the sun go down upon your anger.” The sun wasn’t even close to going down, but saying you’re sorry when you’re not is like eating cold vegetables—it makes you want to throw up. “I’m sorry,” I quipped sarcastically and slammed the door. I didn’t even wait for her feeble squeak. As I was going out the door I turned back into the room for the phony “Will you please forgive me?” and I saw her, pushing her bed back over the line.

  I am not sorry! And this is not the end of this.

  Chapter 6

  monsignor boyle

  June 10 – Dear Diary, To
day I read an article in a magazine. It said, “Test your talent.” I drew some pictures. One was a bulldog. I thought they were just like the ones in the magazine. I sent the bulldog away for the test to “Test your talent.” Last night, this young singer named Barbara Streisand sang on The Ed Sullivan Show. Mother says she’s got what it takes. Also today JFK signed a new law, equal pay for women and men. Mother says that after a woman gets married, she should never take on a job—her job is in the home—and if you take a job outside the home, you will get used to the money and you won’t be able to give it up when the babies come. Just a reminder, only eleven days left until the Pope gets elected!

  A week of fantasizing about becoming a nun produced what I thought was a well-developed story of me, at twelve-years-old, becoming the youngest nun ever. I knew the class could not resist; they would burst into applause at my announcement. However, after my depressing realization that nuns are donkeys compared to the stallion glory of the priesthood, I had to come up with something to replace the nun story. I had their attention as long as I had a connection with Stefanucci and the Pope, but all this lying was making me dizzy, and there wasn’t time to make up anything before class! I now dreaded Sister Everista’s question, Have you heard from the Cardinal? Unbelievably, she went straight into math after the opening prayer.

  What a relief! My guardian angel really was looking out for me.

  But just a few minutes later, our pastor Monsignor Boyle came to visit. We all stood, freshly attentive; there’s nothing like a visitor to break up the boredom of school.

  “Good morning, Monsignor Boyle,” we said in singsong unison. Sister Everista stood beside him, fawning. She always acted like she was the luckiest woman on earth whenever the Monsignor visited her class, and today I think she was blushing. I used to wonder if Monsignor could tell (was she flirting with him?) but I’m pretty sure it didn’t even occur to him; he always had this air of being the most important person in the world. He expected preferential treatment. And he acted like we all loved him. Let me set the record straight: we didn’t all love him; he used to grab my nose and pretend to pull it off after Sunday Mass if I accidentally stood too close to Mother. I could hardly wait until Cardinal Stefanucci got elected Pope; I would get some grown-up respect then.

  “Good morning, class,” Monsignor Boyle said, “I understand that we have with us a close family friend of Cardinal Stefanucci.” Oh, no here it comes, I thought. What do I say now that I don’t want to be a nun? “And, that Cardinal Stefanucci,” he continued, “may be called to ultimate service by Jesus Christ our Lord to lead the Catholic Church as His Holiness, the Pope.”

  When he put it like that, it seemed like centuries of the Catholic Church, all the nuns, priests, bishops, and cardinals with all their vestments, incense and gold chalices from the ages came into the room with him and stood there, staring at me. And they could see that I had been lying. Not only was I rejecting the nuns, I had been making up stories to satisfy my own vanity. (Vanity, vanity, vanity! Mother always warns.) Right now I was caught, and Monsignor Boyle was going to expose me in front of my entire class! My face started feeling hot. The whole parish would know! I was turning the color of my hair. I glanced over at Wanda, my best friend; she looked terrified. I stood up next to my desk, staring at the floor. Monsignor walked closer.

  “And I hear you report anecdotes directly from Rome?” Busted! What could I possibly say now to justify my lies?

  “Well,” I began, trying to think on my feet. Wanda rolled her eyes.

  “You’re actually talking to the Cardinal?” Monsignor interrupted me, gently and curiously. I searched his face, confused, still unable to speak. “The Cardinal is phoning the family?” Now he sounded like he really wanted to know. (!!!) Wanda looked hopeful. Monsignor was waiting on a word from me.

  So I went with it.

  “Yes, Monsignor! Last night when he called the house, the gossip was that my father’s best friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, reported that he almost had the critical percentage of cardinals on his side.” The Monsignor seemed pleased; I was so relieved I was gushing.

  “He’s an intelligent man,” he said, strolling the aisles, “and he’s quite personable.”

  “Yes, he is very intelligent!” I exclaimed a little too eagerly, as if I was the keeper of intelligence standards.

  “I met him myself, once, in Rome,” he went on.

  “He came over to our house twice,” I bragged, my voice getting louder.

  “Oh? What’s he like, then?” Ooops! (I was probably six-years-old when he visited. I don’t remember him well enough to recognize him on the street).

  “He’s… taller than me,” I blurted, trying to think fast. “And he wears a purple gown with a beanie on his head.”

  “Cardinals wear red, my dear, a red cassock, a red mozzetta over the rochet, and a red biretta on their heads.”

  “He wasn’t… Cardinal… yet when he last visited us, so… I think he was wearing civilian clothes.” Oh, God help me! Civilian—that’s what Daddy says for non-military people. But Monsignor didn’t seem to notice my gaffe.

  “It’s not the clothes that make the man. It’s his soul,” he said, walking up to me and grabbing my nose. (!) He held up his clenched hand, showing his fat thumb between his fingers on his fist.

  “Got it, he said, “Ha, ha, ha!” (Like I was five-years -old and I would believe that he had pulled my nose off!) My face was practically vibrating with humiliation.

  “If the eyes are the windows of the soul, what is the nose?” he grilled me. What??? There’s something religious about the nose? Wanda was shaking her head.

  “It smells sins?” I guessed. Now she looked down at her desk, holding her head in her hands. The nose is the pantry of the soul? That didn’t sound right. I had to change the subject.

  “There’s something else, Monsignor,” I said, emboldened by panic.

  “Yes, my child?” By this time he was roughing up the stiff crew cut on Todd Zimmerman’s head.

  “He gave me his blessing.”

  “His blessing?”

  “To become a Carmelite nun.” The class gasped. Monsignor turned towards me.

  “Did he?”

  “I’m going to be the youngest nun there ever was.” A collective, “Oh!” Monsignor smiled.

  “Do the Carmelites know this, my child?” He could have been chuckling.

  “When the Cardinal gives his blessing, I think the nuns know.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “They said, ‘You have my blessing, my child.’”

  “And the convent? For the youngest nun ever—where would that be?” Now he was smiling indulgently, humoring me. I had to top that.

  “Africa!”

  Chapter 7

  father pierre for supper

  June 11 – Dear Diary, President Kennedy got on television and gave a speech about civil rights. He said segregation “is morally wrong,” and he’s Catholic, so he should know what’s morally wrong. Today the soldiers with guns made sure that two black students could go to a white school in Alabama. I don’t think I would like to be the black students. No one wants them at their school. Who would their friends be? Speaking of school, I made an idiot of myself today in class. I ask you: If the eyes are the windows to the soul, what is the nose? That’s a new one. Now I have to go to Africa as a nun. Why did I say Africa?

  Why did I say Africa? It was a seriously dangerous place. On Sunday nights, while Mother prepared dinner, we watched Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, where we learned about the lions and tigers of Africa—especially how they stalked and killed their prey, voraciously ripping them apart as they lay dead on their backs, their legs splayed, their necks broken, their innards exposed, twitching and hemorrhaging on the savannah. We watched boa constrictors swallow mice whole and squeeze them down their throats. We watched hyenas tear off the skin of zebras while they were still running. It was bloody and disgusting, but we couldn’t look away. Daddy subscribed to
National Geographic and missionary magazines (all of which lay strewn around the house), and from these we saw the little black barefoot orphan babies with no underpants on and skin so dark it was hard to see their expressions. We pored over photos of wooden lips and ear lobes of walnut brown women carrying water on their heads and holding their babies in a sling; we saw the headdresses, the spears and tribal dances of the men. Under Africa’s clear skies I would, without a doubt, get third-degree sunburn on my nose to within inches of my life. And sooner or later we were bound to have the ultimate showdown with the pygmies.

  Maybe I was thinking “Africa” because a couple of weeks before, a missionary priest from the Belgian Congo had come to visit our parish, and Daddy invited him over for dinner.

  Our family often hosted men of the cloth for evening meals. It was a chance for the priest to entertain himself as we did the “exotic” things, routine to an enormous family (like wolfing back an ungodly amount of spaghetti or pork chops in three minutes flat). And for Mother and Daddy, a rare opportunity to be acknowledged for all the “thankless work” they did for “you kids.” The guest seemed to know his role: there was the expected amount of congratulations at what seemed like Daddy’s achievement in fathering and providing for all these children, the understanding that we were an exceptional Catholic family in action. Mother was always in a good mood, Daddy sat at the head of the table in his Captain’s chair, regaling our visiting Padre with jokes, mostly about priests and rabbis trying to get into heaven. There was no such thing as punishment when we had a guest; no kids would be strapped with the belt or sent to bed without supper, and we would have something really good to eat, like barbequed steak and French fries. I could finally be a member of The Clean Plate League, as I could spit my canned vegetables into my milk while everyone else was trying to get the priest’s attention. We were trotted out on our best behavior as we set the table or loaded the dishwasher or did our homework without complaining. We were the actors, and we loved the stage of a priestly visit.