A Theory of Expanded Love

by Hicks, Caitlin;

  Bitty was my cat. A while back, Paul (#1) had rescued her from an experiment at JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab), and I had laid claim to her. I was a mark for small creatures with limited IQ and a cuteness factor and I immediately pitied her, imagining the lab experiments she was probably subjected to. Attaching electric charges to her to see if her hair spiked. Or maybe they just let her float around in zero gravity and bang into things. They could have done anything to her. I didn’t have to get in a fight over ownership rights, like the Russians were doing over Cuba, or like Jeannie and I do over everything, because there was a certain inevitable neglect which followed anything new to the house after a few days went by. The new thing, if it was alive, could give you attention and make you feel chosen and important, but sooner or later, it also demanded that you look at it and give it a stream of your energy and focus. The cat was so small and insignificant looking that we called her Bitty. I liked her immediately because she had orange and white fur. She was a marmalade cat and our hair practically matched.

  Once the novelty of her small face and thin meow wore off, I was the one who fed Bitty and patted her. We had our own language; I’d call her in a high-pitched squeaky voice, “Here Bitty Bitty!” She was never far away. I’d pick her up and flip her over on her back and hold her like a baby suckling at my non-existent breast, gazing into those yellow marble eyes as if she were my very own. I got her to purr within ten seconds of the flip. Once she accidentally ran past the feet of Mother or Daddy while they were closing up the house for the night and somehow, out of fifteen beds, she found mine and slept next to my face until Daddy shook my feet for 6:30 Mass.

  So like this, we became the two sustaining members of the Mutual Admiration Society. She wasn’t very big. Maybe her growth was stunted by the experiments at JPL, and by the time she got pregnant, she still looked like an adolescent kitten. When her belly swelled up and her titties started to show, she could hardly walk around without falling over. She tilted to one side then caught her balance, lurching to the other side. Once she got to the other side she listed back. She walked in a sort of stumble and lollop. Mother said she would hide herself when “her time came,” and Mother would know. In spite of this very credible source, I was just beginning to think independently. I created a number of havens from cardboard boxes lined with newspaper and put them in corners, under the beds, in closets, and around bushes, just in case Mother was wrong.

  Now Bitty jumped up onto the wooden chair with the old cushion and lay on her side, furiously licking her butt, her back leg jutting way above her head. Lick, lick, lick, lick. I realized she had rejected the box I had strategically placed in the corner of the porch, but I grabbed the towel in it and rubbed off the baby kitty in my palm until it wasn’t so wet and put it down by her belly of ten breasts, hoping the kitty would know which one to suck on. Bitty had ruined the cushion; it was now covered with blood and shiny goo. A dark little ball slowly inched out. A head. Lick, lick, lick, lick. Then the body slid out. Bitty stopped licking. She seemed exhausted. The kitten just lay there. Clara pushed open the screen door.

  “Aren’t you getting ready? The photographer is going to be here.” A new mumu she had just sewn billowed around her.

  “Yeah, but look at this! Bitty is having her kittens! Stand back, but you can look.” Clara crouched down. I picked up the second one and rubbed it off and put it next to the first one.

  “Okay, that one is Number One and that’s Number Two,” I said, pointing to the two lumps. Just then the head of another kitten emerged.

  “Where’s the Daddy cat?” Clara asked. I shrugged.

  “Mother says that animals don’t have souls, so it doesn’t matter if the dad never shows up.” I proudly shared my knowledge of my very own cat with Clara.

  “They’re born out of wedlock,” she added.

  “Clara, there’s no such thing as out of wedlock in the animal world. They don’t get married!”

  “How convenient for them,” she said.

  “We can baptize them anyway, just in case,” I added. “Besides, they’ll learn everything they’ll need to survive from their mother, so you don’t need to worry.”

  “I’m not worried about them,” Clara stated. “How many do you think she has in there?” Then she picked up the ends of her mumu and sat down on the floorboards next to me.

  “They usually come in litters,” I replied, stating the obvious but feeling like an expert. “The Catholic Church is probably going to be proud of Bitty, once she gets them all out. Maybe she’ll have five.”

  “Maybe,” said Clara sarcastically. “Maybe the Catholic Church will make her a saint.”

  So the two of us, Clara in her huge mumu, and me starving for my bacon breakfast, sat and watched Bitty push out a total of seven kittens and lick off the shiny bag around each kitten. Once I knew there were seven, I re-named them all after the seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.

  I went into the house and put on my dress for the family portrait between the births of Extreme Unction and Holy Orders, and after Matrimony was born, our human family stood out on the front lawn and had our picture taken, with Mother and Daddy in the middle and Jude on Mother’s lap. I stood next to Clara, her eyes wet, in the back row. I held her hand and squeezed it when they snapped the picture. I thought about Bitty.

  She was another creature altogether, and she never said one word in human language, but she trusted me, a non-cat, well enough to give me her firstborn. She jumped up on the screen door with her baby in her mouth and dropped it off at my feet! She knew I would pick it up and take care of it. She wasn’t afraid of me at all! She wanted me to watch her during the birth of six more kittens. And you know what I think? I think she was proud of herself.

  Chapter 14

  cinematheque with madcap

  Dear Blessed Mother, Thank you for the sign! It was truly exciting to watch Bitty give birth to all those kittens. You could tell it hurt, but she did it anyway. I am now confessing to you, in the hopes that I can finally come clean. I am sorry to disappoint you, but, in spite of my success with Camp Holy Hill, I don’t want to be a nun. There, I said it. I just couldn’t keep on pretending, especially after being with Bitty giving birth. I realize I want a man who will love me and hold me tight. I want a baby. I want to be a mother like you. I want a good husband like Joseph and a sweet baby like Jesus. Did you want a baby when you were twelve years old?

  We were all kneeling around the statues in the living room. The air was cooling; my lungs hurt from gulping smog at the Pasadena Athletic Club swimming pool this afternoon. The Blessed Mother’s frozen expression on her tiny plaster head was sweet and wistful, but the song “Puff the Magic Dragon” was distracting me from the mysteries of the rosary. I looked down at the Hawaiian hibiscus flower pattern on my mumu. Clara’s was just like mine from the same pattern, but in different shades; come to think of it, all the girls had mumus on. The fan rotated in front of us, spraying cool air over there then whooshing back over to here. The little kids wore their lightweight cotton pjs and had post-Jiffy Bath wet hair. Jude squirmed on Mother’s lap. Everyone slouched back on their heels. Even Clara sat in the armchair behind us, her flowered dress piled up in front of her. Daddy didn’t seem to mind the lazy piety we demonstrated. Madcap knelt, antsy next to me; we had planned to see a movie at Cal Tech Cinematheque together after the rosary.

  “Let’s say some extra prayers for peace,” Daddy announced as we neared the end of rosary. “And for Clara. She’s going to be going away for a retreat,” Daddy said, “with the Sisters of Saint Isabella. She’ll be staying with them for a few months in a place called Ventura. Hopefully, she’ll be back in time for Christmas.”

  So Clara’s going to become a nun! I slunk back on my heels. Everyone turned their heads to Clara, who was looking down at her lap. It wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t tell if she was happy about it, or what.

  “We’ll miss you, Clara!” Buddy
said, getting up from his excellent position at the corner of the couch and putting both his arms around her legs.

  “Yeah, why are you going away?” Rosie said, as she immediately moved right into his excellent position on the couch.

  “She’s going to be a nun, I bet,” John-the-Blimp offered. I turned towards Clara.

  “That’s a great order, Clara, the Sisters of Saint Isabella,” I said. “Their habit, the rope around the waist.” Right after those words were in the air, I felt something was strange here. I couldn’t figure it out. A retreat?

  “Clara is going on a retreat to ask for God’s blessing and forgiveness,” Daddy said.

  She’s going on a retreat to ask for forgiveness? I had to ask myself. All she has to do is go to confession. Why does she have to go to Ventura to ask for forgiveness?

  “What’s a retreat?” asked Buddy.

  “Yeah, a treat?” asked Markie.

  “Tree! Tree!” cried Jude.

  “Hey, can we get a treat, too?” asked Buddy.

  “A retreat is a time away, a chance to say prayers and ask for God’s help in your life.” What was he hinting at? Forgiveness for what? Everything he said sounded like we were at a sermon. Clara’s silence made it all seem rehearsed. I watched her for a clue. Her mousey brown hair puffed up around her round cheeks. Although exceptionally coiffed for such a casual gathering, she seemed resigned and sad and kept puffing up her dress on her lap in front of her, looking at the beautiful colors of her mumu.

  “When is she going?” I asked.

  “She’s leaving Sunday. I’m going to drive her up the coast.”

  And that was that.

  After we were dismissed from the rosary, Madcap and I slipped out to go to Cal Tech for their movie program. As usual Madcap looked beautiful; she had shampooed her hair before the rosary and stood over the heating vents combing it dry with the cool air coming up from the basement. Straight black hair to her waist. Mine was still bunching at my shoulders, wiry and uncontrollable. It would never look like hers. I wasn’t really that interested in the movies themselves; I was there to sit next to her while Madcap flirted with the boys. No one seemed to notice me. The boys had their eyes on Madcap and that was fine with me. I felt invisible but right next to the action. I wanted to soak it all up so that when I was old enough to go out on a date, and tame my red mane, I’d know what to do.

  The films were in black and white. That night we were watching Birth of a Nation, a long one with lots of silent anguish on people’s faces, many extras, horses running across the screen, and gunfire. The Ku Klux Klan, grown men running around in white sheets and pointed hats, burned huge crosses. I was hungry for a snack; I wanted to go to Bob’s Big Boy and have the salad with bleu cheese dressing; I had just enough money for that and it was calling out to me with cartoon speech bubbles hovering around my pocket, reminding me how hungry I was. Madcap laughed or sucked in her breath with an “oh!” at all the right times, and we were all swept up by the marching orchestra music. In the dark at first it seemed cool between my legs, and then my panties seemed wet, so I went out to the restroom.

  Just as I locked the door behind me I noticed a dispenser on the wall above the sink. Sanitary Napkins, it said, five cents. I didn’t want to think about the hairs “down there” again, but there it was. A nickel! For a napkin? That’s outrageous. It costs as much as a loaf of bread. And what do we need napkins for in a restroom? Then I remembered: maybe other girls shaved their hairs and cut themselves, too. That’s embarrassing, but kind of comforting. But five cents! What a gyp.

  When I pulled down my capris there was blood all over my underpants! The blood wasn’t from the shaving; that was weeks ago. It was coming out from between my legs. From inside my body. Oh, my God I am heartily sorry for having offended thee. This called for immediate prayers, directly to the source. I wiped myself with toilet paper, which promptly soaked up more blood. Oh, my God! Please don’t make me die. I’ll go to confession about the lies, I promise, I promise, I promise! Luckily I was wearing the mumu. I stripped down so I could rinse out my underpants at the basin sink. I wrung them out almost dry, put them back on, and stuffed gobs of Kleenex in my underpants. I remembered to say a prayer. Dear Mother of God, you guys have my attention. I’ll do anything. Have mercy; I’m only twelve years old!

  Madcap was still in the dark, watching the movie.

  “Psssst, Madcap. C’mere.”

  She glanced over at me, frowning. “What?”

  “You gotta come.”

  “What? Gimmie a hint!”

  “Shhhhh,” someone said behind her.

  “It’s urgent!” I pleaded, whispering across a couple of other people sitting in the aisle seats. I’m dying in the most embarrassing way. Maybe I could beam that thought over to her. I waved my hands again and again like c’mere! c’mere! and she finally got up, squished past the knees of the two others, and went with me. I locked the ladies’ room door behind us. It was just the two of us in there.

  “What? What is it?”

  “I think I’m dying of something.”

  “Sick to your stomach?”

  “I’m gushing blood. Down there.”

  “You finally got it!”

  “What?”

  “That’s your period.”

  “Oh… my period?”

  “The thing Mother hinted about.”

  “But it’s just coming out of my body, down there. I stuffed my underpants with T.P.”

  “That’s your vagina.”

  “What’s your vagina?”

  “You know how you go wee-wee and bo-bo?”

  “Duh.”

  “There’s another hole down there. It’s a vagina. It’s in the middle. Girls have three holes and boys only have two.”

  What? This was just unbelievable. I had another hole down there? And blood was coming out of it right now? I felt a bit dizzy, trying to understand.

  “Don’t worry, you won’t bleed to death,” Madcap said. It’s the beginning of growing up.”

  Well, not exactly the beginning, I thought, remembering the hairs. “But what’s it for?”

  “It’s for when the baby gets made in your stomach.”

  “But what’s the blood for?”

  “It’s for the baby when it’s growing inside you; it comes out when you don’t have the baby.”

  “I don’t get it. I’ve never had a baby, but the blood is coming out anyway.”

  “Every month, it prepares for a baby.”

  “How long does it come out for?”

  “I don’t know, three days, or five. Sometimes I get cramps.”

  “Cramps?”

  “Yeah, cramps, like when you have hard bo-bo and it won’t come out. Sometimes you get cramps. It prepares you to give birth.”

  “The blood prepares you for giving birth?”

  “The cramps do.”

  I stood there looking at myself in the mirror, disliking this growing up thing altogether. I had an inspiration. No wonder Peter Pan didn’t want to grow up! On second thought, Peter Pan was a boy. He didn’t have any of this weird stuff to deal with. At least I don’t think they have to deal with this stuff. Do they? Maybe they probably grow hairs down there too, and have other weird bodily secrets.

  “You have to get some sanitary napkins and a belt,” Madcap, said, all business now. “Oh look, they have some here. Do you have five cents? Or a dime? You can stuff one of these in your underpants even if you don’t have a belt.” I reached in my pocket and felt the shape of a quarter in my hand.

  “Aren’t we going to Bob’s?” I had just enough money for their little salad with the bleu cheese dressing.

  “We could go to Bob’s.” Madcap said. “Dwight usually likes to go after the movie.”

  Hmmm, I thought. Salad? Or sanitary napkin? Bleu cheese dressing? Or blood all over my pants? I pointed to the dispenser.

  “How long do these napkins last?”

  “If you just stick it in your underpants, i
t’ll probably last at least until we get home.”

  “I’ve already got a wad of Kleenex in there,” I said, “maybe the Kleenex will last until we get to Bob’s.” Madcap shrugged.

  I held onto my quarter.

  Chapter 15

  tied with the feeneys

  Dear Jesus, Is that what you really want? I’m speechless. The blood thing is totally impractical. Also, do the nuns have to have periods, since they don’t have babies? If you said no, it still wouldn’t tempt me to be a nun. I thought I wanted to have a baby, but it’s all pretty disgusting. Did Bitty’s kitties come out of her third hole?

  On my way to ballet class in South Pasadena, right across from Vons supermarket, I pedaled my bike with a white basket on the front. When I turned the corner onto South Pasadena Avenue, I slowed down to look at this thing happening that I couldn’t quite figure out.

  I had my cloth bag with me, the pink one with my leotard and white tights and black ballet slippers. I had spent my babysitting money on the lessons—a necessary sacrifice for my new saint and glory campaign. Ballet is graceful and feminine; I could already sense approval from the Blessed Mother, Queen of the heavens. To begin with, a ballerina looks like a princess. Also, I liked the idea of the stiff, bouncy skirts I’d get to wear at a performance. And once I learned how to do the movements, people were going to applaud me thunderously. I wanted it so much my stomach ached.

  Mother hardly even knew I was taking this class; she was probably having a nap right this minute. Which she deserved. Still. Most great ballerinas started when they were two or three, but I had to be old enough to babysit before I could even study. I was the eldest and tallest person in the ballet class; everyone else came up to the middle of my arm. Parents sat on the sidelines watching their darling toddler or five-year-old do pliés and bunny hops. Other girls my age in ballet were in the intermediate or advanced classes—luckily not at the same time as me; I would have died of shame, passing them in the hall. The teacher was strict; she poked me and struck my thighs and hips with a pointed stick as if I should know better being twelve-going-on-thirteen.