Heretics Anonymous

by Katie Henry

  Lucy sits down in front of me. Sister Joseph Marie is already going on about the new semester and how much ground we have to cover before Christmas. Lucy’s back is straight and rigid. I touch her shoulder as gently as I can, wanting to ask if she’s okay and how she’d like Sister Joseph Marie to meet her untimely demise.

  Lucy turns around. She looks at me the way she did the first day I met her, after history class. Like she’s trying to decide something. “Hey,” she says. “Do you want to come over tonight?”

  “Don’t judge me on the state of the house,” Lucy says to me as we climb the steps of her porch, her two younger brothers behind us. “It’s been a busy week.”

  “I won’t judge you,” says her smaller brother, straining for the top of the mailbox.

  “You’re the reason it’s so messy.” Lucy grabs mail out of the box with one hand and unlocks her front door with the other, ushering us inside.

  “Mateo, put your shoes on the rack,” Lucy says, dropping her keys back in her cardigan pocket. “No, J.J., your backpack doesn’t go on the floor. Show me where it goes.”

  She helps the littler one, who looks about seven, hang his backpack up on a hook by the shoe rack. “Is there anything for me?” he asks as she rifles through the mail.

  “I have an electric bill, a furniture catalog, and a mortgage payment notice. Any of that interest you?” He shakes his head. “Me neither.”

  I survey the house. Based on Lucy’s locker I expected bookshelves organized by color, but it’s more like controlled chaos. It’s clean, but the floors are a little dusty, and the recycling bin by the door’s close to overflowing. The entryway table is covered with coupons, library books, and—oddly—medical tape and a bunch of single-use alcohol wipe packets. There’s a basket of folded laundry by the stairs to the second floor, like someone meant to take it up but got distracted.

  “Go start on your homework,” Lucy tells her brothers. “I’ll call you when everything’s ready.”

  Mateo, who’s older, maybe ten, narrows his eyes at me. He gave me that same look when Lucy and I picked him and J.J. up from their after-school program earlier this afternoon. I don’t think he approves of my presence. He tilts his head up at Lucy and mumbles something in Spanish.

  Lucy raises an eyebrow. “Your dad doesn’t care who I have over. And maybe I’ll tell him you were the one who finished all the ice cream in the freezer last month.”

  Mateo huffs and heads off. Lucy tucks the electric bill into her book bag. “Remind me that I have to deal with this tonight,” she says. She writes JAKE in capital letters on a sticky note, affixes it to the mortgage notice, and sets it on the entryway table.

  “What’s with the alcohol wipes? And the tape?” I ask.

  “Their dad’s a nurse. He’s always bringing stuff home in his pockets.”

  Lucy leads me to the living room, where we sit on the comfy, pea-green couch. From underneath the couch, she pulls out a plastic box full of craft supplies—glue, scissors, and slightly yellowing white paper.

  “Where are they?” she mutters, rummaging through the box. “Hey, can you look through that”—she points to a dresser set against the wall—“and see if there are any candles? Try the second top drawer.”

  “What’s this all for, again?” I ask as I open the dresser drawers.

  “Día de las Velitas. Day of the Little Candles. It’s how Colombians celebrate the Immaculate Conception.”

  “So today’s the day God and Mary got it on and made Jesus.”

  She shoots me a look. “No. Today’s not about Jesus at all; it’s the day Mary was conceived in her mother’s womb, immaculately sinless. So we make paper lanterns and light candles to celebrate her.”

  I find the candles in the third drawer, half burnt down and all different sizes. I hold them up for Lucy.

  “Oh, good,” she says. “As far as my brothers are concerned, it’s not really the Christmas season until they can light something on fire. Boys.”

  I close the drawer, but when I straighten up, I notice what’s on top of the dresser. A woman’s watch, a couple rings, and a set of house keys with a bunch of grocery and pharmacy loyalty cards attached. It’s all covered in a layer of dust, like it hasn’t been touched in a long time.

  “Is this your watch?” I ask Lucy, and her face falls for a moment, then washes into a kind of cheerful blankness.

  “That’s my mom’s.”

  Why wouldn’t her mom take her keys on her trip? “Lucy,” I say, sitting next to her on the couch, “how long has your mom been traveling?”

  Lucy looks away, and the cheerful blankness fades. “A year.” She swallows. “Nearly a year.”

  She’s not on a trip at all.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, but then have no idea what to say next. “That’s . . . that’s so shitty, how could she—”

  “She’s not a bad mom,” Lucy interrupts me. “I don’t want you to think she’s a bad mom.”

  I nod, but I don’t believe her. My mom would never up and leave me the way Lucy’s has. My mom probably wouldn’t make it past the county line without worrying about what Sophia would eat for lunch the next day, or whether I’d turn all the sheets pink trying to do laundry, and would speed back home in a panic before we even noticed she was gone.

  Lucy gets up and quietly shuts the living room door. “They don’t need to hear . . .” She sits back down next to me. “She’s always been a good mom, a really good mom. She was young when she got pregnant with me, and everyone treated her like she’d never do anything else with her life. Her boyfriend bailed. No one expected her to finish college, but she did. She worked the whole time, so it took longer, but she did it.” Lucy smiles. “Sometimes she had to take me to class with her, and I’d draw in someone’s spare blue book.

  “My mom worked so hard, for so long, and it was all for me. She said that a lot, she was doing all of it for me. After she graduated, she got a really good job at the hospital. That’s where she met Jake, and they got married fast, and had the boys fast. They bought this house. It all worked out, fairy-tale ending.”

  “So what happened?” I ask. Fairy tales start with child abandonment. They don’t end that way.

  “I don’t know!” Lucy shakes her head. “She had a husband, kids, a house she owned. She got everything she wanted and . . .” Lucy falters. “I guess it wasn’t enough. I guess she looked around and saw everything she’d missed out on, instead. She had a—breakdown, sort of, at work, and her boss said Mom should take all her vacation days, take some time away. And Jake and I, we were like, go for it, because she needed it. She deserved it. It was only supposed to be a month.”

  “And then she just didn’t come back,” I say.

  “Every time I talk to her on the phone, she says she’s not ready, yet. She needs more time.”

  “More than a year?”

  “All her stuff is here,” Lucy says, nodding at the dresser. “It’s not like she won’t—she told the boys Christmas. She wouldn’t lie about that.”

  And like he knows we’re talking about him, J.J. pokes his head around the door. “Luuuucyyyy,” he says, drawing the word out like it has eight syllables.

  Lucy plasters on a smile. “What’s up, Jay?”

  “I’m bored.”

  “What about your homework?”

  “I did it at after-school, and now I’m bored.”

  “Pobrecito,” Lucy says, and I wonder if her brother’s old enough to understand sarcasm. “Don’t worry, I’ll find something for you to do. Stay there while I get the vacuum.”

  J.J. disappears behind the kitchen door. Lucy laughs. “Works every time,” she tells me, and spreads the craft supplies out on the floor by the couch. She’s clearly done talking about her mom, and I won’t push it.

  “Is this something you guys do every year?” I ask. “Like a tradition?”

  “A pretty recent tradition,” Lucy says. “I think church holidays are fun, and now that the boys are older, it’s important t
hey get to celebrate more than Christmas and Easter. So we’ll light the candles, eat chocolate from the Advent calendars, and listen to the Magnificat. It’ll be nice.”

  “What’s the Magnificat?” I ask, and Lucy looks excited.

  “It’s a song,” she says. “It’s Mary’s song.”

  “There’re songs in the Bible?”

  “A bunch, but this is my favorite. Mary sings it right after she’s told she’ll give birth to the son of God. She goes to her cousin, Elizabeth—who’s pregnant with John the Baptist—and she sings about the greatness and glory of God.”

  I’m disappointed. People singing about how much they love God? Big deal.

  “And it’s also a revolutionary anthem,” she adds. “That’s why it’s my favorite.”

  The most revolutionary thing I know about the Virgin Mary is that sometimes people see her face on toast.

  “She’s Jesus’s mom,” I say. “What would she revolt against? She was basically the most important woman in the world.”

  “Mary was a peasant. A poor, female, Jewish peasant. She gave birth to a son who preached all people were equal in God’s eyes, and she saw that son tortured and executed by the Roman Empire. She had a lot to revolt against.”

  “She didn’t revolt, though.”

  “But other people did. In Argentina in the 1970s, the mothers of people killed by the military used the Magnificat as their anthem, so it was banned. Francisco Franco banned it in Spain in the 1930s. It’s dangerous, a song about the poor and lowly being raised up and the rich and powerful falling.”

  I think of all the statues of Mary at school, all docile and pretty, her eyes downcast, holding flowers or a smiling baby Jesus in her arms. “Mary says that?”

  Lucy nods.

  “Tell it to me,” I say, suddenly eager to hear Jesus’s mom talk about overthrowing the state.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I want to hear it.”

  “Okay.” Lucy adjusts herself on the couch so she’s facing me head on. She takes a breath. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” Lucy recites, half whispering. “And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

  There’s a stillness to her body as she goes on with the song, talking about the glory and mercy of something I know doesn’t exist. Lucy’s always moving around; even when she’s sitting in class, she’s taking notes quicker than teachers can spit out information. But she’s still now, calm and unmoving, like water in a pond.

  He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

  and has lifted up the lowly.

  She wasn’t kidding about the revolution parts. I think about all the famous Christians, all the kings and presidents and televangelists in thousand-dollar suits. Do they know this? Do they know this is in their holy book, that the mother of God proclaimed their downfall?

  He has filled the hungry with good things,

  and the rich he has sent away empty.

  I know why this is Lucy’s favorite song. Lucy believes in a world that’s fair. As she recites, clear and crisp, I realize I believe in that world, too. I just don’t believe in a god who will create it for us. I think we’ll have to do it on our own.

  Lucy takes a breath, prepping for another verse, and I grab her hand. She looks up at me with wide eyes but doesn’t pull away.

  “Michael,” she whispers. “I—”

  There’s a scraping sound in the kitchen, then a bang.

  “Lucy, I’m gonna get a snack,” J.J. calls from behind the door. “I can do it myself. I didn’t knock over the cereal. Don’t come in.”

  Lucy sighs and jumps up. “Let’s make those lanterns.”

  As the sun sets, I stand with Lucy and her brothers outside, helping Mateo put his softly glowing lanterns around the porch ledge. J.J. holds his hand over one of the lanterns, feeling the heat of the candle inside, and I think about the Magnificat, playing from inside the house. For J.J., God is something warm and innocent, Christmas presents and stories from his big sister. Lucy’s God is one of revolution and justice, someone who can set a damaged, difficult world right. But they’re the same God, from the same book—the same unbending, authoritarian God that Theresa believes in. Can one God be all those things to all those people?

  J.J. hands me a lantern and points at the highest spot on the porch ledge. “Put it there,” he commands. “So that Mary can see it.”

  Lucy smiles at me. The glow from the candles makes a halo around her, and she almost looks like Mary, herself. I set the lantern on the ledge.

  15

  EVERY MONDAY MORNING, all St. Clare’s students get an email delivered to their school email address with the subject line: “Did You Know?”

  It never says anything important, mostly a rehash of the previous week’s morning announcements. And at the end, without fail, are several “Fun Facts,” though how fun they are is debatable. They usually have to do with saints’ lives and squeaky-clean tidbits from Catholicism’s long, boring history.

  On the second Monday in December, all St. Clare’s students get an email at 7:22 a.m.

  SUBJECT: Did You Know

  FROM: Heretics Anonymous

  Happy Monday, St. Clare’s! We hope you enjoyed your weekend of wearing whatever you pleased. But we’ve been thinking—why should that stop the second you walk through the school doors? Here are some fun facts to get you thinking:

  * The school handbook tells us that uniform policies “create an equal playing field for students regardless of economic resources.”

  DID YOU KNOW? Students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are far more likely to be required to wear a uniform, and also more likely to be removed from class or suspended for dress code violations. So who exactly does that benefit?

  * Our uniform policy has different guidelines addressed to “young men” vs. “young women.” As Deuteronomy 22:5 says, “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for anyone who does such things is an abomination to the LORD.”

  DID YOU KNOW? More things that are abominations, according to Deuteronomy:

  —Not abandoning your wife after she’s been raped

  —Sacrificing a defective sheep to the LORD

  —Rock badgers

  * “The St. Clare’s uniform is designed to uphold and promote modesty for both young men and women. Saint Padre Pio tells us that ‘By the virtue of modesty the devout person governs all his exterior acts.’”

  DID YOU KNOW? Saint Padre Pio also allegedly burned himself with carbolic acid to mimic Christ’s crucifixion wounds and thought that dancing was “an invitation to sin,” so it’s possible he’s wrong about this one.

  In the name of comfort, style, and personal freedom, Heretics Anonymous declares the next five days Dress Code Week.

  Stay tuned, St. Clare’s.

  Eden promises that we’re totally safe from detection. “I set the email account up so it looks like the sender’s in a different country,” she tells me and Lucy at lunch, as our classmates whisper about the email, reading it on their phones under the dining hall tables.

  “Where does it look like it’s coming from?” Lucy asks.

  “Vatican City.”

  “Very cute, Eden.”

  The next day, all St. Clare’s students get another email, but this time there aren’t any words. Instead, embedded in the email is a short animation. Rosary Rita, a cartoon girl in a St. Clare’s uniform who bears a passing resemblance to Theresa, is chased through the school by monsters from her worst nightmares: dress code infractions. First she’s pursued by a miniskirt with fangs. Then, an untucked shirt with evil eyes and a hole in the sleeve. She’s finally felled by a baseball cap (worn indoors) that I still say looks more like a platypus.

  “Screw you,” Avi says when I tell him that. “Sorry I can’t draw hats. I don’t even wear hats.”

  “Who says you couldn’t wear a platypus as a hat?” Max adds.

  In my second-period math class, a girl at another table defends
getting her uniform skirt custom-tailored by declaring, “It’s not like I’m Rosary Rita, or whatever.”

  During last period, while I’m in Spanish class, Father Peter comes on the loudspeaker to announce that school email accounts will now automatically filter out messages from nonapproved addresses.

  On Wednesday, Heretics Anonymous takes to the streets. Or really, the bathrooms.

  Through the staggered use of bathroom passes, the inside of both the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms are soon plastered with brightly colored posters, designed by Eden and Avi and secretly printed by Max using his dad’s home office. They read:

  “That girl’s visible collarbone is distracting me from calculus.”

  —No Person Ever

  Jesus Wore Open-Toed Shoes, So Why Can’t We?

  You Are a Person, Not a Distraction

  OUR EDUCATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR CLOTHING

  “Dressing in enforced business casual makes translating Virgil easier.”

  —Seriously, No Person Ever

  “I saw Theresa and her friends taking the ones in the girls’ room down,” Lucy says as we eat lunch.

  “Too late,” Avi says, scrolling through his phone. “They’re up online. She can’t get rid of that as easily.”

  If you were reviewing security camera footage of St. Clare’s on Thursday morning, the main hallway would look normal. The statues of Mary and Saint Francis with his animal menagerie cast their watchful eyes over the central locker bays, the ones juniors and seniors get priority access to. The underclassmen’s assigned lockers are less conveniently located, tucked into side corridors out of view of the cameras.

  On each freshman’s and sophomore’s locker is a note that reads:

  RULE #17: Shoes must be closed-toed and entirely black.

  . . . But they didn’t say anything about the laces.

  Tied to each regulation combo lock is a pair of neon-colored shoelaces.

  “Nice of the guy at the dollar store to give you that discount on the two-hundred-pair set,” Lucy whispers just before first period, as we watch one freshman trade his lime green shoelaces for a friend’s radioactive red pair. Not everyone’s shoes have laces, so plenty of juniors and seniors are wearing the laces too, even before they start finding them in other places, tied to the inside doorknobs of bathroom stalls and the railings of out-of-the-way staircases. Everyone looks ridiculous in the best way possible, pops of neon on shiny black dress shoes.