by Katie Henry
Sister Jensen puts her hand on my shoulder. “Would you like to hold him?”
Panic floods my bloodstream. “Oh,” I say, looking at Mom with wide eyes, silently begging her to help me. “That’s so nice of you, but—”
Mom all but shoves the baby into my arms.
“Support his head, there you go.”
This is how I die.
“Oh, I do miss this age,” Mom says. “So precious.”
“I think you’ll have a newborn in your life soon enough,” Sister Jensen says, and I don’t have to look at her to know she’s talking about me.
Maybe the baby can sense my sheer terror, or maybe he needs to be changed, because he opens his tiny mouth and wails to shake the rafters. Sister Jensen scoops him from my arms as the clock hits nine a.m. and everyone moves toward the pews.
Mom and I find Dad and Em in our usual pew. They aren’t assigned, it’s more of a habit than anything else. As always, they let me have the aisle, closest to the emergency exit. Right before I sit, I catch a split-second glimpse of a boy on the opposite side of the chapel, obviously out of place in a colored button-down shirt—not white—and a half-undone tie.
“Tal?” I whisper, but he’s too far away to hear, and disappears in the crowd. Em looks up and frowns.
“Who?” she says.
I sit down. “Never mind.”
Bishop Keller welcomes us from the pulpit and calls for the opening hymn. I hear the rustling of hymnbooks around me, but I don’t bother taking one from the pews. I know this one by heart. I know most of them by heart. I close my eyes, breathe in, and sing.
It’s not that it all disappears. It’s not that church is some magical forcefield that banishes the nagging, gnawing voice inside my head. It’s only that it’s quieter, or maybe I just can’t hear it as well over the organ and the voices around me. Maybe it’s only that I can ignore it better at church, but even so, that’s why I come here. Not for the awkward conversations in the vestibule, for all the rules, or even out of duty to my ancestors who crossed the prairie with handcarts. I come here to stand with my family and people who might as well be. I come here to feel whatever’s always squeezing my lungs release, to feel my shoulders loosen and my mind calm.
I come here because when we sing all is well, all is well, I believe it. If only for a moment.
As part of ward business, Bishop Keller calls one of the little girls, Caroline Collins, to the front. She’s eight years old and shy, but gamely allows herself to be introduced as a newly baptized member of our congregation. Some churches baptize kids much younger than this, I know, but we wait until eight. Old enough to make a choice, old enough to read from the Book of Mormon and feel a confirmation that what’s been written is true. Old enough to feel that warm feeling of peace inside, what we call feeling the Spirit.
Sacrament—our kind of Last Supper reenactment and the whole point of this all-ward meeting—comes next. Some of the boys twelve and older—but only the boys—pass through the pews first with the bread, torn into bite-size pieces, then the water, poured into individual cups. When I eat the bread and drink the mini Dixie cup of water, I can feel myself letting go of the week. I can forgive myself for not being a better daughter. I can forgive myself for being an awkward mess around Lia and the other girls. It won’t last forever, but for now, I can let it go.
Bishop Keller turns the pulpit over to the first speaker of the day. The ward is a family, a collaboration, and we all speak at one time or another, on some assigned topic. Even little kids will give their testimony. I’m a much happier listener than lecturer, especially when one of the speakers is my dad.
Dad takes the pulpit. He clears his throat. He’s not much of a speaker, either, but he accepts every call without hesitation or complaint.
“When I was ten, I went camping with my Boy Scout troop in Zion National Park.”
Oh, it’s this story. I’ve always liked this story.
“We were hiking, and I fell behind. By the time I’d looked up again, my troop was gone, and I couldn’t tell which way they’d went. Soon, I was completely lost, and the sun was getting lower. I was standing at a crossroads, terrified and helpless. I dropped to my knees and prayed, begging Heavenly Father not to let me die in the wilderness, when I heard a still, small voice, from somewhere deep inside. It told me to get up. To walk forward. And when I did, I felt the strongest prompting to take the left fork. So I turned left, and discovered a little stream. Every Boy Scout knows that water flows to civilization. I followed the river downstream and found my way back to the world.
“Brothers and Sisters, I tell this story because it shows how important it is to listen to Heavenly Father’s prompting. Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith, a fourteen-year-old farm boy, when he could have chosen a king to restore His church on Earth. No one is too young or too average to receive revelation. When the Spirit speaks to us, we must listen.”
He goes on, but I can’t hear him above the thrumming in my heart and the buzzing in my brain, because of course. Of course. Why didn’t I see it before? It’s in the word itself. Apocalypse. It comes from the Greek word apokalyptein, meaning to uncover, to unveil what has been concealed. The word apocalypse means a revelation. I know how to decide if Hannah’s telling the truth. I know how to know. All I have to do is ask.
After a couple more speakers and the closing hymn, we break for the next part of services. We’ll gather in smaller groups according to age and gender. Mom’s in Relief Society, the women’s group, Dad meets with the other Elders. Em and I are both in the Young Women’s program, but she’s a Beehive and I’m a Laurel, so after a short prayer and hymn, we’ll split up. On the way, I stop by the water fountain in the hallway.
“Well, good morning, Sister Kimball.”
I shoot up, water dribbling from the corner of my mouth. Leaning on the wall next to me is Tal, his hands shoved in his pockets, his tie threatening to unravel completely.
I swallow the water in my mouth. “I thought I saw you.”
“In the flesh,” he says.
I open my mouth to ask who he’s here with, but my eyes snag on his tie. It looked normal from far away, but up close, it’s awful—paisley patterned out of mustard yellow and a nauseating shade of maroon.
“Ugh,” I say, out of instinct more than cattiness.
He raises an eyebrow. “What, you don’t like my tie?”
My cheeks go hot. “Oh, no, it’s—”
“The ugliest tie you’ve ever seen, right?” He grins. “They said I had to wear one, they didn’t say it had to be tasteful.”
“What are you even doing here?”
“I’m here under duress,” he says. “I had to stay at my mom’s this weekend. So, not optional.”
“Your mom?”
“You’d know her as Sister Collins.”
Sister and Brother Collins are recent transfers from an Oakland ward, with two little kids. She’s older than most of the moms with kids that young, but I didn’t know she’d been married before.
“I didn’t know she was your mom,” I say.
“I live with my dad. He’s gone this weekend for some conference, and I thought I made it pretty clear I could take care of myself, but . . .” He shrugs. “Here I am.”
“Oh.”
“Of all the fucking weekends,” he says, and I wince. I try not to be too precious about other people swearing, but a portrait of Jesus himself is staring at us from across the room. “Caroline’s baptism yesterday, two hours of church today. Jesus Christ, it’s never-ending.”
I know it’s a painting, but I swear, the Jesus-portrait frowns.
“It must have been nice to see your sister baptized.”
He picks at his shirt collar. “Well, the cake at the reception was good.”
Maybe he thinks this prickly-hedgehog routine is endearing, but I don’t. “Yeah, sorry you were forced to hang out with your sister on one of the most important days of her life. My condolences.”
He dr
ops his eyes. “No one forced me. I was always going to go. And you’re right. It was nice—it was nice to see her so happy.”
That’s the thing about hedgehogs. They’re all spikes on the outside, but soft when you get underneath.
He looks back at me. “There. Is that better, Sister Kimball?”
Kids don’t call each Brother and Sister. He’s doing it to tease me. “It’s perfect, Brother—” But then I stop, because I have no idea what his last name is.
“It’s Santos, but—call me Tal, call me Talmage, call me goddamn Ishmael, but please don’t call me Brother Santos.”
“Deal, if you stop swearing in front of my Savior.” I indicate my head at the Jesus portrait.
“He is entirely too white to be Jesus,” Tal says, “but deal.” He pushes himself off the wall. “You skipping Young Women’s? Going to play with the babies in Nursery? Caroline loves doing that.”
Yeah, Em, too. “I’m not a fan of babies,” I say before I can think better of it. He looks surprised, but doesn’t rush to offer me reasons I should be, which is a nice change. Still, I feel like I need a reason. “The crying. I have sensitive ears.”
“Not to mention all the germs,” he says.
“Did you know there are more germs in the human mouth than there are people on Earth?” I blurt, because I’m apparently incapable of learning from my mistakes.
“Really?” he says. “That’s fascinating.”
Is it? I think it is.
“Yeah,” I say, “a little terrifying, but fascinating, right?”
He considers. “It’s not terrifying.”
“It’s not?”
“We need those bacteria, right? The bacteria, mites, all of that. It’s this hugely complicated ecosystem, right inside of us, everything working together. Even the tiniest part matters. Even the bacteria.”
Huh. I’ve never looked at it that way. I grin. “Fair point, Tal.” He smiles.
Sister Olsen, the resident ward busybody, appears in the chapel doors. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she says to me. I start toward my classroom.
“Young man,” I hear her say to Tal, “would you like some help finding your destination?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he says. “You know what they say, everything in moderation. Even Jesus.”
I stifle a laugh and turn around to see him halfway out the front door, to Sister Olsen’s disapproval. He catches my eye. “See you around,” he says. Then after a pause, “Ellis.”
As usual, it takes forever to leave church. From the way Mom clings to her friends, just needing one more minute eighteen minutes ago, you’d never guess they see each other weekly, at the absolute least.
And as usual, during the ride home, the car transforms into a Broadway stage for Em to perform her one-woman show: Everything I Saw, Did, and Thought During the Two Hours You Were Not in My Direct Presence.
After a particularly meandering story about another girl in her age group who wants to get a second (forbidden) ear piercing, Em takes a breath, and my mother seizes the opportunity.
“Sister Olsen said she saw you talking to a boy outside the chapel,” she says, glancing back over the seat. Em nudges me, grinning, and I push her elbow away. “But she didn’t know who he was.”
“His name is Talmage,” I say, using his full name in a deliberate act of misdirection.
“Who was he there with?” Dad asks.
“Sister Collins. He’s her son.”
Mom and Dad look at each other. Dad focuses back on the road. “Oh,” Mom says. Weird.
“Did you know she had an older son?”
“She’s mentioned him,” Mom says. “I think their relationship is . . . complicated.”
“So he’s Caroline’s brother?” Em says.
“Yeah, half brother, I guess,” I say.
“How do you know each other?” Dad asks.
“School.” This is technically true. The park is part of school. Hannah is part of school. But my parents don’t need to know about either.
“Is he cute?” Em asks.
“I— He’s—” Is he cute? In a completely objective sense, yes, he is. If you like boys with holes in their jeans and dark curls and green-brown eyes, not that I’ve noticed at all. “We’re friends,” I force out, though we might not even be that.
“Uh-huh,” Em says, and I’d strangle her if it didn’t mean I’d be all alone with my parents.
“Good,” Dad says. “You don’t need to get involved in anything else.” I roll my eyes.
“She’s sixteen,” Mom says. “She’s old enough to date.”
“Ellis can’t date Caroline’s brother,” Em says.
I glare at her. “Really, you too?”
She looks at me with a bit of pity. “Because he’s gay, Ellis.”
Oh.
“Emmy,” Mom scolds. “Don’t gossip.”
“His sister told me. It’s not gossip if his sister told me.”
I feel so stupid. Not because he’s gay, it’s fine that he’s gay, but I thought when were inside—I thought maybe he was flirting with me. Maybe.
Obviously not. Why would he flirt with you, why would anyone flirt with you? You’re weird and awkward and no one will ever, ever like you that way. Not Tal, not—
I shake my head to bury the thought. “What did Caroline tell you?” I ask Em.
“She said he got caught doing stuff with another boy at some sleepaway camp. And his mom—well, I think more his stepdad—wanted him to see a therapist about it, but his real dad said he didn’t have to. And it was a big thing.”
Mom sighs. “Oh, poor Jessica.”
Jessica is Sister Collins. “Poor Sister Collins?” I say, with an edge. “Not poor Tal?”
Mom looks back at me. “You don’t think it was hard for her?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being gay,” I say.
“Of course not,” Dad says.
We believe that, my family. Not everyone in the church does. Some of my cousins say things that make me cringe, and the leadership isn’t exactly progressive. But my family believes that.
“I don’t mean it’s wrong,” Mom says, choosing her words with care. “I mean it’s a hard row to hoe.”
And she’s not wrong. Because no matter what my family believes, even what our local community believes, it doesn’t change the reality of being gay and Mormon. It doesn’t change the reality that same-sex relationships are considered contrary to God’s plan. That Tal could never marry a man in the temple. That until recently any children he and his husband had couldn’t be baptized until they were adults. And even then, they couldn’t be baptized unless they disavowed their fathers’ relationship. That’s the reality. And it sucks.
There are so many terrible things that the end of the world would bring. Famine, war, displacement. All those people who get to hurt Tal and people like him, all those people who think anything under the rainbow flag is immoral or shocking, well. At the end of the world, maybe they’ll have a chance to see what immorality really looks like, what shock really feels like. There’s not much of a bright side to the apocalypse, but maybe this is one: when the world as we know it ends, no one will care whether two people love each other.
As soon as we get home, I rush up to my bedroom. There’s no road map for determining the truthfulness of a teenage doomsday prophet, so all I can do is follow the routine I learned as a child.
I shut the door. I drop one knee to the carpet, then the other. I rest my weight on the back of my legs. I fold my arms across my chest, bow my head, close my eyes.
I’m not sure how to start. I’ve never asked for a revelation before. My previous pleas to the universe have been, I realize, remarkably self-centered. Please let me find my missing library book. Please let me pass this math test. Please let me be different, better, someone other than myself. Asking for divine inspiration isn’t any less selfish, but it’s on another scale entirely.
I replay each second with Hannah in my mind, from the
moment I saw her in the waiting room to the moment I saw her sweep through People’s Park.
I know when it’s going to happen.
It’s going to happen.
I know.
Maybe it’s wrong to be doing this. Maybe it’s wrong to be asking for an answer when I know my parents, my bishop, my sister would all say Hannah’s wrong. That she’s delusional at best and dangerous at worst. But all Hannah wants is for someone to believe her; there’s nothing sinister about that. She wants someone to hear her dreams and repeat them back without fear or doubt. She wants to speak and have someone pull her words close, not scatter them into the wind. She wants someone to believe she’s seen what she’s seen, and what’s so strange about that?
I want to be believed when I beg my family to be prepared. I want to be believed when I say I’m afraid, when I say I don’t want to be in AP classes, behind the wheel of a car, with a baby in my arms. Even Mary Bateman, hoaxer and liar that she was, only wanted to be believed when she said she’d been granted something special, that she was more than a poor woman in a small town.
Everyone just wants to be believed.
And as that thought rides the synapses of my brain like lightning, I feel it. The Spirit, exactly like I felt it when I was eight years old and preparing for my baptism. When I asked if the only life I’d ever known was true, was right, was real. My parents told me I’d feel a burning in my chest, a still, small voice, a sense of utter peace. That isn’t what I felt. What I felt was so much more.
Trying to capture it is like describing salt without mentioning sugar. Like painting a wall with a color you can’t see. Like holding the sun in a jar or pinning down the wind. I love words. I love finding out what they mean, where they come from, cataloging and categorizing and knowing. But this is beyond words.
Everyone just wants to be believed. Hannah wants to be believed and I want to believe Hannah, because I’m kneeling on the carpet on my childhood bedroom gasping for air, flooded with adrenaline and endorphins and that indescribable feeling. I know. I know. I know Hannah is telling the truth.
But feeling that something is true, even knowing that something is true, is one thing. Belief is another. Belief is a choice.
