Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters (15 page)

“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.

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.

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.

“It’s faded a little but it’s totally still there,” Bridget reported. “That is so weird. You should sue that marker company.”

“I don’t mind. I wanted a tattoo, remember?”

“Still, the pen said the ink was washable.”

An icky smacking sound came from the couch where Shea and the boy she was making out with wrestled. Bridget and I looked at each other and wordlessly agreed it was time to leave the room. We wandered through the dining room into the kitchen, where some boys were raiding the fridge. Tasha and Bibi perched conspicuously on the kitchen island. Tasha was sobbing and Bibi was trying to comfort her.

I hadn’t seen Tasha and Bibi in weeks. I assume that without me at school the bad girl bathroom has gone straight.

Bibi looked up and saw us. “Hey, stranger.” She almost sounded friendly. I think she was panicking because she didn’t know how to get Tasha to stop crying.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Tim Drucker gave us a ride to the party,” Bibi explained. “He texted Tasha and asked her if we wanted to come with him. And she likes him, so she said yes and she was all excited—”

“Shut up, I was not,” Tasha said through her tears.

“Yeah, okay. And you’re crying for no reason. It’s all right, you have nothing to be ashamed of.” Bibi reached into her bag and pulled out another Kleenex.

Tasha took it and swabbed her face with it. “Tim kind of disappeared when we got here. So Bibi and I started playing Count to Shea—”

“It’s a party game we made up,” Bibi explained. “We bet how many minutes until Shea does something slutty. The winner gets ten dollars.”

“I guessed fifteen minutes and Bibi guessed twenty. And ten minutes later we walked into the living room and there was Shea sucking Tim’s face off.” Tasha dissolved into tears again.

“Look at it this way.” Bibi dug through her bag again, this time pulling out a ten-dollar bill. “You won the game!”

Tasha batted the money away. The whole scene was ridiculous. But I felt the stirrings of something strange and unfamiliar. I didn’t care if Tim Drucker was making out with Shea or Tasha or half the boys’ soccer team, but seeing Tasha cry like that, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. A little. Especially because she and Bibi were being friendly to me.

“You know what we need to do?” Bibi said to Tasha, stuffing the ten-dollar bill into Tasha’s fist. “We need to get the hell out of here. Are you going to the club, Jane?”

“I guess we could crash the party,” I said. I did want to see how Norrie was doing. Who knows, maybe at that very moment she was giving you all the finger at the ball. I wasn’t aware of
that at the time, however. You can’t hold Norrie’s actions against me, Almighty. That wouldn’t be fair.

“Great! We’ll all go,” Bibi said.

Bridget tugged on my sleeve. “She’s just using you to get into the country club,” she whispered.

“I know,” I said. “I don’t care.”

And I didn’t care. I’d been thinking about Bibi and Tasha and choosing your battles, and I was beginning to think that this one wasn’t worth fighting. Maybe I’m outgrowing this kind of pettiness.

If only everything could resolve itself so easily.

Around midnight we all crammed into the car and I drove back into the city. Bridget played around with the radio and we sang along to every Christmas song that came on. The post-deb party was in full swing when we got to the club. Brooks was dancing with Claire Mothersbaugh. I looked around for Norrie but I didn’t see her. By now you know why.

Claire saw us and ran over, breathless with the news. “Norrie ran away! Right in the middle of the Cotillon!”

“What?” Sassy cried. There was an immediate commotion. Everyone started talking and asking questions. I stood in the middle of the crowd and grinned. I couldn’t stop grinning. It was such a strange feeling.

Norrie. Perfect Norrie. She revolted!

“Everything seemed okay, except she was weird in that way she’s been weird lately,” Claire said. “They presented each of us
girls, said our names and everything, and Norrie did her curtsy. But before Brooks could take her hand she took off and ran! Everybody freaked. Your dad found a note in his pocket later. She ran off to New York with Robbie!”

“Is Norrie coming back?” Sassy asked me. “Is she gone forever?”

“She’ll be back soon,” I said, but then I thought,
Maybe she won’t. What if she doesn’t?

No,
I thought.
She’s our sister. She has to come back.

And to make sure she knew she was welcome, I decided to write about her heroic adventure on my blog. To show my support. Because Sassy and I might be the only ones on her side.

But I guess Norrie didn’t see it that way. No one sees the blog my way. I’m misunderstood.