The silence at the table would have been complete if Cecilia had not stabbed her fork into the spinach ravioli with unnecessary force at her daughter, Kayla’s, announcement.
It was a typical dinner at Grandma’s house with me, Cecilia, her girls Kayla and Riley, Henry, and Janie. Henry was wearing a shirt with Big Bird on it; Grandma was in her black pilot’s outfit, her goggles atop her head; and Velvet, the caregiver, was wearing a blue velvet dress.
Kayla is fourteen, Riley is thirteen. They have the blond hair of their mother and the brown eyes of their father. They are sharp as tacks. Kayla studies religions and has papered her room with pictures from National Geographic. Riley is obsessed with physics and reads science books for fun.
“You’re a practicing Mormon?” Janie asked Kayla, taking a sip of lemon tea, then putting her teacup on a doily.
Cecilia glared at her daughter.
“Yes, I am.”
“I thought you were Catholic,” I said mildly. Kayla is hilarious. She antagonizes Cecilia until Cecilia’s about to pop.
“I go to a Catholic church, because I’m forced to against my will , but I’m a practicing Mormon.”
“Ah. How do you practice being a Mormon?” I asked.
Grandma made the sound of a plane’s engine. Then she dropped her fork and clasped her hands together. “Dear God, this is Amelia. I pray for my plane. Don’t let it pretzel. I pray for my gas. I hope there’s enough of it. I pray for the natives here. They seem friendly. I pray for my bottom bullet wounds. Amen.”
Henry puffed out his chest. “I wear my Big Bird shirt today!”
“Well, I’m reading the book of Mormon,” Kayla said. “And I’m studying Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Did you know that a prophet named Moroni came to Joseph Smith and told him where to find a book written on metal plates? I want Moroni to come and sermonize me. I am waiting for him and listening intently.”
Cecilia stabbed her ravioli again. Spinach squished out.
“Now, last month you were studying Buddhism and said you were a Buddhist,” Janie said. “You told us you were going to be reincarnated.”
“That’s right. I studied Buddhism. I know that when I die I’ll come back to earth. Maybe as a person. A man or a woman. Maybe as a leaf. I also spent time in meditation, I accepted the Four Noble Truths, and I pursued my own path of enlightenment.”
“Why don’t you tell them about your Jewish month, too, Kayla?” Cecilia snapped. “Let’s make a complete circle here.”
“Well, the month before that I was Jewish. I asked six rabbis for wisdom, three of them online, studied Moses and the Ten Commandments, said prayers three times a day, and baked challah bread.”
Cecilia grunted.
“I like bread,” Henry said. “I squish bread. Ducks like bread. You want go to duck pond?”
“Air traffic control, this is HRTO2233.” Grandma spoke into her empty glass. “All is well. Give me a weather update. Storms ahead?”
I nodded. “Well, you’ve certainly been busy with your faiths.”
“It’s important to explore and not naively swallow the religion that gets stuffed down your throat by someone who has never explored any other religion in her life. ” Kayla glared at her mother.
“I don’t need to study another religion because I know what I am, Kayla: Catholic.” More spinach squished out of that ravioli, then Cecilia attacked her roll.
I nodded. Cecilia had never wavered on her religion. Momma took us to the Catholic church on Sundays no matter where we were unless she was semicomatose with depression/fighting her mental monsters, and then she insisted we go without her.
After church, if Momma had roused herself, we had to stay so she could say a rosary. She always made us wait outside. A couple of times we snuck in because she was taking so long, then skittered right back out when we saw our momma sobbing at the altar.
“You don’t even go to church, do you, Aunt Isabelle?” Kayla asked, her eyes narrowed. “Are you an atheist?”
I put down my garlic bread. Here’s another genetic marker of being a Bommarito: We cannot have normal meals like normal people. Our conversations are often inflammatory.
Food has been known to fly. One time a chair. Another time an entire stuffed turkey. Screaming occurs. Cecilia reached for me one time over the table and landed on Momma’s casserole. Janie’s flipped the table. Glasses have broken. Whipped cream has been sprayed, hot dogs have been hurled like bombs, loaves of bread have been used as weapons.
It’s hereditary. When we first arrived at this house as teenagers, Momma and Grandma had a fight over Momma’s makeup (too much, looked trashy), and Grandma’s attitude (critical, judgmental), and Momma’s lack of visits over the years (she had deprived Grandma of her grandchildren). Momma threw a chicken leg at her mother, Grandma pelted an apple at Momma’s forehead. A handful of corn and a roll followed. Then a peach.
I glanced at the food on the table. Gall. Ravioli. Miniature square land mines. Salad that would be so slimy.
“Jesus loves Isabelle!” Henry said. “Yep.”
“I’m not an atheist,” I told her.
“Are you agnostic? That means you doubt that God exists.”
“I’m not an agnostic.”
“You believe in God?”’
“Yes. I believe in God.” I didn’t think about Him much, though. One does not like to think about God, or particularly hell, when one is living the life I live. “Basically, I’ve tried to stay in the shadows so God can’t see me.”
That didn’t stump smart ol’ Kayla. “You can’t hide from God in the shadows.”
“God see you.” Henry laughed. “God see you, Isabelle. He gots good eyes. You silly.”
“Only if he squints his eyes and slinks around all the shadowy corners. I think I lost him a few years back when I was in the Middle East and he’s forgotten about me. They’re busy there, you know. Wars and famine and zero rights for women, who are treated like goats. He’s got a lot of work on his to-do list there.”
“He can see you, too, Kayla, and he sees a kid who’s changing religions monthly,” Cecilia interjected.
“God doesn’t care about that. He knows I’m searching for peace,” Kayla protested. “Besides, religion is what people use as an excuse to kill each other.”
“The natives may kill us!” Grandma declared, wielding her knife back and forth like a sword fighter. “Watch out!”
“Not always,” I said. “I used religion as a way to guzzle red wine at church.”
Janie blew milk through her nose as she laughed. Cecilia choked and I had to hit her on the back.
It was the holy truth, though. We used to sneak into the church and drink the wine out of paper Dixie cups on Wednesday nights. No one could understand why we laughed so hard while reciting our Hail Marys.
“I don’t get it. It’s a sister thing, isn’t it?” Riley asked. She was twisting hair around her finger. I don’t think she’d stopped twisting the whole meal.
“Take your finger out of your hair. What is it? A finger corkscrew?” Cecilia snapped.
She took her finger out. Riley’s hair was so thin, too…it used to be thick. Was I seeing bald spots, or was she styling her hair in a weird way?
“So, Kayla,” Janie said, picking up her teacup again. “You’re studying to be a Mormon?”
“Yeah,