Night at the Fiestas: Stories

FAMILY REUNION

“WHAT’S AN ATHEIST?” THE GIRLS AT SCHOOL HAD ASKED Claire at recess when she was ten and a new kid and too dumb to know when to shut up. They were sitting on the grass near the fence, finger-crocheting. Claire was desperate to be liked by these girls with their neat ponytails and jean skirts and coordinating socks. Her strand of finger-crochet looked dingy and tangled, nothing like the smooth braid Josie Lewis produced.

“It means you have faith in the fossil record,” Claire had explained, which was how her anthropologist stepfather had explained it to her. Really what it meant, Claire knew, was that you were from the wrong kind of family, a family that rented and wasn’t from Salt Lake City and was disfigured by divorce. It meant that instead of a minivan you had a father in San Diego who drank Fosters for breakfast. It meant you weren’t Mormon. “Basically it means you believe in Homo habilis.”

“Ooooh,” breathed Lindsay Kimball, whose grandfather was the prophet. “You said homo. I’m telling.” She brushed grass off her skirt and trotted over to the playground monitor.

Claire sighed and followed. Once again, she’d have to sit out for recess.

Claire was always in trouble for swearing, usually for saying “Oh my God.” It popped out without her noticing and was hard to control because no one could explain to her why Mormons thought God was a bad word. She thought they were supposed to like God.

It was particularly galling to get in trouble for swearing, because her mom didn’t even allow stupid or hate or shut up, which all the other kids got to say. And her mother didn’t care whether these words were directed at people or not; Claire couldn’t even say, “I hate eggplant,” which she did, passionately. “So you want me to lie?” she’d asked her mother over ratatouille. “You want me to lie for the sake of appearances?”

“Try detest,” her stepfather Will had suggested. “Try loathe or abhor or execrate.”

Claire’s mother shifted Emma to her other breast and smiled across the table at Will, shaking her head. “Thanks, sweetie. That’s very helpful.”

As far as Claire was concerned, none of these people knew what real swears were. If the girls at school knew the kind of words her father said, they’d never speak to her again. Mother-fucking-cocksucker-piece-of-shit and stupid-cunt-bitch. Sometimes he screamed these words at strangers — cashiers at the supermarket, for instance, or other drivers on the stalled freeway. Last summer, he’d taken Claire to the pound to adopt Zark the dog. The day had been a good one, until there’d been a problem with his credit card, which had culminated in him kicking a chair, throwing pens and animal-care pamphlets around the room, and screaming at the poor woman cowering behind the counter.

But her father didn’t even have to be mad to say those words. Or even that drunk. Sometimes he said them when he was telling a joke. Claire didn’t know their exact meanings, but preferred not to delve too deeply. Every July and August during her six-week visitations, she tried her best to shut the words out. After all, she had her innocence to preserve.

BY AGE ELEVEN, Claire understood that the best way to overcome her disadvantages was to convert. And so she was a frequent visitor to her friends’ houses in the upper Avenues. The families of her school friends were moral and prosperous and safe. Their houses had wide hallways, white carpets, rubber trees with leaves that the mothers dusted.

On Sundays, Claire began to accompany friends to church, where she solemnly plucked her square of Wonder Bread and paper cup of tap water from the wire basket as it was passed around. She sang with exuberance in Primary. When she visited people’s houses for Monday night Family Home Evenings, she sat up straight and raised her hand and answered questions about the Pearl of Great Price and purity of body, while the other kids squirmed.

At church and school, Claire hid the truth about her own family: the foreign films, the ratty hand-me-downs from the kids of Will’s dissertation advisor, and the hikes. Her two-year-old sister’s nose was perpetually chapped and snotty from dust allergies. They didn’t take baths every night, or even every other night. Instead of mashed potatoes and mac and cheese, they ate dahl with asafetida and rotting cheeses and baba ganoush, all kinds of wet, spicy foods that stank up the house while they were cooking and stank up the bathroom even worse after.

Claire became adept at playing Mormon, and while she never fooled anyone, at least she didn’t offend anyone, either. Claire hoped they thought about her soul, and discussed what a credit to the Church it would be. One day, she prayed, they’d recognize her as one of their own and invite her to convert for real.

But despite Claire’s efforts, no one did invite her. And there was always some other group, some other activity Claire wasn’t a part of. Sure, she might attend church, but then there were Mutual and Young Women’s — clubs you actually had to be Mormon to join. And recently Young Women’s was absorbing her friends entirely. They now wore deodorant and knee-length khaki skirts and crossed their feet at the ankles. They talked about Firesides and Beehives and Standards Nights and Personal Progress. Claire felt her tenuous grasp on social acceptance slipping away.

AT THE BEGINNING OF JUNE, Claire’s mother signed her up for a Girl Scout overnight, even though Claire wasn’t in a troop. From what Claire could tell, Girl Scouts was a sort of consolation prize for girls who weren’t preparing to be defenders of Zion. There in the damp bunkhouse she met Morgan Swanson. Though Morgan was sturdy and grubby-looking, she had the mannerisms of a sitcom girl: hands on hips, looking out from under her bangs, she’d say “Well, s-o-o-o-ry.”

Morgan lived six blocks down the Avenues and went to a different school. For two weeks they spent day after day together, laughing hysterically, whining on the phone until their parents let them spend the night. In the afternoons they’d meet at the corner store halfway between their houses. They’d buy Dots and Pixy Stix and then walk to the cemetery, where they’d eat the candy sitting on gravestones. Morgan tossed the wrappers on the ground; Claire wadded hers into tight balls and tucked them into divots in the lawn.

Afternoons following sleepovers, Claire lolled on the living room carpet, snapping at her mother and Will, snatching toys from Emma. When she was reprimanded, Claire tried out her new comebacks—“Right, I am so sure”—and was exiled to her room.

Claire had been stunned to discover that Morgan’s family was LDS. She considered herself something of an expert on Mormons, and Morgan’s family was nothing like the families who lived in the upper Avenues. Their house was narrow, their stairs cluttered with laundry and toys and Good Housekeeping magazines. Claire had only met Mr. Swanson once; he’d nodded at her, then loosened his tie and went to watch TV in the cramped master bedroom. Morgan’s mother Patsy, however, was enchanting and given to loud hooting fits of laughter. She fed them frozen chicken nuggets and ice cream. Morgan’s family was small: just Morgan and her parents and two little sisters.

“I smell birth control,” said Claire’s mother.

“Gross,” said Claire. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pressed her lips and looked away.

ONE EVENING IN THE MIDDLE of dinner, the phone rang. Claire felt nauseated. She knew who was calling.

Her mother stood. “Hello?” Then her voice hardened. “She’s eating right now. Yes, the ticket arrived.” Will was watching her mother. Only Emma still shoveled couscous around her plate.

Even though Claire had actual memories of the time, she still had trouble imagining her parents married: sharing a bathroom, running errands together, laughing. They’d been divorced for most of Claire’s life, but her father had only begun insisting on visitations a few years ago, when Claire’s mother had begun dating Will. “It’s my legal right,” he said, “and besides, I’m on the wagon.”

When her mother handed her the phone, she patted Claire on the back.

“It’s your papa!” Today he was in a good mood. He’d once called her mother a fucking bitch and said she was brainwashing Claire, which Claire had found offensive. As if she wasn’t intelligent enough to think for herself. Still, even a good mood could turn. She could feel blood thumping in her neck.

“Are you having fun this summer?”

She’d learned it was best to keep her answers short. “Sure.”

“I bought your ticket. Are you excited? Do you miss your papa?”

“Sure.”

Once Claire had told him the truth, that he was scary and she didn’t want to visit and she didn’t love him, but he’d said, Yes you do, and when she’d countered, You can’t read my mind, he’d answered, Yes I can. She’d been so angry she’d sobbed in her mother’s lap for over an hour and hadn’t stopped shaking for a long time after that.

That night while Will and Emma read books in the living room, Claire’s mother made Mexican hot chocolate, crushing the tablet with the mortar and pestle, stirring milk and sugar in a saucepan. Usually, Claire loved Mexican hot chocolate, but her stomach was still unsettled and something was lodged in her throat. Sad light reflected off the kitchen windows.

“You know he isn’t really on the wagon, right?” Claire demanded.

Her mother didn’t turn from the stove when she spoke. “When you’re a teenager, the law says you can decide for yourself whether you want to visit him. Only two more years.” She poured chocolate into Emma’s two-handled frog mug and dropped in an ice cube.

“I don’t think an alcoholic is a good example for a kid. I would think that you’d agree.”

“I do agree, Claire.” Her mother sighed, strain showing on her face. “You know I do. But I have to follow the law. At least he doesn’t drive when he’s like that.”

“How would you even know?”

Her mother snapped to attention. “You’d tell me if he did, right?”

Claire shrugged. She couldn’t always even tell when he was drunk. He wasn’t always angry, of course, but Claire couldn’t help feeling that even his high spirits were threaded with danger. Last summer at the pound, the woman behind the counter had run his credit card again and again with shaking hands. Claire had never seen an adult look so frightened. She’d pitied the woman, but she’d also been amazed that the woman had let him take both Claire and the dog home with him.

“Right, Claire?”

“I guess,” Claire said, and was disheartened by the comfort her mother seemed to take in this. “Can you put lots of ice in mine? Hot drinks are bad for you.”

Her mother dipped her finger in the saucepan. “It’s not hot, Claire. Really it’s pretty tepid.”

“It doesn’t matter. Hot drinks burn your insides.”

“Sweetie, if it’s hot enough to burn your insides, it’d be too hot to drink.”

“Mother,” Claire explained, her voice rising. “It says so in the D and C.”

“D and C?” Her mother smiled to herself. “Dilation and curettage?”

“Doctrine and Covenants, Mother.”

“Ah.” She looked at Claire a moment, then cracked the ice cube tray and dropped four into the mug.

Claire took a sip. The chocolate congealed around the ice, coated her tongue in a thick, cold scum. Her stomach clenched. She set the mug on the counter. In the living room, Will and Emma laughed and shrieked.

“Don’t you like it?” asked her mother, arranging three cups on a tray. She carried the tray to the living room.

Watching her mother’s straight back, Claire was suddenly so filled with rage that she couldn’t breathe and her vision blurred. She poured the chocolate down the sink and let the mug clang hard against the metal.

WHEN MORGAN CALLED one morning with an invitation to her family’s cabin for their reunion, Claire was thrilled. She’d never been to a cabin. She pictured logs and woods, a lake and a canoe. She pictured deer gamboling, squirrels chattering, friendly raccoons sniffing a red-checked picnic blanket.

“It’s an old church,” Morgan said over the phone. “It’s really fun. We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”

“Please?” Claire asked her mother, hand against the mouthpiece.

“I don’t know.” Her mother looked up from the living room floor, where she was doing an animals-of-the-rainforest puzzle with Emma. “It’s really last-minute. And you haven’t demonstrated that you handle slumber parties very well.”

“Mom!” Claire wailed, then caught herself. In her most adult voice, she said, “I understand I have made mistakes in the past, but I am responsible now.”

Her mother frowned. “You’re sure? Five days is a long time, honey. And you don’t know Morgan very well.”

“I’ll be ready,” she told Morgan.

Claire packed all her coolest clothes: jeans with the flowers stitched on the pockets, her yellow and blue plaid shirt with ruched sleeves, her Swatch with six different bands you could change depending on your outfit. She brought eleven pairs of underwear and every color scrunchie she owned.

At family reunions, Claire knew, there were cousins, and some of those cousins were bound to be boys. And since she would be the only one who wasn’t a relative, the boys would have to have a crush on her. They might play Truth or Dare.

She wished she had a duffel bag or a rolling suitcase; instead she had to use her stepfather’s dusty backpack that he brought on his field trips overseas. It still smelled gamey from his last trip — the smell, Claire was sure, of Ethiopia.

WHEN THE MINIVAN pulled up, only Morgan and Patsy were inside.

Claire’s mom came out with her to meet them. Emma, in a saggy diaper and rubber pants, crouched on the sidewalk and prodded a roly-poly. Claire wished her mother had spent a little time on her appearance. She had on her giant thick glasses and a t-shirt with a hole in the shoulder.

“Good morning!” called Patsy, leaning over Morgan. Her red hair was pulled into a sporty ponytail, and she was wearing lipstick and sparkly eye shadow. She was lively, thin, with dry creases around her eyes. The skin between her neck and the top of her shirt was speckled red under a gold locket.

Claire’s mother squinted into the car. “Thank you for inviting Claire, Patsy.”

“Oh, I’m so glad she could come. We’ll have a super time!”

Claire slid open the door and threw her bag in. She turned for a hug, but her mother had squatted beside Emma, who was gumming something in her mouth.

“Emma! We don’t eat bugs.” Her mother fished around in Emma’s howling mouth.

Claire slid the door shut, and Patsy shifted into drive. “Nephi City, here we come!”

Morgan twisted in her seat and made a face at Claire. “It’s not a city,” she said. “So don’t get your hopes up.”

The cup holders in Patsy Swanson’s minivan were gunky, and the backseats were full of naked Barbies and Happy Meal toys and the plastic backings of Fruit Roll-Ups.

“Where’s your dad?” Claire asked. “And your sisters? I thought they were coming.”

Morgan put her bare feet on the dashboard. “They’ll meet us there.” She looked at her mother. “Right, Mom?”

Patsy kept her eyes on the road. “Oh, there’s going to be lots of people — my sisters and brothers, all their kids, my dad. We’ll have a barbeque and everything. It’ll be a blast!”

From Salt Lake to Sandy, Morgan played her Paula Abdul tape turned up loud. Morgan and her mother knew all the words. Claire knew only one or two songs, but she sang along anyway, a fraction of a second too late. This was fun, the kind of fun girls in movies had with their mothers. Claire’s mom only listened to NPR, and sometimes Will turned even that off, saying he needed quiet.

Morgan was clearly her mother’s pal, ranked above her younger sisters, and now Claire was Patsy’s pal as well. Claire was emphatically not her mother’s pal; Will was, and Emma was pal to both of them. Right now they were all probably at the shallow end of the city pool, clapping and cheering as Emma swam the three feet between her parents. Sometimes Claire felt like nothing more than a reminder of an unhappy time in her mother’s life, the unfortunate consequence of an unfortunate marriage. Claire supposed if she were her mother, she’d want to forget it all, too — the shouting, the smashed chairs — to inhabit completely this calm, fresh life with her new husband and new child. Still, it wasn’t fair that her mother could divorce her father and never see him again, while summer after summer Claire was sent to pay for her mother’s mistakes.

Outside Provo, Patsy pulled off at a convenience store. “Whew,” she said. She arched her back, stretching long and slow, and Claire saw a crescent of pale skin at her waist. “Let’s get some snacks.” At the door, she gave Claire and Morgan each ten dollars. “Pick what you want. I’ll get drinks.” Morgan didn’t even exclaim over the amount, just started browsing, and Claire wondered if the Swansons were secretly rich.

She chose M&Ms, then couldn’t decide between potato chips and pretzels. “What do you think?”

Morgan had already paid and was munching on bright orange chips. “Come on,” she said. “Just get it all.”

Outside, Patsy was waiting for them at the picnic table with a six-pack of fruit drinks. Claire had never had anything so delicious, sparkling and bright and fruity. They didn’t even drink soda at her house, and this was something else altogether. She took tiny sips to make it last. This was probably the kind of thing they drank in France. She sipped again and inspected the glass bottle with the bunch of fruit embossed near the long, tapering top. Fruit Coolers.

“Hey,” Claire said. “This contains six percent alcohol by volume!”

“Oh my heck!” shouted Morgan. She looked at her bottle. “How do you know?”

Patsy took a long drink, nearly emptying her bottle, then inspected the label. “So it does. I can’t believe I made that mistake.” She collected the bottles from the girls and stood.

Morgan clamped her hand over her mouth. “We just broke the Word of Wisdom.”

Claire looked longingly at her bottle — still nearly full — as Patsy carried it to the trash, wishing she’d gulped it, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. She’d probably never taste anything so wonderful again.

In the car Morgan was quiet for a while. Then she turned to Patsy. “Mom, what are we going to do? We broke the Word of Wisdom.”

The Word of Wisdom was a very big deal. At the beginning of the year, Lindsay Kimball’s dad had bought a Cherry Coke. “With caffeine,” Jessica Beckstead had reported. Listening, Claire had mirrored the other girls’ dropped jaws. When he got home, Lindsay’s mother had made him get right back in the car and return it, even though he’d already opened the can. “Did they take it back?” asked Josie Lewis, voice low, and Lindsay Kimball’s eyes had filled with tears.

But Claire never expected that Morgan would respond like this, mouth tight and worried, forehead creased. The Morgan Claire knew pocketed candy at the corner store and said, “What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks.”

Patsy sighed. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “Would you stop overreacting, Morgan? We didn’t do it knowingly. You don’t get in trouble for an accident.”

Morgan chewed her lip. “How do you know?”

“Listen, I once dated a guy who did his Mission in Peru. Someone gave him a drink, and he had a few sips before he realized there was alcohol in it. It’s not a big deal if it’s an accident.”

“I’ve had wine,” Claire offered tentatively. She’d never told anyone this. “On special occasions my parents give me some mixed with water. That’s how kids in France have it.” She paused. “Wine can actually be healthful. It’s only bad if you abuse it.”

“See?” Patsy said to Morgan. “Not a big deal.” Patsy looked at Claire through the rearview mirror. “Do you like wine? Do your mom and Will have it every night with dinner?”

Claire held Patsy’s gaze in the mirror. “No, not that much. Definitely at dinner parties.”

“Oh,” said Patsy, voice even. “They have dinner parties? Fancy ones?”

Claire’s parents sometimes had potlucks with Will’s colleagues at the U — mostly professors and foreigners who brought their precocious children and third-world food. “The ladies get really dressed up and there’s candles and stuff. Usually we have steak and lobster.” She added helpfully, “It’s called Surf and Turf.”

Patsy looked over her shoulder. “And there’s wine. And they’re not evil, right?”

“No,” said Claire, shocked. “Of course not.”

“There you go. Claire’s had wine and she’s not evil.”

Morgan faced front, but Claire could tell her shoulders were tense. In a low, hard voice, she said, “Claire’s not a member. Claire doesn’t get to enter the Celestial Kingdom.”

Claire’s face burned. She thought of how much she’d loved the fruit cooler, wondered if the longing she’d felt was a kind of evil, and then, sickened, if she was on the road to becoming her father.

“Morgan, Claire is your guest. I expect you to treat her like one. I apologize for Morgan. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

Claire looked at the ground to avoid Patsy’s eyes in the mirror. With her foot she prodded a topless Barbie in hot pants.

Morgan turned away, and for another hour no one spoke.

MORGAN WAS RIGHT: Nephi City was not a city. It was a town surrounded by flat grassland at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. The houses were small, some single- and double-wide trailers, with dry lawns and neat flowerbeds. The cabin was just off Main Street, across from 5 Buck Pizza and King’s Hardware.

When Morgan had said the cabin was an old church, Claire had pictured a creaking bell tower and an overgrown cemetery. The Swansons’ church was flat and built of long orange bricks. Instead of a steeple, there was an A-frame vestibule with cracked white trim. This building should have been tolerated, or torn down, or added onto with some equally hideous addition. Not bought. Claire pictured the person — Patsy’s father — who passed by and thought he saw potential.

Inside, the church was dim and forbidding. Dwarfed by the space of the sanctuary was a cluster of orange institutional couches with hard blocky cushions. Dark paneling printed to resemble wood lined the walls; that and the brown carpeting made the room dusky, even in the heat of the day. Sunlight penetrated the gloom only at the far end of the sanctuary, where a vinyl accordion door was folded to reveal a yellow-tiled kitchen.

“Hey,” said Morgan, apparently only now realizing the place was empty. “Where is everyone?”

“They’ll be here soon,” said Patsy. “Tomorrow, maybe.” She dropped onto a couch.

The bedrooms were the offices and classrooms, ten down a hallway.

“We call the end room!” yelled Morgan, flinging open the door to reveal two single beds. The bedspreads were thin, one pink, one orange, the nubbled chenille stripes grimy. A window between the beds looked out on a dry lawn with picnic tables and a concrete basketball court. Beyond was a chain-link fence, and beyond that the yard of a small house, littered with faded toy trucks.

“I call the pink bed,” said Morgan. “I mean, if that’s okay. You’re the guest.”

“That’s cool,” said Claire, sitting on her bed. She smiled so Morgan wouldn’t notice how disappointed she was by the cabin. It smelled like the dust on a window screen.

The hall was lined with shut doors. “Ta-da,” said Morgan, pushing one open. “Wanna go in the boys’ bathroom? We can.”

Inside, instead of three bathroom stalls, like in the women’s, there was only one, plus two urinals along the wall.

“Weird, huh?” said Morgan.

They peered into a urinal.

“They see each other’s thingies when they go. They just pull them right out in front of each other. Gross, right?”

“Have you ever seen one?” asked Claire.

“Doy, on my little cousins.”

“I mean on a grown-up. Like on your dad.”

“No,” said Morgan, shocked. “Have you?”

Claire’s father walked around naked. He said it was natural. He even opened the front door naked, beer in hand. “You don’t mind, do you?” he’d asked the neighbor who came to borrow jumper cables. The man had laughed nervously. “No problemo.” Claire minded. A lot. She had to pretend to be absorbed by the television or her book, all the while being so aware of his hairy red penis swinging around.

“Of course not.” Claire pressed the flusher on the urinal. As the water surged and swirled, it splashed Morgan’s arm.

“Nastaroni!” yelled Morgan and ran out.

“MAKEOVER TIME,” Patsy announced.

At the drugstore they put whatever they wanted into the cart. Mud masks, glitter polish, a massive bag of Laffy Taffy, a glass bottle of Jean Naté each for Claire and Morgan. Claire felt rich and glamorous. The three of them laughed and called to each other across the aisles, while all around them dull-faced townspeople were buying toilet paper and laundry detergent, sweat suits and packs of socks.

Claire picked up a package of barrettes.

“Put them in,” Patsy said. She considered the blow dryers, then placed the most expensive model in the cart. “This is our vacation. We deserve quality.”

Back at the church, they spent a long time in the bathroom, makeup and brushes and creams spread on the counter. Claire didn’t know when she’d last been so happy. Shimmering teal eye shadow reached Morgan’s eyebrows and her cheeks were nearly purple with blush. Patsy had given herself Cleopatra eyes and lined her lips in dark red.

“I could do your hair,” Claire offered Patsy.

“Or I could,” said Morgan.

“Super,” said Patsy, handing Claire the brush.

Patsy’s hair wasn’t as soft as Claire expected, but beautiful still. Up close, two or three silver strands shone among the red.

“Girls,” said Patsy, eyes closed, “you don’t know it now, but these are the best days of your lives.”

“Really?” asked Claire. Just yesterday this would have been devastating news. Her whole life she’d been banking on things getting better, but today, hair teased in a high, tight ponytail, makeup so thick her skin itched, Claire could almost believe it.

“Maybe,” said Morgan grimly. She watched with narrowed eyes as Claire wrestled Patsy’s hair into a messy French braid, then sprayed it all stiff.

The phone rang, its sound barely reaching them from the sanctuary at the far end of the long hall, but Patsy continued to apply her mascara.

“We should get it,” said Morgan. “It might be Dad.”

Patsy put a hand on Morgan’s wrist. “Let it go.” She blinked at her reflection.

THAT AFTERNOON, MORGAN and Claire sat in the shade on the concrete steps, watching cars pass. It was hot, and when Claire scratched at her face, the makeup gathered in gluey worms under her nails. Patsy had gone off in the minivan promising a treat, and without her there, all the day’s liveliness seemed to have evaporated in the parched air. It was funny to Claire, this concept of setting up a vacation house — cabin (why would they call it a cabin?) — in a place where people lived their lives. In houses all around, women vacuumed and baked meatloaf, kids watched television, men left for work and came home.

“Don’t worry,” Morgan said. “It will be more fun when my dad and my cousins get here.”

“I’m having fun,” said Claire, listless.

Patsy returned with a bag of groceries and Rocket Pops. “You know what we need, girls? A sprinkler party!”

By the time the girls had changed, Patsy was already in her swimming suit, her towel spread on the dry grass. She lay on her back, stretched her toes and pressed her middle with the pads of her fingers, frowning. Her suit was magenta, a one-piece, but not the kind the mothers of Claire’s friends wore when Claire accompanied them to the Deseret Gym, with legs and cap sleeves. It was a regular swimming suit, like Claire’s own mother’s. Morgan looked at Patsy, alarmed, then quickly over at Claire, as if to see if she’d noticed. Claire averted her eyes and pretended to be absorbed in catching the drips on her popsicle with her tongue.

“Go on, girls,” said Patsy, indicating the sprinkler. “Play!”

Claire hooted and splashed, acting out an approximation of fun, trying to lift Morgan’s mood. She was doing this for Patsy, Claire realized, and she laughed more vigorously, until she realized they actually were having fun. She grabbed the hose and aimed the sprinkler at Morgan.

“I’m gonna kick your trash!” yelled Morgan and charged her.

Finally, breathless, they dropped onto towels beside Patsy. Morgan’s mascara had dissolved around her eyes, giving her a haunted, dissolute appearance. A woman in a long denim dress passed on the sidewalk and looked at them. Claire imagined how they must seem to her: idle, fascinating, privileged.

Patsy squinted into the sun. “This is nice. Reminds me of when I was a teenager, hanging out at the city pool.” She turned onto her belly and wiggled out of her straps.

Morgan scowled at her mother’s bare freckled back. “Where’s Dad? You said he was coming.”

“Something came up at work. So it’ll be just us girls!”

Morgan glared. “Next time he calls, I want to talk to him.” She stalked to the steps and sat hugging her knees.

Patsy rolled onto her side and smiled at Claire. “Morgan’s very close to her dad. He’s a really good man. He converted for me, you know.” The skin on her chest was even redder than usual and the tops of her small breasts squeezed together.

“Really?” asked Claire. She paused. “Who’s watching Morgan’s sisters?”

“They’re with our neighbor.” Patsy’s voice was suddenly sharp. “Do you think I’d just leave them alone?”

Claire opened her mouth to apologize, but to her relief Patsy smiled again.

“I met Mr. Swanson in college. I was a sophomore and he was a senior. I had lots of boyfriends back then, but he fell in love with me immediately. By the end of the year we were married. Now he’s even more devout than me!”

“Wow,” said Claire. Patsy was talking to her as if she were an equal, a friend. She looked at Morgan, who was glowering on the steps. Morgan swiped at her face, smearing her makeup still more.

“So Will’s your stepdad?” Patsy asked.

Claire inhaled. “Uh-huh.”

“Your mom got a divorce from your real dad?”

Claire nodded. Pieces of grass were stuck to her ankles, but when she tried to pick them off, they clung to her wet fingers. “But it was because he could be really mean.”

“Mr. Swanson’s not mean.” Patsy rolled onto her back, eyes closed to the sun. “So… did your mom have boyfriends before Will?”

Claire looked at her thighs. The water was beginning to dry. She felt sticky. “A couple.”

“Did they ever spend the night? Did Will spend the night at your house before they got married? Did they sleep in the same bed?”

Claire didn’t say anything. Her eyes felt hot and she couldn’t have raised her head if she’d wanted to.

Patsy patted her leg, left her hand there, and Claire felt a warm rush in her thighs. “It’s okay, honey. I’m not judging.”

Her voice was so kind. Somehow Patsy understood the shame and was forgiving her.

Morgan stomped over and grabbed Claire’s wrist. “Come on. We need to go for a walk.”

Patsy squinted up. “I’ll come with you.”

Claire didn’t want to leave Patsy’s side.

“No,” said Morgan and yanked. “Why can’t you leave us alone?”

Patsy blinked, her face naked and hurt.

“Ugh!” shouted Morgan, throwing a towel over her mother. “Get dressed.”

They walked around the block, but they were barefoot and the pavement was hot. In some places the sidewalk gave way entirely and they had to pick their way through burning dirt. Morgan walked three steps ahead and never said a word and never turned around.

Claire tried to pretend to be interested in the neighborhood: small houses, a boarded-up garage, some little kids in a yard who eyed them suspiciously as they passed. At the next corner, Morgan waited for Claire. She seemed to have softened.

“So when’s the family reunion starting?” asked Claire conversationally.

“Stupid. There is no family reunion.”

“What?” asked Claire. “Your mom lied?”

Morgan turned away. Her pale shoulders were hunched and the straps of her bathing suit cut into her soft skin. “She didn’t lie. There must be some mistake.”

Claire hesitated before asking, “Morgan, is your mom Mormon?”

Morgan whirled around. “Of course she is,” she snapped. “Her father is a bishop.”

“Oh,” said Claire, suddenly aware that she liked Morgan less. “Why are you so mad?”

THAT EVENING AS PATSY was laying out the fried-chicken dinner from the restaurant near the highway, the phone rang again. “We’ll let it go,” Patsy said. She put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder a moment, then continued setting the plastic sporks on thin paper napkins. The phone stopped.

“I want to call Dad,” said Morgan. They’d washed their faces, but Morgan’s eyes were still shadowed.

Patsy shook her head. “Let’s not bother him. He’s very stressed out with work.”

After a moment she turned to Claire and said, “Maybe you should give your parents a call, let them know you’re okay.”

“It’s fine,” Claire said, feeling Morgan’s glare. “I can do it after dinner.”

“Now’s good,” said Patsy. “Just to check in.”

Claire dialed carefully. Her mother picked up. “Did you call me, Mom? Just now?” Claire could hear Emma and Will laughing in the background.

“No, honey, but it’s great to hear your voice. Are you having fun?”

Claire said she was, then waited for her mother to ask if everything was okay, but she didn’t. “Morgan’s dad couldn’t make it.”

“Oh? That’s too bad. But you’re having a good time?”

There was so much she wanted to tell her mother — about the wine coolers, about how sad Patsy seemed, and how Morgan was angry with her and she didn’t know why — but Patsy and Morgan were both watching. “We did makeovers today. We ran in the sprinklers.”

“That sounds terrific, sweetie.”

“Yeah.” Claire allowed a silence, into which her mother ought to have read that everything had gone wrong.

Instead, her mother said, “I better go, honey. I’ve got to put Emma to bed, or she’ll be a grouch.”

When Claire dropped the phone into its cradle, Patsy said, “Bon appétit!”

The fluorescent ceiling panel seemed very far from the table and the flickering dim light made Claire sad. Morgan was silent as they ate. Claire kept glancing at her, but she didn’t lift her gaze from her mashed potatoes.

Morgan was a brat. She was spoiled and didn’t know how good she had it, having Patsy as her mother. At least Patsy wanted to spend time with Morgan. At least Patsy tried.

“This is delicious,” Claire told Patsy. She paused. “I think you’re a really good mom.”

“Thank you, Claire.” Patsy smiled gratefully and looked more beautiful than ever. They both considered Morgan, who appeared not to have heard.

But when Patsy took the dirty paper plates to the kitchen, Morgan looked right at Claire. “Just so you know, you’re going to be cast into Outer Darkness.”

“Outer Darkness?”

“That’s where the bad people go, the people who deny Jesus. There’s nothing there. Just dark.” Morgan’s gaze was very still and certain. “We’ll be in the Celestial Kingdom. My mom and dad and my sisters and me.”

“That’s not true,” said Claire. Surely she’d have heard of this before.

Morgan pressed her lips and nodded, as if to say it was a shame, but it wasn’t up to her. “It’s definitely true.”

Claire thought of her conversations with Will about galaxies beyond the Milky Way, how when he explained infinity she felt so queasy and anxious she had to push the idea from her mind. The notion that she could end up in that emptiness was terrifying. Panic tightened around her chest.

She imagined them all, Morgan and the girls from school with their pretty haircuts and orthodontia and ironed floral dresses, all of them being lifted above her, led through the Celestial Curtain, which glowed white with warmth and life, while she, with her tangles and off-brand Keds and too-short jeans, was sucked into the cold darkness of space. Floating around like an astronaut who had come untethered, without even stars to orient herself.

“Ice cream!” sang Patsy, sweeping in and placing a paper bowl in front of each of them.

Claire felt close to tears. “Maybe it’s just a story.”

“It isn’t a story,” Morgan said. “It’s revelation. God told Joseph Smith personally.”

“Morgan,” warned Patsy. “What are you talking about? We don’t need to talk about that.”

“Yes,” Morgan insisted, “we do need to talk about it.”

Patsy bit her lip. “This isn’t really dinnertime conversation.”

Morgan whipped around and looked at her mother. “Why shouldn’t we talk about the teachings of the Prophet? Revelation is important. You know that.” She stood. Claire could feel her rage vibrating around them. Morgan pointed at her mother. “You’d better know that!” she shouted, then ran down the hall. At the far end, a door slammed.

Outer Darkness. There was no such thing, thought Claire. She was an atheist, so there couldn’t be.

If Claire were away from her family when the end came — say, if it happened tonight while she was in Nephi City — she would be cast out alone, with no one to hold her as she drifted around in the vast, airless blackness. Her mom and Will and Emma might be destined for Outer Darkness, too, but they’d have each other.

She pictured the three of them as they were now, probably reading books on the couch at home, the lamplight warm and yellow. They’d be reading The Mammoth Hunt, Emma’s favorite book, laughing at the antics of Fern and little Sam, the Ice Age siblings. Emma, with her dimpled hands and silky honey-brown curls, surrounded by her mother and father, all their heads touching. They were perfect, the three of them: related, joined. A triangle, the strongest shape there is.

LATER THAT NIGHT, Claire found Patsy and Morgan lying together on Morgan’s bed. Morgan’s face was pressed into her mother’s chest, and Patsy’s fingers were twined in her hair. Claire stood in the doorway, watching them. Four more days. She missed her mother with an intense, full-body longing that hit her so hard, so squarely in the chest, she couldn’t breathe. She knew she’d begged to be allowed to come here with Morgan; why then did she feel she’d been sent away?

Much later, when Claire woke in the night, Patsy was gone and Morgan was sleeping. Claire opened the bedroom door. At the end of the long hall, a light was on.

In the sanctuary, Patsy was in a long rose-printed nightgown, hunched over the phone. Claire stood in the dark of the hall, watching.

“It has been a while!” Patsy laughed gaily in the way Claire loved. “Three kids, yeah. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. A lot.” Her voice dropped, and then Claire realized that something was wrong. Patsy was drinking Fruit Coolers. She had a box of them, and there were four empties, the one in her hand half-full. Her voice rose and tightened. “Anything you wanted. I’d do it now.” She listened for a long time. “I know it’s late. I’m sorry. I know.”

Patsy hung up, then threw the bottle against the wall. It hit with a crack but didn’t break. Claire watched the bottle empty itself into the carpet, and thought again of Outer Darkness. She could feel it gusting inside her, cold and vast, as if she’d swallowed a bite of it at dinner and it had swelled to fill her.

Patsy dropped her head into her hands. “Oh my gosh.” She hit the floor with her fist. “Fuck,” she wailed softly. Then: “Jesus. Jesus. Jesus Christ.”

When she lifted her head, she looked directly at Claire, as if she’d known she was there all along. Patsy’s mascara was smeared, her eyes dark and red.

“I’m sorry,” Claire croaked and backed down the hall.

Patsy caught up with her and put an arm around Claire’s shoulder. “You poor thing. You’re sad. I’ve made you sad. Are you sad?”

Claire shook her head.

Patsy kneeled before her, dragging on Claire’s hands. “I was just talking to an old friend, but I’m okay now. Everything’s okay.”

“Is it true about Outer Darkness?” And as if responding to its name, the emptiness inside Claire dilated. “Is it true I can’t be with my family in the Celestial Kingdom?”

“Oh, gosh.” Patsy looked stricken, and her eyes welled with tears again. “It is true,” she said. “I’m so sorry, honey. I don’t know what to tell you.” She dropped her head, then looked up suddenly. “But it will be okay!” She jumped to her feet and steered Claire down the hall with both arms.

She pushed open a swinging door. The dark room was empty but for a pool sunken in the floor, a huge square expanse of tiny bathroom tiles. Four steps and a metal handrail led down.

“This is the baptismal, Claire.”

“Wow,” said Claire. She thought baptismals were supposed to look like birdbaths, or grander, more sacred-looking, like the marble-edged pools in the book of Maxfield Parrish paintings her parents had. This was so ordinary, like a drained swimming pool, except smaller and cubic.

Patsy descended the steps, put the stopper in, and turned the faucet.

While the baptismal filled, the two of them stood at the edge. Patsy held Claire’s hand so hard it hurt. Outside the pebbled glass windows a phosphorous streetlight shone. The water was black, the pool too deep for its proportions.

Patsy shut off the faucet. “Do you know what this means?”

Claire listened to the quiet of the church and the sounds of water dripping and a gurgle in the pipes. This was it, the moment her life would change. Claire’s chest was tight, her mouth dry. What surprised her is how accidental this all felt: imagine if she hadn’t woken up, imagine if she’d slept through her chance. She nodded.

Patsy led her by the hand into the warm water. Claire had never been submerged in her clothes; her pajamas dragged around her legs as she took each step. When they were in the center of the pool, they stood facing each other until the black water stilled around them. The water was high on Claire’s chest. The line of wet climbed Patsy’s nightgown, and where the thin fabric clung to her breasts, the rosebuds looked like welts.

Claire breathed in the steam and the scent of Patsy’s lotion. Her mind was quiet, waiting.

“It’s okay, honey,” said Patsy. “Deep breath.”

Patsy cupped one hand behind Claire’s head and held both Claire’s hands in her other, then tipped her back into the water.

Claire’s eyes flew open. She couldn’t see anything in the warm dark, except, somewhere, a shifting haze of orange light. For a moment she felt bodiless, as though she’d become the water, but then the weight of it pressed around her, squeezing her lungs and throat. Claire opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, she had surfaced. She sputtered and coughed and blinked the stinging water from her eyes.

“Now do me,” said Patsy, and she settled herself in Claire’s arms.

Claire cradled her awkwardly, aware of the slippery warm skin at Pasty’s neck and of the sucking of her own t-shirt against her belly. Patsy’s gown drifted beneath the water as graceful as mermaid hair. Claire gazed down at Patsy’s calm face and her closed, waiting eyes.

“Do it now, Claire.”

When Patsy came up, water streamed from her face. She was smiling. “That’s what we needed,” Patsy said softly, the ends of her red hair dripping. “A new start.”

Claire smiled back. For a long time, it seemed, they stood smiling at each other, like people in a movie in love. Then Claire remembered the strange phone call.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Why were you so sad?”

Patsy pulled her close. “You could be my daughter,” she said. “I feel like you are.” Patsy kissed her on the mouth.

Warmth and happiness flooded Claire. “I know,” she said. “Me, too.”

Patsy pushed Claire’s hair back, and shivers went down Claire’s spine in wave after wave. It was almost too much, this happiness.

Patsy cocked her head, coy. “Can I tell you a secret? Promise not to tell?”

The sense of her loyalty brought tears to Claire’s eyes. She wanted to do something for Patsy, to sacrifice, to obliterate herself for this woman. “I promise.”

Patsy put her face close, and Claire could feel her breath on her lips when she whispered. “No one knows where we are. Not Mr. Swanson. Not your mother. No one.”

Claire realized she’d already known this, but as soon as Patsy spoke the words, she was afraid.

Patsy put her wet forehead against Claire’s, and though she wanted to, Claire didn’t step back. It seemed only the pressure of the water surrounding her kept her on her feet. “You and I have a bond here that is really special, Claire. You may not recognize it now, but you will.”

In Patsy’s lopsided smile, her misty eyes, her affection, there was a ripple of something dangerous that Claire hadn’t noticed before.

The Fruit Coolers.

“Patsy,” she said. “I need to tell you something.” Claire took a deep breath. “My father is an alcoholic. My real father. He screams and breaks things. Once when he was drunk he kicked the dog and she threw up blood.” In Claire’s mind her voice was strong and clear, but when they came out, the words were small and whimpered in the dripping vastness of the baptismal. “I need to tell you that the Word of Wisdom is right.”

A shadow passed over Patsy’s face. For a long moment she regarded Claire. Then she drew away and set the current swirling. She rose grandly up the steps, water flowing from her nightgown, and wrapped herself in a towel. “Of course it is.” Her shape loomed black against the orange glow from the windows. “I know that.” Patsy held open the door. “Get out,” she said sharply. “It’s bedtime.”

Suddenly, Claire didn’t want to leave the pool. “I want to go home.”

Patsy laughed harshly. “Oh, you’re going home. Tomorrow first thing.”

In the dark bedroom Claire peeled off her soaking pajamas, hunching to hide herself while Patsy watched. She didn’t have another pair, so she pulled on a t-shirt and shorts, shivering.

In ten days, Claire was scheduled to fly to San Diego. Six weeks would stretch on as if forever. She would have to relearn how to be careful, how to call him Papa, how to smile when he was in a good mood and make herself small when he wasn’t. She would have to gauge how much he’d had to drink, to pretend not to notice when he raged. And all the while she would carry the vast darkness inside her. Meanwhile, life at home would go on. Emma would continue her Little Guppy swimming lessons at the Y, her friends would become more and more adult, more and more the ladies Claire would never be. Her mother and Will would do puzzles with Emma, their three heads bent together. Safe in their ignorance, her family would close around the space she left, and when Claire came back in August, she’d be a stranger to them.

Patsy patted Morgan’s bed. Morgan breathed open-mouthed, her neck angled so that it looked almost broken. “Lie down.”

Claire looked uncertainly at her own bed, but obeyed. She tried to read Patsy’s expression, but the moon had shifted and her face was in shadow. Morgan rolled in her sleep, her body hot and soft against Claire’s own, and Claire felt ill.

“You needed this time with us, Claire. A child drinking wine. Disgusting.” Patsy tucked the blanket under her chin and pushed it hard into her throat, then lifted Morgan’s heavy arm so it lay across Claire’s chest. “Sleep tight.”

Patsy crossed the dark room, stood for a minute at the threshold, and then shut the door.