A Theory of Expanded Love

by Hicks, Caitlin;

  “It’s what she deserves,” he said.

  “Maybe God will forgive her,” said the Mother, sounding like she hoped it would really happen. “She’s so young; I hope she survives holding the baby in her arms.”

  “Don’t go soft on me now, Georgina. She’s got to understand the consequences of her behavior. This will be a good lesson for her. Think of what a good life the baby’s going to have. Two grateful parents in a stable home, who are otherwise deprived of offspring.” He sounded like Daddy does just as we’re about to get spanked: repeated logic, familiar language, righting a wrong. After hearing the tall man’s tone, I wished I had noticed their daughter when we were in the courtyard. I felt like I should go in there and tell her we were going to the beach, that she could come with us and have a great afternoon and let it all slip away for a few hours.

  The voices and footsteps of her parents faded as the two of them grew smaller and smaller down the block. Clara and Madcap slammed the gate. Madcap grabbed Clara’s hand, dragging her across the street, big belly and baby and all. There were no cars on the street. So the danger of Clara getting smacked into hell by a car was sidestepped, if only for this crossing.

  “We’ve got to get away from here as fast as we can,” Madcap said, taking long steps. We all walked quickly in silence, only the sound of our footsteps on the pavement. Clara brought up the rear with her waddling. At the end of the block, the triumvirate of us came to a halt. (Sister Everista would give me points for use of that word—triumvirate!)

  “Which street did we take to get here? Can you remember, Annie?” I shrugged, disappointed that I hadn’t been paying attention, like that policeman had told me to do, when I went for the ride-along in his patrol car. If you’re a policeman, you know what block you’re on every minute. Instead of remembering street names, I had been staring at Aaron Solomon.

  “We just have to get to C Street,” Madcap said urgently.

  “Oh, jeez, it feels good to be out of there!” Clara said. A breeze blew at us, throwing our hair back across our faces. I had never been this far from home, and it hit me what we were in the middle of doing. We had just kidnapped our sister from the convent where she was exiled to repent for her sins of the flesh. We had hitchhiked with a complete stranger and were now hundreds of miles from home. No one knew where we were. We had no way back.

  Instead of being afraid, I felt exceptionally lucky to be alive. Really wide-awake. My skin tingled. My heart beat easily in my chest. I wanted to run and sing like an opera star, at the top of the scales. I grabbed Clara’s hand and started skipping but immediately tripped on a bit of heaved cement. I caught myself without actually falling, my arms wildly flailing as I righted myself. For a second. Then I tripped and stumbled again. This time Clara held me up. We both lost balance and grabbed the air, then each other, struggling to stay upright. I almost tackled Clara to the ground as I tried to grip her for balance, my arms whipping around like a rag doll in all directions. This hit me as hilarious beyond hilarity, and we couldn’t stop laughing.

  Then we turned a corner, ending up on a street with shops and a café. We could see the ocean in the distance past the pier. The blue horizon, the waves, the fresh air altogether overwhelmed me with their glistening beauty. The sky in all its soft blueness seemed closer to the heavens, like it had opened its arms for us. A few wisps of clouds tickled at the edges.

  “I made a wrong turn,” Madcap said, still laughing. “We’ll never get to the beach. So what?!”

  “Let’s get a shake,” Clara suggested, “I’ve got to sit down.” Her whole manner had relaxed and perked up at the same time. Black metal chairs huddled on the sidewalk.

  “They’re laughing, the chairs are laughing,” I said, and that bust us up again.

  “I have an idea!” Madcap said. “Let’s do get a shake!”

  “Surfin’ USA” was playing in the café, loud enough to be heard in the kitchen, adding to a sense of drama and purpose in the world. And we were the California Girls they were all singing about. The tall and short couple sat across the café, eyeing Clara. I tried not to listen to them, hoping they hadn’t noticed she was one of the “unwed mothers” at the convent. I just kept sucking on my straw, creating that slurping sound at the bottom of the glass.

  “Mary was an unwed mother,” Clara said.

  “Shut up! Clara,” I whispered, “They’ll hear you.”

  “What do you mean?” Madcap asked. “The Mother of God was an unwed mother? Wait a second. Joseph was the husband, wasn’t he?”

  “Joseph was the stepfather, but they weren’t married. So technically, Mary gave birth to the Baby Jesus out of wedlock.”

  “You mean Joseph doesn’t count?” I challenged her.

  “You have to consummate the marriage, or it’s not a marriage. According to the rules,” Clara continued. “Right, Madcap?” Madcap frowned and rolled her eyes. It had never occurred to me to wonder about the Blessed Mother. She was the highest of the high, no one was more blessed than the Mother of God.

  “I’ll tell you something,” Clara said, sounding like she was gearing up to win a round on the debating team, “trying to understand the Immaculate Conception is like trying to get truth out of Donald Duck. They’re always talking about a virgin birth. But even if Mary was impregnated by God the Father, she still never married Him. And there’s no mention of Joseph actually marrying Mary. So therefore, Jesus was born out of wedlock.”

  What? That would make Jesus a bastard, wouldn’t it? And isn’t this blasphemous? I crossed myself. Bless me, Father, don’t let her go to hell.

  Just then Madcap got up from the table. Her long hair swung side to side across her back then touched down just below her waist as she stood next to the table of the Tall and Short couple. I cringed and put my fingers in my ears. What could she possibly be saying to them?

  The next thing you know, we were all piling into the back of their Lincoln Continental convertible on the way to California Street Beach. We sat squished together, Clara chattering confidently about her pregnancy to the basketball couple, the wind swirling our hair into our faces.

  “My fingers are too swollen to wear my wedding ring anymore,” she shouted to the backs of their heads in the front seat.

  “Really?” said the tiny lady, glancing at the profile of her husband, whose head just grazed the top of the car roof.

  “What a lovely wedding we had at the Ventura Mission just ten months ago! The flowers were all red hibiscus, how unusual, but can you imagine how glorious against the white dress?”

  “What’s your husband’s name?” Basketball man asked, glancing back at us.

  “Thomas Melvin,” Clara said right away. (She was such a liar!).

  “They already have the baby names picked out,” Madcap chimed in. “Elvina, Alexa, and Rosalyn.” I sat somewhat dumbfounded. I’m not sure why Madcap pretended that Clara’s baby was going to be named one of those non-Christian names. When you’re born, you need a saint looking out after you. Mother and Daddy gave each of us our own saint at baptism. Mine was Saint Anne, which started out in Hebrew as Hannah. I wish they had named me Hannah, but there is no such thing as a Catholic Saint Hannah.

  “Where does this Thomas Melvin work?” Mrs. Basketball asked. He was sounding a bit skeptical by now.

  “For the Navy!” I blurted. Both Clara and Madcap looked at me. That shut them up.

  “Oh, the Navy!” said Mr. Basketball. “I know a few officers at the China Lake Bureau.”

  Ooops, I thought. That’s where Daddy used to work. I glanced askance at Madcap then back to Clara, shaking my head.

  “Right,” I said. “He doesn’t really work for the Navy, per se, he works, well, he supplies… you know… stuff… to them.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Mr. B looked at Mrs. B. A little smirk crossed his lips.

  “Ping pong balls!” It just came bouncing out. Clara and Madcap collectively sucked in their breath at the same time.

  “Ping pong balls?�
��

  “Yeah. And golf balls!”

  There was a bit of silence after that. So all three of us fabricated a cozy story for Clara and her unborn beach ball. The couple didn’t mention anything about their daughter, languishing back there at the Convent of the Sisters of Saint Isabella, but Mrs. B seemed overly pleased with Clara. She kept saying how young Clara looked.

  “I’m almost twenty,” Clara reassured her. If only they knew! Clara was really racking up the sins.

  Once we unloaded from the car and crawled over the rocks at the edge, the first thing we did was kick off our shoes and burrow our toes into the warm sand. Madcap and I ran towards the shore, screaming. No one heard us but each other; the wind whipped ferociously and surfers straddled their boards, bobbing over waves that swelled under them. A few white caps broke closer towards the shore, but the surfers weren’t catching them. Everyone was facing the horizon, waiting for the perfect wave. There were ten or fifteen of them dressed in dark wetsuits up to their necks and leaning forward as if they were propelling themselves by sheer willpower towards Hawaii.

  The waves were swirling, powerful and effortless, churning over and over producing furious, white bubbles. The spray that came off the top of them as they unfurled was like a mist. Then one surfer tilted the nose of his board around towards the shore and paddled with both arms, trying to catch up with the wave. He tucked his board into the rushing cylinder of water and stood up, his legs bent to keep him steady, his arms stretched out sideways. I had to watch his breezy, exhilarating ride, until closer to the shore when he turned the tip back towards the horizon and bobbled over the ridge of water. The spent wave crashed in white suds and crawled up the beach, rushing towards me. As the tide pulled back to the sea, I ran down to the wet sand, stepping on little holes and bubbles under the receding foam. Even though the sun made me squint, the water was a cold shock to my feet. The sea was chasing at my ankles like a yipping dog and I was in a game with it, squealing as I tried to outrun the rushing tide.

  “Clara!” We hollered to her in the distance, our voices on top of each other. It felt like the moment when you first see the birthday presents on the table and you realize they’re truly for you. When you wake up and you know that today is the day you were born, the one day you are truly special, all day, and you are going to get the attention you deserve. My body was tingling full of it. I felt such joy. “Let freedom ring,” I said, hugging Madcap and humming the notes. I waved my arms to beckon Clara down towards us, but my voice was beat back by the air roaring around us. So I screamed louder.

  “Clara! C’mon down!” What a feeling, as if in the splashing of the waves and the whirling wind, I was heard by no one and yet contributing to the sound of all things in the universe. I was part of its beating heart. I felt myself standing smack dab in the middle of the solar system, gloriously zapped by an electrical connection with everything alive. The rocks and the water, the wind, and the sun.

  A large pier stretched out on our left, hundreds of dark legs underneath it like a centipede with a flat back, its feet in the water. Three seagulls floated on a breeze over a breaking wave. I was thinking that Jesus would probably be a pretty good surfer, but He would have to get some shorts. Madcap stood next to me on tiptoe, one hand holding her hair back and the other making an awning over her forehead to keep the sun out of her eyes. She scanned the horizon.

  “Can you see him?” I shouted.

  •••

  The waves thundered magnificently, rolling over in that blue tunnel shape with white crashing foam chasing the heels of the surfers. We couldn’t do much but sit on the sand for a good view, the three of us huddled against the wind like three rocks doing the important work of the centuries, just being. We were mesmerized by the warm sun and glistening water and whipping wind, and I could have sat there all day, watching the guys paddle on their stomachs to catch the swell, pushing themselves up onto their feet and then balancing, dipping and steering their boards as they cruised down the wave. I loved seeing them head-over-heels when the water flipped them over and bounced their boards in the crashing foam like plastic toys.

  I wanted to do it myself. It seemed so wild. Being on the beach, you were captured in the whole world of it, an experience that stretched as far out as you could see. The open sky seemed to extend to China, or Russia or heaven. Each puny wetsuited surfer was so small out there, bobbing around in the enormous sea. I could feel my muscles jumping, getting ready to leap and run and swim and surf the waves as my mind chased around in my head, bumping up against the limits of my land-locked life in Pasadena. Santa Monica Beach was a freeway excursion that took the whole day, once a year, resulting in blistering sunburn. Could I ever get to the beach to learn? Where would I get the board?

  I was shrieking with delight and excitement on my own interior planet as Clara and Madcap talked into the wind. It was such a glorious blue day, but Madcap couldn’t console Clara, and Clara couldn’t stop crying. Her face looked so sad. Madcap’s arm so skinny. I wanted to hug her, but a hug from me seemed irrelevant. I wasn’t part of her suffering and I had no experience to relate to hers. Standing there on that wide beach, under that big sky, how could it be that Clara seemed so trapped?

  Aaron Solomon came striding up the sand, holding his board under one arm, water beaded up on his black wetsuit, his hair dripping, his eyes blue like an open sky, and he smiled an extremely white, happy smile. He walked confidently up to Madcap, who stood to greet him. It looked like he was going to put his arm around her and kiss her, but they both stopped short of each other, smiling into each other’s faces. Madcap held her shoulders back, and I was proud of her, thin and strong, her long black hair streaking down her back. I moved closer to Clara and put my arm around her anyway.

  “You made it!” Aaron Solomon beamed at Madcap.

  “How could we miss this!” She gestured to the waves, yelling above the wind.

  Give Clara a minute to dry her eyes, I thought, but Madcap turned and said, “Here’s my sister, Clara. She’s gonna have a baby! Her husband’s in the Navy, and he’s out at sea right now. She misses him.”

  Lately I had been noticing how easy it seemed to be to just make things up. Madcap was almost as good at it as I was.

  “How do you do, Clara,” said Aaron Solomon. He reached out his free hand to her and she stood and shook it. So I guess Madcap was convincing.

  “I’ll be alright!” Clara yelled, the effort of which seemed to lift her spirits. Aaron Solomon motioned to the truck, parked at the edge of the beach, behind the rocks.

  “I’m gonna put my board down in the truck!”

  So the three of us girls huddled in the cab, waxed paper on our laps, munching on leftover candy bars and Oreos. We watched Aaron Solomon peel off his wetsuit and dry himself with a huge beach towel. I was beginning to like the look of his hairy legs.

  Chapter 20

  lily

  Dear Blessed Mother, Aaron Solomon is really cute. Did you send him to us? That was a good move!. His eyes are blue with long eyelashes, just like Jesus’. And to think he was a suspected murderer for most of the trip.

  We peeked around the corner of room 216, like the Three Stooges, one head on top of the other. The first thing I noticed was the crucifix above the bed. What kind of situation do they have Jesus in now? Even though anything is possible with God, for some reason there is no Standards Department when it comes to making crosses and statues, and sometimes, Christ can look pretty twisted on the cross. This crucifix, regular wood and painted gold around the edges, looked sort of Renaissance. Christ didn’t look too uncomfortable, except for the nails. His eyes were closed and He looked like He had already expired, so I relaxed a little. At least He wasn’t suffering anymore.

  Clara’s roommate, Bee Bee, had given birth here at St. Francis hospital yesterday. I was excited to see the baby. And talk to Bee Bee to find out what it was like. Did it hurt a lot, like they say?

  Against the far wall, an unusually tall bed on wheels h
eld up a girl about Clara’s age lying on her back. Short brown hair. Her head hung limply onto her chest, like she was dead. Or had fallen asleep sitting up.

  Clara walked up to within inches of her friend and blew softly into her face.

  “Bee Bee? It’s me, Clara.”

  Bee Bee sat right up.

  “Oh, Clara,” she said and promptly burst into tears. “It was horrible.”

  Clara hugged her over the metal railing on the side of the bed. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  Clara and Bee Bee, I thought. It had a funny ring to it. Bee Bee had a small face with a cute, turned-up nose and crystal blue eyes. Her name was so perfect for her.

  I waved as Clara introduced us. “These are my sisters, Annie and Margaret,” she said.

  Madcap rushed over and shook Bee Bee’s hand.

  “They brought me here with a surfer,” Clara enthused.

  Bee Bee’s big eyes were puffy and red. She was doing this thing: rubbing her fingernails with her thumb nervously. “I want to see my baby,” she wailed, “but they won’t let me. They took her away right after she was born.”

  We just stood there, dumbfounded at such a preposterous idea.

  “It’s kind of raw down there. Everything’s swollen.”

  Wow, swollen was an excellent description. Her breasts were bigger than Clara’s, practically bursting out of her gown. They looked weighted down. Her body was so thin in contrast, she looked unnatural and freakish. She should ask the doctors about that. It couldn’t be normal.