Chapter Text
Sunday School, 1991.
Two months before leaving them, June’s father takes her to mass at his parish. Mom doesn’t like it and stays at home, or at the hospital, or somewhere else that June is only allowed to know about in ambiguity.
It’s better that way, Dad assures her in the car as he drives to the church. She absently picks at the pale pink dress that scratches at her bare legs. She wanted to wear her old red sweater from Mom, but Dad said red is no colour for a lady and she’s going to be a lady really soon. June doesn’t know what that means because, precocious or not, she’s still only seven and a half and ladies are old. Ladies wear fancy clothes and have fancy shoes and fancy dogs and fancy hobbies. Mom isn’t a lady. She’s sort of not even a woman. She’s a doctor, and Dad seems to hate that her job is so important to people. June can’t tell him that she is proud of her mom, she learned that a long time ago. Dad always points to the photo of himself at 16 playing baseball, saying stuff about how he could have had it all and that doctors can't fix most things. June wonders why he even likes Mom at all then.
The children are called to the front, forming obedient little lines like the ants in cartoons, marching up to the altar where the pastor in his black clothes stands solemnly. Dad pushes June out of the pew to join the others of her age. He calls it Sunday School and June immediately dislikes the insinuation that she has to go to school on a Sunday as well as the rest of the week now too.
She doesn’t have any friends, doesn’t know anybody. She lingers back from the group, waiting to see what happens next with this strange procession of children. Another man gathers them like sheep and herds them all downstairs after the pastor blesses them with some funny words June doesn’t quite understand, but she likes how gentle they seem. Not like Dad’s prayers. Besides, most of his are screamed at the TV when the Red Sox are on.
Today's lesson is about the blessings of marriage and family, a bearded man tells the squirming group of children sat on the scratchy red carpet in a musty basement room. He asks questions, some kids give him answers, but mostly he does all the talking about man and wife, babies, and good families of Christ.
June can’t sit still. She writhes quietly, crosses her legs, uncrosses them, lies on her side, then her tummy, kneels until her bare knees become irritated by the harsh cleaner they must use on the old carpet, and goes back to crossed legs. She doesn’t care who is looking at her anymore. Of course no one is.
The man talking to them is nice, she thinks. He smiles a lot and has kind brown eyes. His voice is calm and soft, even if she doesn’t see why what he’s saying means anything because none of it sounds like her family at all. He reminds June of her mother’s friend, Rob, who has 3 cats and lives with another man he calls his luvah! in a very affected way June tried to mimic once at dinnertime. Her father sent her to her room without dessert and Mom and Dad fought loudly about it for a whole entire year.
When everyone else suddenly stands up and starts chattering, June is lost and can’t tell why, even if she knows it's because she can never pay attention. Someone pokes her on the shoulder, a little too hard until it hurts, and she swings around furiously, ready to fight whatever stupid, annoying boy thinks it’s funny.
A girl stands there, dressed in a white dress with small watercolour bunnies on it. It’s frilly and silly-looking, and her long, blonde hair is pulled back into a half-ponytail. She’s taller though, taller than most of the boys even and something evaporates inside June.
“You can marry me,” the girl in the bunny dress states without even a hint of a smile.
It doesn’t make any sense. Panicked, June looks around the room, watching all the boys and girls shyly getting into pairs, playing house. Is that the game they're playing? Is it a game? Why doesn’t it feel fun like games should?
June shakes her head, searching desperately for any boy that looks lost too. “No.”
There are no free boys left.
The only thing that comes into her mind is how wrong it is. Because they don’t fit properly, it doesn’t look right. They’re not supposed to fit even if this girl is prettier than all the other kids in the entire world and the bunnies on her dress are beautiful. She looks like she smells like strawberries instead of ham, because all boys stink like ham.
“We’re both girls,” June states as if her new partner is blind as well as dumb. Her voice shakes like a timid animal when she pictures weddings in storybooks. They always kiss, and June wasn't paying enough attention to know if that's the game they're supposed to play right now too.
With a nonchalant shrug, the other girl glares. Still unfriendly. June’s not certain she even likes this girl at all, especially when she speaks.
“I’ll be the man. You can be my wife, okay?” It’s not really a question at all.
June can’t think of an argument against this, other than the fact she doesn’t want a husband. She doesn’t like them. Mom doesn’t like having them either, it seems. But maybe a girl husband is different. Maybe a wife is. Maybe Mom would like a wife — or girl husband like June has now, because she definitely has a lot of girlfriends and smiles a lot with them. She makes a note to ask her mom when she gets home and away from Dad. The beardy man looks at them, and says nothing. He doesn’t tell them it’s wrong.
Standing still, her body doesn’t seem to know what to do. The other girl reaches out and clasps June’s little hand in her sweaty one. Why is her hand so wet?
“Don’t be stupid,” she says quietly, warning. “Jesus doesn’t care. It’s just a game.”
What Jesus is thinking about all of this is the least of June’s concerns.
The first time June gets married is to a pretty girl she never even learns the name of, and they get an automatic annulment in exactly 23 minutes when Sunday School is over. All she knows is she likes holding her hand, and they hang on to each other all the way up the stairs, which is helpful because June doesn’t know where she’s going. It's probably better than kissing anyway, she guesses, feeling the tug on her fingers as she's led through a doorway.
They arrive back into the church where all the grown ups are, all the little children running in every direction back to their parents as if escaping a zoo.
Her new friend doesn’t. Her hand tightens though. The other girl feels like she’s trembling and when June looks up to her face, there is no clue there. She just looks docile and blank like the big blue-eyed bunnies on her dress. But June likes the way their hands fit, wet and warm and squishy, so she holds on too. Squeezes.
Then there’s a woman, stern and scary looking, dressed in dark blue next to an ugly old man who seems just as unhappy. They snap and reach for their daughter like angry crocodiles, yanking the children’s hands apart and June suddenly wants to cry like the baby she is. The girl is pushed between their bodies and sullenly looks at her feet. Maybe there are tears growing there, but she’s hidden her face enough.
“Go on, now,” the mother says, dismissive and impatient, sending an uncomfortable chill down June’s back right to her toes. She wiggles them to get rid of the feeling. The boy next to the mean lady smirks at June, knowingly, as his mother continues. “Go back to your mother.”
June wishes for that more than anything. Instead, she turns and wanders down the rows of pews to try to find her father instead but nobody looks familiar anymore. Everywhere she looks, she sees those parents’ angry eyes instead.
After cookies and juice in the church basement where her Dad angrily talks to other dads about "goddamn Milwaukee" taking the Sox in 3 straight costing Boston the AL East title, June comes home and forgets to ask her mother about girl husbands.
The next Sunday, the kind, beardy man is gone and a fat lady with curly red hair, too much blue eyeshadow, and a loud voice is there instead. And when the pastor man says Let the little children come to me, it makes June uncomfortable.
The girl in the bunny dress never comes back.
Jesus must have been really mad after all.