Natalie tries to take this in, but something isn’t tracking. “It’s all authentic.”
“Is it, though?”
“Of course.” Then: “Wait a second,” Natalie says. “Is it because of Jesus? That you won’t help me?”
Jordan makes a choking sound. “Excuse me?”
“Jesus, Jordan, the guy with the—”
“No, I know who Jesus is. I mean, is that actually what you’re asking me?”
“I think thatiswhat I’m asking you. Is this really about religion? Because Austin is Christian. And because I’m Christian now too, and my kids are Christian. You’re embarrassed by our faith.”
“Your faith?” asks Jordan. “Youdon’t believe in your faith! That’s just the thing. That’s what I’m struggling with. You believe for show. You do so many things for show now.”
Tears prick Natalie’s eyes anew. “How can you say that?”
Now Jordan is looking straight at her. “I’ve known you for a long time, Nat. And you weren’t ever this person. Not until you met Austin. Not until you went hard on social media.”
“That’s not true. I’ve always wanted faith. I just didn’t know where to get it. These may not be the beliefs we were raised with, Jordan, but I came by them honestly.”
Natalie’s elementary school best friend, Ursula, was the most religious person Natalie had known growing up in Lenox. Ursula’s family attended St. Ann’s devotedly, every Sunday plus each holy day of obligation. If Natalie spent the night on a Saturday the family would tote her along to the 9:45 a.m. Mass the next day. Ursula, newly First Communioned, would cast an apologetic look at Natalie as she rose and followed her parents and older brother down the aisle to receive the sacrament. In a hushed, reverent voice, Ursula would explain toNatalie the significance of the colors of the priest’s robes, and the locked box (“the tabernacle”) that held the consecrated host (“the body of Christ”). Natalie loved it all.
“Can’t we go to St. Ann’s?” Natalie suggested one Christmas, when her friendship with Ursula was at its height (at that age, best friendship can look a lot like love).
“We’re not Catholic,” Theresa said.
“What are we?”
“We are lapsed Episcopalians.”
(For years Natalie thought that was a proper-noun descriptor, Lapsed Episcopalians being somewhat equal to Roman Catholics.) “What does that mean?”
“It means we sleep in on Sundays.”
Ursula moved to St. Louis in the fourth grade. Until she met Austin, Natalie equated God almost entirely with ceremony and recitation, robes and secrecy, with the standing and kneeling and sitting that seemed like a special kind of choreography reserved for the lucky. Austin’s family, members of the Journey Church in Bozeman, were altogether different. They talked to Jesus not only like he was in the room with them but like he was an actual friend of the family. (“Jesus, bro,” Natalie once heard Austin’s brother begin a prayer.) Austin’s family opened another doorway into faith, and Natalie at first wasn’t sure how to walk through it.
Then Theresa got sick, and Natalie began to pray in earnest, all the time. She believed someone was listening to her, even as Theresa got sicker. She believed and she believed and she believed, and she continued to believe, because if she didn’t, there was only a void.
But Jordan doesn’t get this. “Look, it honestly all just seems... performative,” Jordan says now. “And on top of that, a lot of it seems unfair. That you tell women how to live their lives. Making it look like it all comes so easy, when really you have a lot of advantages not everyone has.”
“Like what?” challenges Natalie.
Now it’s Jordan’s turn to tick a list off on her fingers. “Well, you’re really pretty. And you’re naturally thin. Thick hair. Effortlessly fertile. Good-looking husband who’s obviously devoted to you. There’s a lot to envy there. So when you tell people how to live their lives, they tend to listen.”
Natalie touches a lock of her hair. (Her hairisvery thick, though not as thick as Mae’s.) “I’m not telling anyone else how to live their lives. I’m just sharing mine. Nobody has to follow me or do anything I’m doing.”
“Respectfully, I call bullshit on that,” says Jordan. “You’re exactlytelling people what to do. You’re offering yourself up as an example. As something to aspire to.”
“An example ofoneway to live! Not of theonlyway!”
“Tens of thousands of young women, probably way more, who are trying to figure out their lives and their futures are looking at you and wondering if they should be yoking themselves to a man—”
“I’m not yoked! I’mmarried. It’s not the same thing. Geez, Jordan.”
“It doesn’t have to be the same thing, no. But you’ve got to see those two things look pretty close from where I sit.”
Natalie can’t take it another second. “Oh, yeah? Up on your high horse? Is that how they look from there?”
