I'm Glad My Mom Died(29)
I hate Makaylah. I know she was adopted and I should feel bad for her and all that, but I don’t. I just plain hate her. She continues on.
“They gave you your position because they think you’ll probably eventually become inactive.”
“Inactive” is all but a cuss word in the Mormon church. Active members are those who regularly attend service, inactive ones are those who have “fallen off,” or stopped attending even though they’re still on the church’s records. Whenever an inactive member is brought up in a conversation in church, the member’s name is said with a nose scrunch and a whispery tone, like it’s something shameful and pathetic.
“We’re not gonna go inactive.”
“We’ll see.” Makaylah shrugs.
Even though I hate Makaylah and I desperately want her to be wrong, I fear that she might be right. If I really think about it, there are already a few signs.
For as far back as I can remember, my family has never fit the bill of “First-Rate Mormons.” In every Latter-day Saints ward, there are the kinds of Mormons who have perfect attendance in seminary and are off-book for their Third Nephi verses. The kinds of Mormons who are trusted to bring the chicken potpie to the potluck, those clearly capable of that level of responsibility. These are the First-Rate Mormons.
And then there are the kinds of Mormons who skimp on tithing and always show up twenty minutes late to service. The “just go ahead and bring the salad” kinds of Mormons—those who can’t be trusted with any more responsibility than some bagged iceberg lettuce with the stale croutons already mixed in. These are the Second-Rate Mormons.
We, the McCurdys, are Second-Rate Mormons. I’ve known this for a while. There’s a certain pity that First-Rates view Second-Rates with, and I’ve sensed that pity in side-eyes from Sister Huffmire and Sister Meeks, who are both First-Rates.
Everybody knows that Second-Rates are much more likely than First-Rates to go inactive, but still, I didn’t think our fate was by any means sealed. I was sure we could reverse our Second-Rate status with some Mormon milestone, like Marcus serving a mission or us never skipping service.
But now that Makaylah’s brought it up and I’m thinking it through, I’m coming to terms with the fact that maybe those Mormon milestones won’t happen after all.
Marcus has been old enough to go on his mission for several years, but he hasn’t gone. And even though there’s no age restriction for going on one, men are 70 percent less likely to go if they don’t go within that first year that they’re able, according to the Mormon magazine Ensign (the only magazine besides Woman’s World that’s in Mom’s regular rotation). Mom says it’s Marcus’s girlfriend Elizabeth’s fault, and that she’s got the devil in her, but I’m not so sure. Elizabeth seems fine to me.
We’ve also started skipping service some weeks, usually around the release of episodes of shows that I’ve had guest-star roles on. It first started after Law and Order: SVU, when Sister Salazar asked Mom if she thought it was “in line with the Gospel” for me to be portraying a nine-year-old rape victim. Mom had a brilliant defense about how she thinks the value of a TV starlet being Mormon outweighs the roles that that starlet plays. Sister Salazar let it go for awhile, until I was in an episode of a show where I played a child who murders another child. Ever since then, every time an episode of a show I’m on airs, we skip a week or two of church to “avoid the judgers,” as Mom says. Regardless of the reasoning, we’re skipping service. And skipping service is the opposite of a Mormon milestone required to turn us into First-Rates.
“Mom?” I ask when we’re back at home, folding laundry together.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Are we gonna become inactive Mormons?”
“Of course not. Why would you even ask that, Net?”
“Makaylah said the reason I got assigned assistant secretary is because they think we’ll probably go inactive.”
“Oh, please. What does Makaylah Lindsey know? She’s adopted.”
27.
“NET! SHOWER TIME!” MOM SHOUTS from another room.
My whole body freezes. Oh no. Not shower time.
I’ve dreaded showers for a while, five years or so. Whenever it was that I started to feel uncomfortable that Mom still showers me.
She doesn’t mean to make me uncomfortable, I don’t think. She says she has to shower me because I wouldn’t know how to shampoo and condition my own hair. She says maybe if it wasn’t so long or such a specific texture that she wouldn’t have to, but because it is those things, and since she was a professional hairstylist, it just makes sense for her to do it.
Mom showers me with Scottie sometimes. He’s almost sixteen at this point. I get really embarrassed when she showers us together. I can tell he does too. We usually just look away from each other and Scott distracts himself by drawing Pokémon in the fogged glass. He does a pretty good Charizard. When she showers us together, Mom says it’s because she’s got too much to do. Scott asked if he could shower himself once. Mom sobbed and said she didn’t want him to grow up so he never asked again after that.
Whether or not Scott’s there with me, Mom gives me a breast and “front butt” exam, which is what she calls my private parts. She says she wants to make sure I don’t have any mysterious lumps or bumps because those could be cancer. I say okay because I definitely don’t want cancer, and since Mom’s had it and all, she would know if I do.