Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

It was Sunday and Ruth couldn’t fall asleep. The canvas of her bedsheet felt rough against her skin, prickly somehow, though it was the same white linen thing she’d been sleeping on since she was ten. School was the next day, and she had to be up in six hours according to the wooden clock on her nightstand. In five if she wanted to do her hair. And she wanted to do her hair, because she stood next to Lana Joseph for prayer on Monday mornings.

Ruth flipped onto her back again, for the hundredth time. The morning’s service echoed in her head, bounced around the walls in her room. Not the service, exactly—Father Paul was not a memorable orator. Every week, it was the same: the importance of family structure, how a nurturing mother and a commanding father breed obedient children, the holiness of modesty. Anything that would get passive nods of approval from the parish, who were equally as eager as Ruth to get out of there and go have lunch with their families. The service wasn’t what was bothering her. Rather, for almost the entire hour she was at church, Ruth’s eyes were fixed on the imposing statue of Jesus on the cross at the center of the altar. She had seen it countless times and usually averted her eyes, something reproachful and gory and unnerving about it. But that day she looked at it, really looked at it. At Him. His shiny brown hair and pale ceramic skin. The edge to his nose. He looked like Lana.

After she realized this, Ruth tried to look anywhere else. The votive candles cast some playful shadows on the stone wall above, but they weren’t nearly as exciting. Mrs. Alcott sitting in the pew in front of her was sneaking cookies out of her bag and into her yellowing mouth, but Ruth had seen her do this almost every week. Not nearly distracting enough. And so, with a heartbeat quickened by both guilt and excitement, Ruth let herself ogle Jesus. What would Lana look like with her hands above her head? How would her body look, covered only by some white sheath, a piece of cloth, around her thin hips?

Ruth stretched her hands out across her white bedsheet, imagined it wrapping around Lana’s middle. Imagined herself wrapping it around Lana. She scratched her short nails against the grain of the sheet, back and forth. Watched her chest rise and fall further into the bed with every breath. She suddenly felt sweaty, her back clammy and cold underneath her sleeping shirt.

Finally, defeated, Ruth sat up, propping herself up with her itchy hands and let out a frustrated sigh. She looked at her clock again. It was one in the morning. Surely her father and mother were deeply asleep, as were her siblings. She let her feet dangle off her bed for a second, unsure. And then, decisively, Ruth tiptoed out of her room, fine shirt clinging to her sweaty back, and made her way to the kitchen. There, above the dining table, hung a small replica of Jesus on the cross. This one was carved of wood, and was much smaller, but it was painted all the same. Ruth crossed her arms in front of her and looked up at it. She could still see Lana in him, her thin arms and flat chest, eyes closed in prayer and not in pain. Standing on her tiptoes, Ruth took the carving off of the single nail it hung on. She held it gently in her left hand, cradled it, and placed a cautious index finger on Jesus’s head. And then, after a quick glance around the kitchen, she brought it up to her thin lips and kissed his small, dusty head.

Laura Wencel is a writer, a queer Polish woman, and an immigrant (in that order). She is a senior at USC studying Creative Writing and Communications, with plans to pursue an MFA in Fiction. Laura mostly writes fiction, folk, and fantasy—because all good things alliterate and happen in threes. In her free time, she likes to explore forests and befriend all the dogs on her commute.