Betsy's Beliefs

Betsy’s Beliefs – pffft

When she was ten Betsy had already discarded beliefs. At seven she told her parents: ‘Santa is way too big to get down our chimney. Besides, I saw him in lots of different places on the same day.’

Four months later, she told her parents: ‘I saw the chocolate chickens and marshmallow eggs in the market. I don’t believe any bunny brings them to us. I think you do.’

As for the tooth fairy, she said she was glad for the dimes under her pillow, but, ‘no, I can’t believe any fairy put them there, fairies, I no longer believe in fairies. I did but I don’t now. Pffft.”

At age 11, Betsy wrote in her diary: ‘I don’t believe a lot of things anymore. I feel bad about angels and fairies. I don’t believe in them now. Or ghosts either. Or Pinocchio’s nose getting big because he told little lies. I don’t believe there was a real Cinderella like I did when I was little. I miss all these people from when I was little, and it was fun to make them up. I am going to start to make things up and see if people believe that they are real. Not monsters or aliens which everyone knows aren’t real. I will make up people and see if anyone thinks they are real. Maybe I can make people believe the people I make up are real. I will start tonight when I go to bed. I will make up a person, a girl like me. I’m already starting. Her name will be Margaret.’

Betsy drew a picture of a girl named Margaret. She had yellow hair and blue, almost purple, eyes and a little nose. Betsy believed her nose was too big for her face. Her mom told her this wasn’t so.

‘Your nose is just fine for your face, Miss Betsy.’

Betsy didn’t believe her mom. She believed her mom was just trying to be kind. Sometimes people lied to be kind, like when her father told her mother one late night when they thought she wasn’t hiding behind the stairs to the cellar: ‘I fear for our Betsy. She’s lost her imagination. Next she’ll be questioning God.’

She hadn’t questioned God but then she began to question God. Every night from the time she was three she’d recited this: ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.’

Her red imitation-leather diary lay on her dressing table. It had a little golden key that she kept in the middle drawer of her little table with three mirrors, one in the middle and one on each side of the middle one. It never occurred to Betsy that anyone would look into her diary or find the key. She left it unlocked. If her brother, two years younger, ever dared to look into the diary, she didn’t think about that. He was a pest but not the kind of pest who would look into things that belonged to his sister. Plus, Alan knew she’ll on him and his mother would coat his lips with soap. She’d never done that, but she’d threatened.

‘Either of you use bad words or spy on each other, you get your mouth cleaned with Ivory soap. It’s white like pure snow, but you can bet it tastes awful and that taste will spoil your dinner. And maybe next morning’s breakfast. So watch your mouths.’

When Betsy asked her father about the Now I Lay Me Prayer, he laid down his newspaper where he was reading about another war somewhere he read was once called The Paris of the Middle East – Beirut.

Betsy, they’re mere words. Never mind about it. You can stop that prayer if you want to. I don’t know what’s meant by soul either. No one does. It’s just, um, a notion of about who you are inside, not just your physical body. And you’re not going to die until you’re very, very old, so stop worrying about it.”

“Okay, but what’s it mean that the Lord will take my soul. Where would that Lord take my soul? Is that the place called heaven or what? Cecile, you know my friend from the convent school, she knows about heaven and she knows about hell. Or so she says. Do you know about heaven and hell, Dad?”

Oh my god, thought Betsy’s father. We have tried to not get into all this with the kids, not have them worry about such people and places. He squinted at his daughter’s face that had always been filled with questions, questions without exact answers. What now? How to get out of this one? Take her down to the carousel. Maybe this day she’d get a brass ring. They’d go get ice cream cones.

He stood, put his hands on her shoulders and told her there were a lot of things like gremlins and goblins, phantoms and poltergeists, dwarfs and demons. “People have always made stuff up that they don’t understand. They’re not for you to worry about, my girl. Let’s go down to the park. The carousel.’

‘Okay, Dad. But why do people make things up? I used to. I made up a friend named Margaret, but then I got over her. She wasn’t real even though I tried to believe she was.’

‘It’s part of growing up. I remember I thought I could leap around the roofs of tall buildings with Superman. It’s okay. It’s fine to make stuff up as long as you don’t hurt anyone.’

Betsy thought about this as she took her dad’s hand and they walked to the car where Alan waited for them. He’d been lurking in the doorway. He didn’t understand all of Betsy’s questions, but he knew after she’d asked all those questions, his mom or his dad would take them to the park or the ice cream parlor or both. Today was one of those days.

Her favorite horse, a white one with silvery reins with sequins, seemed, to Betsy, to be waiting for her to climb on. She did and she caught a brass ring on the third go-around. When she got off the gleaming horse, she held out the ring to her dad.

‘I get a free ride, and it means good luck. I’ll give the free ride to Alan. Dad, what’s good luck mean?’

END