“The Crossing” by Heather Sarantis

I stepped onto the train at the Boston Amtrak stop, heading to New York by myself. My aunt had created a tradition of celebrating nieces’ and nephew’s fifteenth birthdays with a week of adventures in the city. It was my turn.

Fifteen. The first petals of innocence were just starting to fall away. There was so much promise, so much anticipation. There was a feeling of infinite possibility.

Unbeknownst to the one being baptized in the Catholic church, you will be doused, or sprinkled, or dunked. The priest’s words will welcome you into the family of God. Despite having just recently mastered to lift your head or smile, you will be bound to Jesus. You will spend the next 15 years of Sundays listening to the Good Word and preparing to seal this commitment with your confirmation.

Before getting on the train I said, “Mom, do you think two people could meet on a train and fall in love?”

“You never know,” she said. “It could happen anywhere.”

At 15, I still thought love and lust were the same thing.

I stepped onto the train. I would have three and a half hours until I reached the New Rochelle stop where my aunt would be waiting for me at the other end.

Three and a half hours.

At age seven, you will receive your second sacrament, Holy Communion. You will be taught the Gospel, the miracles that Jesus performed, the joy of knowing that loving Jesus will give you access to the Kingdom of Heaven. You will hear stories of Mary but barely understand what a virgin is. When you ask, adults will give obscured or deflected responses. Without yet having the vocabulary for it, you will start to question why Jesus’ mother is described in terms limited mostly to virtue or purity. You will spend the next eight years going to weekly religious classes, noticing that your probing questions are not welcome and seldom answered.

The train was nearly empty when I got on. I found my seat, and with a quick glance back saw a handsome man with dark eyes, wavy black hair, honey-bronze skin. He wore a navy-blue turtleneck with thin red stripes. It was just tight enough to see the cut of his long, lean muscles. I guessed that he was 28.

Our eyes locked for a second. There was a catch, a bolt of electricity, a recognition.

A rush of hot damp flooded me. I looked away and quickly sat down.

At age 14, you will begin preparations to confirm your commitment to the Catholic church. You will memorize prayers. You will choose a patron saint. You will learn to make a proper confession to God. You will be annoyed at the invisibility of women in the Bible. Through subtle yet steady attempts at indoctrination, you will be taught to feel remorse for many things you have thought or done.

Some time passed when I looked up to see him standing in the aisle.

“May I sit down?”

I didn’t hesitate.

“Please,” I said.

At the same time, you will mature into a ripe, young woman. Your body will curve in some places, moisten in others. Without realizing it or even trying, you will emanate magnetic sensuality. Men will comment on these changes.

In the evening dim of the night train, we made slow and deliberate conversation. I revealed only generalities, as was best with a stranger. The heat of our breath carried the conversation forward. I registered very few of his words, except that he was a gem dealer. He tried to sell me some, though I couldn’t afford any on my allowance. I didn’t catch his name.

Eventually, we grew quiet. There was a steady, building sense of inevitability. 

Then there was a long, slow kiss.

As your confirmation approaches, you will look for a sponsor. You have grown up thinking the adults in your life were dedicated, though not fervent, Catholics. You will ask some of them to be your sponsor, and you will find that this implicit tie that binds you is not so strong. On your fourth try, a trusted adult will agree, with the caveat that he is not much of a believer, but he is happy to do you a favor.

After some time, we stopped kissing. I needed to breathe.

I felt the low rumble of motion on the train tracks. The other people on the train were all asleep. I looked out the window as the post-industrial sprawl between Boston and New York passed by. There was little to say.

He wasn’t the first person I kissed, but the titillation of this liminal state – a brief train trip where nothing would register, where there would be no follow up, no future – was an arousal like no other. Just the no-man’s land of three and a half unsupervised hours.

You will make your first confession to purify yourself before your confirmation. You will conclude that this faith that you are expected to enter is designed to repress women’s freedom. You will create a script for the priest in your head, focusing mostly on times you lied to your parents about finishing your homework or when you said swear words. You will leave out the details of your youthful explorations. You will lie to the priest at your first confession.

Somewhere around New Haven, CT, I felt his hand on my knee.

His lean and elegant fingers slowly, lightly, started to slide up my thigh. With every millimeter his hand traveled the fecund warmth intensified. Latent energy at my coccyx began to rise, one vertebra at a time, until it spread its tentacles up and over the expanse of my brain, on the cusp of taking over my rational, decision-making prefrontal cortex; on the verge of overtaking me like an ocean wave, leaving me tossed around, helpless in the pursuit to quench my thirst for becoming.

I could hear his breathing, see the soft undulations of his body, smell his sweat. I turned my head toward him, about to dive back in.

As our lips were about to connect, our eyes caught, jarring me back to the train, the sleeping passengers, the buildings whizzing by out the window. With the ferocity of a car crash, I felt a whiplash of lustful retraction, snapping the energy that had crept up and over my brain back down into the base of my spine. I sat up sharply, inhaling as I did.

I registered that he was nearly twice my age.

A tsunami of realization came over me. Despite the church’s teachings, I didn’t feel guilty. I felt aware. Something good could turn on a dime. Decades later I would still be teasing out whether this was a great coming of age adventure or a close call with a pervert.

“That’s enough,” I said, as I removed his hand from my leg. “You should go back to your seat.”

He looked at me, blinking.

After a long pause, he said, “OK” and got up and left.

You will see clearly that you have as much right to your body and the world as any man.  You will understand that women who act as if they have the same rights as men can pay many prices.  You will commit to a life-long crusade to defend your own freedom anyway.

About 20 minutes later, I arrived at my stop. I stood up, grabbed my bag, and didn’t look back.

My aunt was waiting for me at the station.

“How was your trip?” she asked.

I took a slow, deep breath in to calculate my response.

“Fine,” I exhaled. For emphasis, I sealed it with “Uneventful.”

The train door closed, and the train started to move. I looked back. The man was at the window looking at me. We made eye contact as he rolled away.

On the day you receive the sacrament of confirmation, you will stand, with your doubting sponsor, as the priest calls your name. You will realize you are not yet ready to fray the subtle religious fabric that holds your world together. You will say the words that you have been told to say to enter the Catholic church. And you will cross your fingers behind your back.

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