Eileen

by Ottessa Moshfegh

Joanie and I sat through endless hours of Bible study taught by an elderly nun, none of whose teachings penetrated into my consciousness one bit—the house would be only slightly less disheveled, and our mother would be lying on the couch in the living room, reading a magazine, a bottle of vermouth stuck between her thighs, cigarette smoke floating above her head in the stuffy afternoon sunlight like a brooding storm cloud. “Promise you’ll visit me in hell, Eileen?” she’d ask. “Go to your room,” said my father. My mother rolled her eyes at my father’s superstitions, how he’d cross himself before eating, look up at the ceiling whenever he was hopeful or mad. “God is for dummies,” she told us. “People are scared of dying, that’s all. Listen to me, girls.” I remember when she said this, pulling us aside one day after our aunt Ruth had come over and scolded us for being lazy, for being spoiled brats, or something like that. She and our mother didn’t get along. “God is a made-up story,” our mother told us, “like Santa Claus. There is nobody watching you when you’re alone. You decide for yourself what’s right and wrong. There are no prizes for good little girls. If you want something, fight for it. Don’t be a fool.” I don’t think she was ever so caring as when she delivered this terrifying pronouncement: “To hell with God. And to hell with your father.”