Behind the Scenes of: 

A BIRDHOUSE IN BROOKLYN

Shawn’s fundamentalist upbringing was something they’d sidestepped when it surfaced. Facetiously referring to herself as a Latter Day Atheist fell flat; you didn’t joke about religion. Shawn could be sanctimonious when provoked, but that was Shawn. Lucy claimed nothing more than a quizzical dip in the Lutheran pool. Her mother’s doing, dissatisfied with Catholicism and wanting something more conducive to escape. Left to their own, Lucy and her father never got around to religion and Lucy remained comfortable with the secular.

She recalled one of those marathon day trips they had taken when things started to fall apart with Carlos. Shawn always gravitated to Pennsylvania and the comforting familiar. She was his sounding board. They’d turned off the highway around Lancaster, headed for poky country roads and promising flea markets to take his mind off his lover’s chicanery. At the bottom of an exit ramp Lucy saw a cluster of people waving placards. They’d drawn closer and she’d gasped as the messages came into view: graphic detail of a bloody fetus, God’s wrath, eternal damnation, American Holocaust. She’d turned to Shawn, expecting an equally horrified expression to meet hers. He avoided her scrutiny, fidgeted with his CD player and sped from the scene.