Jane told them when she was in second grade in her private Catholic elementary school, she had been voted the person in her grade that was most like Jesus. She had received an illustrated children’s Bible for this accomplishment and a little certificate her parents had kept. She had decided after that to be a nun and devote her life to Jesus. Jane ignored their questions about how she was like Jesus. In a lot of ways, Jane continued talking, this was one of the happiest years of her life because she had dedicated herself to being good. Making sure everyone got invited to birthday parties, giving people gifts, being kind to other kids when they were being annoying, doing her homework on time, rarely yelling at her brothers, writing her grandmothers letters—all these things kept her busy and focused on making other people feel loved. But then, it got exhausting to be good all the time. Whenever she acted out, her teacher or her parents would somehow bring up something like “Well, this isn’t very much like Jesus, is it?”

“I didn’t need one of those dumb bracelets,” Jane said, “because it was always on my mind.”

“What bracelet?” Stephen asked.

“How do you not know what a What Would Jesus Do bracelet is?” Ayanna asked.

“He has fancy parents that moved him all over the world. A year in Berlin, a year on some island, California.”

“California is not fancy,” Stephen said. “California is mostly highways and dust.”

Ayanna had imagined every child in the world, at some point, had been given some sort of similar gift. If not WWJD, she had assumed it was WWM(uhammad)D, WWB(uddha)D, WWA(braham)D, WWD(alai)L(ama)D. All of these kids wearing brightly colored bracelets, encouraged to collect them and to think deeply about how often they were failing. It felt right. Ayanna had worn hers for a while because every kid at school who was cool was wearing them, because Olivia liked to wear a rainbow of them on her left wrist, which seemed elegant, and because it had pleased her mother. Her father had asked her why she wore it when she didn’t believe in Jesus, and she had shrugged and said, “It’s pretty.” It was clear to Ayanna in retrospect that he was trying to figure out if her mother had forced her to wear it.

“Let me tell my story.” Jane dramatically threw her head back, as if it would fall off if she had to keep listening to their digressions.