ROSALIE
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10
The Winter Campaign—the largest of the church’s three annual fund drives—is an all-hands-on-deck situation, so by four o’clock I’m stationed at a card table in the God’s Grace basement filing donor cards. $25 gift, $50 gift, $15 gift. Paid, Outstanding, Paid. The dollar signs shimmer and swirl on the baby blue cards, the cash adding up to a renewed investment in Brother Masters’s To Seek and Save program. More outreach potential. More counselors trained statewide and expanding across the South. More people like clammy-skinned Michael to carry out “God’s work.” More damage that lingers for days that become years, baring its rotten teeth and then sinking them in deep. Promising to never really go away. I twitch involuntarily and squeeze my hands into the warm space between my knees.
“Are you all right, Rosalie?” Mrs. Hagan, the drive leader, is standing in front of me with a new stack of cards she’s collected from callers around the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Emily Masters’s smirk. She’s stationed at the next table over, explaining the filing system to two new volunteers who have just arrived.
“Of course.” I pull my hands from under the table, hold them out to receive the cards with a smile. “How was your time in Baltimore?”
“Blessed.” She places them in my hands. “Mr. Hagan shared the good news about our grandbaby?”
I nod. “Congratulations.”
“It’s such a blessing,” she repeats. “Another child to be raised up in God’s house.”
A thin sheen of sweat breaks across the back of my neck. It’s what my parents said about Lily when she was born. What they must have said about me. For my entire childhood, I wanted nothing more than to do right in God’s eyes. To make Him proud. Even now, I still want a relationship with God, something not dictated by a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture. Something I haven’t figured out yet. But in this particular house of God, I am an unwelcome guest.
Mrs. Hagan is flagged down by a volunteer with a question, and I glance across the room, searching for Mom. In her eyes, Brother Masters’s good work saved her daughter from the devil’s path. It’s deeply personal in a way that makes the beads of sweat turn to ice on my skin.
But Julia Bell’s calling station is empty. My eyes dart around the room until they find her in the doorway to the kitchen, deep in conversation with a tall woman with thick, salt-and-pepper hair that spills all the way down her back and shimmers in the neon basement lights. She’s facing away from me, but even from behind, I’d be able to recognize a member of the God’s Grace congregation. Before I can give too much thought to who she might be, Mom’s eyes catch mine. I’m staring. She takes the woman by the elbow and pulls her gently into the kitchen. The door swings shut behind them.
I tear my eyes away, back to the stack of cards. The first one boasts a thousand-dollar gift.
• • •
After dinner, I help Lily get ready for bed while Dad outlines his lesson plan and Mom returns to God’s Grace to help Mrs. Hagan clean up. When I close the door to my room, it’s eight thirty. Carter and Amanda are probably at dinner right now. He’s going to tell her we broke up, or maybe he already has. She’ll believe him or she won’t believe him. How good a liar is Carter Shaw?
I pick up my phone and text Pau.
Thinking of you.
Three little dots hover for a minute. Then, a rainbow of heart emojis fills up the screen.
I’m always thinking about you.
Going to a GSA meet-up with Ramon after school tomorrow. Come with?
It’s Gender & Sexualities Alliance now.
My fingers hover over the screen. Pau’s always inviting me to come with her to meet-ups like this. Pride celebrations. Youth events. Things out teens do. My whole body aches for that kind of connection to the LGBTQ+ community. But sneaking around with Pau is barely safe. Doing something public is out of the question. You never know who might see you at a GSA meet-up. Who might tell your parents. I’m glad Ramon is home for winter break, that he can go with her.
Have to babysit Lily tomorrow. Clearing on Friday?
There’s a pause before Pau responds.
Sure, I’ll be there.
Hey Pau?
Yeah?v
You know I love you, right?
Of course I know. Wish we could skip ahead to Fri.
I’ll set my time machine.
I tackle my homework and Paulina and I text back and forth until it’s getting close to ten, then I head down to the kitchen to get a glass of water. When I pass by the den, my parents are sitting together on the couch, watching the news on one of the five local channels we get through the converter box. It’s more coverage about that college basketball player who was killed in a drunk-driving accident early this morning. I guess he was supposed to take his team to the finals this year, get recruited into the NBA, go all the way.
It’s really sad, but I don’t know why my parents insist on watching this stuff. They’re news junkies, addicted to the latest tragedy. Mom writes down names and includes them in her prayers. She prays they took Jesus into their hearts before they died, that he’s watching over them now. And what if they didn’t? I want to ask. How will your prayers help if they’re burning in hell?
I duck into the kitchen and turn on the tap. I can still hear the news from the other room. The boy’s mother is speaking now, her voice high and thin and on the verge of breaking. Outside, there’s something else. The crunch of footsteps on gravel.
The kitchen window faces the wrong way, but the sound is unmistakable. There’s someone walking down our driveway. Heart pounding, I slip out of the kitchen and back past the den into the living room. Then I stand on my tiptoes and peek through the little square of glass in the front door. It’s completely dark out, but the porch lamp casts a glow on my parents’ car in the drive and the little strip of grass that leads around the side of the house. For a minute, there’s nothing, then a long shadow falls across the grass, caught in the lamp’s yellow light. Someone is standing around back, on the grass that separates the shed from the mudroom. Someone very tall and willowy, or made so in their shadow’s elongated cast. My breath catches, and the figure disappears.
Hands trembling, I check the door, make sure both the lock and dead bolt are secure. Then I walk quickly and silently back across the house.
“Rosalie?” Mom calls from the den.
I freeze.
“Just getting some water.” I slip into the kitchen and grab the serrated bread knife from the butcher’s block, then slip through the door that connects the kitchen to the mudroom. It’s completely dark in here, but I’m afraid to switch on the light. I can feel the blood drumming against my ears. I inch closer to the door, stepping over boots and hats and Lily’s T-ball mitt. I clench the knife handle tight.
When I get to the door, it’s locked. I breathe in deep. There’s no window, just a peephole. I press my eye to the tiny circle of glass.
Outside, all I can see is dark. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. Finally, I can make out the grass and the outline of the shed. I stand still for a minute that becomes two that becomes five, watching and listening. There’s nothing. Whoever was here before is gone.
Eventually, my heartbeat slows to something resembling normal. I slip back into the kitchen and return the knife, then I check the window, making sure it’s latched. I want to check the windows in the den too, but my parents are still in there. I slip upstairs instead. The door to Lily’s room is half open, and I peek inside. She’s in bed holding the pink stuffed cat she always sleeps with, breathing soundly. I tiptoe across her floor and make sure her window is latched, then check all the windows upstairs before going into my room and closing the door.
I can’t prove the person I saw in the woods on Monday was the same person at our house tonight. But deep in my bones, I know it was. I would not put it past my parents to have me watched at school. But at our own house?
I switch off the overhead light but keep the lamp by my bed lit, then slip under the covers still wearing my clothes. I lie perfectly still. I leave my glasses on. I wish I’d kept the knife. For a long time, sleep doesn’t come. Scraps of memory from afternoons in the cold church office in our old town blend together with Donovan and Carter and camp until it’s all one thick swirl of fear. The person outside is watching me. The person outside is waiting to pounce. Finally around three, I slip into a shallow kind of sleep, that misty, tensile space between memory and dream.
I’m in Pastor Ray’s office at Camp Eternal Light, crouched behind the desk and pressing the only phone on the grounds to my ear. I have exactly seven minutes until he’s back from his morning stroll around the premises. I’ve been timing him for the three days since they released me from isolation, waiting for my chance. On the other end of the line, Dad’s voice: “Hello?”
“It’s Rosalie,” I whisper. “I don’t have a lot of time.” In words that tremble and break, I tell him about the locked room and the dead wasps, the weight I’ve lost from meals they didn’t bring, how I’m afraid they’ll put me back there if they catch me on the phone.
At thirteen, I was too embarrassed to tell my parents what really went on during my sessions with Counselor Michael. I trusted, then, in his authority, let his version of the story—talk therapy, prayer—become the narrative my parents believed. But I can’t protect them from this. I need to get out of here, need their help. If they know the truth, they’ll come for me.
“Rosalie.” Dad cuts me off, his voice an axe splitting wood. The words dissolve to sawdust in my throat.
“You’ve chosen a wicked path. This sickness has its claws in you, and you must suffer to be redeemed.” Behind the desk, I cough and splutter. His accusations clash and spit. Is liking girls a choice or a sickness? It can’t be both.
“If your faith in Christ Jesus were stronger, you would not find yourself in this position. Only your faith can save you.”
The words spin around and around in my head, won’t settle into something I can say to make him understand. Soon, it doesn’t matter. There’s only dead air on the other end of the line.
I wake with a start, clothes clinging to my skin and sheets soaked with sweat. I suck in one jagged breath, then another, then another until my heart settles in my chest. It’s been months since I’ve woken like this, bathed in a slick film of fear and shaking from dreams that are reality made sharper in the dark. It used to happen almost nightly. In our old town, I’d startle awake from a dream about a girl, the toss of her hair in the breeze, the berry scent of her body lotion still lingering, even after I was sitting up in bed, heart pounding. I’d force myself to stay awake, determined not to dream my way into hell. It’s not a habit I want to repeat.
I don’t remember falling back asleep, and when my alarm goes off, it feels like I didn’t sleep at all.