Chapter Six

six

Cherish Mader sat at her bedroom desk, physics textbook open, waiting for her mother to leave. It was Saturday night, one week before Easter, and Ruthie had an eight o’clock meeting at the Faith house. But at a quarter till, she knocked on Cherish’s door. Cherish braced herself and said, “Come in.”

It was always the same thing. Ruthie would sit on Cherish’s bed and chatter on about nothing until Cherish wanted to scream. Then she’d ask if anything had been on Cherish’s mind. “You seem so quiet lately,” she’d say. “You’re always up in your room.”

And Cherish would say, “Homework. You know.”

And that would be the end of it.

But tonight Ruthie said, “I know you’re busy, but you’ve been promising to finish the Faith house mural since the beginning of the year. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” Cherish said. “I’ll see how much schoolwork I get done tonight.” She truly hated that mural; it had been Maya Paluski’s idea in the first place. Of course, Maya stuck Cherish with Jesus and reserved the angels for herself. There just wasn’t much you could do with Jesus—people had certain expectations. So Cherish’s Jesus was turning out pretty much like all the others she’d seen. He had good muscle tone. His skin was bare and shiny, as if he’d been shaved and dipped in oil. His loincloth was draped just so, with nothing bulging underneath it. His face and hands and feet were still blank spaces: Cherish kept saying she needed more time. How was she supposed to know what Jesus’ face looked like? And the wounds in his hands and feet—gross. They’d have to be life-size. Big as dimes.

“Physics,” Ruthie said, glancing at the open textbook, and she shook her head. “Sounds difficult.”

“It’s OK,” Cherish said.

And Ruthie said, “There’s something else. Sweetheart? Lisa Marie’s mother called. She says that last Saturday night Lisa Marie went to Milwaukee without permission. With her boyfriend.”

“She did?” Cherish said.

“She says you and Randy were with them.”

“Lisa Marie said that?” Cherish tried to keep her voice steady.

“No,” Ruthie said. “But Mrs. Kirsch seems to think it’s a possibility.”

“I was here last Saturday,” Cherish said. “Studying. I told you good night, remember?”

“I know,” Ruthie said. “But I promised I’d speak to you.” She paused. “Lisa Marie came home quite upset. Something about Randy. Drinking too much, that kind of thing.”

“He’s not like that around me,” Cherish said. “Maybe with other people, though. I’ll ask him about it.”

They looked at each other.

“Well,” Ruthie said. “I’ll see Mrs. Kirsch at the meeting tonight, and I’ll tell her I spoke with you.”

“OK,” Cherish said, but when Ruthie reached the doorway, she said, “Mom? You would have heard me take the car. Or if someone had picked me up, you would have heard them in the driveway.”

“I know,” Ruthie said. “Don’t worry about it. I just want you to remember…” She paused again. “If anything ever should come up, I’m always here for you. You can talk to me. About anything.”

“I know,” Cherish said. “Have a good meeting.”

Cherish watched from the window until the sorrowful red eyes of her mother’s taillights disappeared down the driveway. Then she shut her physics book with a slam and tried to decide what to do. It didn’t sound like Lisa Marie had ratted them out, not exactly, but still. She’d have to call Randy. Something had to be done. She rolled a fat doobie, sucked the bitter smoke deep into her lungs, holding it, holding it, concentrating on the rows of dolls that lined her bedroom walls. Barbies and Mrs. Beasleys. Raggedy Anns and Cabbage Patch Kids. Betsy Wetsys and Love Me Tenders and even Snow White with all seven of her dwarfs, still in their original boxes. Her mother had been giving her dolls ever since she could remember. It didn’t seem to matter that she was seventeen, that she’d stopped liking dolls a long time ago. The smaller dolls stood erect on tiny stands, steel rods stiffening their plastic spines. Others lolled in bassinets and cradles, rode in miniature strollers, slept, sucked thumbs, fingered real human hair. Some wore hats and elaborate dresses and intricate leather shoes. Some could cry or crawl or eat, but most of them simply stared straight ahead, smiling their manicured smiles: empty, symmetrical, perfect.

Cherish exhaled. Sweet smoke circled her head. When she was a little girl, people often said she looked just like a doll, and she’d think of her dolls’ cool plastic cheeks, the unnatural paleness of their skin. She’d stare at her face in the bathroom mirror; it seemed normal enough to her. She wondered what it was that people saw when they looked at her, and they always seemed to be looking at her, exchanging remarks in hushed voices, whispering into the backs of their hands. She’d never forget the day her mother caught her in front of the mirror—it must have been just after Dad died. Vanity was sinful, Ruthie had explained. Cherish’s beauty, like all things, was a gift from God, a tool to be put to good use for His honor and glory, did Cherish understand? Cherish hadn’t known what to say. Before that moment, she’d never realized she was beautiful.

She smoked the rest of the joint down to its dusty tip. The pot had been a gift from Randy; he’d tucked it into the plastic-lined makeup bag she kept in her locker at school. Nobody dared slip Randy Hale anything less than grade A. Randy wasn’t someone you messed with. He was captain of the wrestling team, an allstate middleweight champion. Once, when somebody parked him in at school, he and Paul Zuggenhagen picked up the back end of that person’s car and dropped it, picked it up again and dropped it, until they had bounced it to the edge of the lot and wedged it between two trees. Cherish thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen. That was Lisa Marie’s biggest problem. She had no sense of humor. She took everything too seriously. Cherish tore a piece of paper out of her notebook, scrawled: Went to bed. Hope the meeting went well. She taped the note to the outside of her bedroom door, set the door lock from the inside, and pulled it shut behind her; she’d pick the lock with a bobby pin when she got home. Downstairs, she phoned Randy, told him to fetch Paul and meet her at Lisa Marie’s.

“Give me time to talk to her first,” she said. “Promise?”

Dad’s old dog, Mule, was lying under the kitchen table; he whined and thumped his tail. Cherish hung up, reached down, and smoothed back his ears. She found a flashlight in the drawer. Then she bundled up in her winter coat and boots. Out of habit, she checked the burners and the coffeepot to make sure everything was off. It was time to find out what, exactly, was going on. Almost a week had passed since Lisa Marie had been saved at the Blessed Victory Church of Christ Alive! Lisa Marie had been saved before, but this time Cherish was worried it might stick. She’d heard that Lisa Marie had actually taken a vow of chastity. She’d heard that Lisa Marie had stopped drinking and smoking. She’d broken up with Paul Zuggenhagen too, though Cherish suspected this was something she’d been wanting to do long before the night they’d gone to Milwaukee and things had kind of gotten out of hand.

What had happened was this: The four of them had gone to a sports bar called the Alley Cat, where Randy had heard that no one was ever carded and Paul had heard the Brewers came to drink. They’d crushed into a back booth, ordered hot wings and double shots of tequila. “Time for some body shots,” Randy said, and Cherish leaned back, unbuttoned her shirt, let him lick a line of salt from the tops of her breasts.

Paul turned to Lisa Marie, but she crossed her arms firmly over her chest. “No way,” she said. “Somebody’s going to see.”

“Tough luck,” Randy said, thumping Paul on the shoulder. “But hey—if you’re nice, maybe Cherry’ll share.” He gave Cherish a shove in Paul’s direction, and the rest of the salt tumbled down her shirt.

“Fuck you,” Cherish said, but she was laughing. She could feel how both Paul and Randy were looking at her throat, at the warm tops of her breasts. She did not look at Lisa Marie as she accidentally-on-purpose let another button of her shirt fall open.

“All right, I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” Lisa Marie said. “But just on my arm, OK? You guys are going to get us thrown out.”

“On her arm,” Randy said.

“C’mon,” Paul said. “Live a little.”

“On my wrist, then,” Lisa Marie said miserably.

“On her wrist,” Randy hooted. “Paul, how can you stand it? This girl is a nympho. I want her for myself.”

Paul blushed, glared at Lisa Marie. “I wish you’d relax once in a while,” he said. But Randy wasn’t finished with her yet. As soon as Paul had licked her wrist clean, Randy pinned her hand to the table and put his tongue to the wet trail where Paul’s had been. Lisa Marie screamed, Paul yelped, “Jesus!” and that was when the manager asked to see ID.

They should have just laughed the whole thing off. They should have driven around for a while, found another bar. Or they should have ended up at Randy’s house, the way they often did. His mom and stepdad went to bed early; they had to get up at four to make the commute to their jobs in Milwaukee. But Lisa Marie was angry, angrier than Cherish had ever known her to be. “Take me home,” she said, not even bothering to wait until they’d left the Alley Cat. “I’ve had enough of this juvenile bullshit. Every weekend it’s the same damn story, and I’m sick of it, sick to death of it.”

“Don’t hold back,” Randy said. “Feel free to express your feelings,” and right there where everyone in the Alley Cat could see, Lisa Marie punched him in the solar plexus, hard enough to make him gasp and take a step back.

“Take me home,” Lisa Marie yelled again, and all the people watching applauded and cheered. Still, Randy recovered himself, held the door for her like a gentleman. “After you,” he said, but clearly he was pissed. Who wouldn’t have been? Paul was angry too. Lisa Marie had embarrassed them, all of them, right there in front of a roomful of strangers. Cherish couldn’t help but agree when Randy mouthed bitch as Lisa Marie stormed past.

Cherish let herself out of the house. In the distance, a train was passing; its bold light swept over the darkness, scorched the icy surface of the river. It was two miles to Lisa Marie’s house in Ambient, and she usually could make it there in half an hour. She might even beat her mother back home; evening meetings often went well past midnight. They were held only when the Circle was praying for something particularly urgent, but Cherish knew better than to ask what tonight’s concern was. Not that she cared. Not anymore. Since she’d started seeing Randy, she hadn’t had much interest in her mother’s religious activities. Religious activities of any kind, for that matter. Her mother, of course, had no idea. She still thought Cherish was the same little girl who’d loved her doll collection, who’d begged to wear flowery dresses that matched her mother’s, who’d confided every thought, every secret. Ruthie often told people that she and Cherish were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Ruthie couldn’t wait for Cherish to turn eighteen so she could join the Circle of Faith.

Back when Faith meetings still were held in the living room, Cherish had sometimes squeezed behind the couch to eavesdrop. Mostly the women just talked about somebody’s job or illness, but sometimes they’d talk about people Cherish knew. Every now and then, they talked about Cherish’s father, and when that happened Cherish held particularly still. Once, Ruthie told the group she’d had a revelation: Trouble was God’s way of getting people’s attention. “When life is fine, we ignore Him,” she said. “It’s when we’re in pain that we reach out. I’ve come to realize that even tragedy has its purpose.” The others agreed that this made sense, but Cherish thought, Just because it makes sense doesn’t mean it’s true. How did you know you weren’t simply seeing what you wanted to see? Like what had happened at Dad’s funeral, when Cherish saw the coffin move very slightly, as if Dad had only been sleeping and now he was trying to sit up. Ruthie explained, in her most patient voice, that Cherish’s brain was giving her eyes happy pictures to see so that she wouldn’t be sad, and that was called imagination, and imagination was a good thing, but you had to know the difference between imagination and truth. Cherish tried to listen to what her mother was saying, but all she could think of was how it would be when they opened the coffin and Dad jumped out and said, What on earth is going on here? “Ask them to open it,” she pleaded, “just in case,” and Ruthie finally said, in a totally different voice, “Some of him isn’t even in there; they’re still hunting pieces by the road, do you understand!”

Lucy Kimmeldorf had taken Cherish’s hand and led her outside, past all those people—more than five hundred, the Ambient Weekly would say—who’d come to pay their respects. Later, at the burial, Ruthie hadn’t cried a single tear, and the mothers of Cherish’s school friends all told Cherish how brave Ruthie was, and soon they were saying the same thing about Cherish, for whenever they asked how she was doing, she answered the way Ruthie told her to: It’s selfish to be sad when Dad’s so happy in heaven.

The fact was that after her father died, lots of things stopped making sense to Cherish. Familiar things became unfamiliar. The house seemed smaller, the fields larger, the sky as pale as a bowl of weak soup. Yet she acted as if things were the way they’d always been, and her mother did the same. Year after year, they woke up in the morning and went to bed at night, attended Mass, did farmwork, housework, charity work. They visited the cemetery Sunday afternoons, and when they happened to pass the small white cross on County O, they each made the sign of the cross as they drove by.

Cherish was seven years older than she’d been the last time her father had seen her. Sometimes she wondered if he’d even recognize her. Sometimes she wondered if she’d recognize him. Now, cutting across the frozen field toward County O, she pulled up the hood of her coat. With her scarf concealing everything but her eyes, she was completely, deliciously anonymous. No one who happened to see her would recognize last summer’s Festival Queen, the beautiful doll everyone admired: active in charity work and school fund-raisers, upbeat and cheerful, confident, out going. The brave girl whose father had died a terrible, pointless death. Ruthie Mader’s daughter.

Ruthie never suspected that Cherish was sneaking out this way, night after night, walking to town. Often, Cherish only had to make it through the field to where Randy would be waiting in his Mustang, the thud of the bass from his stereo like a living, beating heart. Sometimes, after sex, he’d push his face between her breasts, breathe deeply, whisper, “Precious.” Precious. As Cherish turned north onto County C, following the plow drifts along the shoulder, she imagined Randy speaking her name. Randy lighting a joint, releasing the smoke into her mouth. Randy moving wet between her thighs. Her breathing sounded hollow inside her hood, as if she were walking under water. The wind gusted at her chest. When you were with Randy, anything might happen. Anything was possible.

That night, driving home from Milwaukee, Randy started mimicking Lisa Marie, talking about how everything was juvenile bullshit, how every damn weekend was the same damn thing. By the time they reached the Solomon strip, Paul and Cherish were laughing too. He took the D road over to Ambient, but instead of turning south onto Main, where Lisa Marie lived, he continued on to the River Road. The whole time, Lisa Marie stared out the window. She refused to look at any of them, to speak.

“A girl needs a little excitement once in a while,” Randy said, making his voice high and silly.

“A girl needs variety,” Paul added from the backseat, “not just the same old juvenile bullshit.”

Randy laughed so hard that the car swerved across the yellow line, and Cherish had to grab the wheel to steady it. She felt sorry for Lisa Marie, but at the same time, she didn’t. The truth was that none of them really liked Lisa Marie that much anymore. She was always getting her feelings hurt, leaving parties early, complaining about Paul and Randy. She worried that things were getting too wild, that her parents were going to find out.

“We’re sorry, Lisa Marie,” Randy said. “Really. Let us make it up to you.” He turned into one of the residential neighborhoods north of Cradle Park and drove up and down the streets, slowly, as if he were looking for something. “I know!” he said, snapping his fingers dramatically. “We’ll get you a present. Something special. Something that will make this a night to remember.”

“What about one of those fat ladies?” Paul said. They were passing a small brick bungalow. A plywood woman was bent over beside the mailbox, as if she were planting flowers in the snow, her fanny aimed at the road. The headlights bleached her panties a brilliant, blinding white. “Come on, Lisa Marie. Lighten up. You want us to get you one of those?”

Cherish said, “Yeah, let’s collect a whole bunch. We can stick them in front of the railroad museum.”

Randy pulled over beside the mailbox, looked back at Lisa Marie. “Do you accept our apology?”

“Just say yes,” Paul pleaded. “Seriously. We were just kidding around.”

The whole thing could have ended there. But Lisa Marie said nothing.

“Guess not,” Randy said. “Lisa Marie is holding out for something better. A lady of taste, our Lisa Marie.”

“Aw, cut it out,” Paul said. He sounded tired of the game. Cherish was too, and she said, “Let’s just take her home.” But Randy ignored them both. “Our Lisa Marie won’t settle for any old reproduction. Our Lisa Marie demands the real thing.”

Paul got very quiet then. “What do you mean?” he said.

Randy pulled away and continued down the street. Behind each living room window, the blue square of a TV screen poured its odd, insistent light into the darkness. Sleds and hunchbacked snowmen were scattered over the lawns. They passed a woman out for a walk, enjoying the quietness of the evening. It was early still. Barely nine o’clock.

“I think you know what I mean,” Randy said.

“Wait a minute,” Paul said, “You said last time was it; you promised.”

“What are you talking about?” Cherish said.

“You’re going to get us arrested, man.”

“Our Lisa Marie is worth the risk, don’t you think?” Randy said, and he rounded the corner, where two little girls were standing beneath a streetlight. The oldest was eleven or so, and she wore a woolly stocking cap with a tassel on the end. Randy threw the car in park, and like something in a dream, he slid from behind the wheel, leaped the curb, and had one steel arm around her before she or the younger girl understood what was happening. Paul jumped out then and held the door, calling, “Hurry, hurry,” as Randy half carried, half dragged the girl the last few feet, her stocking cap pulled down over her eyes. “Quiet and no one gets hurt,” he said, and she tumbled in against Lisa Marie. Paul squished in beside her, Randy got behind the wheel again, doors slammed and locked, and off they went—it was as simple as that. The younger girl watched them go, stock-still, as if she thought she might have imagined the whole thing.

“Are you crazy?” Cherish said. She couldn’t believe they’d just kidnapped somebody. “What are we going to do with her?”

The girl had her arms wrapped around herself; she breathed loudly through her mouth. The ridiculous tassel bounced against one shoulder.

“That’s up to Lisa Marie,” Randy said.

Lisa Marie was crying. “Let her go,” she said.

Randy said, “What? You don’t like your present? After all the trouble we went through? I thought you wanted some excite ment, sweetheart. I thought you wanted a night to remember.” But after another block or two, he pulled over, let the little girl out. She fled between two houses; Lisa Marie jumped out and ran down the street.

“Lisa Marie!” Paul called after her, but Randy pulled him back inside. A porch light flickered on. “Don’t worry,” Randy said, peeling away. “She’ll get over it.”

But Lisa Marie hadn’t gotten over it. Instead she’d gone to her mother, just as Cherish had worried she might do. She’d been avoiding Paul and Randy and even Cherish ever since. And when she opened the door and saw Cherish standing on the steps, she looked anything but pleased.

“Hey,” Cherish said. “I was worried about you. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Lisa Marie said. She was wearing sweatpants and a stained sweatshirt. Her hair looked unwashed, her permanent frizzy.

“Nice hair,” Cherish said. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

“OK,” Lisa Marie said doubtfully, but she led Cherish down the hall to the kitchen, where she opened the oven door. A frozen cheese pizza bubbled on the top rack, releasing its greasy smells. “This’ll be ready in five minutes,” she said.

“Great,” Cherish said. “Afterward, maybe we can take a walk down to Cradle Park, see who’s there.”

“It’s freezing out,” Lisa Marie said, setting out paper plates. “I’m staying in.”

“Or we could find a ride out to International Harvester.” There was usually a party going on at IH, and if your feet started going numb, you simply built a fire out of the cardboard boxes, paper, and furniture that people dumped there. Cherish hoped that Lisa Marie would suggest they call Randy and Paul to drive them. Then she could tell her that, well, actually they were already on their way. Things would get back to normal. She could stop worrying about what Lisa Marie might tell her mother next.

But Lisa Marie shook her head. “I’m done with all that,” she said. “I know it sounds hokey, but I’ve been washed by the blood of the lamb. If you want to hang out with me, you’re going to have to respect that.” She laid out two forks, two knives, a couple of potholders. “My mom left a couple of movies,” she said. “We can watch them, if you want.”

“Movies,” Cherish said. “Oh, boy.”

“We used to watch movies together all the time,” Lisa Marie said. “We used to do our homework together. We used to help our moms with stuff at the Faith house. We used to date boys who didn’t get us thrown out of every place we went.”

“And we used to complain about how boring it all was,” Cherish said.

“Well, maybe it was boring then,” Lisa Marie said. “But it’s different, now that I’ve found God.”

Cherish stared at Lisa Marie. It was like talking to a complete and total stranger. Before Lisa Marie got saved, they might have risked hitching out to the Hodag, flirted with some old married guy until he shared his pitcher. They might have met up with Randy and Paul to set off firecrackers in the millpond, or else to get blasted in the parking lot of the Moonwink Motel, or else to play mailbox baseball along the River Road. Sometimes they’d race the freight train across the tracks just past the highway bridge; sometimes they combed the fast-food dumpsters after closing, gorging on bags of cheeseburgers and lukewarm apple pies. Sometimes there’d be parties at the homes of kids whose parents were away. But now God sat between them, the same way he sat between Cherish and her mother: an immense, warty toad, bloated with importance.

“There’s this story,” Lisa Marie finally said, “about this little boy who always takes five minutes to ride his bike to church before school. Every day, he kneels down at the back of the church and says, Hello, God, this is—” Lisa Marie stopped. “Wait, I can’t remember his name.”

“Timmy,” Cherish said. “I know this one.”

“Hello, God, this is Timmy.” Lisa Marie didn’t seem to care if Cherish knew the story or not. “That’s all Timmy ever says, and he does this for, I don’t know, years. Then one day, as he’s biking away, he gets hit by a car. And as people gather around his lifeless body, they hear a voice, and it says—”

Cherish broke in, making her voice deep and solemn. “Hello, Timmy, this is God.”

She waited for Lisa Marie to laugh, but Lisa Marie said, “I’m serious, OK? The point is that if you take time for God, He’ll take time for you.”

Cherish gave Lisa Marie a flat, disbelieving stare. “Or maybe if you take time for God, He’ll shove you under a car.”

“That’s not what it means, and you know it,” Lisa Marie said.

The pizza, which had smelled so good just moments before, now smelled like the slab of bubbling fat that it was. Cherish said, “I can’t believe anyone would be stupid enough to believe a story like that.”

“It’s a story,” Lisa Marie said. “It’s not supposed to be, like, literal or anything.” She finished setting the table, then began slapping dirty dishes from the sink into the dishwasher. Cherish couldn’t remember the first time she’d heard the Little Timmy story, but as a child she’d loved it, begged her mother to tell it over and over. She’d sit in her mother’s lap, her forehead tucked into the notch of Ruthie’s neck and shoulder, feeling the soothing vibrations of her mother’s voice. Then, she could not have imagined a time when she wouldn’t believe that story, any more than she could have imagined a time she wouldn’t be close to her mother. Mornings, she’d linger in bed just to hear the happy music of Ruthie making breakfast in her breezy kitchen, the bacon’s sizzle and spat, the sound of the back door opening as Ruthie let the cats in and the whining dogs out. Next came the sound of toast being made, the slap of the jelly jar on the table. The crack of eggs stolen from the quarreling hens. The splash of milk from the nanny goats, thick with butterfat, stored in wide-mouthed jars.

Eventually, she’d get up and wash her face, coming down the stairs with her hair parted neatly and tucked behind her ears, her face still wet and smelling of Ivory and already lifted to receive her mother’s kiss. Outside, the dogs barked and scuffled to get in. The cats leaped onto the counters, got shooed down again, tangled underfoot. Toast popped up, eggs shimmied in the pan. Suddenly Dad was there to make wet fart noises against the top of Cherish’s head. “Daddy!” she groaned, but he was already letting the dogs back in, and the dogs were nosing the cats’ rear ends and chasing them round and round, and her mother was filling Dad’s plate, then Cherish’s, then her own. After breakfast, there were beds to be made, and Ruthie and Cherish made them together, Cherish playing parachute with the sheets. There were dishes to be washed, dust bunnies to be corralled with the handmade broom, more dust to be wiped from the windowsills. And then it was time for chores, the dogs dashing ahead of them to the barn, doubling back to greet them as if there were no greater happiness than their company. Inside, the nanny goats were already waiting, and as soon as Ruthie shoved the heavy door aside, they’d clamor up onto the milking platform, bleating, blinking their strange gold eyes. Winters, the air was thick with dust and the stinging smell of urine, the odor so intense Cherish had to climb into the sheep pen and pull down her snow pants to pee. There was such pleasure in that. The sheep crowding close and closer, sniffing wetly at the air. The hens clucking tenderly from their roosts. Even now, as Lisa Marie twisted in front of the mirror, Cherish could feel the first warm, brown egg taking shape in her hand. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes, except that Cherish never cried anymore, couldn’t have, now, if she’d wanted to. It’s selfish to be sad when Dad’s so happy in heaven. The egg shattered, the yellow yolk popped, the sharp shell stung Cherish’s palm. She and Lisa Marie had been best friends ever since second grade. She wanted to apologize for what had happened. Wanted to, but couldn’t.

The timer went off like an accusation.

“You want me to get that?” Cherish said, and Lisa Marie said, “I got it,” which meant she’d decided she wasn’t going to stay mad. They ate pizza and drank Diet Dr Pepper as if everything were just fine between them, talking about what they were going to do after graduation. Lisa Marie planned to continue working at the Wal-Mart, at least for now; she’d been promised a promotion, and her employee stock was doing well. Cherish had been accepted at both UW-Eau Claire and Stevens Point, and Maya Paluski had Ruthie convinced that Cherish should major in art education. But the thought of teaching art to grade schoolers made Cherish want to slit her wrists. The truth was, she didn’t even care for drawing and painting anymore. Secretly, she’d decided she wasn’t going to college. People were always saying she should be a model; maybe she’d go to New York City, the same way her grandmother had done. Or maybe she’d marry Randy—it was something they’d discussed, though always in a teasing kind of way. “Did you know Randy got another scholarship?” she said. “Some big wrestling university in Texas.”

At the mention of Randy’s name, Lisa Marie got up and folded her plate into the trash can under the sink.

“Would you lighten up?” Cherish said. “It’s not like we hurt that girl. It was just a joke.”

Lisa Marie came back with a dishcloth. “The movies are in the living room,” she said, and she began wiping off the table, even though Cherish wasn’t finished. “There’s three of them. You choose.”

Cherish took her pizza with her, selected a movie without looking at the title, and shoved it into the VCR. By the time Lisa Marie joined her on the couch, the credits were over, and she could see that this was going to be one of those heartwarming movies about a family that sticks together to overcome its problems.

“You want popcorn?” Lisa Marie said.

“Gee, that would be awesome! And maybe we can put on our pajamas and pierce each other’s ears!”

“Fine,” Lisa Marie said, and she turned up the volume. “Nobody’s forcing you to be here. You’re the one who showed up at my door, remember?”

“I was worried about you,” Cherish said. “I am worried about you. I’m really sorry about what happened. And so is Randy.”

“I don’t know what you see in that guy.”

“He’s fun,” Cherish said.

“Fun for you,” Lisa Marie said. “Look. I’m tired of pretending I’m having a good time with you guys when I’m not. You’re the one who has the good time. You’re the one they’re both attracted to.” She sighed. “The only reason you’re here is because you’re afraid I’m going to tell someone what happened. Well, I’m not.”

Cherish said. “My mom got a call from your mom.”

Lisa Marie gnawed on a fingernail. “I didn’t tell her anything about you. Only stuff about me. It’s part of what you do when you get saved.”

They watched the movie for a while. One of the sisters was crying now. The others tried to comfort her, which only made everything worse.

“I suppose I shouldn’t tell you this,” Lisa Marie said.

“That means you’re going to tell me, right?”

Lisa Marie picked at a spot on her sweatshirt. “You probably know about it already.”

“What?”

“You probably know the reason why the Circle of Faith is meeting tonight.”

Cherish shook her head.

“I heard my mom on the phone with Mrs. Pranke. Unless there’s, like, a miracle or something, your mom is selling your farm to that Big Roly guy.”

Cherish almost laughed. “No way,” she said. “Mom would never do that.” Big Roly Schmitt was an asshole. He would come by the Faith house to collect his rent, then eat all the cookies or butter horns or doughnuts that Mrs. Pranke brought to share. Cherish thought he’d seen her trespassing behind the McDonald’s once, but if he had, he wasn’t saying anything about it.

“She doesn’t have a choice,” Lisa Marie said. “She’s totally in debt. She’s planning to move to Solomon after you graduate, use the money from the farm for your college tuition. Not that you care.”

Cherish didn’t say anything.

“Me, if that were my mother, if that were the house I’d grown up in, I’d be down on my knees asking for God’s help, but I guess you’re above all that.”

“Shut up,” Cherish said.

For the first time that evening, Lisa Marie looked happy. “Maybe God’s trying to teach you a lesson,” she said. “People bring hardship on themselves, you know?”

Cherish walked to the front window, looked out at the cold, quiet night. The farm had belonged to her father’s parents; her father had grown up there, married there, lived out his whole life. Perhaps that was why the house and barn and the surrounding fields remembered her father far better than Cherish ever could. Sometimes she still heard him outside the kitchen window, playing fetch with the dogs. She smelled his Saturday-night breath whenever she poked her fingers into the pickled-egg jar in the pantry. He took shape in the hall closet, where his winter coat still hung, his smell trapped in the sleeves, and in the welcoming posture of his favorite chair, which, even now, remained in its spot by the window. She still stepped past his rubber barn shoes whenever she went into the milk house, and sometimes, in the mudroom, she’d stare at the bottom of the hamper and, for a split second, see his balled-up athletic socks, bulldog-faced, stiff with dried sweat. Or she’d trace an imaginary necklace of whiskers, delicate as lace, around the bathroom sink. Or, falling asleep, she’d hear him whispering to her mother as they came up the stairs together, and then would come the sunny, silly sound a man makes when it’s late and he’s tired and he starts to giggle foolishly.

But now even that was being taken from her. And if it happened, when it happened, her mother would quote the Bible, saying they should give thanks in all circumstances, for whatever came to pass was His will. Cherish tried to picture Ruthie in an apartment in Solomon. She tried to imagine how it would be to wake up in the morning without the sounds of the animals, to fall asleep without being rocked in the cradle of the fields. Outside, it was snowing lightly. It was already April, yet it seemed to Cherish that this winter would never end.

“You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?” Lisa Marie said. “I’m glad to see something still matters to you.”

And Cherish understood that the two of them would never be friends again, that they hadn’t been friends for a long, long time. In fact, they hated each other. The only thing holding them together had been habit. And like any habit, once you’d stepped away enough to look at it objectively, you had to wonder why you’d ever been drawn to it in the first place.

Lisa Marie stood up. She said, “I wouldn’t have told you if I’d known you’d be this upset.”

“I’m not upset,” Cherish said. But she wanted to throw Lisa Marie to the floor, pull her ugly, frizzy hair out by the fistful.

The doorbell rang. Lisa Marie didn’t move.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” Cherish said.

“I’m not expecting anybody.”

“Maybe you are.”

“What do you mean?”

Cherish gave her a thin, cold smile. “Maybe I happened to mention to Randy and Paul that I would be here.”

“Cherish!”

The doorbell rang again.

“You know they won’t give up till you answer it,” Cherish said, and with that, Randy and Paul walked into the house just like they used to, just as if nothing had ever happened. “Hi, honey, we’re home!” they yelled in unison, crashing down the hallway, through the kitchen, and into the living room, all clomping boots and swinging shoulders and bulky letter jackets.

“Please, come in,” Lisa Marie said, sarcastically.

Paul sat down on the couch. “Hey, Lisa Marie, how goes it?”

“The only word you need to remember is go,” she said, but Randy had already ducked back into the kitchen; they could hear him rummaging through the refrigerator.

“I’ve missed you,” Paul said. “Really. Here, I brought you something.” He pulled several bags of Easter candy out of his jacket—bite-size chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chicks, coconut eggs.

“You didn’t steal those,” Lisa Marie said.

“I paid, don’t worry about it,” Paul said, looking hurt. “Go on, you can have some.”

Randy came back into the room with his mouth full of pizza. He threw an arm about Cherish. “What are we doing tonight?”

“Watching a movie,” Lisa Marie said.

“Speak for yourself,” Cherish said.

“I’ve got money for a six-pack,” Paul said. “If we can find someone with ID.”

But Cherish shook her head, glared at Lisa Marie defiantly. She said, “Let’s visit the blind house instead.”

“The blind house,” Randy said, and he pulled away to stare at her with frank admiration. “Are we up for it?”

“Risky,” Paul said, but his tone said he’d consider it.

“Count me out,” Lisa Marie said. “I’m not doing any stealing.”

“What’s wrong with stealing?” Randy said.

“I’m serious,” Lisa Marie said. “I’m done with all that.”

“Yeah,” Cherish said. “She’d rather blab to her mommy.”

“I told you,” Lisa Marie said. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

“Not yet anyway,” Randy said.

“I swear,” Lisa Marie said, and her voice rose nervously. “I won’t tell anybody anything, OK?”

“We believe you,” Randy said. He was walking around the living room. He paused in front of the window, wiped his pizza fingers on the curtains. There were bookshelves on either side, and he plucked out a leather-bound volume, dropped it on the floor.

“What are you doing?” Lisa Marie said, and she looked at Cherish pleadingly. “Make him stop.”

Cherish shrugged. “Maybe God’s trying to teach you a lesson.”

“Because if you do tell anybody…” Randy continued. He picked up a framed picture of Lisa Marie and her mother, hefted it, considering. “We’ll all just say it was your idea. Get it?” He dropped the picture. An intricate spiderweb spread over their faces. He picked up a crystal paperweight.

“Please,” Lisa Marie said. “Just leave me alone.”

Paul said, “You could still come with us. It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“Yes, it is,” Cherish said, and she took the paperweight away from Randy. “She’s history. But, Leese, don’t forget what you told me.”

“What was that?” Randy said.

Cherish smiled. She put her face close to Lisa Marie’s. “People bring hardship on themselves.”

The snow was falling harder as they fishtailed out of the driveway and shot onto County D, the shortcut to the strip. The perfect fullness of the moon flooded the fields with white, and when Randy’s hand cupped the back of her head, Cherish leaned into it like a kiss. She tried to feel bad about Lisa Marie but couldn’t, not really. Maybe God’s trying to teach you a lesson. It was something Ruthie might have said. It was something that, once, Cherish might have believed. But that was like saying to someone who was sick: God must be punishing you for something. Or saying to someone who’d just gotten well: God must be rewarding you. Things happened or they didn’t happen, and God had nothing to do with it. If Dad had arrived at the Neumillers’ mailbox one minute later, he’d be alive today. If Cherish had gone with him that day, maybe she’d be dead.

“What’s up with Lisa Marie?” Paul said.

“She got saved,” Cherish said. “You didn’t hear?”

“Saved?” Paul said.

“She’s a certified warrior for Christ,” Randy said.

Paul didn’t smile. “I’ve been saved,” he said.

“Yeah, you’re a real saint,” Cherish said. “Saint Zuggenhagen.”

“No, really,” Paul said. “I mean, I know I’m not perfect. But I believe that Christ is my savior, don’t you?”

They drove along in silence.

Randy said, “No.”

Paul said, “But you believe in God, don’t you?”

Pink Floyd was playing on the radio; Randy turned it down. “I believe in something. I’m not sure I’d call it God.”

“What would you call it, then?” Paul said.

“Lighten up,” Cherish interrupted. “If I wanted to listen to this, I’d have stayed with Lisa Marie.”

“Well, you believe in God, don’t you?” Randy said. “What with your mother and all.”

“I don’t believe in anything.” She’d said it just to shock them, but the moment the words left her mouth, she realized they were true. And she felt as if she’d suddenly forgotten the name of the town where she’d lived her whole life. She felt the way she’d felt as a child, saying her name over and over until it lost all meaning. Panicking. Scrambling to find her way back to what was familiar. Cherish.

“Nothing at all?” Paul said.

“That’s right,” Cherish said.

“So what do you think happens when you die?”

“You die,” she said. She swallowed hard. “You rot.”

“That’s harsh,” Randy said.

“You don’t mean it,” Paul said. “Because if you did, then what would you think about your father? I mean, you believe he’s more than worm bait, right? You believe he’s in heaven or something.”

Cherish thought of her father’s grave. She thought of his absent body. She thought of how it was harder and harder to remember him, how lately what she remembered always seemed to be borrowed from a photograph. She thought about how she no longer remembered feelings so much as recalled what she had felt: She’d loved him, admired him, missed him. Valiant, empty words. And it was as if the farm were already sold, the animals auctioned, the house and barn bulldozed, the fields subdivided and developed. Soon not only her father but everything he’d ever worked for would be gone.

“Shut up about her father,” Randy said. “Hey, Cherry, you ready for a drink?”

The blind house wasn’t really a house; it was a trailer in a park called Shady Acres, which sat behind the Solomon strip, less than a mile from the fertilizer plant. And the couple who lived there weren’t blind; they were just old and slept very soundly. Most nights, they were in bed by eight, and they left both their back door and their well-stocked liquor cabinet unlocked, facts leaked by a teenage grandchild. A great cross blossomed in the center of their lawn; it was painted red, white, and blue, and a cloth flag hanging from the lamppost beside it read SALUTE THE FLAG AND KNEEL BEFORE THE CROSS. Though the couple did not go to any local church, they never missed the tent revival that traveled north from Indiana and set up along the banks of the Onion River for a week each August. People spoke in tongues and played tambourines. Cherish had gone with the Circle of Faith when she was young, and it embarrassed her now to remember how she’d clapped and sang too, caught up in the music and the miracles: the crippled man who got up and walked, the woman who felt the cancer leave her lungs forever, the orphans in Africa who would be saved by donations people made as they approached the altar. Faith too was a habit, something you could step away from. But once you did, what path did you follow? How did you choose your steps?

Paul waited in the car while Cherish and Randy walked leisurely down the sidewalk, holding hands, as if they were on their way to visit a friend. Not much had changed since the last time they’d been there, the only time, over six months before. The smell of the plant still hung in the air. The patriotic cross still guarded the front lawn. There was a paper Easter bunny in the window, and the bald tree in the front yard was decorated with plastic Easter eggs.

Randy tried the door. The windows were dark, but once they were inside, a night-light beside the kitchen sink made everything easy to see. He cracked the refrigerator, helped himself to a jar of olives. “Here,” he whispered, digging his long fingers into the brine, and then he held one out, firm and dripping. Cherish ate it off his fingers; salt flooded her mouth. She ate another, another, saving the pimentos, and when Randy bent to kiss her, she fed them back with her tongue. They chose two bottles of Jack Daniel’s from the cupboard; still neither one was ready to leave. Wordless, hungry, they clasped hands again and moved deeper into the house.

The air smelled musty, tinged with wintergreen. In the living room, they could already hear the couple’s snores, and Cherish followed the sound down the hallway to the tiny bedroom where they slept. Here, the wintergreen odor was laced with alcohol and urine. Both the man and the woman slept on their backs, their bodies not touching, mouths open to reveal their toothless gums. Perhaps the woman had once been beautiful, the way that Cherish was beautiful. Perhaps she had even been a Festival Queen. At the foot of the bed, a pool of darkness expanded, contracted, sighed. It was a cat, black and fat and affectionate, rolling over to let Cherish rub its stomach, its seedlike nipples.

The old couple snored. They sounded like Mule, groaning happily on the living room rug. Mule didn’t seem to miss Dad anymore, though for almost a year he’d whined at any closed door, barked at nothing, vomited food. Cherish had been just as fickle. Sometimes days would pass without her thinking of her father even once. The cat’s purr rose from a bubble to a boil, and Randy opened the first bottle of whiskey, uncapped it, drank, and the sound of his throat working made Cherish want to drop to her knees and slide down his jeans, to cover his body with her own as the old couple slept, oblivious, innocent. No doubt they believed, the way Ruthie believed, that something would be waiting for them on the other side of death: the reward of immortality, a reason for all they’d suffered. Cherish wanted to believe that too. But Randy put his lips to her ear, spoke the very words she was thinking. “These people,” he said, “are insignificant. They could die right now and it wouldn’t make any difference.”

Like Dad, Cherish finished the thought. And then, Like me. She opened the second bottle, choked down that bitterness, forcing her very marrow to digest it. The cat rolled, arched its back, frenzied with desire.

They’d barely made it halfway up the sidewalk when the Mustang thundered out of the darkness, dazzling them with light. “You took long enough,” Paul said, and he hopped out to let Randy behind the wheel. “What did you do, have a quickie?”

“Jealous?” Cherish said, and she took another long drink from her bottle. He reached for it, but she shook her head. “This one’s mine,” she said.

“The lady is thirsty,” Randy said, tossing Paul his bottle.

They drove from the Solomon strip to the Fair Mile Crossroads, passing the cross where her father’s life had ended. They slid through the stop sign, passed the Faith house—the curtains were drawn, the parking lot was full—continued west over the highway bridge till they hit the River Road. Spun a few doughnuts in the shoe factory parking lot before heading north, past Cradle Park, to the Millpond Road at the dam. And then it was east to County O and back down toward the Solomon strip, the Fair Mile Crossroads, the highway bridge. This was known as the loop, and Cherish figured she’d driven it a thousand times. You felt as if you were getting somewhere, making good time. You forgot that it was an illusion. Just like itself. You were born and you lived and you learned things and worked hard and loved, but when you died, you were right back where you’d started. So what was the point? You could let your brain give your eyes happy pictures to see: heaven, angels, Jesus rising from the dead to save the world, just like the Faith house mural. Or you could face facts, cut loose, be crazy. Have a good time—why not?

Above the fields, the moon hung so high and crisp and clear that Cherish wanted to take it upon her tongue like a great forbidden Host. She could see every detail of its exacting landscape, those desolate mountains and craters where no one and nothing had ever lived and, yet, people longed to go. “Easy, girl,” Randy said, but she sucked on the bottle anyway. She was drunk, drunker than she’d ever been, and still it was not enough. She missed her father—that’s what it was. She ached for him, grieved the way her mother had always forbidden her to do. For she knew she’d never see him again, no matter what anyone believed, no matter how much she longed to.

“Cherry’s wasted,” Randy said, laughing, and Paul said, “Hey, I think she’s had too much.”

Their voices came from far away, like the voices of ghosts.

“I’m fine,” Cherish tried to say, but her tongue was a cold slab of meat in her mouth. It didn’t matter. Her eyes had grown strangely powerful. She looked out the window and saw into houses where children slept, where grown men and women made love. She saw her mother at the Faith house, face damp, eyes closed, swaying in silent prayer. She saw her father’s bones, floating inside the anonymous earth. She saw the blind couple, their open, empty mouths. When she saw the figure walking along the J road toward the bridge, she was surprised that Randy and Paul could see it too.

“Jeez,” Randy said, and he slowed to a crawl. They were twenty feet behind the boy; he twisted to look at them, shielding his face against their bright headlights.

“Would you look at the size of that kid!” Paul said.

“Two-for-one special,” Randy said. “Should we take him for a ride?”

“What’s with you?” Paul said, and Randy said, “Relax, will you? There’s no one out here to see.”

“Tell him we won’t hurt him,” Paul said. “Don’t freak him out like that last kid, OK?”

Cherish struggled to sit up straight. She thought she’d seen the boy before, but she couldn’t remember where.

“What do you think, Cherry?” Randy said. “You want him?”

“Man, she’s too hammered to know what she wants,” Paul said, but Cherish found her voice.

“Lisa Marie got a present,” she said, and she closed her eyes as if she were making a wish. “I want a present too.” And when she opened her eyes again, Paul and Randy were running down the highway toward the bridge—she could just see Paul’s red jacket—and she got out of the car to run after them, the bottle tucked under her arm like a purse. But somehow the bottle slipped, shattered. She was lying on her stomach, on the highway’s snowy shoulder, gritty pieces of glass sparkling under her eyes. Her mouth flooded, hot and wet, and she felt herself fading, her hands and feet and finally her face; in her mind’s eye, she looked like the mural she’d never finish now. She thought of Jesus, dying on his cross, believing that his suffering could somehow make a difference. His poor bleeding head and side. His broken hands and feet. His thirst. And for the first time in her life, she truly loved Christ—loved him for his failure. For his last anguished cry: Why have you forsaken me? At the moment of his death, he must have understood—life was precious, not because it would endure, but because it would not.

And then she began to struggle for breath. Fighting as hard as she could. Fighting for a second chance. She flipped herself over, rolled to her knees. Blood on her hands. Salt in her mouth. The cold air tore at her throat. She stumbled onto the highway, glass falling from her, a trail of stars. Someone was running toward her, coming closer, closer still. And she found that a part of her still hoped it was her father, come back from some otherworldly place to save her. The sky behind him shouted with moonlight. If only she’d closed her eyes just then. If only she’d been satisfied. But, doubting, she raised her head once more and saw that it was Paul.

“Jesus!” Paul was screaming. “He’s gone, the kid’s just fucking gone!”

“Gone,” Cherish tried to say, but the ground rose up and struck her down.