55. The Prayer

“How far do you think a tank of gas will take us?”

Jocelyn glances over at me, an adult looking at a child. “Not far enough.”

She’s driving me home, though we don’t seem to be headed anywhere close to my house. We haven’t talked anymore since this morning. As I look at her profile, I can’t see the bruise on the other side of her face.

“Are we running away?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood.

“You can’t run away from things,” Jocelyn says. “I’ve learned that the hard way.”

“What’s going on, Jocelyn? Is this all about your step-uncle?”

“Just …” She looks at the road, and then she takes my hand. “Just—please continue to be patient with me. Okay?”

“I just want to help.”

“I know. And you are.”

“How?”

“By being there.”

“I’m not doing anything here.”

“You’re doing a lot, Chris. More than you can know.”

She drives for ten minutes on Sable Road, the main stretch of road that flows into Solitary from the north and the south, then turns off onto a dirt road that doesn’t look much traveled. We bounce around for several minutes until we reach a clearing with a wild, uncut field and a dilapidated old church that looks like a fire torched it. We park in front, and Jocelyn gets out.

I follow her along the side of the church. There are holes where there once were windows, rotting wood, weeds scattered around like stubble on an old man’s face.

“Come on,” she tells me.

The field is mostly full of overgrown bushes up to our knees. Jocelyn seems to know exactly where she’s going. She heads straight into an open area surrounded by trees on all sides and stops about fifty yards from the church.

She kneels down.

As I approach, I see something sticking out amidst the tall grass and weeds.

A gravestone.

I reach Jocelyn. She’s staring at a set of matching tombstones about three feet tall. I can’t see the writing on them—they’re too small and too dirty.

“I come here more than I should,” she says, still looking at the stones. “You’d think that one of these times I’d actually clean up these stones. I never do. I always leave them dirty.”

She touches them gently, as if she’s touching someone’s head. “I was only six years old when they died.”

Deep down I already seem to have known this, but it still hits me hard. I look at the stones as if the bodies are right there in front of me, lying in open caskets with gazes planted toward the skies.

“Do you know I was actually baptized in this church? Can you believe it?” She sighs. “Amazing how things can change in ten years.”

I look back at the church. The back wall is gone, with several blackened walls inside still clinging on for dear life.

“What happened here?”

“The church was small enough as is. When the fire happened, the few members that were left ended up meeting in secrecy. I guess that’s what happened, anyway.”

“Is this Solitary?”

She shakes her head. “No. We’re actually not even in North Carolina anymore. My parents lived in Solitary but came here to church. This is where they got married.”

I want to ask how they died, but I can’t get myself to.

“Come here. Sit beside me.”

So I kneel next to her.

“Do you want to know something, something crazy? I come here often and pray. Even with all the doubts I’ve had—I’ve still prayed. How crazy is that? Half the time I wonder if I’m just doing it for therapy or to make myself feel better. I don’t know. Sometimes I think that maybe they can hear my prayers, that maybe Mom and Dad are somewhere around listening. It doesn’t make sense, you know. If they can hear my prayers, why do I have to come here to pray? Same goes with God. I don’t know. I just feel like—I feel like I can’t pray back home, back in that darkness. But here, it seems different. Here it seems better.”

I make out one name: Joseph Charles Evans.

“Crazy, huh?”

“I don’t think it’s crazy.”

“I’m completely crazy, and so are you for liking me.”

“Maybe,” I say.

“Want to know something sad? I don’t remember anything about my parents. Nothing. Six full years, yet I don’t have any memories. And you want to know why? I think it’s because of the ten dark years that have followed. Because there’s just been—there’s just been so much darkness.…”

She begins to cry.

I don’t know what to do, what to say, what to feel.

Yet I see my arm wrap around her shoulders and I feel her quietly cry against my chest.

I swallow, let her cry for a few minutes, and I don’t say anything.

“Sometimes I think the darkness has swallowed up the light. That those ten years have sucked up everything good about those first six, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She moves away from me, her haunting eyes tearful, her bruise showing up more under the fading light of the sun.

“Then you came along,” she says.

“What?”

“I got used to waking up and living and breathing in the dark, Chris. And then one day, your silly, smiling face came around.” She wipes her eyes.

“Silly, huh?”

“Utterly silly. And utterly beautiful.”

“Not sure about that.”

“You’re not infected, not like the others around here, not like me.”

“Stop it.”

“You’re not. This place—not this place, but that place—that town. I’m telling you, Chris, it’s evil. You can’t know—I couldn’t sum it up if I tried. That town killed my parents. I know that for a fact. And I have to live and breathe and walk around like it didn’t.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, they say it was a car crash. But something happened, something wrong. We’re not in the big city around here. Things can get overlooked. Churches can burn down and life can move on like nothing happened.”

“You think somebody did this to your parents?”

“I know they did. And I guess that’s what I come back to, time and time again. I sit here and I pray, yet I know the truth.”

“Which is?”

“God did this. Ultimately God let my parents down. God let them die. They believed in Him, that I know. I’ve heard bits and pieces from my aunt. They baptized me, hoping I’d follow in their shoes. Lot of good that did.”

“Jocelyn—”

“The scary thing is that if—and I mean if—God is up there, then why? Why, God? Why would You let this happen? Happen to them? And now to me? Why?”

“What do you mean—” I say.

“And that’s what I always thought, time and time again. I’d come here and I’d wrestle with belief, with wondering, with anger. And I prayed a prayer—I remember it specifically. I told God that if He was really up there, and if He really was all-loving and all-knowing, that I wanted Him to send me a sign. Not an omen—I’ve seen enough of those. But a sign. An angel. I wanted Him to send someone to show me—to remind me of the brightness. And you know what? The next day—the very next day—you showed up at school.”

“Jocelyn—I’m far from what I would call an angel.”

“But you were an answer to prayer. That I know.”

I want to tell her that I’m not, that I can’t be, but I see the belief in her eyes.

“I tried, Chris. Oh, I tried. I tried to ignore you and run away from you. I messed up, and I—you know, it doesn’t matter. Not now. I just know that you really are an answer to that prayer.”

“Maybe you should pray a few for me, then.”

“I’m not saying I know all the answers,” she says. “Because I’m not there yet. I’m not. But—but I just wanted you to know that.”

We’re alone, just the two of us. I no longer feel watched. I no longer feel awkward or young.

I look into hazel eyes and then see the glow of the sun beyond the crests of the trees behind her.

I move toward her face and kiss her lips.

She’s still holding my hand, and as we kiss I feel her grip it tightly.

This is what I believe in, right here and now.

That I think I might love this girl.

And that I don’t want her to leave my side for any reason.

Maybe, just maybe, I can help her in some way.

If that means I’m an answer to a prayer, so be it.

If I can, I’ll be her guardian angel.