Chapter Ten

After a moment’s hesitation that the doors of Salvation Baptist Church would be barred to her, like her parents had warned, Jessa Lancaster found that it was easy to just burst right through them on a weekday morning, stroller in tow. Her father was going to meet his grandchild. He was going to meet his grandchild right now, Jessa vowed. She saw his car in the parking lot while she was taking the baby to daycare, and, after considering it for a half hour while she circled the block and the baby rested, Jessa decided to just visit the dear reverend. If he wasn’t going to return her calls or reply to her emails or ignore her at the store, now he could look her and her damn baby in the face and not talk. It was time to end all this nonsense. She could no longer wait for the adults in her life to be adult. Her life was not some damn Lifetime movie.

Jessa hurried down the long stretch of crimson carpet toward his office, the same hallways she and her sister Traci would run down at least once a week when she was growing up, pretending to be movie stars waving to fans. This section still smelled of old books and grape juice, and she had to keep rushing before she became intimidated by how important she’d always been taught this place was. She had to get to her father’s office before God stopped her. She had to see her father before she was too nervous to knock on his door, interrupting his important work. Jessa needed her father to be an understanding man, not a figure on a pedestal that she was too scared to talk to. Other people were able to come to him with their troubles, and she envied them as a girl. Jessa needed her father’s counsel and help.

Doors here were supposed to be open to those seeking help, Jessa thought as she wheeled Lydie even further down the long, long hallway. Jessa didn’t know if Lydie was awake or asleep, her sole focus was on getting this done, getting the stroller through the door of his office. His actual office, too. Not just the reception area where Virginia Dean, the church secretary, sat. Lydie Harrell was going to meet her grandfather today, by God.

Jessa got to the heavy oak door, the one set off from the main hallway by a little vestibule—even a side prayer room. It was intended to be majestic and intimidating. Jessa turned the stroller with both hands so that it trailed behind her, and she kicked the door open with all her might and momentum.

Jessa was raised to be a good girl and an example. She was in pageants from the time she was a toddler, and her smile lit up rooms. Good girls don’t raise their voices, except in choir or onstage when a spotlight complements their star qualities and highlights their beauty. Good girls behave themselves, never interject in conversations or insist upon the attention of men. She was always asked by men, “And, how are you?” Never just “How are you?” The “And, how are you?” came after she inquired about their well-being first and the men went on for five minutes without stopping. Men never wait to be asked.

She was done waiting to be asked for anything. She had given her father months to come around on his own. The kick rang out as a blast through Virginia’s waiting room, causing the secretary to shiver. Virginia was a pious and catty old gossip. Jessa knew this. Jessa also guessed that her pregnancy and excommunication had been a favorite topic of the old lady’s these past months. Virginia deserved a shock.

“What on Earth?” Virginia squealed.

“I took three years of ballet, Mrs. Dean,” Jessa said. “Of course, I can kick.”

“Jessa, what are you even doing?” the lady asked, even though she saw the damn stroller and was not an idiot.

Jessa wheeled it past the lady, who got up out of her chair and tried to block the door to dear old Rev. Lancaster’s office.

“Don’t even, Mrs. Dean.”

“You can’t just barge in here, young lady. I know for a fact that he doesn’t want to see you.”

“I can kick through you just as easily as I can kick through the door, Mrs. Dean,” Jessa said coldly. “Don’t make me prove it.”

Virginia scoffed.

“Don’t act appalled,” Jessa said. “Just open the door. This isn’t a discussion.”

“No, I can’t do that,” Virginia said. “You aren’t welcome here.”

“God says everyone is.”

Another voice echoed from the opposite side of the door.

“I don’t want to see you, Jessa,” the reverend said to his daughter.

The boom in his voice contained no warmth. She saw only the outline of his silhouette through the stained-glass window on the door. He was so cold.

“Go to school, Jessa,” he said. “Go anywhere. Just go away.”

It took her a moment to compose herself. For some reason, she thought she’d get the first word. Having no plan of attack was a terrible plan of attack, she realized.

“I have the baby with me, Daddy,” she said, trying not to falter in voice or mission. “See my baby.”

“Go.”

“Her name is Lydie, Daddy. Lydia Ruth Harrell. First name came from Wade’s dad. I provided the middle one, after Mom’s mom. Does Mom know that already? Did anyone tell her? I don’t know what you know.”

Virginia glared at the baby. Lydie just giggled at her. And Virginia, in spite of herself, cracked up at the baby. The old lady wasn’t made of stone. And it’s harder to hate something when it’s in front of you, being cute and giggly.

Jessa kept talking at the door, waiting for the other glacier to melt.

“She looks like you, Daddy. And not just because every baby looks like a shriveled old bald man. She has your nose and your ears. I used to think that people were stupid for saying stuff like that, but, seriously, when she gets irritated, she looks like you do.”

She paused.

“I wish I didn’t know your irritated face so well, Daddy,” Jessa confessed.

“Jessica, please,” her father said through the door. “I’ve made my feelings about this incredibly clear. You made choices that I cannot support.”

“I think you’re scared of my baby,” Jessa said.

“What?” he asked, appalled.

“I think you know you’re wrong and that you’ll love my baby once you see her,” she said, bold as ever. “I don’t think that this is about teaching me shame or regret. I don’t think this is about punishing me. I think this is about you.”

At that, he cracked open the door and eyed her through the space. Only her. He wouldn’t look at the baby.

“Go away, Jessica.”

“No. Come out.”

He shut the door again.

“What’s so scary about a baby, Daddy? The idea that you might like something that came out of my disobedience?”

“You didn’t just disobey me, little girl.”

Emboldened, Virginia lifted Lydie out of her stroller and began to cradle her. Virginia even started humming to the girl.

Jessa said, “God can judge me, Daddy. You don’t need to do it for Him. Heck, I even judge myself for it enough. You don’t need to keep doing this. Let me come home.”

“I thought so,” Rev. Lancaster said. “I knew you weren’t just here to show me the baby.” At that, he opened the door and looked her in the face. Rev. Lancaster turned, nodded at Virginia and then put his arms out to hold the baby. It wasn’t a moment as warm as Jessa would’ve wanted. In her imagination, he would have cried and professed his love for Lydie and Jessa, all at once.

He just put Lydie in the stroller, regarding her for a moment.

“She’s cute, I’ll give you that,” he told his daughter, securing his grandbaby in her seat. “But you can’t bring her into my house.”

Then, Rev. Lancaster nodded back toward the hallway and said he’d walk them out. Jessa felt like she’d been kicked as hard as she kicked the door.

They exited the church office together, Jessa pushing the stroller. She tried to feel proud that he’d finally met his granddaughter, but it wasn’t all that she wanted.

The hallway seemed just as long on the way out. She wasn’t even sure if she was allowed to say anything else. Her father was dismissing her from church like they were in the father-daughter confrontation scene from “Dirty Dancing.” Jessa had to do something.

“Will you tell Mom that you saw me?”

“Sure, Jessa,” he said to her.

“I really do want to come home, Daddy.”

“That can’t happen.”

“Daddy,” she said, her voice breaking for a moment. “I’m sorry I came here. It’s just—”

“What now, Jessa?” His tone was suspicious. Rev. Lancaster knew his daughter. He’d been wrapped around her finger before, but he thought he knew better than to fall for it again.

She took a quick breath.

“Wade hurts me, Daddy. And today he tried to hurt my baby.”