Prologue

I last attended worship service on a blustery Sunday in March, the year I turned seven. I’m certain of the date because I still have the bulletin from that morning. Momma wadded the paper into a fist-clenched ball, but I pressed it between the pages of an old dictionary to flatten the wrinkles and later hid it in my chest of drawers beneath my sweatpants.

That morning, we took our usual spot in the musty building, fifth pew from the back, and my best friend, Fawn Blaylock, sat with her parents in front of us. Fawn turned around to make funny faces at me, so I was giggling when Momma snatched my arm and dragged me out the door. Fawn’s comical expression morphed into surprise, but her parents, oddly enough, never looked at us.

Our silver hatchback careened through town as Momma put a death grip on the steering wheel, and by the time she pulled under our carport, the muscles in her face and neck resembled polished marble. Mind you, Momma never cried. No matter what she was feeling, every emotion manifested itself as anger. Even when Daddy left, she bottled up her grief like one of those homemade bombs you make with a Coke bottle. So when she read that notice in the church bulletin, her emotions ignited into an explosion the likes of which I never saw before or since. When her rage petered out, she locked herself in her bedroom and stayed there until supper.

Fawn Blaylock stopped being my friend before the Monday morning Pledge of Allegiance, and Momma’s church friends looked the other way whenever we’d pass them in town. It didn’t seem to matter that Daddy was the one who ran off. Nobody asked for details before they branded Momma with a scarlet letter.

We became invisible to our church family, and after a visit from one of the elders, I knew we would never return to worship services. No more Saturday night plastic curlers, which I wouldn’t miss. No more Sunday morning ruffled socks, which I would. And for all practical purposes, no more Momma. She stopped smiling, socializing, living. My seven-year-old immaturity convinced me the church had pulled her away from me, and I wondered if, in some way, they had taken Daddy, too. I resolved to steer clear of Christians, and over the years, the baptized believers never gave me cause to reconsider.

Thirteen years later, my callous determination had grown fierce, and when the Cunninghams moved to town with their charm and good intentions, I figured they were nothing more than a fancy version of the same old rigmarole.