I put my pencil down and looked out the kitchen window. I felt like a wrung-out sponge. Exhaustion radiated from some deep pit inside me. The early September Sunday morning sun was bright through the window. I blinked at its impersonal brilliance.
I glanced down at my journal and the list I had spent the morning writing. It contained the names of everyone I had once believed I could trust. Kevin. Heather. Blair. The Reverend. I touched the bruise by my mouth with a gentle finger, still there after two days. It was a deep purple blotch from the corner of my mouth down to my chin and halfway across my jaw. I had gone seeking help, and ended up injured.
I included Dr. Alexander’s name too. It irked me to think that I was only allowed access to the halls of mental health as long as I complied completely with his orders. Sure, I hadn’t even tried the medications, but he hadn’t tried things my way either. Mental health should be a partnership. I half blamed him for what had happened with The Reverend.
I liked my list. It helped me remember. It told the truth. I picked up the pencil and drew a dark cloud at the top of the page.
I hadn’t put Donna’s name on the list because she wasn’t someone I had trusted in the first place. Still, her name sent shocks of fury through my veins. Her smug, cool face as she waved to the camera. Lover. The word had rolled off her tongue, effortless, as if she and Kevin were two kindred souls, brought together by their mutual passion for conservative investment portfolios.
It shocked me how comfortable Donna seemed lying in that bed. No nervous tittering, no guilty looks or pleading to turn the camera off, What if someone were to find out? Instead she’d acted like Cleopatra, ruler of all she surveyed. As if she had the right to be there.
The woman had violated my life. Broken into it. But it wasn’t as if she’d picked the locks. She’d been invited through the back door by the man I had trusted most.
I clenched my fists, snapping the pencil I held in two. Waves of humiliation crashed down, one after another. I tossed the broken pencil into the garbage and stared out the window.
Kevin’s voice had said that I’d forgotten too much. But my memories felt closer now. I could sense them circling from above, like birds of prey.
I glanced at the list of names I’d written. Names of people who told me they loved me. People I’d spent my life loving. Liars, every one of them. Where would I go to find truth? I glanced up at the clock. If I left now, I’d catch Jack before church was over. I grabbed my car keys and headed out the door.
It was nearly noon when I inched my way into the gym and stood near the back. It had taken a long time in the car to apply enough makeup to hide the bruises left by The Reverend’s giant hand two days ago.
Sunday at Glen Hills Community Center looked much like Jack had described it. A motley crew had assembled, some sitting in folding chairs, others milling near the back where I stood. Jack was wrapping up a talk about the highway to heaven.
An older man, wearing baggy coveralls and a yellowing smile, shook a paper cup at me and whispered, “Want some java?” He had the bulbous nose of a lifetime drinker; red and purple veins snaked across the center of his face. He didn’t seem bothered that I had come in right near the end of the service. He could have been someone’s grandpa, if someone’s grandpa had spent too many years at the bottom of a tequila bottle. Still, he looked sober now, clear-eyed. Shabby, but not dangerous. I shook my head and gave him a feeble smile as I slinked away. He smelled strange, like he’d recently bathed in lavender-scented mothballs.
At the front of the gym, standing on a makeshift stage constructed of large wooden boxes, Jack, in jeans and a white T-shirt, was speaking into a microphone. His voice crackled through a single amplifier.
“The road to heaven isn’t much of a road,” he was saying. “It’s more like a dusty trail, roughly cut out through the underbrush. Most people don’t even notice it. It doesn’t look like a path at all, so they walk right by. Others see it, but don’t go down it because it’s ugly. Dirty. Difficult. Overgrown. If they took the road to heaven, their progress would be slow, maybe immeasurable. They’d have to give up a lot because the path is narrow. So there’s no room for baggage.” Jack paced for a moment. “We’ve talked about all these things this morning. But maybe you’re asking, ‘Why would anyone decide to take an impossible road like this?’” Jack looked out into the gym and our eyes met over the heads of the people sitting in chairs. He smiled. “Because it leads to life.”
“Baloney,” a voice called from the audience.
Jack tore his eyes away from mine and gazed at a man in the second row. To my surprise he smiled. “How so?”
The man stood up. “I’ve heard that pie-in-the-sky crap my whole life. It’s the same old story—Do as I say and there’ll be big reward in heaven. Why should I give up my life here and now, just on the promise of some religious nut?”
Jack frowned. After a moment he said, “You shouldn’t.”
It was as if everyone in the room took a step backward. There was an audible gasp from the congregation. I wished I could see the man’s face. “Exactly,” he said.
Jack said, “But, tell me something, what is it exactly you’d be giving up in the ‘here and now’?”
The man crossed his arms. “My freedom, for one thing. You religious nuts like to keep people on a short leash.” He swayed slightly and grabbed the back of the chair in front of him.
Jack nodded. “Ah, right. Freedom. Freedom to come and go as you please. Freedom to do anything you like without anything like guilt getting in the way.”
The man held up a finger of his own. “I’m a good person. Sure, I’ve made mistakes, who hasn’t? But I’ve got no regrets. I’ve lived my life on my own terms. Guilt is just something you religious guys made up.”
Jack cocked his head. “Yeah, maybe it is. Or, maybe it’s something God can use to get our attention. It seems to me the things people cling to in the name of freedom are the very things that have those people locked in chains.”
The man sat down hard, waving a dismissive hand toward Jack, signaling the conversation was over.
The exchange amazed me. I’d never thought of a church service as a place you could speak your mind. Rev. J. D. Slater’s fat face filled my mind. I doubted he would have tolerated someone questioning him. Probably would have shot the guy.
Jack smiled at the group. “It’s lunchtime.” He said a short prayer, then told everyone to go home. He jumped down from the platform and stopped in front of the argumentative man, offering his hand. The man shook it and they spoke for several minutes. When the man turned to leave, he was smiling.
Jack caught my eye and sauntered toward me. “Hey, don’t run away. I need to help get this stuff packed away, but if you’ll stick around, I’d love to chat.”
“Maybe we could have lunch?” I said.
Thirty minutes later Jack and I sat across from each other at the Happy Eater Chinese restaurant. The food looked wonderful, but I wasn’t a happy eater.
I pushed chow mein around my plate. “I literally don’t have anyone else to talk to.”
Jack shoveled an astonishing amount of moo goo gui pan into his mouth and nodded. He swallowed hard. “I’m honored. You talk. I’ll listen—that’s all I can promise you. Beyond that, well, I’m not much help.”
I raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Really? That’s refreshing. I’ve spent the last few months talking with people who think they know everything, and it hasn’t helped me much. But you’re a pastor. How come you don’t believe that you hold the truth of the ages in your back pocket?”
Jack stood up and reached his hands into his pockets, pulled them inside out so the material hung down in front, white and empty. He turned his open palms toward me, an imitation of a vaudevillian beggar. “I guess I missed out somewhere along the way.” He sat down and scooped fried rice into his mouth.
I sipped my water. It was warm. “I don’t think so. I saw how you talked to that man this morning. You didn’t even get upset when he questioned everything you’d been talking about.”
Jack lifted a shoulder. “They’re all good questions. And anyway, he’s come around a few times in the past few months. He’s a drinker. Lonely, I think.” He paused to shove more food into his mouth. Apparently he’d slept through the parental lecture to chew your food twenty times before swallowing. He waved his fork. “He’s just trying to figure it all out. I wouldn’t be helping him much if I yelled at him for disagreeing with me.” He gave me a mock serious look. “But this is supposed to be about you, and here I am doing the talking.”
“Is he a sinner?”
Jack paused, his water glass suspended halfway to his mouth. “I’m probably not qualified to say. I see he has problems, yes.” He looked far off for a moment. “God is holy,” he said quietly, almost to himself.
“Am I a sinner?”
He thumped his glass on the table. “Kate, where is this coming from?”
I gently touched my fork to the bruise near my mouth. “Two days ago I went to see this preacher—a self-proclaimed miracle man—for help. But when I explained why I was there, he called me a sinner.” My eyes burned with unshed tears at the memory of the other things The Reverend had said and done to me.
Jack reached across the table, his hand falling just short of touching my hand. “What preacher?”
“Rev. J. D. Slater. He has a huge church over by—”
Jack interrupted. “I know where the church is. That’s my father’s church.”