Chapter32.html

“I can’t believe it,” I said. There was something repulsive about the idea the man sitting across from me had been raised by The Reverend.

“He asked me a bunch of questions about the things I’d done, and before I knew what was happening, he was standing over me, one hand on my head, the other over my face.” I ran two fingers down my chin, reliving the pressure of The Reverend’s meaty hand pressing into my face, covering my nose and mouth. I inched my chair away from the table.

He pushed partway off his chair, hands on the table, leaned in, and squinted. “You’re bruised.”

I looked away, ashamed somehow of the marks on my face. As if I had been responsible for them. Yet I wanted him to see them, a witness to my encounter with his father’s God. “I covered it with makeup as best I could.” I stole a glance at him.

I nodded, but in my mind, I was back there, reliving the incident. “He shouted, called me filthy.” My lip and chin trembled. “He said God had talked to him, shown him that I was a sinner. Is that what you believe, Jack? Would you say I’m a sinner?”

Jack’s chin dropped to his chest; he squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ll never call you names, Kate.”

I could almost feel his giant hands rocking me side to side, his deep voice rolling over me like an endless echo. “He kept yelling ‘Come out!’ as if he thought I was—” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. “My life has fallen to pieces and God’s answer, it seems, is to blame me.”

He kept his head down, jaw pulsing as he bit down over and over. “God loves you.”

Love? What kind of love was it that made The Reverend bruise me? Would love spit words of hate and judgment in the face of someone who had come for help? Is that what love is to God? I shook my head. Was this the kind of love The Reverend had taught to Jack?

“It’s like a devil gets inside my head sometimes,” Kevin says as he runs his hand down my cheek, wiping the tears there.

We’re in his car, parked on the side of a street we don’t live on, somewhere on the west side of town.

“Let’s go for a ride,” Kevin had said, and I had jumped up, nearly ran to the car, anxious just to be near him for a while.

Ten minutes into the drive I had said something I shouldn’t have. Actually I asked him a question. Sometime between “I do” and today, Kevin had started hating questions. At least the ones I asked. It hadn’t even started out as a question.

I said, “You’re doing so well at the bank, Kevin. I’m proud of you.” And I should have left it there, let it lie, let it go. Should have known he was still upset I’d quit my job. “Don’t you think it’s time we start our family?”

His reaction was as sudden as a summer storm. He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. Then slammed it again. For a moment he rocked back and forth in his seat, then formed a fist and punched the dashboard. “Why do you do this to me?” he roared. “Push, push, push, that’s all you know how to do.”

I cowered in my seat, pressing myself against the door. “I just meant—”

He stood on the brakes, throwing me forward. The seat belt burned into my neck and shoulders. The car idled in the middle of the road. After a long moment he pulled the car over to the curb.

I started to cry.

He reached over to touch me and I shrank away without thinking. A flash of pain crossed his face. “Come here.” He touched my chin, my jawbone, my cheek. “It’s like a devil gets inside my head sometimes.”

At his confusing words I say nothing. I feel afraid. Afraid of him and his anger. Afraid of losing him and everything we have.

He sits back and puts his hands on the wheel. A long, slow breath pushes out his mouth. “The last thing in the world I want is to hurt you. You know that, right?” He turns to look at me. “You know it, Kate, right?”

I nod. “I know it,” I squeak.

He nods, assured. “And yet, here I am, hurting you.”

“You didn’t hurt me. You hit the dashboard, not—”

He interrupts. “Kate, I want a divorce.”