Chapter Forty-nine

“Heading home already?” Corinne’s mom asked.

Corinne had stayed for hours. The sun was setting. “I have some work to do tonight.”

“I thought working for yourself meant setting your own hours.”

“It does most days,” Corinne said. “Thank you for dinner.”

Her mom hugged her. “We’re glad you’re here,” she said, and she meant it. Corinne knew that she meant it. That she’d missed Corinne for all those years. That her mom wouldn’t cross any lines for Corinne—but she’d walk this one.

“Me, too,” Corinne said. She meant it, too.

Corinne drove to her apartment. She could hardly feel her hands on the steering wheel. Her mom had sent her home with a plastic container of chicken paprika, and the whole car smelled like it. Corinne wasn’t blinking as much as she should. Her eyes were watering.

She was driving home. She was driving to her apartment.

She was in the front seat of the Merediths’ minivan. Her mom had borrowed it to take Corinne to her elders’ meeting. They weren’t speaking. There was too much to say. Sister Miller had asked Corinne’s mom to move out the same Monday morning that Enoch confessed. Bonnie had come down to the basement and helped pack their things while all the kids but Enoch were at school.

Corinne’s family never went back to the Millers’ house. They never went back to their old congregation—except for Holly, who stayed with her best friend through the summer.

And Corinne’s mom and Enoch’s mom weren’t friends anymore. Bonnie couldn’t forgive her. (Which wasn’t fair, Corinne always thought. Because both of them had left Corinne and Enoch alone at night. It was Enoch’s mom who invited her family up out of the basement.) (What Sister Miller really couldn’t forgive her mom for was giving birth to Corinne. For creating and raising the perfect trap for her son.) (That’s what Corinne was, a trap that Enoch Miller kept falling into.) (That’s what Satan and his demons did: They watched you, they walked with you. They got to know you. And then they presented you with tailor-made temptations. Satan was God’s most beautiful angel, he was the father of temptation. The mother of it.) (Maybe that’s why Corinne was brought into the church. Maybe it had nothing to do with her soul. Or her mother’s. Maybe it was always about Enoch Miller. He was the one who mattered. He was the Job. The Joseph. The David. And Corinne was brought into the congregation just to tempt him. All of the demons were watching and all of the angels, just like in the Children’s Bible illustrations. All of the giant men made of air, watching from above. Watching Enoch Miller, the only solid thing on the page. What would he do? What would he choose? Would he stay on the path, though it be narrow and winding? Corinne wouldn’t make it into the illustration. [Would anyone have ever painted Corinne? Maybe during the Renaissance. As an excuse for some perverted oil painter to depict a woman’s bare breast. The Temptation of Enoch.])

Corinne was driving herself home. She was wearing a modest skirt. Her car smelled like her dad’s favorite food.

She was in her dad’s truck, and he was driving her to college. And her mom had cried in the driveway. Had begged Corinne not to go. “I can’t talk to you, once you’re out of my household. You aren’t considered a child anymore. You know the rules, Corinne. You’re cast out.” And her dad had gotten involved—“This has gone too far, Carol”—but that just made it worse. Because her dad was allowed to abandon her mom (and probably cheat on her), but he wasn’t allowed to criticize the church, and they both knew it. They all knew it. That was the line. There were so many lines. Corinne was going to college. She was done with them all.

(What had changed between now and then? Why was Corinne allowed at Sunday dinner? Had she served her sentence? Had her punishment timed out?)

Corinne was driving home. To her apartment. She couldn’t feel her hands; they belonged to someone else.

She was in her car, it was cold. She was driving home. She parked on the street and grabbed her leftovers—including two loaves of bread that no one had touched—and ventured out into the wind. She was careful, she was always careful, walking to her building by herself, after dark.

There was a man sitting outside the front door. Folded over himself on the steps.

Enoch Miller.