There wasn’t space on the couch for Monopoly and Clue and Operation, plus some game from the fifties called Hūsker Dū. They’d commandeered the coffee table in the middle of the room, but Enoch complained about sitting on the floor. He dragged the table over to the couch, so he’d at least have something to lean against.
“I can’t sit on the floor,” Corinne said in a dopey voice. “I’m the man of the house.”
“It’s uncomfortable. I’m not built for this.”
“My legs are too long,” she said. “And my feet are too big, and my head is too heavy.”
“Shut up.”
“Enoch,” Bonnie said reproachfully from the kitchen. None of them were supposed to say “shut up.”
Corinne caught his eyes over the coffee table and made a shocked face, mouthing his name. “Enoch.”
He rolled his eyes at her.
They were setting up the game and agreeing on the terms for the night. They both wanted it to be as complicated as possible. Corinne wanted to include Mouse Trap, a 3-D game with plastic obstacles and a marble.
“Mouse Trap never works the way it’s supposed to,” Enoch argued.
“We’ll factor that in,” she said.
Enoch was still dressed up, from his Bible study at Shannon’s house. He still smelled like aftershave. His hair was short, but longer than most men wore it at church. Like he was trying to balance out his off-kilter face. His big nose. His wide mouth, too big for his teeth. His tiny little brown eyes. (Actually his eyes were probably normal-sized; they just got lost in all the clatter.)
Corinne sat across the table from him, wearing jeans, which he shouldn’t judge her for, because girls didn’t actually have to wear dresses outside of church. Even though Corinne’s mom had taken to wearing a dress or a skirt every day since they’d moved in with the Millers. And Corinne’s sister always wore them now. Holly was trying to move up in the world. Her best friend, Jill, was from a good family, and she and Holly shared clothes—which just meant that Holly borrowed Jill’s clothes, because Holly didn’t have anything of her own worth lending. Sometimes Holly sat with Jill’s family during church, her back straighter than usual, looking up all the scriptures and following along with the preacher.
Anyway. Corinne was wearing jeans tonight, with the same black sweater she always wore to church.
This sweater was the source of much consternation for some of the older brothers and sisters, the type who got all worked up over other people’s church clothes. They’d give Corinne dirty looks and pull her aside to share 1 Timothy 2:9—but all that scripture really says is women should be modest. And Corinne’s shapeless skirts and stretched-out sweaters were certainly that. She was like a big, baggy blob with a head attached. Like the blueberry girl in Willy Wonka. Nothing about Corinne was ever immodest or on display; that’s not what bothered the church busybodies. What bothered them was that she wasn’t pretty. That she wasn’t even trying to be pretty.
“Fine,” Enoch said, “go get Mouse Trap.”
Their little brothers were already playing Nintendo. Enoch and Corinne had relinquished their rights to all future turns. This was more interesting. This thing they were building. There were game boards all over the coffee table and on an adjacent footstool. Corinne was the top hat, and Enoch was the horse and rider, and the rules were so elaborate that Enoch had to write them down. In his cramped handwriting. With his giant hands. There were freckles across his knuckles, but not on his cheeks. He wasn’t really a redhead. He was just a brunette with red-haired tendencies. His hair was the color of watered-down Cherry Coke.
The game they’d worked out was basically Monopoly, with a dozen trapdoors into and out of other games. Corinne answered a trivia question correctly, then purchased Connecticut Avenue. Enoch successfully removed the funny bone, and then bought the Water Works.
It went on for hours because they’d designed it to be interesting, not to end. And they kept making it more complicated because they both thought it was funny to make it more complicated. And fun. It was so much fun. Corinne wasn’t used to having fun. Her life wasn’t designed to be fun. It was designed to be …
Godly, she supposed. That was the point of going to church three times a week, and studying for church all the other days—so that you didn’t have time and space for anything else.
Enoch didn’t say much while they were playing, but he’d never really been much of a talker. Even when they were kids.
Corinne wondered what he talked to his friends about. To Shannon Frank and the other teenagers in their literal circle, when they stood in the lobby after Sunday services.
People at school talked about TV and music and movies. But people at church weren’t allowed to listen to much secular music, and most of what was on TV was off-limits, too. All there was to talk about was each other. Is that what Enoch’s friends did in their circle, gossip?
Corinne’s mom and Bonnie were gossiping in the kitchen right now—mostly about other people’s kids. Adolescence was a spectator sport for the whole congregation. Who looked like they were stumbling? Who looked like they were falling away? Who might be cast out?
You could get cast out. For breaking the rules. For sinning and not being sorry enough. You could get cast out, and the elders would decide when you were allowed back. And nobody was allowed to talk to you in the meantime.
In some other kitchen, some other mothers were gossiping about Corinne. With her ratty sweaters. And her nail polish. And her fifteen-minute bathroom breaks. (And they didn’t even know about all the things Corinne said in her head. All the things she wasn’t sure she believed in.)
No one, nowhere was gossiping about Enoch Miller.
He wasn’t giving anyone anything interesting enough to gossip about—and besides, they were all rooting for him to cross the finish line.
Enoch Miller would make a fine elder someday. Kind, like his father. And smart. And with a real love for the Lord, you could tell.
He wouldn’t be the sort of elder who’d make the Sunday service go a half hour long just to show that he could. He wouldn’t corner other people’s daughters and make them read 1 Timothy. Enoch Miller, sitting up front with his beautiful wife and a row of kids with cherry-flavored hair. Enoch Miller, watching out for the widows and the fatherless children.
“It’s your turn, Corinne.” Enoch was frowning. Because he always frowned. Because he always looked serious. Even playing the most ridiculous game of Monopoly known to God or man. Even when he was having fun.
Corinne moved her top hat around the board. She answered more trivia questions. She was foiled by Mouse Trap. (It never worked, but imagine how fun it would be if it did.)
Their moms went to bed, and their brothers played video games, and Corinne found herself humming along with the Legend of Zelda theme song. When it wasn’t her turn, she lay back on the floor.
“Are you tired?” Enoch asked.
“No,” she said from the floor. “Is it my turn?”
“No, but I need you for my turn. It’s trivia.”
She sat up, groaning.
“Does your back hurt?” Enoch sounded like he might laugh.
“I’ve been sitting on the floor for three hours!”
Enoch laughed. With his lips pressed together. With only his eyebrows and his chest moving. Like he’d get a ticket if someone caught him enjoying himself.
He scooted over. “Come lean on the couch. And stop making fun of me.”
“Never,” Corinne said. She crawled to the other side of the table. She had to squeeze to get behind it. She was fatter than he was.
“Careful,” Enoch said, holding the table steady, so that the boards weren’t upset.
Corinne settled down next to him and leaned back against the couch. It was such a relief.
Enoch pressed his lips together, and his chest shook.
Now that they were sitting next to each other, the game boards seemed like a control panel. Like they were sitting next to each other in a cockpit. Enoch’s voice dropped even quieter, even deeper. So low. Like the sound of electricity running in a building. That hum you hear when you hold your breath.
Their game was still going at midnight. Corinne couldn’t even tell who was winning. The grandfather clock went off, and the other kids kept playing Nintendo—they’d keep playing until Enoch told them to stop. Corinne was also going to keep playing until Enoch told her to stop.
At twelve fifteen, he sighed. “Find a save point, Japh.”
Corinne looked at the table. “Should we call this a draw?”
“And start over next week?”
“If you want.”
“It took forever to set up…” Enoch was frowning down at it all. “Let’s just leave it, until next weekend.”
“What if your mom needs her coffee table back?”
“Nobody needs a coffee table.”
“It’s kind of a mess…”
“My mom won’t care. My dad was the one who needed everything to be perfect.”
“Oh, wow, do you remember—” Corinne shook her head. “You probably wouldn’t remember.”
“The Jell-O?” Enoch was already laughing. With his eyebrows. And his lungs.
“No one told me!”
It had happened ten years ago, one of the first times Corinne had been to the Millers’ house. They’d served Jell-O for dessert, and Corinne sat down on the couch with her bowl …
“How old were you?” Enoch asked.
“I was eight!”
Brother Miller saw Corinne sitting on the couch, and his kind face went cold. “Corinne,” he’d snapped, “we don’t eat Jell-O on the couch.”
“You just dropped it,” Enoch said, laughing with his cheeks and even a little bit with the corners of his mouth. “An entire bowl of Jell-O.”
“He told me I couldn’t have it on the couch!”
“I don’t think he meant for you to drop it.”
“I know, but I was scared!”
“And then you started to cry…”
“Don’t laugh at that,” Corinne said, elbowing him. “That part’s not funny.”
“The whole thing’s pretty funny now—it was pretty funny then, too. He was so mad at you … and then he felt so bad. He said you cried all the way home.”
“You remember him saying that? It was so long ago…”
“He told the story a lot. As a lesson in controlling your temper. And sometimes as a lesson in perfectionism. And perspective. What’s more important, keeping your new couch clean? Or making a new person feel welcome in God’s family?”
Corinne was still mortified, ten years later, just thinking about that night. “Well, I’m glad I could be instructional.”
“Don’t be offended—Dad always made himself out to be the bad guy.”
“He wasn’t the bad guy.” Corinne liked Enoch’s dad. “He was just a man with standards and a very deep, scary voice.”
Enoch nodded, agreeing. “He did have that. When I was really little, I thought he was the voice of Darth Vader.”
Corinne laughed. “Why would you think that? Were you even allowed to watch Star Wars?”
“No! I still haven’t seen it.”
Corinne laughed even harder.
“But I remember hearing my dad say that the person who played Darth Vader wasn’t the same person who voiced him. And my head kind of turned that into my dad being the one who voiced him.”
“You thought your dad was James Earl Jones? Didn’t you wonder why you weren’t allowed to watch the movie?”
“I was four.”
“When did you figure it out?”
“I don’t even know, eventually … Before I told anyone, thank the Lord.”
Corinne was still giggling.
Enoch tilted his head and looked over at her. “Have you seen Star Wars?”
She stopped giggling. Star Wars wasn’t officially against the rules. But it was broadly understood to be against the rules. If Corinne said she’d seen it, it would be a black mark on her reputation. A gray mark, at the very least. But lying was probably worse …
“Yeah,” she said. “All three movies. With my dad.”
“Were they good?”
“I mean, obviously,” Corinne said.
“Did they bother your conscience?”
That was the real question, that was the test. If something wasn’t explicitly bad and against the rules, you had to trust your conscience to guide you. But what if your conscience itself was bad? Corinne’s mom said that if you did sort-of bad things all the time, your conscience would acclimate. It would stop shouting at you to be careful.
So, if you watched Star Wars, and your conscience didn’t bother you, maybe that meant the movie was okay—or maybe that meant you were corrupted beyond reckoning. Maybe you didn’t feel any shame because you were shameless.
Star Wars didn’t make Corinne feel bad. It made her feel great. She loved it.
“There’s a lot of magic,” she said.
Enoch was back to frowning. He nodded. He carefully pushed the coffee table away from himself, so he could stand up.
Then he held out his hand to Corinne.
She wasn’t going to let him haul her up like a two-hundred-pound sack of potatoes. She got up on her own two feet.
“Save your game,” Enoch said to Japheth, “and don’t touch this stuff.”
Corinne took Shawn down to the basement while Enoch was still waiting for Japheth to shut down the Nintendo.
The next morning, when she walked through the kitchen to the side door, their game was still set up in the living room. And it was still there on Monday afternoon, when Corinne came home from school. It stayed there all week. And when Saturday night came around, they had their family Bible study with the game boards taking up space in the middle of the room.
Other things happened that week, but nothing worth talking about. Nothing new. Corinne went to school and to church. She slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. She ate lunch with two worldly girls who talked about songs Corinne didn’t know. Her mom got a call from her dad. (She took it in the basement, and Corinne and her siblings sat upstairs and had dinner with the Millers, so their mom could have some privacy. When she got off the phone, she looked like she’d been crying, and she stayed up late that night, talking to Bonnie.)
Other things happened that week and the next, and none of them mattered. Saturday nights were the only nights worth mentioning. Those were the only hours Corinne felt awake. Saturday nights with Enoch Miller across the table. And sometimes with Enoch Miller sitting next to her, leaning against the couch. Wearing aftershave he put on for somebody else. His voice like the noise the walls make when you’re lying in bed, listening.
“You guys are really having fun,” Corinne’s mom said one Saturday night. She’d wandered into the living room to check on them. Corinne and Enoch were deep into a new version of their game, even more complicated than the last one. They’d incorporated Simon and Battleship. “Maybe all of you kids should play this,” her mom said. “It looks a lot more interesting than those video games.”
Corinne and Enoch looked up at her blankly. Shawn looked ready to cry. Japheth ignored her.
“Maybe next week,” Corinne said. “We’d have to start over.”
Her mom watched them play for a few more minutes, and Corinne honestly couldn’t tell whether she was trying to give Corinne some sort of coded warning or whether she was trying to show a sincere interest. Every once in a while, her mom and Bonnie seemed to be deciding whether this was safe: the two of them, Corinne and Enoch, getting along so well. But hadn’t their mothers been telling them to get along for ten years? And weren’t they all family? And wasn’t this nice? Wasn’t it easier? It was nice, it was easy.
Don’t ruin this, Corinne wanted to say. It won’t last forever, and it’s all that I’ve got. And I know. I know, I know. Who I am. Who he is. The score.
Her mom lingered over them, smiling, weighing, trying to show a sincere interest. But the game was impenetrable to outsiders, and eventually she wandered away.