by Rachel Ford
I stood in the doorway for a minute, Jason at my heels. There were a lot of people here, more than I’d anticipated based on the number of vehicles. Which, in theory, should have been a good thing.
I’d covered my ass more than I knew at the time.
But they were all praying and singing. And sobbing. A huge mass of humanity, all gathered together to grieve my brother, and pray that his killer would be found.
I went on standing there. Jason elbowed me. “Are we going, bruh?”
I said nothing.
“You dragged me here. I thought you wanted to talk to Megan?”
I said nothing.
“Jesus, dude, either shit or get off the pot.”
I was no kind of saint, and this place was a little too weird for me. But that sounded sacrilegious even to my ears. I shot him a warning look. “You’re in a church.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just move.”
So I did. I took one step and then another. I walked down the aisle, past the plush pews. They weren’t wooden benches like old time churches, or even regular seats.
These were seating pods, with low backed sofas and angular, brightly colored upholstered benches. There were small pods, for one or two people, and giant pods for large groups. There was an open seating area full of theater-like recliners, and family pods with toyboxes and coloring books.
The people were clustered in the front of the chapel, some in pews and pods, and some in the aisle. But most were spread out on the great dais where the preacher and choir would gather during services. The preacher.
Andy.
Candles burned on the pulpit, and people spread all around it and the keyboard and drums. They spilled out under the light bar and ceiling microphones, where the choir and performer would sit.
The Church of the Faithful Savior didn’t have choir seating. Not unless one of the choir members actually needed it. That had been by design.
It’s the living word, Owen. It should make you feel alive. Not like you stepped into a mausoleum. It’s got to have energy. Life. I don’t want them sitting there yawning until we get to the music. I want them alive with the holy spirit, the song ready to burst out of them.
Song wasn’t bursting out of anyone today. It was slow and mournful, like some kind of ancient funeral wailing. There was no musical accompaniment aside from the cymbals. Some people hummed, a tune I didn’t recognize. A woman sang or prayed.
I wasn’t quite sure what she was doing. It sounded like both a song and a prayer, though what, exactly, she was praying for, I didn’t hear at first. She just said, over and over again, “Hear our prayer, O Lord. O Lord, o Lord: hear our prayer.”
Her voice was low and gravelly, and then clear and high. Like a soul, wracked with pain, reaching the depths of misery only to find a glimmer of hope.
“Hear us, O Lord. Hear the prayers of Megan, our widowed sister. Hear the prayers of Maisie, our little sister. The fatherless daughter. Hear the prayers of Daniel and Ben, our young brothers, now fatherless.
“Hear them, O Lord. Hear them. Hear them.”
I saw the singer, or prayer leader, or whatever she was. She held her hands raised heavenward. Her eyes were closed, and her head bowed. She had long blonde hair, and a tan that looked too deep to be natural this early in the year. She was somewhere in her late thirties or early forties, with a thin, athletic build and, from what I could see anyway, a pretty face. Her voice somehow didn’t match the rest of her. It seemed too soulful, too mature, to come from any kind of mortal human being.
Jason elbowed me again. “What are we doing, dude?”
I’d stopped walking, again. I was thinking of Andy, standing at that pulpit five days earlier. The day before he disappeared. Four days before they found his body. Five days before they contacted me, to tell me my brother was dead.
“Dude?”
I stood there, my eyes roving the crowd. My pulse raced and my breathing sounded loud and ragged. Part of me wanted to walk away. This wasn’t the time or place. And maybe I wasn’t the person anyway. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
The cops knew how to handle this kind of thing. That was their job, after all. Not mine. That was their specialty. Not mine.
Maybe being here was a mistake.
And then my eyes found Megan, and hers found me.
She stared at me for a long second, and I stared at her. She was the spitting image of Jason, but a little older and a lot prettier. And a lot sadder.
Three light-haired kids clustered around her: Maisie, the oldest; Daniel, the middle kid; and Ben, the youngest. Maisie looked like Andy. Daniel and Ben looked like their mom. They’d all been crying. Their eyes were red, and their expressions blank.
I knew that look. I’d seen it in Andy’s eyes after the drunk driving accident. I’d seen it in my own, every time I’d looked in the mirror. It was no kind of look a kid should have to wear.
She stood after a moment. The kids looked up, confused and surprised. She made her way through the mourners and past the woman with the ancient voice. She went on singing.
Megan stepped off the dais, and into the aisle. Her congregation parted for her, reaching out reassuring hands as she passed, or turning to see what had drawn her attention.
Then she was through the people, coming right for me. I stood there, trying to read her expression. Was she pissed? No. Clearly not. Was she…happy?
No, that’d be too much to hope for. Surprise, then. That’s what it had to be. And that was ambiguous. It could go either way for me.
She stopped about two feet away. “Owen,” she said.
“Megan,” I said. “I…heard there was a vigil. For Andy.”
She nodded and opened her mouth to speak. No words came out. Instead, she burst into tears, and flung herself forward, wrapping her arms around me.
Not an ideal outcome, certainly. But a lot better than it could have been.
She cried and I held her. People stared at us and some flocked our way, slowly and uncertainly. The woman with the voice went on singing. I felt absurdly like crying myself.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I said, a little gruffly.
She didn’t say anything for a long moment. She just squeezed me tighter. Then, sniffling, she stepped back and wiped her eyes. “I’m so glad you came, Owen. It’s so good to see you.”
Then she hugged her brother. “And you, Jason: thank you for coming. Thank you for bringing Owen.”
He offered a lopsided grin. “Course, Megan.”
Chapter Five
I stayed for the vigil. People swarmed me, drawing me onto the dais as they learned my relation to Pastor Andy. Strangers hugged me. The kids hugged me. Ben climbed into my lap. The woman with the voice went on singing and praying. Someone lit up more sage.
I guessed lung cancer wasn’t a concern for this crowd. If Jesus wouldn’t protect them from it, the crystals could always heal them.
I didn’t put much stock in crystals, though, so I wasn’t thrilled about inhaling that much smoke. But I shut my mouth and focused on being friendly and approachable. I didn’t want to sour an otherwise alright start.
And I got through it. The vigil was still running when Megan decided to leave a few hours later. Everyone understood, of course. She had dinner to make. The kids needed to get to bed.
The woman with the voice volunteered to drive them home, but I shook my head. “I can take you.”
Megan’s eyes watered, and she squeezed my arm. “Alright.”
We had to wake Jason. He’d fallen asleep in the back, on one of the plush pews. Then we piled into my SUV.
The kids looked numb. They were completely silent. Megan didn’t say anything either. Only Jason spoke. He wanted to know if we could stop for cheeseburgers.
I ignored him, and said to Megan, “How are you doing?”
She was in the passenger seat. She started and glanced over at me. “What?”
“Are you okay?”
She considered th
e question, then shook her head. “No.”
I nodded. Of course she wasn’t. It was a stupid question. “I’m sorry, Megan.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be alright again. I know I need to be, for the kids. But…”
“We’re going to find this guy.”
“That won’t bring Andy back.”
I said nothing.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.”
“We’ll figure it out, Megan.”
She studied me for a long moment, then nodded.
We rode the rest of the way in silence, except when we stopped for food. We chose a drive through, so the kids could get kids meals, and Jason could get a burger.
He got three of them, and a large fry and soda. The man was a walking storehouse of carcinogens. But he shrugged when I glanced back at him, following the order. “I haven’t eaten all day.”
I got nothing. I didn’t feel like eating. Megan got a chicken salad, but she left it in the bag while she passed out everyone else’s food.
The kids talked a little now. Ben didn’t like fries, apparently. He hadn’t had a problem with it the last time I’d seen him, but that had been months ago. Andy, the kids and I had met at a different fast-food place, where the kids could crawl through a playpen after eating. He’d eaten his fries then.
He threw them at Daniel now. Daniel told him to stop, and then appealed to his mother. Megan intervened, warning Ben, “Don’t pick on Dan.” She must have seen some mischievous look in her youngest son’s expression, because she added, “Or Maisie. Just eat your food and be good.”
Ben took another bite, and declared again, loudly, that he hated fries.
“I’ll take ‘em,” Jason volunteered.
This seemed to settle things, until Ben worked his way through the chicken nuggets and declared himself still hungry. Now, he wanted some of Maisie’s orange slices. Maisie didn’t want to share.
“Give your brother one,” Megan said.
“I want more than one,” the boy said.
“Then I’m going to be hungry,” the girl said. “It’s not my fault he got fries.”
“Maisie just do it,” her mother snapped.
“I want more than one,” Ben repeated.
“Give him two.”
Maisie scowled. “Why doesn’t Dan have to share too? Why is it always me?”
“We’ll go somewhere else,” I said. “We’ll get you something else, Maisie.”
“She doesn’t need something else,” Megan said. “There’s plenty of calories in that meal for her.”
“Not if she’s sharing with Ben.”
She threw me a sideways glance, then sighed. “Fine. Whatever.”
Maisie handed over two orange slices, and Ben sucked on them triumphantly for a while. Then, he decided they were too tart. He dropped one slice with a wet, squelching sound on the carpet.
“Hey,” I said, “don’t do that. Not on the floor.”
He dropped the other and smiled at me in the mirror.
I said nothing more. Megan said, “We’ll pick it up when we get home.”
Maisie said, “I wouldn’t have dropped it on your car, Uncle Owen.”
I loved my nieces and nephews. But there was a reason I didn’t spend a lot of time around them.
We found another drive through, this one with a heavier emphasis on ice cream and chicken than burgers. Maisie wanted a chocolate milkshake and chicken strips. Megan said she didn’t need both: she could pick one or the other. She picked chicken strips.
Daniel got another meal, with chicken and fries and a strawberry milkshake. Ben got nuggets again, and fries.
“You don’t like fries,” his mom reminded him.
He insisted that he did – he liked these fries. So Ben got a chocolate milk, fries and nuggets.
Megan got nothing. Jason had been slowing steadily as he worked his way through the burgers, so I figured he’d pass too.
I was wrong. He got a large chocolate shake and a large chocolate raspberry sundae. How he would manage to cram that much ice cream into himself, I didn’t know. But I forked over my card and ferried the food back to everyone.
Then, finally, we were on our way home, and all seemed to be going well. The kids were busy eating instead of arguing. I saw Jason move in my rearview mirror, ever so casually. He slipped the chocolate milkshake to Maisie with a wink and a finger to his lips. Then he went on slurping down his own.
Then Ben got to his fries. It turned out he didn’t like these fries after all. They were gross. He wanted more chicken. He reached for Daniel’s food, but his brother clearly knew what to expect. He slid it out of Ben’s reach.
Ben started to cry.
“Give him a piece, Dan,” Megan urged.
Dan refused. He was hungry. “Maisie can give him a piece. She’s fat anyway.”
“Hey,” I said, “you don’t talk about your sister like that, Daniel.”
Megan glanced at me, a little surprised. But she didn’t argue. Which was good because I was probably out of line. She was the parent, not me. It was her job to correct them, not mine.
“Uncle Owen’s right,” she said. “You shouldn’t say things like that to Maisie.”
“I’m hungry,” Ben said, squeezing French fries in his fist. Bits of soft potato oozed out between his fingers. He hit the sides of his seat, and little flecks of potato flew this way and that, and large pieces dropped, wet and heavy on the carpet.
Megan sighed in frustration. “Maisie, just give him one piece. You don’t need all of them.”
The girl had eaten one and a half of three chicken strips. She glared at her mother. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re fat,” Ben said.
“He’s a growing boy,” Megan said, apparently missing the jibe. “Give him one.”
Maisie stared daggers at her mother. Ben screamed, “I’m hungry.”
I watched the scene with one eye in the rearview mirror, keeping the other on the road. I wondered where that commentary about Maisie’s weight had come from. It seemed strange that both brothers would repeat it, and stranger still that Megan wouldn’t notice.
“I’m hungry,” the youngest cried again.
“It’s mine,” the eldest said.
“Just do it, Maisie,” their mother said. “You don’t need all that fried food.”
Maisie reached for the box of food. Ben made an oinking noise. Megan said nothing.
The girl’s expression hardened. She picked the chicken strip up, like she was going to hand it to her brother. Then she crammed it into her mouth, biting off one end and flipping it around to bite off the other.
Ben screamed. Jason snorted out half of a laugh before catching himself. Megan’s eyes flashed. “We’re going to have a long talk when we get home, Maisie Ryder Welch.”
Maisie went on eating her chicken, defiance written on her face. Ben went on screaming that he was hungry, and that Maisie was fat. “You let Piggy eat my food,” he accused his mother, kicking the back of her seat.
I glanced at Megan. She caught my eye. “I told you, Ben: don’t talk like that. And don’t kick your uncle’s car.”
This only prompted more furious activity from him. He kicked as rapidly as he could, repeating that he was still hungry.
Megan tried to reason and cajole him. Finally, she blurted out, “Benjamin Josiah, you kick that chair one more time, and you’ll lose videogame privileges for a week.”
He kicked again, and she told him that he wouldn’t touch his games for a week. He kicked and screamed harder and louder.
Daniel told him to shut up, which earned him a warning about unacceptable language. “We don’t say that to each other. You know that.”
The boy rolled his eyes, and switched to, “Be quiet.”
Ben was not quiet. If anything, he got even louder. By now, mercifully, we were just a few blocks from the house.
We rolled toward the driveway. Ben rocked and pulled against his restraints. The ve
hicle swayed and dipped.
I was thinking that this had been a horrible mistake. There had to be better ways to find what I needed than enduring this.
Megan was rubbing her temples. “I’m sorry, Owen. They’re usually not like this.”
Maisie snorted. “Yeah right.”
Her mother looked like she was about to say something in response – something harsh – when I slowed suddenly. There should have been three vehicles in Megan’s driveway: the his and hers Subarus and the old pickup.
My headlights were reflecting off of four roofs in the drive, and a few parked on either side. She glanced at me questioningly.
“Are you expecting visitors? From your church, maybe?”
She shook her head and followed my gaze back toward the house. She blinked. The kids went on screaming, and she had to raise her voice to be heard over them. “I have no idea who they are. Maybe it’s the cops?”
I didn’t think it was the cops. Unless they’d come to make an arrest, I figured they would give the family a head’s up that they were on their way. And even though I couldn’t make out much of the vehicles, I didn’t see any of the reflective lettering or hazard strips cop cars usually had.
But I nodded anyway, pulling over in front of a neighbor’s drive. I handed Megan the wireless key. “I’ll check it out. I’ll wave you over if it’s safe. If it’s not, get yourself and the kids out of here. Okay?”
“Safe? What do you mean?”
There was a touch of fear in her voice. Almost panic. “Probably nothing,” I said, and tried to be as reassuring as I could. “It probably is the cops. But I just want to check it out first, okay?”
She nodded, looking a little ashen in the dim glow of the dashboard screens and gauges. “Alright.”
“So you take the wheel as soon as I’m out. And if everything’s good, you drive up. If not, you keep going, or you swing back around. Okay?”
She nodded again, the same ashen look on her face. “Okay.”
I killed the lights, unfastened my seatbelt and waited for her to do the same. She stared blankly for a moment, so I prompted, “Be ready to take my seat as soon as I get out. Just in case.”