by Bryan Bliss
“She fell down,” Aaron says quickly. “While we were out.”
He glances at me and I hope he doesn’t think I’d betray him so easily.
“Yeah, I was running and I tripped,” I say. “It was stupid.”
Mom eyes the jeans and Dad smiles.
“It’s okay, Kat,” he says. “It’s just a pair of jeans. The world hasn’t stopped spinning.”
For a moment after he says it, nobody speaks or moves. Then Aaron stands up and goes to the back of the van. The only sound is his music, tinny and barely audible from his earbuds.
TWO
BROTHER JOHN NEVER SAID WE’D BE LIVING IN OUR CAR. Or that we’d hop from church to church looking for our next meal. That we’d be stuck in this city. He never said Aaron wouldn’t be able to sleep or that I’d come to dream of a shower. We came all this way and there are so many things that Brother John never said would happen.
Is this what having faith means?
I study Dad’s face as he leans over for Mom’s hand, and she reaches back for mine. Is he still sure that this is all a part of the plan? That we are going to be okay? He smiles at me and then looks to Aaron, who is still wearing his earbuds. Dad has to tell him to come up to the other captain’s chair and take my hand, to join the circle we’ve made. Even when we were kids, Aaron would roll his eyes and sigh loudly. He hated the long-winded church services. How the prayers always followed us home—before dinner, after our showers.
Once we’re all holding hands, Dad starts to pray. His deep voice resonates through the van. He asks for strength. For the ability to love others. Then he says, “Help us, Lord. Help us know what to do next.”
Aaron drops my hand.
He hasn’t bowed his head or closed his eyes. He isn’t even pretending today. Our eyes meet, just for a second, and I try to make him see that I don’t like this either. That I am scared and tired. I want him to know that when we walked out of that church last night, I was happy to feel the cold pavement on the ground below me. To look up and see the stars, still bright against the sky.
I finally close my eyes.
I want to tell God I’m sorry for being relieved, to believe that he can help Aaron, all of us. Instead, all I can say is please. Over and over again. The only prayer I can manage.
Despite the ice cream, my stomach aches with hunger, which makes letting the people pass in front of us that much harder. Still, I try to smile. I try to remember what Dad says—that they need it more than we do. And many of them look it. Sad and broken and bundled. I hope we don’t look the same way, but after a month of lining up outside of churches for every meal, we’re no different than the people we let pass in front of us. Dad just hasn’t realized it yet.
“Looks like lasagna,” Dad says, rubbing his hands together. He looks so happy, so grateful for whatever is underneath the steaming serving dishes. I try to imagine him the way he used to be, when school would break for the summer and he’d have us all to himself. How he always seemed to be on the verge of tears, but like it was a good thing. This is different somehow, a desperate joy. Cheap. Something you’d buy at a flea market.
“Damn. I was hoping for spaghetti,” Aaron says. “Again.”
Mom’s voice is strained and unnatural as she reminds him that God provides everything we need. That we should be happy with what we have. To watch his language. But nothing changes on his face and whatever momentary blast of energy was fueling Mom fades, leaving her seeming just as crumpled as she’s been the last twenty-four hours.
Dad doesn’t falter. He puts his arm around Aaron and whispers in his ear. I watch his lips move, see Aaron become a statue, as he says, louder, “Okay, buddy?”
Aaron gives him a stiff nod and I turn away, so I don’t see Aaron roll his eyes. Dismissing Dad so obviously and then both of them pretending it didn’t happen.
I don’t want to cry in front of all these people, so I look at the food. At the women who seem to serve us every meal, regardless of which church fellowship hall we’re in. All of them white haired and smiling.
Dad straightens up and says, for all of us to hear, “Is that garlic bread I smell?”
It isn’t. And all that’s left of the lasagna are the overcooked pieces on the edge of the pan. The stuff nobody really wants. But as the older woman hands me a plate and a set of silverware, I try to be thankful, even for this.
We eat at a table by ourselves, the only family. Single men and the occasional woman fill the others, all of them worn and smudged with dirt, eating with their faces close to their plates. Dad finishes first, inhaling the small piece of meatless lasagna like he hasn’t eaten in a week. Which might as well be true. Besides the pre-Christmas dinner one other church gave us last week—turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy—it’s been sandwiches and spaghetti and whatever is easiest to mass-produce. But Dad sits here the way he would when Grandma was still alive, acting like he couldn’t eat another bite if the world depended on it.
“That was good,” he says. “Really good.”
None of us answer, not even Mom. We stare at our plates as the room slowly begins to empty, everybody shuffling out of the small hall with a piece of fruit and a granola bar. Soon it will just be us. Dad will stand up and offer to help put the tables away. To show how grateful we are. The volunteers will laugh at his stories, the ones about him and Uncle Jake as kids. The stuff of home. The stuff I miss every single day.
When I was younger, Dad and Uncle Jake could make me believe anything. How they found a UFO in the backyard; how they caught a fish so big it dragged them underneath the lake. I held on to those stories longer than most kids would have, all of them better than any television show. And yet now, as Dad starts, all I want is for him to stop. For us to go back to the van and go to sleep. Because that’s normal now.
I hand Aaron a dish. Even standing beside me he’s rigid, a stranger. At home, he’d be leaning into me, trying to spray me with water. Snapping the towel at my legs, blowing bubbles into my face—whatever annoyed me most. That was his mission. Now he just stands and dries each dish like we’re both making minimum wage.
“I’m worried,” I say, so quiet that I barely recognize my voice. It’s been hours since I last spoke. “About you.”
He finishes drying the dish and stacks it on top of the rest.
“I’m fine,” he says, taking the next plate from me and using his sleeve to brush the hair out of his face. When I don’t pick up another plate to wash, he blows a long stream of air from his mouth.
“Be worried about them,” he says, nodding at Mom and Dad before going back to the dishes. Mom works quietly and alone, folding tablecloths as if she’s worried there won’t be enough to do. Dad’s slapping backs and picking up chairs.
“I am,” I say, but Aaron doesn’t say anything else, just grabs a dish and takes my job away from me. I watch him sink a plate in soapy water before saying, “Where are you going? At night.”
He pulls the plate from the water and rinses it without a word. When he starts to dry it, too, I begin to think he won’t answer. That I’ve somehow crossed a line that never existed between us before.
“Nowhere.”
I turn away from him and pick up a plate to wash. He is as stubborn as the day is long—that’s what Dad would say. When we were kids, I’d get so mad at him. It burned hot inside me whenever he acted this way. But not now. This anger doesn’t burn; it aches. And I don’t know what to do, or how to stop him, so I finish the plate and hand it to him without a word.
“I’m fine, Abs. I promise.”
“I would understand. You know I would.”
Even as the words come from my mouth, I’m not sure I believe them. I don’t understand, not a single bit. But I would try.
Before Aaron can answer, Dad walks into the kitchen and takes a long moment to watch us. When Aaron sees him, he starts scraping a burned piece of lasagna off one of the pans. Lately, when I’m awake before dawn and waiting for Aaron to come back from wherever he goes, I
worry I’ll forget who Dad was before any of us ever heard of Brother John, ever saw one of his billboards.
But it’s not just me. We all need to remember what it used to be like before we came to California.
“We’ve been invited to church here,” Dad says.
These seem to be the only words he knows anymore, and I look at the plates again, wondering what he’d do if I threw one across this kitchen—if I made a scene and refused to stop.
“So we’re not going to that other place?” Aaron never says Brother John’s name. He never looks Dad in the eye. Dad hesitates.
“Of course we’re still going to Brother John’s,” he says. “You know that.”
Aaron reaches across me and grabs the last plate, still covered in sauce, and dips it into the water. I wring out my washcloth, waiting for Dad to say something. To put his arm around Aaron’s shoulders and make it right—even if it means not going to church tonight. Or maybe Aaron will do something. Stop washing the dishes and actually tell Dad how angry he is. Throw a fit, curse—something. But neither of them says a thing. Aaron dries the last plate, and Dad turns to leave.
“Upstairs in fifteen minutes,” he says. “Okay, guys?”
And then he’s gone.
The service reminds me of home.
Nobody yells or gets out of their seat like they do when Brother John stands up to preach. Twin Christmas trees flank the altar at the front of the church, the glow of their lights making the otherwise dark room seem soft. And they sing Christmas carols I know—“O Holy Night,” “Joy to the World”—simultaneously making me warm inside and ache to see our house again.
I stare at the wooden cross, suspended high against the wall at the front of the sanctuary. At home, in this exact situation, I’d probably smile. I’d close my eyes and pray to God, saying thank you. Every single note of the organ would wash over me until I was lifted up in the assurance I’ve known my entire life. Now it’s like I’ve been disconnected. I don’t know what to say to God, to anyone. And as the final hymn ends and the pastor stands up in front of us all, I bow my head more out of habit than anything else.
“Friends, we have visitors here tonight who are facing hard times,” the pastor says. He’s a younger man with thinning hair and a dark beard. He smiles as he talks. “I’d like us to show them God’s love in a tangible way. Give what you can, because even the smallest amount can help.”
The pastor looks at us as he says this and Dad nods.
As soon as Aaron catches on, he stands up and walks down the middle aisle of the church, right through the large wooden doors that lead outside. They close loudly behind him. Mom touches me on the shoulder, as if I can somehow bring him back. As if I haven’t been trying.
After a few seconds she says, “Go make sure he’s okay.”
She squeezes my arm and moves her feet so I can escape the tight pew. As I walk up the aisle, I dodge the men and women passing the gold collection plates back and forth in the sanctuary. People drop change, dollar bills, into the plates and smile as I pass them. They know it’s for us. For me. I hurry up the aisle and out the door.
Aaron is leaning against one of the stone columns, staring into the sky. At first he doesn’t say anything. But then, without turning to me, he says, “Good thing we got that in. I hate to think what might happen if we missed a chance to hear about good old Hey-Zeus.”
Why can’t he just believe? Now more than ever. Or at least pretend. Even if it’s just for me. Because maybe if we both pretend for a few minutes, God will see we’re trying and do something. Maybe it will reconnect whatever’s been cut inside of me and I’ll go back to the way it used to be. Feeling God everywhere, in everything. I step closer and put my arms around him. It’s so cold.
We stand there together, not talking, as people begin to filter out of the service. Some look at us, and others hurry past. Like we might hit them up for more money now that we’re outside. When Mom comes up behind us, she can barely fit her arms around both of our bodies. But she still tries.
“I love you guys,” she says.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask.
“He’s thanking the pastor,” she says. “You two go get in the van. It’s freezing out here.”
Aaron walks away from us immediately. Behind Mom, Dad’s nodding as the pastor touches his shoulder. They both bow their heads. Mom turns my face to hers.
“Go get warm. Okay?”
I wrap myself in my quilt and try to stop shivering. Aaron flips the interior light switch on and off, cursing loudly when it won’t work.
“Nothing in this van works,” he says, kicking the seat.
“Aaron . . .”
“What? What could you possibly say to me right now?”
He’s right. I don’t have anything to say. At least nothing that will fix the light or make him happy. I wrap myself deeper in the quilt and watch leaves blow across the parking lot. Aaron gives up and sits down in the backseat, pulling his sleeping bag high above his shoulders.
“What do you think they’ll do with the money?” I ask.
Talking about the money embarrasses me, even though I know we need it.
“What do you think?”
“They’re not going to give it to him,” I say. “They can’t.”
Aaron laughs and then says, “Okay.”
I don’t know how Dad heard about Brother John, or why he sent that first check. But after he lost his job at the plant, I guess we were all looking for a sign—even if it came in the form of a billboard on the highway. Those first few months of listening to Brother John on the radio—of seeing his billboards pop up in our town—were confusing. We’d always gone to church, but this was different. I could see the excitement building inside Dad. The unpaid bills didn’t matter. Mom frantically pleading with the man from the city who’d come to turn off our water wasn’t a big deal. Our entire life took a backseat to this one thing.
So when they told us they’d sold the house and given the money to Brother John, that we were coming to San Francisco to have front row seats for the end of the world, I wasn’t surprised. I tried to understand.
Dad said it would be an adventure—following a crooked line across the map, seeing things we’d only seen in textbooks or on television. The Mississippi River, wide and violent. The sheer length of the middle of the country. And of course we stopped at every bigger-than-life ball of twine and wax museum the road had to offer. Like the other oddities were calling to us.
And then: mountains. Breaking the skyline like teeth. Soon, these gave way to the sort of sky that only felt possible in dreams. Wide and open, just waiting to carry us away. It made the world seem small, even when we stopped at the Grand Canyon and gazed from its lip. As we stood there Dad said, “Soon this will all be gone. Amazing.”
When we finally pulled into California, Dad was the only one who cheered. He made us take a family picture next to the sign on the highway, welcoming us from so far away. And when we drove into San Francisco for the first time, my chest felt like a fist.
Sometimes I think about what Dad used to tell us as kids, how having faith was like being in the ocean for too long. Sometimes you got out of the water and you were a half-mile down the beach from where you started. Only, we ended up in California. And after last night, I have no idea why we’re still here.
“Are you going out tonight?” I ask. Aaron doesn’t sit up. He doesn’t say anything at first. “I don’t know. Maybe . . . probably. Don’t worry about it, okay?”
I wait for him to say something else, but the only sound is the wind cutting through the van as if we aren’t really here. Cars pass on the street behind us, and I look up at the broken interior light. The thing really never did work when you needed it.
This van is a map of our childhood. Fights that always seemed like the end of everything between us. Trips to the grocery store. To Niagara Falls. How we’d laugh when Dad would call it a conversion van and Aaron would playfully mock him, saying something like, “It has mi
ni blinds! You know that’s high-class!”
Aaron turns over, nearly falling off the narrow backseat. He can’t be comfortable, not with the cold air stealing through the cracks of the broken back door, held together only by a bungee cord. I spent one shivering night back there before he claimed the captain chairs were too small, that he needed to stretch his legs. When we were kids, the backseat was always prime real estate, but now even his thick sleeping bag doesn’t make it warm.
“Why don’t you come sit up here?”
I can barely make out his face—the brown hair, the blue eyes. My dad in all his high school pictures. Aaron twists around in the seat, facing me.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
When Dad opens the door, Aaron turns back and pulls his sleeping bag over his shoulders. The rush of cold air makes me shiver again, but once Dad cranks the engine and the heat works its way through the van, my entire body relaxes. And even if it’s only temporary, I don’t care. It snakes around us, bringing comfort and relief. A moment of peace.
Dad adjusts his mirrors before turning his attention to a spot on the windshield. Mom comes and wraps a second quilt around me before settling into her own seat. As the van warms up, nobody says anything. The low hum of the radio and the slow hiss of the heat passing through the vents are the only sounds.
Mom clears her throat and turns around to face us. “Your father and I have decided that we won’t be going to Brother John’s tonight.”
I sit up and stare at her. She’s not like Dad, who spent our entire childhood trying to get us to believe any number of crazy things. You could always trust her to say what she meant, even when it might upset someone. She smiles and then turns to Dad, who looks skeptical.
“It’s a good night to get some rest,” Mom says. “Right, Dale?”
Dad hesitates, but eventually nods.
Streetlights fill the van in intermittent bursts as we loop around the block looking for a place to spend the night. A place where it’s free and there won’t be some train rattling past us every five minutes. Dad barely gets between two sports cars just before another car can poach the spot. And now we sit, fully aware of our lack of privacy—the inability for any of us to have a nighttime routine.