This Side of Salvation

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “You’re obviously doing something right,” I told her. “But I don’t have a clue about diet.” This wasn’t strictly true. I knew what athletes should avoid: junk food, caffeine, and alcohol; and I knew to carbo-load before a game.

  “Then I’ll help you.”

  Yes! An excuse to talk to her over the summer. “You’ll cook for me?”

  “No, but I’ll give you recipes so you can cook for yourself.” She watched my hand as I erased the “arc” from “arcsin” on the board with my little finger. “On one condition: You have to invite me over for dinner with your family when you do.”

  My elation dimmed. “That’s a bad idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Peace be to you!” came a shout from behind us.

  I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the whiteboard in shame. “That’s why.”

  “Hi, Mr. Cooper.” Francis smiled at my father, who was coming down the stairs at the far end of the living room. “How’s it going?”

  Dad grinned. “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.” He walked past them, a spring in his step.

  Brooke and Tori grimaced across the coffee table at each other. Austin raised his eyebrows and turned back to the notebook in his lap. Even Francis’s smile faltered, and he’d been immersed in Bible-olatry his whole life.

  Mara jumped up from her seat at the end of the sofa. “Dad, can I bring you a snack or a drink from the kitchen?” She took his arm and turned him back toward the stairs. “That way you don’t have to listen to our boring math talk.”

  Dad shook his head. “I have all things, and abound.” He broke away from her and went to one of the living room’s built-in bookshelves.

  Mara gave me a pleading look. I held out my hand palm down, using the “Chill out” signal Kane sent me from behind the plate when my pitching rhythm was too fast. The less we engaged our father, the sooner he’d get bored and go away. I hoped, anyway.

  Then Dad spotted Bailey standing next to me. He smiled and said, “For the lips of a strange woman drips honey. Her mouth is smoother than oil.”

  I wanted to die. At least he’d substituted “strange” for “loose,” which was the version I’d always heard. Thank you, Jesus, for small mercies.

  Bailey didn’t get the context. She just smiled back. I dropped the marker on the whiteboard tray and retreated to the kitchen, where she quickly followed me.

  “I’m sorry.” I took an apple from the fruit basket on the counter and went to wash it—urgently, as if hunger, not embarrassment, had driven me in here.

  “Don’t be sorry. He seems sweet.”

  “He’s not.” I shook the water off the apple and wondered if I should tell Bailey what my father had been saying about her. “I mean, he can be. But the Bible talk gets old after the first hundred conversations.”

  “He does it all the time?” Without me having to ask, she tore off a paper towel and handed it over. “How long’s he been like this?”

  I waited a moment, until I heard Dad go upstairs again, leaving Mara and my classmates with another Peace be with you!

  “About a month,” I told her. “We’ve tried everything to stop him: giving him weird looks, asking questions that should be impossible to answer with Scripture—”

  “Like what?”

  “ ‘What’s for dinner?’ or ‘Think it’ll rain today?’ or ‘Hey, how about that Phillies bullpen?’ ”

  “He has quotes about dinner and rain and baseball?”

  “There’s a lot of food and weather in the Bible.” I dried the apple and set it on the cutting board. “If he can’t answer, he just gestures or stays quiet.”

  “Have you asked him to talk to a counselor?”

  “Yeah, we’ve asked. Begged, even.”

  “What does he say?”

  “Not much.” I yanked a knife from the wood block. “Mostly he breaks things. So we stopped suggesting that. We’ve adapted, learned to speak his language—or hear it, at least. Or better yet, avoid him.” I started slicing the apple, trying not to wield the knife with hostility. “It sounds sick, but you do what you have to, to keep going.”

  “It’s normal.” Bailey leaned her elbows on the counter, her hair tumbling forward over her shoulders. “My granddad’s an alcoholic. He lived with us for a year, after Grandmom died and before he went into the nursing home. He could be really fun and loving one minute, and then the next minute he’d be volcanically pissed off over nothing.”

  “Dad used to drink a lot, back before he found Jesus. I don’t know if he was an alcoholic—is, was, whatever.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Sometimes I think he’s just given up one drug for another.”

  Her face softened. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Being right doesn’t make it easier.” With the back of the knife, I pushed half the apple slices toward her.

  “I love my grandfather, and I feel sorry for him, but I was glad when he left. Some people are just hard to live with.” Bailey came to stand next to me, close, before taking an apple slice. “But we find a way, right? It’s like when software has an unfixable bug. We come up with work-arounds.”

  That was exactly it. I wanted to thank Bailey for understanding but couldn’t get the words out. I hated the thought of anyone yelling at her the way Dad yelled at us. I wanted to go back in time, stand in front of her drunk grandfather, and shield Bailey from all the angry words flung her way.

  “You’ve got red on your head.” Bailey reached up and brushed her thumb above my eyebrow. “Whiteboard marker.”

  I froze under her brief caress. “Is it gone?”

  “No. It’ll come off when you shower. I mean, when you wash your face. I mean, that might be in the shower or it might, um, not.” Bailey Brynn, Queen of Self-Confidence, was blushing. She scooped up a handful of apple slices. “I’m gonna go do math now.” She spun away, face hidden by her waves of hair.

  “Wait.”

  As she stopped and turned, I realized I didn’t know what I was going to say, just that I didn’t want this conversation to end. My gaze dropped below her skin-tight pink capris to her matching flip-flops, which each had a little black-winged skull on the toe strap.

  “Your tattoo. What kind of bird is that?”

  “They’re Galapagos finches.” She twisted her left leg to show me the back of her lower calf, where a pair of delicate gray-and-black birds perched on a twig. “In honor of Darwin, not to mention Atticus. Two of my heroes.”

  “Atticus?”

  “Finch. From To Kill a Mockingbird.”

  “Oh. Right.” Mara had a copy of that book. I vowed to read it that night, despite the trig final. “It’s very cool.”

  Her smile did me in.

  When she was out of sight, I rubbed my forehead where she’d touched me, wishing I could stamp the imprint of her finger onto my skin.

  CHAPTER 7

  NOW

  What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Mara is peering over my shoulder at Mom’s computer, where Sophia’s website shows nothing but the phrase “like a thief in the night.” The preacher who brought the Rush into our lives used to be featured front and center on her own home page, looking radiant, spirit filled—and, some may say, kind of hot.

  “The quote’s from First Thessalonians,” I tell her, “from the chapter that supposedly warns about the Rapture. ‘The day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.’ ” I scroll up and down the page but find no further hints. “But ‘thief in the night’ means a surprise. It means Jesus could come back any time, any day.”

  “In other words, not specifically May eleventh at three a.m. so everyone could put it in their day planners.”

  “Exactly. It’s strange that Sophia would show the one piece of Scripture that contradicts her entire message.”

  “Speaking of Sophia.” Mara grabs the remote control from Mom’s nightstand, switches on the wall-mounted TV, and tunes to one of the cable news channels. “When that last Rapture preac
her predicted the wrong date a few years ago, they had reporters at his house. Maybe they did the same for Sophia. She’s gotten pretty famous.”

  The news broadcast is giving an update on the latest forest fire in New Mexico. I turn back to Mom’s laptop, clicking link after link on Sophia’s website. They all show the same message, “. . . like a thief in the night . . .” Creepy.

  Mara gives a little gasp. “Yes! Flyers beat the Rangers four games to three. Conference finals, baby!”

  I watch last night’s playoff scores and stats on the scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen. The hockey news feels oddly significant. For weeks, I joked to myself that I might not be around to see the Stanley Cup Final next month, that there might not even be a Stanley Cup Final, due to the Tribulation, the prophesied post-Rapture chaos.

  In the last forty days, Mom and Dad made me read books and watch movies about the Rapture until I could recite the coming plagues and disasters and battles in my sleep. My imagination was jam-packed with predictions of horror and despair, predictions I was told to welcome because I’d be saved. Did I pretend there was no tomorrow to the point that I convinced myself?

  I have a tomorrow, I remind myself, one that’s fresh and blank, like a shaken Etch A Sketch. No matter where my parents are, I’m here, with a life to put back together.

  On TV, the forest fire story wraps up, and the anchor lady puts on a wry smile. “If you’ve been following the story of the latest Rapture craze, aka the Rush, you know that it was calculated to occur just over an hour ago. We’ve got a correspondent outside the home of the Rush prophet herself, Sophia Visser. We’re hoping she’ll make a statement.”

  The broadcast switches to the correspondent, a young African American guy in a shirt and tie. Mara hits record on the DVR remote. Smart.

  “It’s a dark and silent night here at Sophia Visser’s residence,” the correspondent says, eyes crinkling at his Christmas-carol joke. “We’ve had no sign of her—or anyone, for that matter. There’s a car in the garage, a white Camry that’s on record as belonging to Visser, but phone calls and e-mails are going unanswered.”

  The camera pans across the front of the house, where no lights shine inside. The only signs of life are the handful of bored-looking reporters milling near the front door.

  “You may recall that in May 2011, the last Rapture preacher, Harold Camping, made a statement claiming that he had miscalculated the event’s date. We’re expecting Visser to have a similar excuse.” The correspondent glanced at the house. “Assuming she ever shows.”

  I guess the media expected Sophia to publicly admit she was wrong. Or maybe they hoped the Rush would go full-on Hollywood, with Jesus zooming down on a turbo-powered cloud, whisking the cheering chosen ones into the sky.

  The reporters weren’t expecting this nothing in between. Neither was I.

  Mara sinks onto the edge of the bed beside me, avoiding the space where our mother’s legs would be. “You think Mom and Dad and the rest of Sophia’s people are gone?”

  “Gone as in . . .”

  “Like they just all took off.”

  “Took off as in . . .”

  “Ran away,” she says with irritation. “I don’t mean literally took off, like, flew into the sky.”

  “The Rushers might be hiding in Sophia’s house.”

  “They’d have to come out eventually.”

  “Maybe there’s a tunnel.”

  “To where?” she snaps, then rubs her temple. “Ugh, is it possible to have a hangover without ever going to sleep?”

  “You’re asking the wrong guy.”

  “Yes, because for once you are the B-E-T-T-E-R child. Congratulations.”

  “I may not have gotten drunk, but I did sneak out. If I hadn’t—” I cut myself off.

  “If you’d been here, what do you think would’ve happened? You think they would’ve taken you without me?”

  “If they’d leave both of us, why wouldn’t they leave one of us?”

  The news network goes to commercial again. Mara switches to a different station, but it’s the same there: a brief mention of the Rush, only to say there was a total lack of event.

  A terrible thought worms into my brain. “Mara, if Sophia and the Rushers never turn up, what if people start believing she was right?”

  “We can’t let that happen.” She takes off her glasses and cleans them with the tail of her Penn State pajama shirt. “We have to prove Sophia’s followers weren’t really Raptured.”

  “Maybe some of them aren’t with her. Can we call them?”

  “We don’t even know who they are. We weren’t allowed to meet them.”

  “I bet their numbers are in Dad’s phone.” My voice fades on the last word, thinking of the BlackBerry-size dent in the living room wall. “Oh.”

  “Way to go, David,” she says. “Like father, like son.”

  I want to tell her to shut up, but she’s right: I lost my temper and broke something.

  “I’m sorry.” Mara runs her hands through her hair. “Let’s think for a second. Ow.” She starts yanking out little metal pins from her hairdo. “Dad left his phone here, but Mom didn’t.”

  “That we know of.”

  “Which one was more likely to do what Sophia told them to do?”

  “Dad.”

  “Right. That means Mom smuggled her phone with her.”

  “So she’s the one we want to get to.”

  “The weak link, the semi-sane one.” Mara dumps the handful of hairpins on the nightstand and picks up her phone. “But she won’t be able to recharge her cell without Dad seeing, so we don’t have much time.”

  “What are you going to tell her?”

  “The truth: that we need her.” She gives me a sly look. “Also, Happy Mother’s Day.”

  I grimace. “B-E-T-T-E-R child strikes again.”

  Mara sends Mom a long text, then lets her hands drop to her sides. “There. Now we’ll see—”

  My phone rings. I grab it from my sweatpants pocket. Maybe it’s Mom replying already, though I wasn’t the one who sent the message.

  Even better. “It’s Bailey.” My breath rushes out in relief.

  “Don’t tell her Mom and Dad are gone.”

  I shake my head as I answer the call. “Hey. Where are you?”

  “At home. Did I wake you?” Bailey speaks in a hushed tone.

  “No, I went to bed but I was too wired after the raid to sleep, so I got up to watch TV.” All these words pour out in three seconds.

  “Yeah, you sound wired. Sorry I was gone when you woke up at the party.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I had to talk to Stephen about something. Then I got chilly, so I went into the house to change out of my bathing suit. Then the cops were all over the place and wouldn’t let me go outside.”

  Mara gets up suddenly, as if she’s just remembered something, and jogs down the hall to her room.

  “So what happened at the party?” I ask Bailey. “Anyone get busted?”

  “A few. I think the Rices are going to be fined for letting minors drink at their house. They claimed they didn’t know.”

  Bailey keeps talking, about legal loopholes and liability issues, but the surreality of the conversation is fuzzing up my brain. I can’t decide which makes me more nervous, discussing our relationship or keeping my parents’ disappearance a secret.

  “David?” she prompts. “Are you okay? Are you in trouble for sneaking out?”

  “I was worried about you and freaked by the cops.” This is the truth. “I want to see you tonight. Today, I mean.” This is also the truth.

  “Me too. I’ll come over there for a change.”

  “No! Um, it’s not a good time here. What with the Rush and all. Heh.”

  “Oh, right.” Her voice takes on a bitter edge. “I guess your parents are pissed the world is still puttering along as usual.”

  “It’s complicated. Let’s go to the movies.”

  “I don’t
think there’s anything I haven’t seen that isn’t rated R.”

  “That’s not so much an issue anymore.”

  “Your parents changed their minds?”

  Mara is coming back down the hall, so I keep my words vague. “It’s not an issue anymore,” I repeat, hoping Bailey will interpret that as a yes.

  “I’ll check the listings and text you later,” she says. “Right now I need sleep.”

  “Me too.” I watch Mara pass the doorway and walk downstairs with a bulging backpack. Is she doing homework at this hour? Seems extreme even for her.

  “David”—Bailey hesitates—“about your message?”

  “Yeah?” I barely remember it now. Did I give away too much in my panic?

  “I love you, too,” she says. “I never stopped.”

  My brain melts a little. For a moment I forget Sophia, my parents, and my Etch A Sketch future, and just bask in the brief, bright, foreign light of hope.

  CHAPTER 8

  ROUGHLY ELEVEN MONTHS BEFORE THE RUSH

  Just as the high school baseball season ended, community-league play began. When I was in middle school, my parents would send me to expensive “travel league” camps and tournaments so I could get maximum experience against the best players. That stopped the summer before my freshman year, when Dad declared the Sabbath sacred. No Sunday baseball meant no camps or tournaments, so it was community league or nothing.

  I missed the challenge of travel-league play, but not the pressure. Besides, giving one day a week back to God didn’t seem too much to ask.

  My local league team featured most of the same players as the Middle Merion High team. We had the same coach and mascot, making for a mostly seamless transition from spring to summer.

  Our opening game took place on a brutally hot June day, the first Saturday after school had finished for the year. I felt sorry for Kane, saddled with a heavy chest protector, shin guards, and catcher’s mask on top of his uniform. But I wouldn’t have traded him for anyone, not even legendary Phillies catcher Tim McCarver. Kane knew me better than I knew myself, which is what a pitcher needs in a catcher: someone to calm him down when he’s wound too tight, or fire him up when he’s discouraged.