Lay It on My Heart

by Angela Pneuman

  The rain blows across the road in sheets. Even the inside of my ears are wet now, and I’m not warm anymore. Titus could be anywhere. He could be up a tree, and there are hundreds of trees. I call for him a couple more times, then turn in the other direction, back past the trailer-cabin and downriver, calling and looking, looking and calling, until I reach the base of the bridge. The concrete foot is twice as tall as I am, bigger than the whole trailer-cabin. Underneath my palms, its surface is cool and rough. I feel, more than I have ever felt the presence of God, the presence of this bridge, running through every distant point of it like a current, then right down my spine. It’s not hard to understand why people are drawn to it, why they might even want to jump. It’s not hard to imagine how, for the second before you let go, you could feel like you were one with the bridge and nothing bad would happen. I close my eyes and whisper Inhabit me, O Lord God over and over, but it feels like I am talking to the bridge instead.

  Back in the trailer-cabin I peel off my wet clothes and slip into my nightgown. The rain beats hard against the tin roof. It has soaked through the towel under the window I’ve left open for Titus. Phoebe has taped up our “house rules” onto the tiny refrigerator door, and the edges of the paper are curling away from the wall.

  I’ve forgotten all about the envelope from Seth’s closet. It’s right where I left it, inside my wooden box, and when I lift the flap, a short stack of pictures spills out. I’m thinking maybe they’ll be naked pictures, but I can’t even make out anything in the first one. There’s red and brown and black, and some stringy things, and where the flash hits it, it shines like something wet. The next picture is of the same thing, only from farther away. Now you can see it’s on pavement somewhere, and the black stuff might be oil. But it’s not oil, it’s blood. With shreds of red cloth mixed in. The next picture is from even farther back, so you can see, below the mess, a pair of legs in jeans, lying sideways on the pavement. The cloth is part of a shirt. It’s a person. Now, where the face should be, I see upper teeth. A closed eye. There is no lower jaw anymore at all, and I don’t know how I didn’t see the eye and teeth first thing, because there they are in the first picture, the close-up, when I look again.

  Besides a deer, once, the only dead thing I’ve ever seen is a mouse Titus brought me. The mouse looked like a tiny gray shoe, and the possibility that it might recover and begin moving made it seem extra still. The picture wouldn’t be so bad if you couldn’t tell the thing had been a person, but you can. And now I see something else in the picture, on the pavement near a black boot, and I’m leaning with my nose close to the photograph when I figure out it’s a torn-off thumb, and I barely make it to the sink before I throw up.

  The last photo is the naked one. It’s a very pale body, a woman’s, with the trunk cut open all the way down to her privates. The skin is peeled back from the middle, and the ribs are gone, and all the organs show, nestled in with each other like blind, sleeping creatures. You can’t tell how old she was or how she died. Her arms and hands lie at her sides, and her legs have rotated outward just a little, and the privates are so close to the camera that you can see them right through the dark curly hair.

  But what gets to me, what I am lingering over when Phoebe pulls in, are the breasts. They’re still attached to the skin of the woman’s chest, only the skin is stretched inside out, parted to either side of her body. The breasts are all turned around, on the underside of the skin now. I stuff the photos back into the envelope, and the envelope into the butt purse. But it’s as if I’ve taken the dead woman into my eyes and now I can’t not see her. It’s as if, also, the heavy ache in my own breasts is connected somehow to hers—slumped out of shape onto the shoulders, half underneath the inside-out skin. Nipples pointing away from the body in opposite directions, as if ashamed to watch the excavation below.

  All day it rains. Even though September is usually the driest month. After a brief, near-silent lunch, Phoebe returns to the loft to sleep. I look for Titus again, in all the same places. I try to pray, forget, try, forget, try. In the trailer-cabin, with Phoebe still sleeping, I think about starting homework and end up rereading A Wrinkle in Time right through to the end, again, where everyone gets back home before dinner, even though they’ve passed through black holes to other planets, other solar systems, maybe. Phoebe keeps sleeping. For dinner I drink two of my father’s cans of tomato juice and listen to the river, which sounds faster. And closer. Before dark I head out one more time and am alarmed to see the water lapping high, our dock rocking violently, pulling the ropes taut. Before the rain, only the lowest tree branches skimmed the water, but now whole limbs dip below the surface, battered by the current.

  Back in the cabin I wake Phoebe and tell her the river’s rising. She yawns, scoots to the edge of the loft, then leans her head toward the window. “How far is it up the bank?” she wants to know, and I tell her I’m not sure. Maybe a couple of feet. She climbs down from the loft and heads outside, barefoot, with the flashlight. She grew up not far from the Cumberland River in Tennessee, which was a lot bigger than this one, she likes to say. From the window I watch the light move dimly through the rain, stop at the top of the bank, then return. “If it hits the top of the bank, we should probably head out of the gorge,” she says as she dries off. “But I don’t think the rain’s going to keep up this way.”

  “I’m not leaving without Titus,” I say.

  “Titus probably knows more about the water rising than we do,” she says. “From smell or something. Let’s not borrow trouble. I’m wiped out, Charmaine. I don’t mean to sleep all day, but I don’t know when I’ve felt so tired.” She climbs back up into the loft. “I’ll check again in an hour or so.”

  But she doesn’t check again. I do. I stay up past midnight, listening to the rain, taking the flashlight back and forth across the lawn. The rain is quieter outside than in the cabin, pattering gently on the leaves instead of drumming the roof. I can still hear the river rushing, but no matter how many times I shine the light toward the water, it illuminates nothing but rain. The ropes holding the dock groan terribly. Finally, the batteries in the flashlight die, and I have to pick my way back to the cabin in the wet pitch dark.

  I mean to stay up for the rest of the night in case it floods. Instead, I wake late in the morning, when everything’s quiet and the light is gray. No rain. I cross the wet lawn to find the river a little lower, showing new broken tree limbs at the edge. It takes me a second to realize that what’s missing is our dock, its ropes snapped and frayed, lying flat in the sodden grass.

  “We could track it down,” Phoebe says when I tell her what’s happened, “or we could just let it go.”

  “If we found it,” I say, “how would we get it back here?”

  “Exactly,” she says. She measures out instant coffee into her mug. It’s Sunday again. Our third at the river. And it’s the week I would have joined the church and maybe even been baptized if the Holy Ghost had made it clear to me that the time was right, which he hasn’t. “We could go back to church,” Phoebe says, “or we could take a true day of rest, like the Bible says.”

  “You rested yesterday,” I say.

  “That’s true,” she says. “I’ll take you if you want to go. I’ll pull myself together.”

  I picture Seth standing up front, answering all the church-joining questions. Mary-Kate and Karen too, and the blond seminary wife, all waiting for their new Bibles. “That’s okay.”

  “I’ll take you to the youth meeting later, then,” she says. “And we’ll see your father tomorrow night, Lord willing. Don’t forget.”

  “I know,” I say. “I won’t.”

  I don’t want to leave the pictures where Phoebe can find them, so that night I carry the butt purse to the Upper Room. The pictures, riding near my hip, feel like a secret world of their own. The mangled body on the side of the road. The woman split open. I take my place directly across from Seth in what’s about to become a foot-washing circle. Every time I sneak a
glance at him, the light hits his glasses as if he’s moved suddenly, as if he doesn’t want to be caught watching me back.

  We’re all in chairs tonight, beanbags piled uselessly against the wall. At Pastor Chick’s instruction, we bend over to take off our shoes and socks. Foot washing is a ceremony of forgiveness, so that if there’s any conflict among us, we can clear it up before Operation Outreach swings into full gear. Pastor Chick and Conley have filled a small collection of buckets in the men’s room, and they stand over them, waiting, until we are all completely barefoot. Then we wait some more.

  “Who will be first?” asks Pastor Chick. “Who will lead the way with their humble heart?”

  We stare at the buckets, too embarrassed to look at each other. Our socks and shoes sit in sad little piles beside us. No one wants to wash feet.

  “How can we accomplish Operation Outreach if we are not a unified body?” asks Pastor Chick. “If we are not willing to wash the feet of our brothers and sisters in Christ? Anyone remember John thirteen?”

  I know John 13. Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. I know he says, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” But I keep my mouth closed.

  “Maybe we’re ready to bring people into this body just as it is. No purification, no cleansing, required. That would be truly remarkable, people. But if we’re all that pure, to a person, then this room should already be giving the Great Revival of 1973 a run for its money. I can’t see into your hearts, people. I’ll just have to trust that no one’s feeling too manly to wash feet. That none of our godly ladies feel it’s too gross to wash feet. I can only speak for my own heart, and this heart of mine is holding a resentment. Sometimes, brother Conley, I resent your God-given musical ability.”

  Now that we all have somewhere to look, we look at Conley as he stands up. His eyes shift from Pastor Chick to the buckets, to the silent room, and back to Pastor Chick, who kneels, now, in front of Conley’s toes. Which are enormous.

  “Maybe I should sit down,” says Conley, and he sits down again, the folding chair creaking underneath him.

  I did not believe the Upper Room could get any quieter, but it does. It’s like we’re all holding our breath.

  Pastor Chick holds out his hand, and Conley plants a heel, large as an apple, in the palm. “See, people? This isn’t so bad.” He speaks down into the bucket of soapy water as he feels around for the sponge.

  Conley squeezes his eyes shut as Pastor Chick handles first one foot then the other like he has never washed anything before in his life. He even attempts to clean between toes. Conley kicks a little at this, and as water splashes everywhere, he manages a grim smile. They say a few low words of forgiveness that we can’t hear.

  “Thanks, brother,” Conley says when Pastor Chick has finished. He rests his feet on the blue carpet, where they’re soon outlined in a darker, wetter blue.

  Pastor Chick stands and looks relieved. He wipes his wet hands down the front of his jeans. “See? Not the end of the world.”

  To give us some more time to consider our resentments, to work ourselves up to the washing of feet, Pastor Chick calls upon us individually to stand, barefoot, and share our progress with Operation Outreach. Have we prayed? Have we invited? Have we taken advantage of all openings? The time draws near. The Main Event is Friday night.

  “My people don’t live here,” says Mary-Kate when Pastor Chick calls on her. “But I might see them next week.” She puts her hand up to her cheek, as if she’s suddenly remembered her acne.

  “Fair enough,” says Pastor Chick. “Keep lifting them in prayer.”

  We sing a song and wait, again, for someone, anyone, to offer to wash another’s feet. As much as I would like Pastor Chick to think highly of me, I can’t bring myself to do this. Especially not the feet of Seth, no matter how much I resent him.

  Pastor Chick sighs. “Ida Hughes?” he says, and one of the missionary twins stands. “I invited my people to eat lunch with me, and I led grace. And I invited them for Friday, and I invited them to prayer meeting at school, too.”

  “Praise God,” says Pastor Chick, encouraged. After another long silence, he looks my way. “Charmaine Peake?”

  I stand up in my bare feet. “I invited two of my people. From the county. I gave them the flyers. I don’t know if they’re coming.”

  “That’s a good start,” says Pastor Chick.

  “And I try to pray all the time.” I raise my hand as if to offer the new row of hatch marks as evidence, then drop it to my side. “I really try. And the third person,” I take a deep breath as I remember Cecil’s threats on the bus, “has been talking to me some.”

  “That’s joy to the heart of God,” says Pastor Chick.

  I sit down and we all wait some more. Pastor Chick passes a hand up over his face and onto his hair. He closes his eyes tolerantly, then opens them. “Okay, people,” he says with resignation. “Seth Catterson?”

  When Seth stands up, I get ready for him to say something about his three people, something about one of them being in the hospital or being a false prophet. I get ready for every single person in this room to know he means my family. But then he stammers and glances in my direction again, and I remember the pictures in the butt purse, and I realize he is worried.

  “I don’t know,” Seth says.

  I lift the butt purse from the floor into my lap. I imagine Seth looking at the pictures, at the woman with the sad, peeled breasts. I stare at him and unzip the purse. It makes a loud sound in the quiet room. The glasses glint in my direction, and I raise my eyebrows like a dare.

  “How about with the Main Event?” says Pastor Chick. “Any luck?”

  “I guess,” says Seth. He shifts from one bare foot to the other, then sits down hard.

  I zip the purse closed, still watching him, though he keeps his head bent. I feel curious about what just happened, and when Pastor Chick signals Conley for another song, I get to my feet. The song is “God Is So Good,” another one that repeats and repeats. You can make your own verses, even, to keep it going. Seth eyes me in horror as I approach him, but Pastor Chick beams. “Praise God,” he says over the singing.

  I choose a bucket from the middle of the circle, set it down in front of Seth, then kneel. His feet are long and thin, pale as raw lumber.

  “You took something,” he hisses under the music.

  I clamp my hands around one of his ankles and lift, but he won’t budge his foot. The room launches into another verse. “He cares for me, he cares for me, he cares for me, he’s so good to me.”

  Fine brown hairs sprout tentatively from Seth’s upper lip. It’s an embarrassing thing to see, even though it’s just hair, and I feel my own upper lip curl. I hate that things are happening to Seth’s body too, like we’re in something together. “Why do you even have pictures like that?” I say. “What’s the matter with you?”

  People are watching, and Seth lifts a foot and sticks it down into the bucket. His face turns red. “They aren’t for anything bad,” he whispers. “They help you stop thinking things. You wouldn’t know anything about it. You’re a girl, so shut up.”

  I reach down in the bucket and splash a little water around his ankle, careful not to touch his feet in any way. I’m probably giving him a good view of my bosom, but when I check if he’s looking, his eyes are squeezed miserably shut. He switches feet fast and gets water everywhere.

  “Stealing’s a sin,” he says.

  “From my own closet?”

  “Not right now,” he says. “It’s not your closet right now.”

  “Tell your mom, then,” I say. I have a point, and he knows it.

  “Praise God, people,” Pastor Chick says over the final verse. “I like the way the Lord’s moving among our new seventh graders.”

  Seth lifts his second wet foot from the bucket and lowers it on top of his first one, as if he’s cold. Or, like Noah, as if he suddenly feels his nakedness and wants to hide it.

  Chapter 13

  I DON�
�T REMEMBER THAT MONDAY’S the day for my how-to speech until Mrs. Teaderman calls on me.

  “I’m not ready,” I say, and she makes a disappointed face and gives me an extension for the end of the week, with penalties.

  “I can go,” says Kelly-Lynn, even though it isn’t her day. She makes her way to the front and starts talking everyone through a standing back tuck—the launching, the tucking, the landing—then pushes the demonstration table to the side so she can demonstrate.

  “Don’t hurt yourself,” says Mrs. Teaderman.

  We all watch as Kelly-Lynn takes a few deep knee bends. You can see on her face that the moment where you actually jump into the air, backward, is scary.

  “Do it already,” says a boy in the back, and then she does. Her knees fold up neatly and carry her over backward, and her feet land right underneath her, where they’re supposed to, not even an extra step or hop. The room breaks into applause.

  In activity I sit alone in the bleachers while she runs through jumps on the gym floor with the rest of the girls who have tried out for cheerleading over the weekend. They’re going to announce the results right here, in front of everyone. Soon Mrs. Perry, the cheerleading coach, taps the mike and says the usual things: How everyone is very talented. How there are only a few open spots on the team. How she wishes there could be a place for everyone. She asks for a big hand for all the girls who tried out. Then she starts calling names. First are the returning cheerleaders, and when each of their names is called, Theresa, Mindy, Michelle, and the rest take a running start and flip themselves end over end the length of the gym floor, leaving twenty or so girls under the basketball hoop. Kelly-Lynn, off by herself, practices her jumps. She does another perfect standing back tuck. A few girls around her jump just as well as she does, springing high off the gym floor. They’re the next ones called—Casey, Melissa, Jennifer. Under the basketball goal, the remaining girls wait. Mrs. Perry takes a little break to explain what makes a good cheerleader. There’s cheering, of course, and school spirit, and tumbling, but there’s also a GPA requirement and, most importantly, there’s the issue of character. “Character counts,” says Mrs. Perry. “Character counts more than anything.”