Out of nowhere came a rustle from the woods around us, the sudden snap of branches. Chaz jumped up, standing only in his boxers while I rolled away from him, my hands over my breasts until I pulled my T-shirt over my head. It was quiet then, only the two of us breathing so heavily and waiting for the other to do something.
Neither of us had to say a word. Chaz and I got dressed at record speed. The rest of that night I lay awake in my bunk, staring at the ceiling, thinking that God must have stopped us for a reason. In my heart, I hoped that reason was Marci. My mind, however, told me I was only kidding myself.
The next morning, the unbearably heavy silence of the pastor engulfed me as I entered the small room behind Chaz, following him to the long bench. Chaz wouldn’t look me in the eye and neither of us spoke. The pastor had a look of vengeance on his face. My heart sank. Someone had told on us. Chaz sat on one side of Maureen while I sat down on the other, sandwiching her.
“The very last night of our retreat!” the pastor called out, his hands thrown up over his head. “You couldn’t hold back the devil just one more night! What kind of cowards are you?”
I shook with fear and anticipation beside Maureen and wondered if Chaz shook on her other side.
The pastor had been in a most dramatic mood that day—he even had the legendary photographs that I’d never seen but heard so much about. The pastor had a reputation for bringing out the horrific photos when he was most upset with the group. Pastor Jameson stood above me and handed me the three photographs. “Look at them, girlie!” His words spit from his mouth. “Take a good hard look at your future.”
The breath caught deep in my chest when I looked down at the pictures in my hands, large postcard-sized photographs of three dead men. The top of the cards read: Gay Cancer. Along the bottom: A Painful Death Is Just Punishment for Violation of the Laws of God. The men lay naked on metal autopsy tables, their skin so pale it was translucent. Purple sores covered their faces and chests, like colonies of engorged leeches still pulling blood from their victims. I’d never seen men so bone-thin except in the movies my history teacher showed us about Nazi concentration camp victims. These men’s bodies had wasted away into nothing but big eyeballs, teeth, and pointy shoulder and hip bones.
“Death will be your punishment, Lucinda.” The pastor turned and pointed around the circle. “All of you! You may escape man’s eye, but never God’s.” He ripped the photos from my hands and shoved them into Maureen’s. Once my hands were empty, my body contorted with a violent sob.
The pastor went on about the gay cancer and AIDS and how it was only a step away from us, how it was coming for us, until everyone in that room readily admitted they had done something terribly wrong the night before. No matter the truth, this was about ending the wrath of the pastor. In the end, it wasn’t Chaz and me that the pastor knew about, but two boys caught kissing in the bathroom sometime after two in the morning. Safety wrapped around me. Still, while each of the young men confessed, I heard Chaz nearly gag beside me, my own heart thump-thump-thumping.
Now that same pastor and his wife Mildred meet me at the door with tremendously overdramatized welcomes. Chaz leads me to the worn couch where I sit beside Maureen, and Chaz sandwiches her. Just like our retreats. We sit in a makeshift circle along with a man I’ve never met before.
Maureen awkwardly hugs me from the side and drops a quick kiss on my cheek. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she whispers.
“What’s going on?” I ask Pastor Jameson. My mind begins to spin. Pure anxiety settles in, somewhere near the edge of full-blown panic. “I thought there was a meeting tonight.”
In the silence, Maureen wraps her arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. “We are having a meeting,” she says with a sly grin. “A meeting to save your life.”
My stomach lurches and feels as if it could drop out of my body. Sweat beads my skin. “Oh my God,” I whisper, “not an intervention.” I look to Chaz, but he avoids my eyes. “No!” I say to him and drop my forehead into my hands, the mike I’ve forgotten all about digs its wires into the sensitive skin of my chest.
“Let me introduce myself, since I am the only one you don’t know here.” The older man stands and steps toward me. “I’m Chuck Averies, the Ohio state representative for One True Path ministries.” He holds out his hand. I don’t take it. He’s small and stout but has the presence of an aging rock star. His mop of gray curls hangs below his collar and wisps that he constantly brushes away fall into his eyes. “You’ve guessed right, darling. This is an intervention. And it’s exciting!” He claps and his gold pinkie rings clang together. “You’re looking at a whole new life ahead of you, walking in the path of Jesus. It’s a good day for you! You’ve strayed, but this is the day that the Lord is calling you back to Him.”
Around the room, expectant faces watch me. I’ve seen these expectant faces before.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” my dad said, taking my hand and leading me into the living room of our home. He’d put together an intervention for me at the urging of our new minister. While I came in the door from school and dropped my book bag onto the tile entryway in a mad dash for a snack, they waited.
Pastor Jameson stood up, so tall and muscular back then, and pulled me into a tight hug. “We’re family now,” he said. “There’s nothing we won’t do to save family.” He introduced me to his wife, Mildred.
“Save?” I sat down beside my dad on the couch we’d had my whole life. The minister from our new church gave me a smile full of pity.
Pastor Jameson sat across from me and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Listen, I know you’re dealing with a lot right now. I’ve got a teenage son of my own, and the times sure have changed since your father and I were your age.” He shot a conspiratorial grin to my dad. “These feelings you’re having, well, they’re just not right. We want to help you get back on track with God.”
“Feelings?” I rubbed my hands together over and over. Sweat began to form on my brow and upper lip. The living room shrank around me. What exactly were these people here for? My mind spun over all my activities for the last month. I’d done nothing wrong. I felt the rise of anxiety bubbling in my chest.
Once again, Pastor Jameson looked to my father. “Lucinda,” my father finally said, his voice cracking the silence. “I found the journal under your bed.”
My breath caught in my throat. My father couldn’t look at me—he just wrung his hands. I closed my eyes against the burst of panic tears, the gunshot of heartbeat inside me. All those words I had written down about other girls at school. My fantasies, my thoughts.
This was the moment my father betrayed me.
But things are different now. I’m no longer sixteen years old. I can say no. “I don’t need an intervention,” I say. “There has been some mistake.” I reach into my back pocket for my badge.
Chuck, the liaison for One True Path, leans forward in his chair like he’s ready to spring on me in his faded Levi’s and polo shirt. “Lucinda, I know how you feel. Look at me.” He waits in silence until I raise my eyes to his. “Darlin’, I insist everyone look me in the eye. That includes you. Listen, I’ve been in your seat.” Chuck pounds his open palm against his chest. A thick gold chain shimmers at the edges of his shirt. “I’m recovering from my own addiction to homosexuality. Today, by the grace of God, I’ve been free of my addiction for over twelve years. And let me tell you something about this side of the fence: life is good. It’s nothing like when I was in the life. I suffered so much loneliness. I didn’t know the meaning of hope. Look at me today. I never would have believed I would ever get to this place. I’m so strong now in my love of God and only want to help others like you, still struggling in the life.”
Chuck points a finger at me while he examines me. His look has turned hard, accusatory. “So this really only comes down to one question, Lucinda. Are you or are you not living with another female in sexual sin?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Haven’t I fou
ght all these demons so that I don’t need to deny my love for Rowan? “I’m here on the job.”
“Oh, hold up there, sister. It does matter. It most certainly matters! Sharing a bed with another woman is the reason why you are here and why you need us.” The stern tone of his voice softens. “I know your daddy has passed and he was the one who brought you to our ministry so long ago.” Tears fill Chuck’s eyes. “He might not be here in physical form, but I can feel him in this room just as sure as I can feel my left foot. We’re all here to get you back on the right path.”
The mention of my father feels like a sharp punch to my gut and it brings tears to my eyes. What would he do if he was here with me? Stand by my side or join in their rally against me? Suddenly, I’m not so sure. He loved me, this I know. But sometimes love has nothing to do with liking a person, even if it is your own daughter.
Mildred speaks softly. “Luce, you’ve been through this before. You know how it works. Let us help you! Just listen to what we have to say, then make your decision, whether or not you will do what needs to be done in order to leave your addiction behind.”
“It’s not an addiction,” I insist. “I love her.” My words come out sounding much more like a petulant teenager’s than I’d hoped.
Chuck falls to his knees with his hands in prayer position. “Oh, Jesus, we got a sick one here. Help us help her!”
Pastor Jameson speaks. “This is not about blame, Lucinda. Lord knows I don’t blame you for these feelings and behaviors. It’s our culture’s fault. Sometimes I watch those sitcoms on TV with gay characters all full of laughter and fun, and I think, who wouldn’t want to be gay? The media has a strong hold on us all, and here it is telling us all it’s okay to be gay. Okay to be gay? Equal rights for gays and bisexuals, whatever that is, and now this transgender nonsense? It’s okay? Lord have mercy on us all! The devil takes hold of our lives any way he can, Luce. Most of the time we never recognize him.”
Career or no career at stake, I won’t take this. Standing up, I feel the pull of Maureen’s hand on my waist, holding me back. With a swell of anger, I slap her hand away and head for the door. I’m furious when Chuck Averies beats me there, theatrically throwing his body in front of it to block my exit. Rage tears through me.
“Oh, sister, I see that anger! I see that red in your eyes! I’ve felt it before.” He spreads out an open palm in the air between us. His gold rings shimmer in the light. “Let me tell you something you don’t already know. Anger is the first cousin of shame. Underneath all that rage what you got going on is the real deal—shame. Deep down inside, you know you’ve been doing wrong. Let’s make that right today.”
Mildred tips her head at the badge inside my hands. “Just give us a few minutes to read our letters.” Mildred shakes the folded paper on her lap for emphasis. “Once you’ve listened, we can talk about your work.”
“Luce, please.” Chaz stands at my side, his hand wrapping around mine. I’m caught in a bad dream, some twisted space somewhere in between the present and the past. In this trance, I let Chaz lead me back to my seat. This time, he keeps hold of my hand and I don’t pull away.
Maybe it’s the shock that holds me there, or the thought my ghostly father might really be beside me, but I don’t move. I know how intensely personal this process is to these people in the room. They need to go through this for themselves, to justify their beliefs and behavior. It’s not really about me. As much as I hate to admit it, even to myself, I still care for Chaz, Maureen, and the Jamesons.
The pastor drops his head in prayer. “Oh, Lord, we pray for the courage to be truthful, and the willingness to live the life you have intended for us. Work inside our hearts, God, so that we may serve you.”
Amens trickle through the group.
In our living room back then, the pastor described to me and my father the purpose of an intervention, and although I was only sixteen, I understood that this whole charade centered around something that I had done terribly wrong. Why else would these people of the church be collected in my living room to talk about my journal? The pastor insisted the purpose of the intervention was about surrounding the sinner with love and using that love to influence change.
Me, the sinner.
“You’re a cop, correct?” Jameson waited for my father’s nod. “Then you are familiar with this process. It is just like an intervention used on alcoholics and drug addicts. That’s exactly what we are dealing with here—an addiction. Plain and simple.”
Jameson leaned back in what was my favorite chair, a leather armchair big enough for me to curl into and read or watch television. It gave me a shiver to see this chunk of a man give a mini-sermon in my chair. “Back in the day, these sorts of activities were called exorcisms. People aren’t so keen on that term anymore. It’s the same thing—intervening to break this devilish spirit that’s taken hold of your daughter. She’s been possessed. Make no mistake, Devil, we won’t back down until we have Lucinda back within the light of the Lord!”
The pastor went on to say that love was the most powerful force of change in our world, and that love that would lead me back to God. “Love, love, love!” the pastor called out. “It’s our golden rule: love the sinner and hate the sin.”
My father and the minister from our local church nodded and smiled as though this all made perfect sense. Love made sense to me, too. The problem, though, was that I felt no love. This sticky shame melded to me so tenaciously, I knew I’d feel it every day forward.
Now Chaz reaches over and rests his arm across my shoulders. He gives me a long squeeze.
“I’ve never stopped caring for you, Luce, even after all these years,” Pastor Jameson says. “But you’ve got to know, somewhere deep in your heart, that this is wrong. Living with another woman as though she is your husband is plain wrong in the eyes of God.”
“Make no mistake, little lady,” Chuck Averies adds, “any sort of talk regarding the support of homosexuality is pure evil. I know it’s popular to say as long as no one gets hurt, it’s fine. But that’s devil talk. Pure and simple.”
A few more amens. Then Chuck directs Chaz to begin with his letter.
“Luce.” Chaz drops his arm from my shoulder. I don’t look at him while he speaks. “I’m here today because I love you and because I cannot watch you kill yourself any longer.”
While Chaz speaks, my fingertips graze the ridges and lines of my badge, lying on my thigh. It’s the glint of the silver ring on my hand that holds all of my attention, the ring from Rowan. I twist the warm ring round and round my finger, thinking only of the infinity sign engraved inside the metal, so snug against my skin.
“Since the day I met you, I’ve always known that you’ve been touched by the hand of God. Your smile and kindness have never wavered. Now, dear friend, it is our turn to repay that kindness to you. It’s time for you to trust us.”
I bunch my toes up inside my boots and will myself to remember the way the sand on the beach that night in Maui felt between my toes, the granules that stuck to the bottoms of my feet. It had been so humid that night and I felt wet, my hair chronically damp. When Rowan lay back on the sand to look at the night sky, I caught a glimpse of her profile shadowed next to the magnificent sunset. At that very second, everything came together for me: I’d never been happier or more satisfied in my adult life than the time I’ve been with Rowan. Watching her, I felt the swell of emotion clench inside my throat like an oversized fist. It held my voice in its grip—a grip I couldn’t release to save my life. That’s when Rowan popped the marriage question, the one I wasn’t prepared to respond to, and my lack of an answer cut her so deep. It wasn’t a complete surprise. I had thought about taking my relationship with Rowan to the next level. Nights when I couldn’t sleep, I thought about what the next step would look like for us. Berlin wall or not, why hadn’t I said yes?
“Luce,” Chaz says. “I know you remember our times at the retreat that summer you joined our group.”
His reference cat
ches my attention. My body tenses. My breath shallows. He won’t say anything about our time behind the mess hall. He wouldn’t betray my trust.
Maureen’s hand reaches in and swallows mine, surprising me with her warmth against my cool skin.
“You know what I’m referring to, Luce. Those nights at Camp Jesus in the Hills behind the mess hall. We kissed and became each other’s training wheels for heterosexuality. Without your touch, your kiss, I never would have found my way to Maureen.” Chaz stops reading to give Maureen a wink. “I wasn’t the only one who felt something awaken in me during those nights. You felt it, too. You responded to my body. Heterosexuality is in you, too. I know it. Give it a chance to blossom.”
Around me, everyone nods and Maureen even adds a hallelujah.
They all know.
A roaring surge of nausea tears through me and smashes me against a rocky ledge. Why didn’t I see it then? Maureen had a crush on Chaz. She was the one who followed us. It had been her who snapped those branches and caused Chaz and me to stop that last night at the retreat. Why didn’t I put it together when the following day she was so distant, so elusive? I rip my hand away from Maureen’s. The look on Chaz’s pained face tells me all I need to know. It had been Maureen who threatened to tell the pastor if Chaz wouldn’t confess our behavior. She’d been the one to tell our secret. The pastor had known all this time. He knew and didn’t punish us in any way. That was his way of approving of our behavior. He simply turned away from it, hoping that his silence would encourage his son’s heterosexuality.
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