by Lara Zielin
You could hear Molly O’Connor coming from a hundred yards away. She was screeching and complaining and threatening a lawsuit against the city. Officer Malcolm had his hands full as he brought Molly and Natalie down to the interrogation room and shoved them inside. Anita followed. Then Malcolm slammed the door behind him.
“My shift is ending,” he said tersely, “and I want to go home. So somebody, tell me what’s going on.”
“Ask her,” Molly said, raising her chin in my direction. “She’s the one who stole the money.”
Bear approached Molly and stood to his full height. “Is that so?” Molly flinched, but didn’t answer. Bear looked over at Natalie.
“I anticipate you have something to say,” he said. Natalie looked at me, at the floor, then at Molly.
“Natalie?” asked my dad. He seemed not to trust his own voice, as if he couldn’t believe she was standing here too. She was the one who came out of the baptism glowing. Nat was the true believer.
“It was a setup,” Nat whispered. No one asked her to speak up. In the quiet room, we’d all heard what she’d said. “It was a setup to get revenge on Emma. Molly was still mad about Emma calling her dad a liar. About the prophecy, I mean. And then she saw Emma with Jake, and that didn’t exactly help.”
From across the room, Anita winked at me as if she’d believed that was the case all along. I felt so weightless with relief, I wondered if I might begin floating off the floor toward the ceiling.
“I was supposed to distract Emma while Molly put something in her tent,” Nat said, linking her fingers together and holding her hands in front of her stomach like she was cradling a wounded bird. I stood up and tried to take a step toward her, to make sure I’d heard her right, but my feet wouldn’t move. Had Nat really just admitted she’d been in on the trick? That she’d been part of the setup?
“I did my part—I got Emma into my car,” Nat said, “but I didn’t know Molly was going to put the gambling money in the tent. I mean, we’d heard Bear and Emma talking about all this cash earlier,” she continued, “when we were spying on them. But I didn’t know that’s what was going to end up in her tent. I thought it would just be dog poop or something. I swear . . .”
Nat trailed off a little bit and looked right at me. “I swear,” she finally managed to say. “When I got you into the car, I had a change of heart. I was trying to get you out of the camp, Em. I didn’t want Molly messing with you.”
Molly’s mouth fell open a little bit, but she didn’t say anything. I noticed her neck was blotchy—like how it would get when she was nervous or sick—but other than that, she was playing everything cool.
“If you dust for fingerprints on that lady’s motorcycle, on the part where the money was,” continued Nat, now looking earnestly at Officer Malcolm, “you’ll find Molly ’s prints, not Emma’s.”
Dust for prints? Nat had been watching too much Law & Order.
I caught my dad’s eye. In the harsh fluorescent lighting of the interrogation room, he looked old and pale and tired. And sorry.
“Mr. Holden,” said Officer Malcolm, “do you wish to press charges against Miss O’Connor and Miss Greene?”
Molly was indignant. “Press charges? For what?”
“For tampering with personal property, for one,” replied Malcolm. “And I could nail you for bringing up false charges and wasting my damn time.”
Natalie looked sick, and Molly’s small lower lip trembled.
Bear put up his hands. “Perhaps we’ve had enough turmoil for one day. I have my money, and that suffices for me. I have a date with a rehab center in a few hours and I’d like to get some rest. I suggest we all retire.”
Bear’s rehab was in a few hours? I glanced at my dad’s watch and was shocked to see the hands pointing to 5:00 A.M. The donut store was going to open in an hour!
“Come on, Emma,” my dad said, putting a weary arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go.”
I walked out of the room, past Molly and Natalie, who were still standing there like they were waiting for someone to tell them what would happen next. Natalie opened her mouth when I passed, like she wanted to say something, but I looked away. I wasn’t ready to hear anything from her just now.
“Pastor Goiner!” she called out instead.
Dad turned around. “Yes, Natalie?” he said, all tired-sounding.
“Are you still preaching this morning?”
He nodded. “I am.”
“Okay. Thank—thank you.”
“You’re preaching?” I asked as we made our way to the station’s lobby.
“I have a few things to say, I think,” he said as we turned a corner and spotted Mom and Lizzie. They were seated on a wooden bench underneath an aerial picture of Birch Lake. Their heads were tilted together, hovering over the pages of my mom’s tiny purse Bible. Phones trilled around them, echoing sharply off the marble floors. People shuffled back and forth. As early as it was, the police station was still humming.
“Are you preaching about the board?” I asked while we were still out of earshot.
My dad looked at me and his eyes widened just slightly, like he was trying to see all of me, trying to take all of me in. “I think I’m going to be preaching about a lot of things,” he said, and I stiffened, wondering if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Mom and Lizzie spotted us then, and both of them jumped to their feet. “What happened?” my mom asked, clenching Lizzie’s hand so hard she said, “Ow.”
“Emma was right,” said Dad. “It was Molly O’Connor.”
Mom just stood there, not moving for a second. Her jaw was pushed forward, like she was not quite ready to believe what she had heard.
“Molly O’Connor?” she asked finally. “She did this to you?”
I nodded.
My mom’s tired face seemed to snap clear of whatever fragile ties were keeping it from crumpling. “I—I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think the O’Connors, this whole thing, could affect you so personally.”
This whole thing. Could we please, please give it a name already? Could we please just talk about it? And how could she not think this would affect me personally?
“This whole thing affected me from day one, Mom,” I said. “I don’t know why you thought it didn’t, but it did. Whatever’s going on with Mr. O’Connor didn’t happen in a bubble. I mean, I care about what happens to us. To all of us.”
Mom was still holding on to Lizzie like she was trying to keep grounded. “We didn’t want to burden you . . .” she began, but trailed off. I noticed her lipstick was now gone, leaving her lips cracked and colorless.
“What burdens me is that you cut me off. After the baptism you just—you shut me out. I understand if you couldn’t tell me everything, but I think I had the right to know some of the details.”
Mom rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “I just never thought you’d suffer,” she said.
“Well, then, you thought really wrong.”
I hated how angry I sounded, but I couldn’t fake it anymore. I was angry. The ice sheltering my heart was melting, and I started to feel so much raw emotion, I thought it would make me weak. But instead of feeling like I was devolving into a blubbering puddle, I felt like three vertebrae had been added to my spine and I was straightening up. My thoughts were sharp and clear, like I could see them on a high-res screen.
“I know about the land in Owosso,” I said.
Both my parents stared at me. “How?” my mom asked.
“Jake found some of his dad’s documents and he came to me for help connecting the dots. We were going to bring it all before the board, but we ran out of time. They made their decision before we could get there. I just wish—I wish we could have tried to let them know. Even if we didn’t understand it all, exactly.”
Dad stepped closer to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Em,” he said, “the board had the information they needed. They simply chose not to listen.”
“What? What
do you mean?”
He looked like he was going to try and explain, but Mom shot him a quick look. Dad closed his mouth and Mom took an unsteady step forward. She let go of Lizzie to reach out to me, and seemed like she was trying to walk during an earthquake, that’s how unsure her footing was.
“Emma,” she whispered, “I am so sorry you had to go through all this. We should have told you sooner, but . . . I guess we didn’t know how. Mr. O’Connor came to us a few months before the prophecy and said he wanted a promotion from board member to associate pastor. When we wouldn’t give it to him, we believe he invented the prophecy to take the position by force.”
My heart felt like it had just been mashed in the teeth of a steel trap. “Mr. O’Connor said women shouldn’t preach so he could demote you and promote himself?” I asked. My mom nodded.
“But why? Why did he need the position so badly? It has something to do with that land in Owosso, doesn’t it?”
Dad twisted his gold wedding band around his finger nervously. “It all goes back to the church’s bylaws, Em. They state that only a pastor of the church can finalize major purchases. Like land, for example. The board can authorize the purchases, but without a pastor’s signature, the purchases can’t go through.”
I felt sick to my stomach as all the pieces clicked into place. “So Mr. O’Connor wanted to become a pastor so he could make sure the church bought Mollico’s polluted land.”
“Yes,” Mom said, pushing a stray piece of hair out of her face. “Your father and I were going to move forward with the purchase, believing that everything was okay, but then we had an independent surveyor look at the acreage. We found out there was a good chance the land contained toxins. They recommended further testing, and they also gave us statistics on the cancer rates of animals in the area. When we went back to Gary with the information, he was furious with us. He wanted us to get another opinion, but by then we wanted out. We told him the issue was closed, and then just days after that, he waded into the river and gave that horrible prophecy.”
“But then you have to tell the board about this!” I cried. “They have to know what the church is facing. They have to know the truth about the prophecy!”
My mom smiled sadly. “We did, honey.”
“What? And they didn’t believe you?”
“They may have, but they chose to move forward on the basis of his prophecy. They chose to believe women shouldn’t preach, and they decided to demote me.”
My head was beginning to hurt. “Because he’s Living Word’s richest donor?”
She nodded. “Yes. We think so.”
“But why would the church agree to something like that? Even if Mr. O’Connor is their richest donor, they ’re still the ones that are going to be responsible for cleaning up that land.”
Dad rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Gary told the board members at tonight’s meeting that if there was a problem with the land, the board would be ‘well compensated’ if they let the purchase go through.” Dad actually made air quotes when he said the words well compensated.
“Are you talking about cash?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
I realized my mouth was hanging open, and I closed it. “But that’s a bribe!” I said. “Mr. O’Connor and the church members get their pockets padded while the church members reach into their wallets to pay for a mess they didn’t make. How is that possible?”
Dad gave me a wry smile. “Did you ever hear the golden rule?”
“Sure. Do unto others as you—”
“Not that one,” Dad said. “The other one.”
“What other one?”
Dad leaned in closer to me, and I could see the scruff on his face, could smell his stale breath. “He who has the gold makes the rules.”
I stomped my foot, and a few of the people passing by us in the police lobby turned to look at me. I didn’t care. “So he gets to do what he wants because he’s rich? Mom’s out of a job because he’s a big bully? How is this even fair?”
Dad shook his head slowly, and the lines around his eyes seemed to get deeper. “It’s not, Em. But life rarely is. It’s what you make of it that matters.”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to be preached at just now. “Dad, Mom, you have to keep fighting this. You can’t give up.”
“We have fought, Emma,” Mom said. “We have fought brutally for the past few months. Our mistake in all this is not letting you in on the fight and not letting you know what we were going through.” She leaned her forehead into her hand. “I’m sorry we let you down.”
“No, Mom,” I said, suddenly feeling so much emotion that I could hardly catch my breath. “No, you didn’t. Not if you feel like you did the right thing. But, I mean, for crying out loud, why didn’t you guys just tell me some of this stuff before now? Why did you keep me in the dark?”
“Oh, honey,” she said, her own tears trickling through her foundation and blush and leaving little white trails. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell you things because you’re so strong and—what parent wants to seem weaker than her own child? You just always seem so far above everything.”
“It’s more like I’m just trying not to get crushed by everything,” I said.
Mom took me in her arms. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. She hugged me tight, so tight it hurt, but I let her. It felt like a good hurt. Like we were squeezing out the bad stuff and emptying ourselves so we could start over.
I remembered there was a scripture like that somewhere in the Bible. Maybe in Matthew. Something about how you couldn’t put new wine in old sacks. Well, suddenly I felt like we could all be like brand-new sacks, all set to get filled up with new wine.
Mom let me go and the four of us stood there for a second while the bustle of the police station went on around us. Finally, Dad cleared his throat, and I saw he was trying to keep his composure. “Do you want us to drop you off at the donut camp on our way home?” he asked, switching the subject entirely.
I shook my head no. “Actually, I think I’m done with the donut camp for a while,” I said. “If it’s okay with you guys, I’d like to come home and get cleaned up for church.” I wanted to be at the donut camp more than anything, but if ever there was a time I should be in church with my family, this was it.
Dad nodded, and the four of us headed out of the police station. We were going to church as a family like it was the most natural thing in the world, instead of the end of life at Living Word Redeemer as we’d known it. But maybe, since we finally seemed to be tied to each other instead of an arm’s length away, we’d be okay.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, helping Lizzie into the backseat of the Nissan Maxima that the O’Connors had given him, “I bet this car would be good on a trade-in. Maybe it’s time for a new one.”
Dad smiled, erasing ten years from his face in an instant. “I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard all morning.”
Chapter Nineteen
A hot shower never felt so good. I rinsed off for as long as I possibly could before I had to hop out and get ready for service. I noticed a mug of warm coffee on the vanity as I toweled off—I guessed my mom had put it there while I’d cleaned up. I couldn’t remember her doing anything like that before. Ever.
In my red threadbare robe, I stood in front of my closet and tried to figure out what to wear. My usual jeans and vintage shirts were all there, calling to me. But maybe it was time for a wardrobe change.
At the police station, things had shifted—just like those boxes that read “Contents may shift during handling.” Now it seemed like we all were in a better order, resting on each other in a more comfortable way—but it wasn’t just because I finally understood what went down with Mr. O’Connor. Rather, it seemed like my parents and I had all surprised one another—that for a while there we’d all had these ideas of what each other was like, but the reality was something far different.
Like how I thought my mom clammed up around me because she couldn’t be bothered to tel
l me anything. But at the police station, Mom had said she kept things from me because she thought I was strong, not weak, and that maybe I wouldn’t understand her going through something that made her feel powerless. That was one of those things my dad called a paradigm shift, which is what happens when you see the world in a new way for the first time.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled out a skirt and a blue button-down collared shirt from my closet. On a whim, I dug in the far reaches of one of my drawers and pulled out an actual pair of panty hose. They were crumpled and hadn’t seen the light of day for years, but they were still good. I pulled them on and found a pair of brown loafers that looked sort of dated, but whatever. They at least had something of a heel and could be worn with a skirt.
I dried my hair and put on some lip gloss, and that was that. I checked my watch: 7:15. It was time to get going.
As I rushed down the stairs to the kitchen, Dad was passing by the end of the banister. Just like in the old movies, he stopped to watch my entrance. I wasn’t a princess headed to the ball or anything, but, still, my dad didn’t really seem to know what to do.
“You look nice honey,” he said finally, when I reached the bottom. His eyes were red-rimmed from not sleeping, and I wondered if he’d been crying just a little. A lot of Christian men in our church cry, but still. This was my dad.
“Thank you,” I said.
I was going to head past him to the car, but he reached out and stopped me. “Emma.” My name came out of his mouth all round and soft—like he was speaking to Lizzie. “I wanted to let you know that what you told me at the police station, about that Press contest, has made quite an impression. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. I couldn’t speak. Which was just as well, because my dad wasn’t done. “I’ve never told you this, but I think you’re a fine journalist. Sometimes I get so focused on what you write about that I never stop to tell you it’s good. But it is. And I just wanted to let you know—well, I’m proud of you for keeping at it. My grandmother always said God helps those who help themselves . . .”