by Ann McMan
When the first few prayer sessions with our local preacher didn’t succeed at giving me more than a pair of bruised knees, my parents grew desperate. That’s when my grandma stepped in and said they should send me to a healer she’d seen work miracles one hot summer night beneath a big canvas revival tent. He was an evangelist, and his special ministry had blazed a trail of fear and repentance across five states. When his dog and pony show set up camp in our small county, my grandma had a front row seat. She went back to hear him every night. And every night, new and even more extraordinary happenings took place. She was a convert—one of many. And her peculiar brand of religious zealotry infected my young life like a tick-borne virus. Understand that my parents weren’t bad people. They were just simple and uninformed. They knew just one way to react when they discovered that their only daughter was a Sodomite. They prayed and asked for God to lead me out of sin, and to plant my feet firmly on the road to righteousness. When their prayers continued to be unanswered, they resorted to more extreme measures.
It isn’t that I was opposed to traveling any road that led to a righteous life. I simply didn’t think I should be expected to deny who I was to do it. That part didn’t feel Christian to me. All of the stories I grew up hearing about Jesus talked about his love and forgiveness, not his judgment and wrath. The way I saw it, God made me the way I was for a reason. I never really chose to like other girls—I just did. And I especially liked Charlene.
Charlene—we all called her Charlie—was three years younger than me. We met at summer church camp, although I had seen her before at school. Being around her made me feel alive in ways I never thought possible. We spent every spare second together, even though we were in different age groups. It wasn’t long before spare seconds weren’t enough. We began to sneak out of our cabins after lights out to meet by the lake. It was there, beneath the hazy half-moon, that we began our sweet voyage of discovery. It felt so happy and innocent. So simple. At least, it did until we were discovered by one of the camp counselors.
Charlie and I were separated from one another until our parents could come and pick us up. We were told that our behavior was an abomination to God and that we would burn in hell if we continued along our destructive paths. I knew they were right about one thing: I was burning—but it was with a different kind of fire. And no amount of isolation, preaching, or prayer would be enough to extinguish it.
Charlie had a different experience from me. She didn’t have a mother—at least, not a mother she knew. And her father was not a kind man. His response to the discovery of her transgression wasn’t characterized by grief or despair—it pretty much involved trying to beat the demons out of her. Charlie ended up collapsing at school, and when the principal realized what was wrong with her, she called the sheriff. That was the good news. They took Charlie out of the home and put her into foster care, where she stayed until she was old enough to live on her own.
But I was never allowed to see her again. My parents made sure of that. And once my grandma became involved with the orchestration of a plan to ensure my salvation, I wasn’t home all that much anymore. They pulled me out of school and shipped me off to Kentucky to “study” with a man who had experience turning young people away from the evils of homosexuality.
It would be an understatement to say that his methods were unorthodox. At first, the snakes terrified me. He kept dozens of them, stacked up in special little, glass-fronted boxes inside a boarded-up porch at the back of his house. They were mostly timber rattlers, but he had other kinds back there, too. It amazed me that his wife and three kids just breezed in and out of that dark, close space to retrieve things like jackets and canned goods. I stayed alone upstairs in another small room. I think it had been some kind of closet because it had no windows. It was at the back of the house, and I knew it was over the porch. Every night, when I’d be locked into my room, I’d imagine I could hear the white noise of the snakes moving around beneath the floorboards. I knew they were awake, too. And I knew that it would only be a matter of time before they figured out a way to reach me.
I didn’t have to wait very long.
It was on the sixth night that he finally showed up. I wasn’t surprised. I knew he was coming. I could see it in the way he looked at me. I could feel it in the way he touched me—touches that were supposed to be casual, but were tainted with malicious intent. I knew the difference—just like all women everywhere know the difference. When I heard the sound of a key turning in the door lock, I knew my time had come. My education was about to take another path. When his shadow filled up the entrance to my dark asylum, I didn’t bother to call for help. I knew it would be pointless. Who would help me? Not the shopworn woman he called his helpmeet. Not his daughters—they had matching sets of empty, unseeing eyes. I was on my own, and I knew it.
The first night, he came alone. But I managed to evade his attempts to turn me from my sinful ways. I didn’t cry. I didn’t make any sound at all. I hunched myself into a tight ball and withstood the weight of his advances and whispered entreaties. Eventually he grew weary of the struggle. I could feel his anger. His indignation. He got up from my bed and left as silently as he came. But I knew he’d be back. I knew this rite of passage was just beginning.
He made me wait. Many more nights passed—all of them sleepless for me. I grew weak and tired. I was half sick from fear. I could no longer trust my instincts. Night after night, I was forced to attend his revival services. I’d bounce along those backcountry roads on the rear seat of his truck, strapped in beside a stack of wooden crates. I began to hear the voices of the serpents. They’d whisper to me during those long rides through hot summer nights. Surrender. Let us teach you. Let us show you the power of God’s love.
It was two weeks before I heard him at my door again. And this time, he didn’t come alone. I saw the shadow of the box he carried right away, and I knew what it meant. I would be given a choice: I could serve God, or I could face his judgment. When he reached into the box and withdrew the serpent, I knew I was lost. I had watched the snakes writhe and coil their long bodies around his arms enough times to know what was happening. There was no light in the room, but I could sense every moving inch of the threat above me. I begged him to spare me—to show me another way—any way but this one.
He relented and showed me a path of mercy. He returned the snake to its box and led my shaking hand to the waistband of his pants, where another servant of God promised release from my torment. Without being told, I understood what to do. I didn’t fight him that night—or any of the nights after that.
As the weeks passed, I silently took my place in line beside the others—all those women with the sallow faces and lifeless eyes. I knew I wouldn’t last long. I began to fantasize about death, realizing that it offered the only true release available to me. I imagined how it would occur—gloriously—on the altar of one of his makeshift, backwoods churches at the height of their ecstatic celebrations. I believed that a merciful and loving God would take me—would welcome me home and free me from the prison of fear and shame that had become my world. But it didn’t happen, and I grew tired of waiting for an intervention that might never come. I knew I didn’t have the strength to last much longer. Death was clutching at my insides like a cold hand. It was now or never. I needed to flee while I still had the stamina to run.
In the end, I didn’t choose my moment. My moment chose me. We were on our way to a revival service in Gastonia, North Carolina. I was riding alone with him—like always. He stopped for gas at a truck stop, then pulled over and parked so he could go inside for a restroom break. I knew I only had a few seconds to decide. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst through the thin wall of my chest. I opened the door and got out. But before I ran, I pulled out the boxes containing the snakes and kicked off their lids.
I heard the first screams and yells before I got around the back side of the building. I knew this commotion would flush him out—but I also knew the diversion would
give me the time I needed to get away. I just prayed that nobody else would get hurt in the process.
I ran as far and as fast as I could. I had nothing but the clothes on my back. I couldn’t go home and I couldn’t go back to Kentucky. But I didn’t care. I ran. And I kept on running until I was sure I was far enough away that he wouldn’t find me. Eventually, I made my way to another rest stop. It didn’t take me long to find an obliging trucker who was willing to give me a ride. One thing I was sure about was what it would take to earn my keep. Thanks to my mentor, I’d learned those lessons well. It was another couple of years before I had the wherewithal to take those lessons and weave them into a legitimate line of work that could sustain me. And if, along the way, I could help a few others avoid the same missteps? Well. That would be just fine, too.
I never found Charlie again, but I did find a succession of other Charlies. I learned to embrace the truth of who I was, and I never again subjugated myself to someone else’s idea of what I should be. You could say that everything in my life is different now, but two things remain unchanged: I don’t look back, and I never stop running.
10
Heal Thyself
Shawn had a plan. And it wasn’t a plan she was ready to share with Kate—at least not until she had her ducks in a row.
That’s what today was about—getting her ducks in a row.
Kate’s revelation that Linda had made her a job offer was a game changer. Shawn understood that. What wasn’t clear to her was how well Kate understood it. Shawn knew Kate well enough to realize that trying to force any kind of decision would be a mistake. So the best she could do was go ahead with her own plans, and hope they might eventually intersect with whatever path Kate finally decided to follow.
The house was incredible. A Craftsman. It sat on three acres of land with two hundred feet of lake frontage. Everything about it was perfect—proximity to town, exquisite Green Mountain views, the warmth and simple beauty of the architecture, a big fenced yard for the dogs. This place had it all.
And it was here. Vermont.
She looked out across the lake. The ridges on the opposite side were clearer today. She could even make out the slow revolutions of the windmills that sat atop Georgia Mountain. Doug Archer was still pissed about how they spoiled the landscape whenever they drifted into view from the islands. “Calvary,” he called it. Shawn laughed at his description, but it really was pretty apt. They did look like crosses. The only problem with his analogy was the math.
“What’s the fourth one for?” she asked him.
“Me,” he opined.
That seemed to work, too. Doug was a good man with a big heart, but he worried about things. He had what Ursula Le Guin called “French diseases of the soul.”
Just like her.
Shawn never expected to fall in love with Vermont. That part of this trip had been a surprise. A revelation. Being here reminded her of all the happiest parts of her childhood. Being here reminded her that lives, like the months in a year, made more sense when they were measured in seasons. Living in a place where summers felt endless and winters never amounted to more than annoyances left her feeling incomplete. She remembered once reading a story about this phenomenon in a grad school writing class. It was something about a woman who read Wallace Stevens—and how she died a slow death from living in a place where the climate never changed.
Lately, her life had become a badly constructed sentence—a dangling participle that modified an unintended subject: work. Her work had overspread everything like the ubiquitous kudzu vines that filled up the hot, summer landscapes of North Carolina. And it had happened so gradually that she hadn’t even noticed its creeping progress. She was being strangled by work. Death by kudzu was like death by a thousand cuts. Slow. Interminable. But steady. Certain.
It was time to change that.
She knew the physical part of the transition would be simple. Her Charlotte house was in the Dilworth neighborhood—an area proclaimed to be “highly desirable” by all the real estate magnates. She’d been approached more than a dozen times about selling it. And the truth was that she had no real ties to the area. She’d landed in Charlotte mostly by accident. It was the first place she got a job after grad school in Chapel Hill. Since then? Once she published her first book, Bottle Rocket, things had started happening so quickly that she never took the time to think about what came next.
Then she met Kate, and everything changed. Now thinking about what came next was practically an obsession.
She needed to change that, too.
Buying this house was her first step. She’d make the move, and then Kate could decide whether or not she wanted to join her. If Kate chose to keep her job in New York, then at least Shawn would be closer to her than she now was in North Carolina. And maybe she could even keep Patrick, so he wouldn’t be consigned to life in a third-floor walkup apartment.
But the most important thing was that Shawn would be living her life intentionally. Not waiting around for something that might never happen.
She looked down at all the paperwork in her lap.
Yeah. She was going to do this.
“You look lost in thought.”
It was Linda Evans. Shawn hadn’t noticed her approach.
“Hey. What are you up to?”
“Not much.” Linda smiled down at her. “Thought I’d avoid work a bit longer by taking a stroll before lunch.”
“I thought you’d already finished your piece?”
“I have. That’s not the work I was referring to.”
“Oh. Lily stuff?”
Linda nodded.
Shawn indicated a vacant chair that sat several feet away from her spot on the lawn. “Why don’t you join me?”
“Sure I won’t be disturbing you?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay.” Linda held out her sweaty glass. “Hold this for me while I pull that thing closer?”
“Sure.” Shawn took the glass from her. It contained some kind of straw-colored liquid and a few melting ice cubes. She had no idea what it was. Linda’s morning beverage concoctions were becoming legendary.
“What are you drinking?”
Linda laughed. “Tonic and bitters.”
“Really?” Shawn sniffed it. “Is that any good?”
“It’s a digestive. Helps settle a queasy spirit.”
“There’s a drink for that?” Shawn handed the glass back to her. “Who knew?”
“Stick with me kid.” Linda settled herself in the big, white chair. “I can teach you things.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
They sat quietly and studied each other. Shawn understood that they were having a nonverbal conversation—and the topic was Kate.
Linda finally broke the silence. “So, how are things?”
“You tell me. You know her as well as I do.”
Linda smiled. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Shawn sighed. “I don’t know, Linda. I love her, but figuring out what’s going on inside that head of hers is like trying to read tea leaves.”
“I can imagine.”
“How did you manage it?”
“I guess I never tried to figure her out.” Linda shrugged. “I just gave her space to get to wherever she’d eventually end up. It’s not a very dramatic approach, but it saved a lot of rubber.”
“Yeah. My tires are about worn to the rims.”
“Maybe that means it’s time to park the car.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.” Shawn held up the listing details for the house. “I’m moving.”
“Moving?” Linda took the papers from her. “Moving where?”
“Here.”
“Okaaayyy.” Linda was scanning the information. “This is gorgeous.” She looked up at Shawn. “But don’t you think it’s a tad dramatic?”
“I’m not doing it for dramatic effect. I’m doing it for me.”
“Fair enough. Still. It seems—sudden.”
&nbs
p; “I suppose it is. But I love it up here. And I want to make a change.”
Linda nodded. “Change can be good. But it also can be a lot easier if you approach it in smaller steps.”
“I’m not looking for easier.”
Linda didn’t reply. Shawn felt bad about her brusque response.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound so arrogant. I just know myself. It’s going to take something—dramatic—for me to shock my system into getting off this gerbil wheel and moving forward with my life.”
Linda handed the papers back to her. “Without Kate?”
“I hope not.”
“I hope not, too. You’re good together.”
“I think so.”
Shawn wanted to ask Linda if Kate had made a decision about the job at Gilded Lily. But she knew she couldn’t. It wasn’t right. Kate would tell her when she was ready.
“She hasn’t made up her mind yet.”
Shawn looked at Linda in surprise.
“I could tell you wanted to ask but weren’t going to.”
“I hate being so pathetic.”
“You’re not pathetic.” Linda took a sip of her drink.
“Is it working?”
Linda lowered the glass. “Is what working?”
“Your drink. Is your spirit less queasy?”
Linda laughed. “Not yet. But it’s getting there.”
“Maybe I should give it a try?”
“No.” Linda patted her on the forearm. “Stick with your plan. Buy your house. Different kinds of problems take different kinds of tonic. I have a feeling you may have just found yours.”
“Are you going to tell me why you disappeared?”
Darien and V. Jay-Jay were walking along the cliffs that rose above the water on the north side of the property.
“I didn’t disappear. I needed time to think.”
“So you left without saying anything?” Darien waved a hand. “I call that disappearing.”
“If you’re going to use epic terminology like this, there’s no point in trying to have a conversation.”