The Salvation State

by Marcus Damanda

  Paula listened. DTR on television… A little free advertising never hurt anyone.

  “Word is, she’s likely to be a handful.”

  Paula nodded. “We’ll handle it, Mrs. James. She’ll be fine.”

  “I have no doubt. And we’ll treat her no differently than anyone else. Make sure that message is heard loud and clear among the other prefects.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Even if Rebecca did, indeed, turn out to be a handful—and even though Paula hadn’t yet met her—she was glad to hear of her father’s second thoughts. “Better for her to be here than Angel Island.”

  “Got that right,” Mrs. James readily agreed.

  ****

  It was eleven thirty when Rebecca and her mother started up the narrow three-mile road that led to the summit of New Sinai.

  “Looks like we made it on time.”

  “Yep,” said Rebecca.

  Single-word responses to her mother’s attempts at conversation were both petty and stupid, Rebecca knew. It had been Mom who had bailed her out from Second Salvations. And yet Rebecca couldn’t let go of the anger. Having to present herself in front of Andrea—sweet, pious little Andrea, who’d had to make such a difficult choice—still made her want to scream, even after four hours in the car.

  She was worried too. There were stories about places like DTR. People said the teachers here could do whatever they wanted. And they didn’t allow parent visits. They even discouraged phone calls from home.

  Worried. Yeah. That was the word.

  Rounding a corner flanked by rows of tress, the car passed a wooden sign that read: Welcome to Damascus Teenage Retreat, Where Daughters Come Home to God.

  Boys “came home” on the other side of the mountain. Taking a right instead of a left at the base of New Sinai would have led them to Prodigal Sons. Rebecca wondered how many parents had driven their kids up the wrong side over the years.

  Mom pulled the car onto a gravel shoulder, parked, and waited.

  “Bet there’s a parking lot up top if we keep driving,” Rebecca said.

  “Don’t do this to me. I don’t deserve it.”

  “Do what?” Rebecca asked, even though she knew. She tapped the digital clock on the dashboard: 11:33 a.m. “Don’t want to get you a demerit or anything.”

  What her mother said next took her completely off guard.

  “We’ve never been apart. I don’t know if I can stand it if we leave it like this. You’re my whole life, Rebecca. Don’t you know that?”

  Instantly, as if in self-defense, her devil’s half rose up. She wanted to say, I’m almost fifteen years old. I’m not a child. Get a grip, Mom. It’s only two weeks.

  But then the guilt crashed over her like a bucket of warm water. She undid her seatbelt, reached over, and hugged her mother, fighting back tears. “I’m sorry. And I’m scared, Mom.”

  Mom hugged her back tightly and whispered that she’d be home soon. Things would be back to normal, then.

  At 11:40 a.m. they pulled apart.

  “You’re my whole life,” Mom said again, her hand on Rebecca’s cheek.

  It was the best version of “I love you” Rebecca had ever heard. The words enclosed her in a warm, protective glow. But they were inappropriate too.

  Your whole life? she couldn’t help but wonder. What about Dad? What about God?

  ****

  All of New Sinai, apart from its two reeducation facilities, was densely forested. It rose steadily, silently. Peering out the window, Rebecca could hardly see more than ten feet into the woods either way. She did make out a family of deer, though.

  The ground leveled out where the dorm building came into view: three red-bricked stories with one white-pillared, double-door entrance. There was a massive yard behind it, complete with blacktopped courts, basketball hoops, and a track for running. Before the building and on either side, rows of trees and a slightly overgrown lawn still shimmered from the early-morning rain. The angel fountain in the center of the drop-off circle could have been alabaster.

  Four cars, all which had probably delivered new residents, were already parked. There were three news vans as well, identifiable by the logos on their sides. Among them, a smartly dressed TV lady—Rebecca could see the vest mic, could make out her putting in an earpiece—pointed in her direction.

  One of the cameramen started filming the lady. The other actually came in the direction of their car, training the lens on them.

  Opening the passenger side door, Rebecca could hear the lady talking, but she could not make out the words. She hesitated before getting out.

  And heard her mother say, as if to herself, “Mike, what are you doing?”

  Rebecca closed the door again. “Um … Mom?”

  Mom shook her head, frowning. “Let’s go, Rebecca. Just don’t say anything. Not one word.”

  “Mom—what is this?”

  “I didn’t know about this. Your dad, he—he said he was giving an interview. But I don’t think he planned on this. He didn’t say anything about this.”

  You’re punishing me on television? Rebecca thought, her mouth open in shock. “‘Giving an interview’?” she echoed. “About me?”

  The man with the camera was right outside their car, less than five feet away. Rebecca pressed her right palm flat against the window, a pitiful attempt at obstruction.

  Mom shook her head again. “About us,” she said. “About family. We have to go, Rebecca.”

  “And you didn’t even warn me?”

  “I told you, I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t think they’d be here. I didn’t want you to think about that on top of everything else. Neither did your dad. Rebecca, I promise.”

  Rebecca narrowed her eyes.

  Mom got out of the car. Without sparing the cameramen a glance—now there were three of them, all converging at once, allowing her a space no more than three feet in diameter—she came around to Rebecca’s side and reopened her door. She held her hand out.

  Rebecca didn’t take it. She emerged from the car and, like her mother, did her best to ignore the TV people. She hauled her suitcase from the backseat.

  The news lady never stopped talking to the camera by the entrance, but a second one—a guy—shouted questions, as if they were far away and dealing with a flood of competing reporters.

  Was this a difficult decision, Mrs. Riggs? Rebecca, just a question or two. Have you ever been in trouble before, Rebecca? Have you met your teachers yet? Rebecca, don’t you want to be heard?

  Rebecca held the suitcase in one hand as they started up the entry steps, passed the news lady, together. But when her mother reached for her other hand, Rebecca shook it free in a fist, then took the suitcase with both hands. “How could you do this?” she hissed, hoping the cameras would not pick up her words.

  Mom didn’t answer. They went inside. The cameras were not allowed to follow.

  ****

  Daniel was alone when he said good-bye to his father.

  The walk from Bartholomew High to Eternal Witness and its adjacent cemetery was less than four miles. He didn’t mind making it. Mom needed the car to find work. As he passed through the open graveyard gate, holding the plastic box of his father’s ashes, Daniel figured Mom was probably at Corner Grocery. Perhaps Mr. Macklin really would take her back now that she had returned to church.

  As for getting rid of the ashes, Mom wanted no part of that. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at the box.

  We have to get rid of them, he’d told her. We have to send back the box by tomorrow. But that was as much as he’d said on the matter. Dad was dead. They had to focus on themselves.

  Daniel stopped walking and held up the box to look at it more closely. There was no special button or catch, just a gray Tupperware-style lid. He wrestled it off, surprised at how tightly it had been sealed. He spilled some of the ashes on the walkway and his pants.

  It didn’t matter. Not really. The important thing was that he was seen spreading the ashes over
hallowed ground. Here, at four in the afternoon, there was a good number of people wandering around or lingering over final resting places. A few would take note. Apart from the visitors, there was also a groundskeeper, and Daniel had passed several parishioners on the main church property, including Pastor Harland.

  God be with you, the pastor had said, noticing the box with a slight smile.

  And also with you, Daniel had answered, wishing he could get his church time barcoded for this.

  He proceeded farther into the cemetery, cradling the box in his arm and sifting the grainy, lumpy remains. He allowed more ashes to drop onto the damp grass. Are You watching this, God? Are You blessing me now? Are You blessing my dad?

  Daniel didn’t rule out God’s existence. He supposed God was possible, even though he’d never admitted it in public.

  He dribbled more ashes and kept walking. The cemetery was a hill, and Daniel wanted to finish at its top.

  Show me evidence of God, he had said during the interview before his Solomon test. Why would God make the world and then hide from it?

  Evidence? the administrator had replied with a sigh. It’s all around you.

  So many times, by so many people, he and his mother had been called “faithless.” And that was accurate, he supposed, because the faithful didn’t require evidence for anything. Except, he reflected, church attendance.

  He was only too happy to let his mind wander. Random thoughts didn’t involve memories. Like his father taking him fishing. Holding his hand. Talking to him.

  If he could, Daniel would be distributing these ashes somewhere in Philadelphia. Maybe at the resting place of the “Liberty Bell” his father had talked about. Maybe at the wreck of the baseball stadium where the “Phillies” had once played. But Daniel’s ancestral city was gone, along with the “Bell” and the “Phillies.” At least here, in this cemetery, people came to meditate on respect for the dead. People of faith came to advocate for them.

  Daniel stood on top of the hill and turned the box completely over, emptying it. “I loved you, Dad,” he said. “But you’re gone now too.”

  From this vantage point, he could look down on the Church of Eternal Witness. As far as he could make out, the windows were all stained glass: golden-orange sunbursts over rounded hills with crosses on them; blue-robed resurrected Jesus with holes in his hands; some kind of an avenging angel with a fiery sword.

  Except for one. One window was conspicuously ordinary. Daniel thought it might be the very one that looked out from whatever room was behind the chapel. The money room.

  He shook the box again before snapping the lid back in place. I have to clean this out before sending it back, he reminded himself. That’s what they told me to do. And the prepaid postage was only good if he got it to his father’s old post office by ten tomorrow morning.

  ****

  “Michael, no,” Alison said. “This is a bad idea. I don’t know what you were thinking.”

  I’m thinking of saving my job, he thought, feeling his pulse rise. Our very way of life. “You need me to spell it out for you?”

  The admittance paperwork was done. The good-bye lunch, too, was over, and Rebecca had gone off with the other new residents to be shown around the campus grounds. Everyone else had left. Only he and his wife remained in the lobby. And she was arguing with him.

  “Why television?” she asked. “It’s demeaning. It’s like … public shaming, and you’re doing it deliberately. What’s the point?”

  After two hours of wrangling with Mrs. James, Deborah Fisher had finally managed to secure a room away from the residents for the interview. She was presumably still there, still waiting. Michael hoped she would wait a bit longer. It wasn’t like they were airing the piece live.

  “We are going to own this,” he explained, summoning patience. “We’re going to be upfront about it, let the people see we don’t hide our faults. If we don’t deal with this in some public way, we’ll be perceived as hypocrites. My doing it alone would be even worse. Don’t you understand that?”

  “Yes, Michael, I do,” she said, the edge in her voice sharpening. “I’m not thinking about ‘the people.’ I’m thinking about our daughter. She may never forgive us—ambushed by News 4 before she’s even out of the car. She’s a child. How can they even do that? I’m tempted to report them, if no one else does.”

  “I signed a release.”

  Alison blinked at him, clearly shocked. “You what?”

  “Don’t you take that tone with me,” he said, outwardly calm. Inside, he was fuming. This was how they had blown it with Rebecca. Didn’t Alison see that? And in the end, he knew the fault was his. He hadn’t been strong enough, neither as a father nor as a husband. He had compromised too much. He needed to take back control. “She’s our daughter. Not our partner. Not our equal. We’re done deciding things by committee. She will accept that I know what’s best for her—now or later, one way or another.”

  Alison didn’t answer. It looked like she wanted to, though. Too much like she wanted to.

  “We are in no position to ignore what people think, Alison. And you will do what I tell you. I’ve met you halfway on enough issues that pertain to our child. Am I clear?”

  Still, nothing.

  “I asked you if I was clear.”

  “Michael, what’s gotten into you?”

  “Common sense. You should grow some. Anyway, we can’t have you on TV looking like that.” He waved, vaguely and backhandedly, at her casual clothes. “I brought something for you to change into. Deborah said you could use her van as a dressing room.”

  ****

  No one told Rebecca she wasn’t allowed to wear her hair in a ponytail. In fact, Miss Paula wore hers in a tail too. But they told her a lot of other things, like how residents received a single strap—administered by the prefects—across the backs of their right hands just after evening services and prayers.

  “It’s penance,” Miss Paula said. “It’s part of the program. There’s no malice in it. Just once per evening, to remind you that you have been brought to us for going astray, for being wayward. No latex allergies, I hope?” A thick strip of rubber dangled from her hand.

  Miss Marcy had one too. She stood expectantly before the girl Rebecca was scheduled to bunk with, a weepy little thing named Caroline. It seemed that, of the newcomers, she and Caroline would be the first to receive this treatment.

  “What’s latex?” Rebecca asked.

  “If you don’t know, you’re good. Right hand up, palm down.” Then, reassuringly, she said, “It’ll be over in a second.”

  “Hand,” Miss Marcy said to Caroline. “Let’s go, princess. Put it up. Suck it up.”

  Miss Paula winced, as though on Rebecca’s behalf, as she delivered the single blow—but she didn’t hold anything back. The sound echoed in the chapel. Rebecca managed to keep her response to a pained gasp.

  Afterward, she rubbed her hand and blew on it, but said nothing. Knuckle straps happened at school too. But, well, you had to do something bad to get them at regular school. And they didn’t hit that hard either.

  Seconds later, Miss Marcy’s strap come down. Caroline squealed good and loud, and Miss Marcy’s eyes glittered.

  No malice, huh? Think there’s some malice in that one.

  By the time the prefects were done with the others, Caroline had nearly calmed down. Somewhere in the middle of the prayer that followed, she stopped crying altogether. It was the expectation, Rebecca supposed, more than the pain itself that had upset her. Maybe she’d never been knuckle-strapped before. Now that she knew what it was, maybe tomorrow’s wouldn’t be such a big deal.

  Supper, services, and straps ended the orientation. To Rebecca’s relief, Miss Marcy excused herself right after.

  Miss Paula then led them from the chapel to the lobby and the elevator. It opened on the third floor, where she showed Rebecca and Caroline to their room and indicated who had which bed.

  “We don’t get to pick?” Rebecca ask
ed, mindful to keep her tone neutral and accepting.

  “Afraid not. Simpler this way. No arguing this way. Okay?”

  “Yes, Miss Paula.”

  Caroline had gotten the bed by the window.

  “You two have a blessed night,” Miss Paula said, winking at them and leaving.

  Will do, your holiness.

  Rebecca let her hair down and surveyed her new quarters. Beds, dressers, bibles, work desks, and lamps—each half of the room was a mirror image, except for the window on Caroline’s side and the single bathroom on Rebecca’s. Both nightstands had a box of tissues. Their beds even had matching sets of DTR jammies laid out for them.

  Caroline went to the window. “Mind if I open this? Nice night, after the rain earlier.”

  “Feel free,” Rebecca said, finding the words instantly ironic. Come on. It’s not like they locked us in. Could be worse.

  The night air washed in. But the screen behind the window was sealed shut, Rebecca noted, as Caroline unsuccessfully tried to lift it. “Really?” Caroline said. “Like we’re planning a breakout.”

  “I wouldn’t even joke about that,” Rebecca said. “They probably have the room bugged.” She picked up the bible on her desk, checked the schedule bookmark for tonight’s assigned reading, and sat on her bed. “Tonight’s Jeremiah. Always good for a pick-me-up, that Jeremiah.”

  “Take turns on the verses?” Caroline suggested, grabbing her own bible and plopping down next to Rebecca.

  “Sure.”

  “I’m here for grades,” Caroline said rather sheepishly. “Dad says I spend too much time with my head in the clouds. How about you?”

  Rebecca bobbed on the bed, testing its springiness, and Caroline giggled.

  “I’m here because a so-called friend ratted on me.”

  “Oh,” Caroline said, taken aback. “I’m … sorry to hear that. Hope that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”