by Sarah Healy
“I’ll be fine,” said Aunt Kathy in the overexaggerated, syrupy southern accent that she and my mother always used when trying to be convincing. “Lord, I can’t wait to have a few days to putter around my house by myself.”
From behind me, I heard my father’s distinct, heavy footsteps.
“Are we ready?” he asked.
“Wait—you’re leaving right now?” I asked.
“Daddy and I are going to take Kathy to the airport. We’ll be back in about an hour,” said my mother.
My father picked up two of Aunt Kathy’s bags, then stood a few feet back while my aunt and I said good-bye. It was as if he didn’t want to get too close to anyone, as if he had some virulent and contagious virus. Once so indomitable, he now seemed almost meek.
“You have a wonderful Christmas, honey,” said Aunt Kathy, gripping my shoulders.
“You, too,” I said, bewildered and stunned. “I just can’t believe you’re going.”
“Say good-bye to your brother and sister for me.” And with that, the three of them disappeared.
There were dishes in the sink. I began obsessively washing them. Not just giving them a rinse and sticking them in the dishwasher, but cleaning and drying by hand. When that was done, I wiped down the already clean counters and vacuumed the floor before moving on to the living room. It was the first time I really noticed that there was no tree. It was a week before Christmas and there was no tree. There were no stockings and no nativity. There were no amaryllis bulging from their fleshy bulbs, ready to bloom. The lack of ornamentation immediately seemed like a flashing, foreboding symbol, a red flag that I had missed. Aunt Kathy knew everything there was to know about my mother, and, by extension, my parents. There was nothing I could imagine being beyond the pale of their relationship.
I got in the car and drove to one of the roadside Christmas tree stands that popped up around that time of year. As I stood looking at the trees, constrained by netting and leaning up against the A-frame display, I pictured my parents’ living room, with its huge cathedral ceiling and massive stone fireplace.
“What size you looking for?” asked a gruff man with a red beard shot with white.
“I don’t know exactly. Something big, though.”
“The biggest we got left is about twelve feet.”
“Perfect,” I said, wanting a tree to fill the space, to totally overwhelm and consume it.
He tied it to the roof of my car and I drove awkwardly but urgently toward home, wanting to get the tree set up before my parents returned. I would find the decorations in the basement. The tree stand was there, too. Everything was going to look perfect, I thought as my hands shook.
But my father’s car was already in the garage when I arrived.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked my mother. She was sitting in the living room, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees. Music was playing in the background, a modern recording of “Jehovah Jireh.” It meant “God the Provider.”
“Your father’s not feeling well. He’s lying down.”
“I bought a Christmas tree. I can’t get it in by myself.”
My mother took a deep breath. “Ellen, sit down.”
“What’s going on, Mom?” I asked, dreading her answer, realizing that no matter how old I got, my parents would always be my parents. I would always feel helpless and vulnerable in the face of their problems.
“Your father and I have declared bankruptcy.”
“Oh, Mom,” I whispered. By the look on her face, I could tell she was not done.
“We are figuring out what assets the bank is going to get. We are hoping to keep the house.”
“What?” I didn’t have the foresight to hide my shock or fear. “You might lose the house?”
She covered her eyes with her hand and I saw her mouth quiver. “Your poor father,” she said. “He’s worked so hard his whole life, and to be left with nothing is just…” Beyond words. His was the story you heard about on the news. The greedy developer who rode the real estate bubble to riches until it burst and he finally got what was coming to him. He was the villain, the fool, and the problem.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked, echoing the question that had probably been ringing in my mother’s ears for months.
“Nothing is definite. Your father’s been talking to the lawyers. They don’t usually go after your residence, but—” She swatted at the air, and I realized that my mother’s understanding of the situation was most likely minimal. “I guess we have a lot of equity in this place.” She laughed sadly. “Lord, you’d think that was a good thing.”
“Oh, Mom,” I said, putting my hand on hers. As I was trying to formulate the right words, ask the right questions, my mother turned to me with sudden urgency.
“Ellen, you just have to promise me—please don’t let on to your father that you know. He doesn’t want anyone to know yet.”
“Mom, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I said, but even as I spoke, I knew it wasn’t exactly true. Wasn’t failure—particularly financial failure—what men like my father were told to be ashamed of?
“Promise me, Ellen.” Her words were more emphatic, more desperate.
I nodded reluctantly. “Do you have a plan?” I asked quietly.
“I just have to pray.” Her head began to nod steadily. “We just have to all keeping praying.”
I was filled with a sudden and violent fury. I had expected her answer to involve payment plans, budgets, mentions of funds that were protected, untouchable—but prayer? It doesn’t work, I screamed in my head, wanting to shake her. It doesn’t fucking work. But I said nothing. My mother read the look on my face.
“What else can I do, Ellen?” she asked, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please, tell me, what else can I possibly do?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The car bucked violently as we went over an enormous pothole in the parking lot of Prince of Peace Church. It was located in one of the better areas of what was typically considered a not-very-nice town.
“Shoot,” said my mother, cringing as her car bottomed out. “I didn’t see that.”
She was distracted, eager to get to church, to thank Jesus for “the word” he had given her last night.
“I sent out a prayer request and you wouldn’t believe how many people I had praying for us.” That night, she said, she had awakened suddenly, almost as if shaken. “I had a feeling of supernatural peace. That’s when it came to my lips, ‘prosperity and abundance.’ ” She shook her head fondly, as if at the reliability and loyalty of a very old friend. “That’s the Lord. God the Provider.” In my mother’s mind, it was prophetic, a message from the divine that everything was going to be just fine.
She pulled the car into a distant spot in the crowded lot and we walked together up to the building. The church was housed in a smallish, seventies-looking structure with brown vertical siding and chalet-style stained-glass windows. The sign, which was beginning to fade and chip, read, PRINCE OF PEACE CHURCH. ALL ARE WELCOME, and featured a dove, an olive branch, and a cross. Though Christmas was less than a week away, the only seasonal adornments were two anemic-looking evergreen wreaths that hung on each of the double-entry doors. They looked like the kind sold on roadsides by mute, disabled veterans, with their twist-on red polyester ribbons and plastic gold bells.
“I see they don’t have the same decorator as Christ Church,” I said with grim sarcasm. Christ Church, with its hand-carved walnut nativity scene and elegantly adorned Alberta spruces, subscribed to the belief that the gospel goes down easier when tarted up a bit. But Prince of Peace was cut from a different cloth: the itchy kind. Once inside, I imagined that I would be surrounded by pale-faced women with big gums. Their long hair would be parted down the middle and pulled back into a utilitarian ponytail. Their seven children, who had never watched TV or eaten Froot Loops, would peer out from behind their legs with wide, frightened eyes and ill-fitting clothing. The men would heartily shake one another
’s hands and greet their neighbors with the prefix brother or sister. “Brother Paul!” they would say. “I missed you at the retreat last weekend!”
Ignoring me, my mother kept a few steps ahead, anxious to get inside. “They do the most adorable children’s sermon here, too,” she said as she hurried up the concrete walk. “The minister really knows how to speak to the little ones, to talk about the Lord in a way that they understand.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll bet all the homeschoolers love it.”
“Stop it,” said my mother sharply. “I don’t want to hear any negativity.”
I hadn’t intended to be so snarky. I had only come this morning to support her. “Please come, Ellen,” she had said. “Your father just doesn’t want to go to church today.” But on the drive in, as I heard more about how the Lord was going to make everything okay, how she just needed to trust absolutely, to pray harder, to believe more, I had found the venom building in my throat. “All this financial business is really just an opportunity to cleave to the Lord,” she said as I stared out the window at the rented duplexes and electronics repair shops that littered this run-down town.
We entered the sanctuary just before the service was to begin, and I noted with a combination of disappointment and relief that, for the most part, the other congregants were ordinary-looking people. There were, as promised, several refugees, and the socioeconomic status was decidedly more mixed than at Christ Church, but this wasn’t the tent revival I had expected.
With nearly all the seats filled, we took our places in an uncomfortably upright pew toward the back. In her quiet, church voice, my mother began to give me the necessary background, as if the service was the sequel to a movie I had never seen. “This church was nearly dead until a few years ago, when the old pastor passed away and they got this new one. Now it’s growing like crazy.”
I nodded without interest and began thumbing through the program, trying to gauge how long a service I was in for. If Communion was being offered, I would be here for at least an hour, maybe more.
It was only a minute or two before the large band positioned behind the pulpit sprang into action, the cue, I assumed, for everyone to crane their necks and watch the minister make his way down the aisle. I kept my gaze on the “upcoming events” section of the thin, xeroxed sheets of paper. It seemed that the church would be organizing several trips, volunteer service opportunities to places like El Salvador and Kenya.
“Here he comes,” my mother said, elbowing me in the ribs. I looked up lazily, following the eyes of the crowd.
At first, I didn’t understand it, why Mark was there, striding purposefully down the aisle.
“He was raised in Africa. His parents were missionaries,” my mother whispered. “Isn’t he handsome?” I couldn’t respond, couldn’t move. I was frozen. My mind was screaming, but my body was immobile.
I wanted it to be a mistake, a look-alike, a misunderstanding. Maybe he was just making an announcement, a pitch for volunteers for his nonprofit. But though he was still dressed like Mark, still had on jeans and a plain brown sweater, he was carrying a Bible and stepped assuredly up onto the stage, as if he had been doing it for years.
As it turns out, he had.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“You know, he’s spending his Christmas with the inmates up in Rahway at the state prison. That’s a true man of God,” said my mother, nodding in agreement with herself. “I get the feeling he’s a little more liberal than I usually like, but what can you do…” She trailed off, oblivious to my shock.
Once in position, Mark ran his fingers through his hair, then looked up calmly at the congregation. “Good morning,” he said in his strong but soft voice. “Thank you for joining us in fellowship this morning.”
I flipped wildly to the front of the program. Under the church’s logo in small type was “Pastor Mark Oberson.” My cheeks burned instantly and I shrank back into my seat as my breath sped up unnaturally. I flipped the program over, as if to hide his name, and there on the back was a small logo for a church-run organization whose mission was alleviating poverty in the community. It was called the Need Alliance.
“Ellen, what’s the matter with you?” demanded my mother. I couldn’t answer; I could only recall the things I had said and done just two nights ago, reframing them in this shocking new context. I want to be with you, I had whispered as I undressed myself. I once had a friend in college who took a job as a dancer at a high-end strip club. A women’s studies major, she spun her lucrative employment as liberating, a sort of feminism 2.0, until one night, a few minutes into her routine, she saw her uncle in the audience, looking stunned and excruciatingly uncomfortable as the German businessman whom he was entertaining stared at her appreciatively. I instantly had greater empathy for both of them.
It was all I could do to keep from running from the building right then and there, but I knew that I had to get out with as little notice as possible. Hunching so deeply that my face was practically on my knees, I looked through the program while my mother cast me sidelong glances. I would bide my time, then slip out calmly, as if just going to the restroom. Mark would never see me, never know I had been there.
I kept my eyes down as he spoke, his words becoming just sounds, unintelligible and meaningless as I concentrated on breathing, in and out. “Ellen, for goodness’ sake, sit up,” ordered my mother. We were called to stand and the music began again. I dared to sneak a glance up at the stage. Mark was watching the band, singing with the rest of the congregation, his head nodding rhythmically.
When the music ended, he opened his Bible and turned the pages carefully. Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he began to speak: “Romans 8:28 says, ‘And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.’ ” It was one of my mother’s favorite scriptures, and she’d often say, “Even what seem like problems can become blessings in the Lord’s hands.” When Mark was finished, he looked up at the congregation, then closed his eyes. “Let us pray.”
It was a beautiful prayer, my mother would later tell me, but I couldn’t recall a word of it. As soon as it ended, there was another song; then Mark invited us to greet one another. As my mother quietly shook hands with our neighbors, I reached into her purse and pulled out her keys.
“Where are you going?” she hissed as I slid smoothly from the pew.
“I’ll be in the car,” I whispered, a desperate edge to my voice.
My hands were on the metal door push when I heard my name echo over the church’s PA system, drowning out the murmured exchanges of welcome among the congregants. “Ellen.” It wasn’t a question; there was no uncertainty in his voice. Frozen, I glanced back at the pulpit. He was staring at me, looking confused and pained and shocked.
Our eyes met for only a moment. Then, pushing the door open just wide enough to slip through, I escaped into the foyer and pressed the door shut again behind me. I flew through the second set of doors and outside, immune to the cold as it hit my burning face. Overwhelmed and stunned, I swatted unwelcome tears from my eyes. I didn’t know why they were coming. As I began to walk purposefully toward the car, my heart jumped as I heard the doors lurch open behind me. “Ellen!” he called. “Wait!” My pace quickened and I felt my stomach make panicked flips. His hand caught my arm and suddenly he was in front of me.
“Ellen, please,” he said, trying to catch my eyes.
For a second, when our eyes locked, I wanted to collapse against him. But that feeling was almost immediately overtaken by a deep sense of indignation and betrayal, which neither began nor ended with Mark.
“So the Need Alliance, huh?” I asked caustically.
“Just walk with me?”
I clutched the collar of my coat closed. “I don’t want to walk,” I said flatly.
“All right. I’ll say what I need to say right here.” He tried to take my hand, but I pulled it back. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Ellen. There were so many tim
es when I wanted to tell you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because of this.” He gestured to the space between us. “Because with every day that passed that I didn’t tell you, it became harder.”
“Why did you lie in the first place?” I asked, pretending that it was his dishonesty that caused my repulsion, forgetting my own initial omissions.
“Ellen, women either won’t date me because of my work or they only want to date me because of my work.” He laughed humorlessly. “Neither really works.” I looked to see the members of the church beginning to peer from around the side of the building, taking cautious, wary steps toward us. “I really care about you. I didn’t want you to find out like this. I hoped it wouldn’t matter, but I can tell that it does.” He looked at me, waiting for me to contradict him. I couldn’t.
My mother emerged from the church, followed by several congregants looking protectively at “Pastor Mark” and suspiciously at me. Walking gingerly toward us, Mom looked back at the group and offered a nervous, apologetic smile.
“Hi, Pastor Mark,” she said as she reached us, her sugar-sweet southern accent kicking in. “I don’t know if you remember me, Patty Carlisle; I went with y’all to the family center a few times?”
Mark forced a smile. “Hello. How are you?”
She looked back and forth between us. “Is everything all right?”
“Mom, can you give us a minute?”
“Do y’all know each other?” she asked hopefully.
“Mom…”
I pulled Mark farther away. “Listen. This is clearly not the place to discuss this. Let’s talk later.”
He nodded. “I’ll pick you up,” he said. “What time?”
“No…,” I said quickly. “Let’s just meet somewhere.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Well, I think it’s wonderful that your boyfriend is a minister,” clucked my mother as she merged onto Route 78. “I don’t understand what you are so worked up about, why we had to leave church, for goodness’ sake.”