by Monica West
I thrust my crutches into the sand and took a few steps back, even as Ma stepped closer to him. We were intruding on something private.
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” His voice reached an angry crescendo as he cried out the same helpless words that Jesus did when He was dying on the cross, when He felt abandoned by God. Papa repeated the question louder and louder as the tide washed in and receded, erasing the tracks that his fingers had traced.
* * *
Before Bethel, the trip back to Texas had always been full of reminiscences. We’d laugh as we shared different versions of Remember when Papa did this? This time, we waited silently in the minivan as Papa walked back from the beach. Ma and Caleb had come back to the car after Papa’s words had broken into sobs, after he’d been lying prostrate on the sand for minutes that dragged on.
Papa didn’t say anything either as he climbed in, jerked the car into gear, and pulled away from the ocean. In radio static and silence, we sped down streets that pressed in on us and turned down a highway that unfolded into more monotony. An hour ticked away without anyone uttering a word—although the words from Papa’s prayer on the beach seemed to echo through the upholstery. Papa was never a man to admit when he was wrong—he fought against facts about the order of presidents or the population of the towns we visited for revival season. Well, just because that book says it’s true doesn’t mean it really is. It was his standard response to avoid saying that he’d made a mistake. But he couldn’t rely on that excuse now. He had finally broken—I had been the one to break him—but there was no joy in the admission.
Papa stopped for gas at a station about six hours away from the ocean. The rest of us exhaled when he left the van, but we didn’t say anything to fill the vacuum of silence. Ma made eye contact with me in the rearview mirror, nodding her head toward the mini-mart. I took my cue to scuttle inside and use the restroom. I’d barely climbed back into the car before Papa accelerated and peeled away. The dull pain in my ribs became sharp as I knocked into the door. Papa was watching me as I winced, but his eyes revealed no sympathy.
We drove nonstop in the reverse direction—west instead of east—weaving in front of semis without signaling, going above the speed limit even when night fell. When Ma would have normally told him to stop at a hotel for the night, she let him continue driving.
A large sign loomed overhead: WELCOME TO TEXAS. There was no glory in going home—it felt like surrender as we passed drugstores and playgrounds and even the darkened steeple of Papa’s church. A red light stopped us by the wrought-iron arches leading to the cemetery where Isaiah was buried. I wondered if Ma and Papa would turn to look in the direction of his grave, but their heads stayed glued to the traffic light. I craned my neck toward the right window and touched the glass, remembering the feel of the hard earth around his grave marker when I’d gone there with Mrs. Cade. When the light turned, Papa gunned the engine.
We arrived back at the house two and a half weeks after we left. Papa placed the minivan in park and killed the engine. We sat in the driveway; no one dared to make the first move. I waited for Ma to say the prayer that thanked God for bringing us safely home, but her mouth was sewn shut.
In the rearview mirror, Papa was looking back at me with a weary expression—the first time he’d held my gaze for more than just a few seconds on the drive home. One blink. Two.
“There will be no more of that,” he finally said. “Right?” His voice had all the accumulated heft and weight of everything he’d wanted to say to me. No more of that That. He had reduced everything I’d done to one word; he couldn’t even get himself to say the word healing.
I held his gaze. The simplest thing would have been to tell him what he needed to hear, to pretend like my confession and absolution would restore him to the preacher and healer that he had once been. As though my healing was a sin that required absolution.
“Answer me, Miriam. Yes or no.”
As though on a movie reel, I saw the future that he wanted for me—the future that he needed me to want. Like a shutter, my eyes closed—I felt the hands that would stay in the pockets of my homemade starchy skirts without touching another forehead, the truths that I’d have to hold deep inside while I pretended Papa could still heal and I never could.
When the shutter opened again, my eyes bounced around the minivan—to Caleb whose eyes darted in their sockets, to Ma whose chin was resting on one palm, at sleeping Isaac, whose body was curled in on itself in the car seat like a comma, and finally to Hannah, who still managed to smile at me even after what had happened in Shelby. I saw her again, bleating on the ground, her eyes begging me to help her. Tipping forward in the seat, I swallowed the white heat and pain that came from my ribs and touched her clammy cheek—she leaned into my hand. I prayed this meant she was forgiving me.
I looked to the porch of the house, remembering the days I played on the front steps, writing my name in sidewalk chalk with ashy pastel hands, the epic games of hide-and-seek when I always beat Caleb, only coming back inside the house when Ma called my name. I had crossed a line, unmarked and unseen, and now those memories were on the other side. The Miriam I had been before had died in Shelby—saying no meant I would no longer sit on the porch after revival with Ma, feeling the numbness on my tongue after dipping it into an ice-cream cone. Would never again stand ankle-deep in lukewarm water playing baptism in an inflatable pool with Caleb, my skirt hitched up to my knees.
“Well?”
A yes would bring me out of exile, back into the fold, while a no would cast me into the wilderness, into the land of Ma’s family and the nonbelievers that we prayed for. Then other memories came flooding back to me: the sweat above Micah’s lip as she lay lifeless in front of me; the convulsion in Nadia’s body as she pressed against the sink’s ceramic basin, the trust in her eyes when she’d believed that I could take away her pain; the puff of Hope’s first breath in my mouth and the tiniest rise in her chest as her skin turned pink; and then Ma, her forehead smooth when I touched it, slick with holy oil as the sign of the cross lingered on her skin long after my hand was gone. And there could be so many others.
“Miriam?”
I dipped my chin to my chest and closed my eyes, pressing the ice pack into my aching ribs. I whispered a prayer to God. Wind wafted into the minivan through the open windows, making goose bumps sprout on my skin, and I knew He was here with me. I opened my eyes, my gaze a laser on Papa’s, and felt the answer tickling the edges of my mouth.
I took a deep breath and parted my lips to speak.
Acknowledgments
Duvall Osteen, you believed in this book even when I had my doubts, and you have been its champion all the way through. Thank you for your ideas, enthusiasm, patience, support, and warmth; I can’t imagine anyone else guiding me through this process. Carina Guiterman, your enthusiasm for this story came through during that first call, and your clear, precise vision and edits have shaped the novel into what it has become. Every moment that I’ve been able to work on this book with you has been a gift. Lashanda Anakwah, you have been a lifeline during this process, and I’m grateful for your quick responses and guiding hand throughout this journey. To Cat Boyd and Elise Ringo, thank you for all of your hard work on behalf of this book. Tristan Offit, thank you for designing a stunning cover that was better than I even imagined it could be. To the rest of the team at Aragi Inc. and Simon & Schuster, thank you for the tireless work that you’ve done on behalf of my book.
To Julia Fierro, thank you for nurturing my early writing at Sackett Street and giving me confidence in my voice. In addition, before Revival Season was a book, it was a chapter and an incomplete idea, and there were a few people who saw it during its infancy and helped shape it into what it has become. Peter Ho Davies, you workshopped the first chapter in Napa and encouraged me to think about getting my MFA. The trajectory of my life changed after that week, and I’m forever indebted to you for your critical feedback, careful reading, and generosity t
hrough the years. In July 2014, my week in Taos as a Kimbilio Fellow came at a time when I needed solitude and community to turn this book into something more tangible. David Haynes, your vision for this community, along with your keen insight and wisdom during that week and beyond, helped this book in immeasurable ways. Sam Chang, before I attended Iowa, I was in your workshop at Napa in 2014. I was grateful for your insightful feedback and wise mentorship then, and I am even more grateful now after having had the opportunity to spend two years at Iowa with you. Thank you for the ways that you have changed this book and my life.
I was the beneficiary of incredible teaching at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Paul Harding, you were the first person to read an early draft of Revival Season. From that moment forward, you have believed in the possibilities of this book and in my ability to write it. Thank you for your belief in me and in the story I had to tell. Margot Livesey, you are the most generous and gracious person I have ever met. You have loved and believed in Miriam, always pushing me to make changes to the story to make her come alive. Miriam is better because of you—this book is better because of you—and I am better for having known you. Allan Gurganus, when you came to Iowa in the fall of 2016 and workshopped the first chapter of Revival Season, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Thank you for your generous guidance and wise feedback about those early pages that stayed with me through each revision of the book. Ayana Mathis, you have been an inspiration from the first moment that I was in your seminar, and I am so grateful that I ended my two years in Iowa with you at the helm of my workshop. Your lessons about the “aboutness” of my fiction and your urging to make my characters “be mean to one another” still resonate with me and make me a better writer. Finally, my time at Iowa would not have been nearly as enriching without Connie Brothers, Deb West, and Jan Zenisek. You are the heartbeat of the Workshop; thank you for making my time there so fruitful.
In addition to being taught by incredible writers, I was also fortunate enough to find my people in Iowa—people who were my social lifeline in Iowa City as well as wonderful readers for my fiction. Jade Jones, De’Shawn Charles Winslow, Will Shih, Regina Porter, Grayson Morley, Dawnie Walton, Afabwaje Kurian, Melissa Mogollon, Tameka Cage Conley, Derek Nnuro, Christina Cooke, and Jamel Brinkley: I am grateful for your friendship, support, and inspiration. You are amazing writers and incredible people; I’m honored to know you.
Thank you to the Rona Jaffe Foundation for giving me the financial support to focus on this novel while at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Thank you also to Hedgebrook for giving me the time, space, and community to write in Whidbey Island.
Novels are conceived and written in seclusion, but they are nurtured in community; I have had the best communities surrounding me during the nine years that I’ve been writing Revival Season. Gabi Ryan, I’ll never forget the conversation in your backyard when you pushed me to pursue my MFA. I am beyond grateful for your friendship and the way you have celebrated me all along the way. Bill Ryan, thank you for your friendship and for your time explaining all of my contracts. LaKimbre Brown, my travel buddy and amazing friend, this book has been with you in so many places across the globe. Thank you for always supporting my dream to become a novelist.
I am grateful for the love and support of my former school community at the Park School of Baltimore. In addition, to my past and present colleagues in the English department and at the rest of Lick-Wilmerding High School, I am so proud of your amazing work and am grateful to change lives with you every day. Thank you for your support of me and the book. I have also had the opportunity to find an amazing community of people who started out as colleagues and later became close friends. To Linnea Ogden and Josie Halpern-Finnerty, thank you for the firsts: you were two of the first readers of this book, and you were also the first to celebrate with me when I sold it. To Jennifer Selvin and Eric Guthertz, thank you for giving me feedback on draft after draft, and thank you for celebrating each milestone with me along the way. This journey has been sweeter because I’ve been able to share it with you. Finally, I can’t believe that I was fortunate enough to find amazing friends where I worked: Jackie Spivey, Christine Godinez Jackson, Melissa Nagar, Cristal Ogletree, Rebecca Hong, Oscar King, Nate Lundy, and Michecia Jones—thank you for your support and love during this journey.
Over sixteen years of teaching in Phoenix, Baltimore, Iowa City, and San Francisco, I have had the opportunity to spend life with over a thousand young people who inspire me every single day. Although I was technically your teacher, you have taught me more life lessons than I could have ever imparted to you. It has been the biggest privilege of my life to be called your teacher.
To my family at the Movement, I have felt completely known and loved here; thank you for supporting me, giving me a safe place to be known, and helping me grow deeper in my faith. To my Wednesday women: Alicia Jay, Briana Clarke, Junia Kim, Debra White, Nadia Tsado, Divine and Praise Adesida, Chika Egbe, Lydia Clinton, and Patrice Reynolds, thank you for loving me, supporting me, and doing life with me.
The word “friend” doesn’t even begin to approach what these three women have been to me. Marlissa Hudson, Tynesia Boyea-Robinson, and Demetria Elmore, you are my sisters—my chosen family. I don’t know what I did to earn your unconditional love and support, but I never want a day to go by when I don’t thank you for being incredible, amazing women who know me better than I know myself and push me to be the best version of that self. I can’t wait to celebrate this book release with you!
I come from a big extended family of grandparents, aunts, great aunts, uncles, great uncles, and cousins who have loved me from the beginning and been instrumental in making me who I am. A piece of all of you is in me, and this novel is a testament to your enduring influence in my life.
To Angela Malone—my big sister—you were the first audience for many of my stories. I always hear your voice in my ear spurring me on and telling me that you believe in me, and that has made all the difference. I love you so very much. To Ava, Evan, and Lauren Malone, I am honored that I get to be your Auntie Monica. It has been one of the biggest joys of my life to watch you grow into the brave, smart, fearless, and kind young people that you are becoming.
Last, but definitely not least, to my mom and dad, Edna and Henry West. You read to me when I was little and helped me imagine worlds that existed in books. You fed my imagination, supported my creativity, nurtured my wild dreams, answered my incessant questions, and loved me unconditionally. Even when you haven’t agreed with my decisions, you supported them. I have never known a love like the love you both have for me. Every word in every book that I will ever write belongs to you.
More in Literary Fiction
A Man Called Ove
The Woman in Cabin 10
Ordinary Grace
The Lake House
Manhattan Beach
The Japanese Lover
About the Author
© CHICKPEA PHOTOGRAPHY
Monica West was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2017, where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow. She currently resides in Oakland, California.
monicawestwrites.com
@mlaurenwest @monicalwest
SimonandSchuster.com
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Monica-West
@simonbooks
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
/> This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Monica West
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition May 2021
SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Lewelin Polanco
Jacket design by Tristan Offit
Jacket photographs: Revival by Andrew Shurtleff; Tent by Eric Limon and Sunset by Blickwinkel, Alamy Stock Photo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-1-9821-3330-6
ISBN 978-1-9821-3332-0 (ebook)