The Last Days of Summer

by Vanessa Ronan

  The hinges squeak and groan as the church’s heavy oak doors are pulled shut. For a moment, Lizzie feels her heart quicken, panic rising in her chest, tightening her throat. The reverend walks quickly to his pulpit and holds out both his hands, palms up, to his congregation. ‘People, people, please,’ he calls. ‘Let us not forget, this is God’s house.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be here!’ someone calls out. She turns but cannot see who spoke. A young man’s voice. There’s a murmur of agreement from the rest of the congregation, like a restless, uneasy wave swelling around them.

  ‘Children, children, please!’ Reverend Gordon calls, palms still out and open. ‘Let us calm ourselves. We are all God’s children. He turns his back on no one. Even sinners are granted salvation when they repent.’

  ‘Amen,’ Jasper murmurs, and Lizzie wonders if she is the only one to hear him. Around them, whispers crackle, bodies shift as people strain to look over, or as people avert their eyes and fidget. A few boys and men stand up near the back of the church trying to see better. Esther Reynolds’s chubby cheeks have flushed bright red, and halfway across the room Lizzie sees her whisper to the woman beside her. Esther’s small beady eyes never leave Jasper. It takes Lizzie a moment to realize that it is Sarah Reynolds beside Esther. The other side of Sarah sits her husband, Roy. Lizzie wonders if Jasper has seen him yet. She turns to her brother, uncertain if she should point out his old friend. Jasper’s face is mural calm as he sits in his pew, eyes focused on the preacher and the altar before them, as though there is no sea of commotion surging around and behind him. He sits with his eyes crystal clear, like a man who’s seen God and has come for his salvation. Lizzie turns back to Roy. His eyes meet hers, cold as stone, before he looks away. Esther leans across Sarah to say something to him. Roy listens, then nods. Eyes cold and hard. They used to play tag when they were little. All five of them together. Right out the back of this very church. And they’d giggle when their fingers brushed one another’s skin, calling out, ‘You’re it!’

  Lizzie turns away.

  The pew beneath her feels hard, unforgiving. The fabric of her dress itches round the collar. Lizzie closes her eyes and imagines the open stretch of prairie outside these wooden walls. She imagines the sun warm upon their faces, air fresh and hot as it blows against their skin. She imagines the only sounds are birds singing, the wind blowing, the rustle of dried grass. She imagines it’s just the four of them, her girls and her brother and her, and no one else on this earth, just the wide open space spread all around them.

  She opens her eyes.

  Across the aisle, Mrs Anderson meets Lizzie’s gaze and smiles. No trace of happy crosses her face. Though pity is etched in the lines around her mouth. Pity is cradled in the unfallen tears that well in her eyes. Mr Anderson beside her does not look over, and Lizzie does not return her sad smile. Just stares till Mrs Anderson finally looks away.

  Where are they? she wonders then. They have to be here. Dread fills her. She turns to scan the room, dread twisting her guts like sickness. She can feel them there. The hostile anger that surrounds them. The anger she can’t blame them for yet that she will always hold against them. She struggles to see between prying faces. Tries not to scan the room too obviously. Doesn’t want the whole town to see her searching for them, though she knows it must be obvious. Then her breath stops. And she sees.

  The Saunders sit across the aisle, midway back in the church, whole family to the one pew the way most folks in these parts sit, except their family’s grown big enough that now they nearly fill two pews, Eddie and his wife and their brood sitting behind the rest of their family. Old Mrs Saunders’ skin, loose and hung with wrinkles, deepens her already deep-set frown into an even darker scowl. Her grey hair has been gathered up and pinned into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Her cold blue eyes stare at the back of Jasper’s head as though trying to see inside him. Her lips a thin, straight line. Beside her, her husband sits straight-backed, face expressionless, eyes hollowed out and sad. He holds a hymnal in his hands, resting on the back of the pew before him, veins bulging he grasps it so tightly. His cheeks flush red. Next to them, their children, oldest to youngest, sit in a row. All grown now, most with their own children beside them. All there, except, of course, Rose.

  Built like a quarterback, Eddie Saunders leans forward from the pew behind his family to whisper in his father’s ear. He sits at the end of the row, right by the aisle, elbows on his knees, one fist clenched in his opposite hand so tight his knuckles are starting to go pale. He’s looking at the floor, head shaking slightly from one side to the other. He looks up to his father again, and his lips move, but Lizzie cannot read what words lie hidden there. Eddie was always a beast. He’d been the high-school football star for the whole county back when they were all in school, had even gone to A&M on a football scholarship for a while. Unfortunately for Eddie, his mind had always been his weakest muscle, and it hadn’t taken long for his grades to get him off that scholarship. He was still a local hero of sorts, though, for having gotten his team all the way to state his senior year. No one even seemed to mind that they’d lost that game. Just getting to state had been enough, and Eddie’d been a hero ever since. There had been the feeling at the time that maybe the whole town had value. That year they went to state. It was a feeling most folks round there weren’t used to. And then, when Eddie came back home to help his father round the farm after all the trouble happened, folks looked up to him even more. Him coming home like that. Rumour had it, he’d left a good construction job in College Station to come on back. Lizzie’d never told anyone about what had happened to Bobby the night before he left. Most folks, she knows, still see Eddie as the football star he once was, the good son come on back home. Eddie was a few years ahead of Jasper in school, so though Lizzie’d known who he was she had never really known him personally. It was Rose who had been nearer to her age. It was Rose she had known.

  The years have not weakened Eddie, though some of his muscle has turned to fat. A beer belly now spills onto his lap. She thinks of Bobby all those years back, come home from the garage that last night, of how the other men must have overpowered him, those cigarette burns on him, his face a purple mask. She feels sick to her stomach.

  She can feel Jasper’s eyes on her. Boring into her. Her head hurts. The hissing of whispers so loud now around them.

  ‘People! PLEASE!’ Reverend Gordon shouts again. ‘Please! Respect God’s house!’

  The swell eases slightly. Calms a moment. Everyone still on the edge of their pews. Unsettled. The reverend looks uncomfortable. Sweat rolls from his brow down his chubby cheeks to pool in the hollow of his neck. His mouth hangs open a moment, as though even he’s surprised to have quieted the congregation for a second. ‘Folks,’ he says, regaining a bit of his usual robust tone, ‘this is church now, please! This is a house of peace! A house of God!’ The whispers die down even more, everyone still edgy, angry, as they shift on their seats. ‘I am ashamed!’ Reverend Gordon shouts over the dying whispers. ‘Do we now yell in God’s house? Do we take His name in vain under His own roof?’ The reverend’s fist, risen and shaken with the words, now slowly falls. The congregation hushes before him.

  ‘Now, I had planned,’ he says, ‘to talk to y’all ’bout forgiveness today.’ An angry murmur rolls through the congregation once more. He holds his hands up and waits for silence. ‘I had thought I’d speak to y’all today ’bout what’s wrong ’n’ right. ’Bout good ’n’ evil ’n’ ’bout how through our faith in God’s great glory our souls will prevail ’n’ triumph above the evils in this world!’ A few ‘Amens’ ripple through the congregation. ‘I had thought,’ Reverend Gordon continues, his voice growing louder with each word, ‘that I would stand here today before you ’n’ quote God’s good book to you ’n’ that those among you who have sinned would fall down on your knees ’n’ repent ’n’ beg God in all His glory for forgiveness. I had thought,’ he continues, finger pointing up to the sky, ‘that when the Bib
le tells us to forgive, that is God’s will, we must forgive. Brothers and sisters, I had thought forgiveness was our only option as good Christians, for to walk in Jesus’s footsteps, we must forgive those whose sins He’s died for. Or so I thought.’

  The whole congregation sits hushed and still before him. Their silence nearly eerie in the wake of their previous uproar.

  ‘It seems to me, though,’ his voice softens, drawing them in, ‘that nothing in this world is ever black and white. Is one person ever truly all good or all bad? Now,’ he laughs a little, ‘it’d be real easy, real tempting, yes, to call a fellow a rotten apple. Or to assume just because the apple’s rotten that maybe the whole tree needs to be chopped down.’ Lizzie doesn’t dare to look at the congregation around them. ‘But we do not pay for the sins of our fathers.’ His voice rises again. ‘Or our sisters or our brothers. We do not pay for the sins of our children. See, I’ve thought on forgiveness a lot this past week, folks. I spent many sleepless nights prayin’ to the Good Lord himself to guide me so I might best guide my flock.’ A murmur of respect and appreciation ripples through the congregation, like cricket song carried on an evening breeze. ‘I asked the Lord to show me the path into God’s light. I prayed down on my knees for the Lord to forgive me my imperfections. And this is what He told me: He told me, “Son, I gave man free will.” Uh-huh. That’s right. Free. Will. And because God gave us this great choice, this independence that as Americans we so prize, He gave us the choice, no, the power, to decide for ourselves just how rotten an apple is.’ A stillness settles over the congregation. Almost eerie in its calm. ‘Now I don’t know ’bout you, folks,’ Reverend Gordon chuckles, ‘but if I bite into an apple and a worm crawls out, I sure as hell ain’t gonna forgive the apple for that bad taste there lingering in my mouth. And I ain’t gonna take another bite just to ensure that apple ain’t gonna surprise me with another worm. No, sir, I’m gonna find me an apple that’s to my taste the whole way through.’

  He surveys the congregation before him. His eyes skim over Lizzie to rest on Jasper for a moment as he waits for his words to sink in. He paces before the pulpit now, hands clasped behind his back as he begins to speak. ‘Forgiveness,’ he says, ‘is a beautiful thing. A fine, powerful thing. And is God forgiving? you might ask. Well, yes, He in all His great glory ’n’ kindness, He is the Ultimate Forgiver. He can see into a man’s soul ’n’ see the good from evil. But we, God’s mere children, we do not have this gift, now, do we?’ He pauses and looks out over his congregation, hands reaching out down low as though looking for support.

  Murmurs of ‘Nuh-huh,’ and ‘No, sir,’ ripple through the room as bodies shift and heads shake.

  ‘We cannot look into a man’s soul ’n’ see the good from the evil,’ he continues. ‘We see a man’s actions. A man’s morals. We see the decisions he makes that show his knowledge of wrong from right. And when a man transgresses, when the evil inside him boils up ’n’ the devil himself whispers temptations in his ear, well, folks, I’m afraid to say, there are some unforgivable deeds in this good, kind world God created for us. The Bible teaches us to forgive those who have wronged us. To turn the other cheek.’ Lizzie can feel his eyes stop over her. She does not raise her gaze to meet his. ‘But some acts of evil,’ the reverend continues, ‘are too great to repent. Has God himself ever forgiven Lucifer his betrayal? Are we to forgive the devil himself or his demons and their dark deeds? And when the devil so controls a man that that man acts as his servant, are we then supposed to forgive that man?’ He pauses. ‘I say, “No.” ’ A murmur breaks the silence of the church, quickly growing louder. He holds out his hands to quiet them, his voice gaining strength again as he speaks. ‘I say, God gave us free will. He gave us the choice to forgive. To choose whom we forgive. He gave us the moral compass by which to gauge a man’s transgressions. By which to gauge the level of his repentance. So this, my children, is what I say to you: walk into God’s light. Follow His path of righteousness. And when you come face to face with the devil, don’t stop ’n’ ask him how he’s been doing. Don’t forgive the devil for introducing evil into the world. You stick on God’s path, y’all hear? Make your own mind up on what’s unforgivable. And you find an apple, folks, you don’t like the taste of, no need to eat it up. Y’all just go on and hand them rotten apples straight back to the devil himself.’

  A few ‘Amens’, then all fall silent. Jasper sits like stone beside Lizzie on the pew. She turns back to the reverend. He’s smiling that fake smile, holding up the hymnal, telling everyone to turn to page 123. As one, the congregation rises. And Lizzie pops up, delayed a second behind them. Her legs feel weak. It’s too warm in the church. No a/c. No fan. Just windows open along each wall, and barely a breeze blowing in through the screens.

  Around her, music erupts, voices spiralling higher as they praise the Lord. She feels dizzy. Like the whole church, not merely the music, swirls around her. Like she’s caught up in a twister, spinning across the prairie, too fast for even God’s control. Her girls beside her look like angels, the way the light spills in and dances through their golden hair. Katie holds the hymnal open for Joanne, pointing on the page to where they sing. She tears her eyes from them, her babies, her beauties. Looks to her other side where Jasper stands beside her. He is not singing. Not quite. Jasper never was much of a singer. But his lips are moving, and it takes Lizzie a moment to decipher if he’s mouthing the lyrics or his own silent prayer.

  Joanne doesn’t remember ever going to church. Not really. She has a fuzzy memory of Grandma’s funeral, but she was only five back then, and she recalls the cold graveyard more than the church service. She remembers vaguely the reception after. How cold the old farmhouse felt. How much Mom had cried. How strange the house felt without Grandma in it. They go to Grandma and Grandpa’s graves out round the back of the church a time or two each year, and they lay down wild flowers if the season’s right, and Mom wipes down the headstones, keeps the graves tidy. But for Joanne actually sitting in church seems a completely new experience.

  When Mom had finished braiding her hair that morning, she’d stopped in the kitchen doorway before going upstairs to change and had looked at Joanne a long moment. Joanne, rubbing her sore scalp, had had tears in her eyes, the braids were so tight and neat. ‘You all righ’?’ Mom had asked her.

  She’d looked up, surprised. ‘Yes-um.’

  Her mother had hesitated. ‘Now I don’ want you takin’ all this God talk too much to heart, you hear? This Sunday thing ain’t gonna become a habit.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ And Joanne had looked down again, scalp pulled so tight by the braids that she felt her forehead might be stretched tight like that for good.

  Now the braids have loosened slightly, not enough to be messy but enough at least that her head no longer aches so bad. She likes the church. The quiet hush of it when the reverend’s not speaking. She even likes the way the whispers seem to swirl and whirl around the room, though she doesn’t like the fact that the whispers are about them; she simply likes the sound they make. Like wind through the trees down at the creek where Katie sometimes takes her swimming. That sort of sound. And Joanne likes the smooth, polished feel of the pew beneath her. She likes it when they sing, and she likes that Katie helps her find each song in the hymnal. She wishes that she was closer to Uncle Jasper, though. She looked at his face once while the reverend was talking, and something in Joanne told her to reach out, but Uncle Jasper was too far, Mom and Katie between them, so Joanne didn’t try to touch him, though she would have liked to hold his hand. She wonders if her daddy came to church when he was a boy. What pew he might have sat in.

  It feels like all eyes are on them. An uncomfortable sort of feeling, like when you think a ghost might be in the closet, or a spider might have crawled right into your pillowcase. It’s the feeling Joanne gets when Mom’s cross with her, and she knows she’s in for a spanking, except this time Joanne isn’t really sure what they’ve done wrong. ‘Why’s everyone so angry?�
� she’d asked Katie, when they’d first arrived and the angry whispers had swirled up all around them.

  ‘Hush, Lady, not now,’ was all Katie’d hissed in reply.

  Joanne is getting very tired of being told ‘not now’.

  She twists round in the pew slightly to see who sits behind them. Katie elbows her hard in the ribs, and Joanne has to bite her lip to keep from squealing. She looks over to her uncle and finds his eyes upon her. She smiles. He stares at her as if not seeing her. As though looking through her and off into the distance at something or someone far away. After a while, he looks back up to the front of the church, and Joanne follows his gaze, past the reverend to the large white cross stood up at the end of the church as altar. The church itself is very bare. Wooden walls whitewashed on the inside and the out. Pews old oak, just like the door. Two steps elevate the front of the church where the reverend stands, and behind him towers the huge white cross, two potted lilies with some candles at its base. To the right, the choir stands, wearing long silky purple robes that reach all the way down to their ankles. Joanne can’t help but think they must be hot standing there like that, wearing those pretty robes. She’s too hot and all she has on is the dress Mom forced her to wear, one of Katie’s hand-me-downs, white mostly with tiny blue flowers on it. The stitching where the waist comes in itches against her ribs. Joanne doesn’t like dresses. She never has.

  When the sermon’s ended, and the last hymn has fallen silent, Mom stands up quickly, turning to Katie and Joanne. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she hisses, whisper almost too loud, even though others now have started to stand and talk as well. Around them, neighbours shake hands, families hug, friends exchange stories and laughter, but there’s a subdued atmosphere in the church. An uneasiness in the way glances flick over but do not rest on them.