Vinita Hampton Wright

by Dwelling Places (v5)

  “Usually after we’re all in bed.” Young Taylor has always resented that the computer is in the family room, which affords him no privacy. “He goes to Goth sites mainly, far as I know.”

  “Well, I’ll see if it will behave for me now.” Jodie descends the stairs, feeling as if her soul is floating about, dissected. Was it barely two hours ago that she and Terry were going at it in his backseat? Is Young Taylor really troubled, as Rita has insisted for weeks? Should Jodie search his room now, something she swore she would never do to her kids? No, she will just ask him, because she can still see into his eyes and tell when he’s lying. He’s fooled Mack a time or two, but never her.

  She sits in the living room, which is quiet and fairly undisturbed; most of their communal living happens in the adjacent family room. In this northernmost room of the downstairs, the one directly under her and Mack’s bedroom, there is no television or radio, just chairs and a sofa and tables with her nicer lamps. She considers it her room, because the kids have no interest in its quiet; Kenzie prefers her own bedroom when she reads, and Mack has always avoided it for fear of bringing dirt in on his clothes and shoes. When they used to be more sociable, company gathered here. Jodie sits on the sofa, which faces the north window. Darkness is on the other side of the sheer green curtains. She doesn’t turn on a lamp but sits there until she can see the room’s lines. She sat here right after she found Mack’s loaded shotgun. She sat on this side of the sofa and whispered bits of thought to herself, which is what she does now.

  “I can’t save the life of one more person. I can’t pull my son away from the edge, or help my husband come home. I can’t do another thing.”

  She longs for a voice to collude with hers. She reaches into twilight for some comforting turn of phrase. Months ago, or even just weeks ago, she might have prayed or turned to a favorite song. But the words that stir deep down, about vulnerable little lambs and safety in darkness, stop just this side of consciousness. After the lawless pleasure of the afternoon, any movement toward God is brought up short.

  8

  GOING BROKE

  But none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed;

  Nor how dark was the night the Lord passed through

  Ere he found his sheep that was lost.

  Out in the desert he heard its cry, sick and helpless and ready to die;

  Sick and helpless and ready to die.

  —“The Ninety and Nine”

  Mack

  He is going home from work the first time he hears it. It sounds so much like a voice that he looks at the radio and determines that it’s turned off. He drives another mile and hears it again.

  “Everything is working out.”

  He stops the car. “What the hell?” He sits still as his heart picks up its rhythm, waiting for the voice. Just a regular voice, not creepy or anything. But there’s no one in the car with him.

  He sits for two minutes, kills the engine. No more voice.

  Ever since Halloween night and what seemed to be the ghost of Alex showing up in the woods, Mack’s imagination has become as active as a six-year-old’s. He falls asleep with some difficulty, out in the lonely stone house. He hates waking up in the middle of the night, when silence is at its thickest, when it seems that anything could appear. And now this, a voice from nowhere. He tries to figure out how to ask George about it without admitting that it’s happening to him. Ask about side effects of the meds maybe. That’s got to be it.

  Two days later he is picking up groceries for Jodie in Oskaloosa, fixings for Thanksgiving dinner. They will gather at the farmhouse in a few days. Jodie and Mom will begin cooking before that. Mack’s contribution is to haul the turkey home, go hunt the supermarket shelves, list in hand, then stand in line and hand over the money. This standard participation is somewhat comforting.

  He is loading the last of the grocery sacks into the truck. As he gets into the cab someone says, “Love is always the last thing standing.” He can’t recognize who it is, or who would say such an off-the-wall thing, so he turns toward the voice—and sees nothing but parking lot. The nearest people are several spaces over, two teenage girls getting into a Honda.

  His skin tingles. There is no question that he heard something. This has got to stop. He is finally going around the bend.

  He cranks the radio up full blast, windows shut, on the drive to the farmhouse. Yet he has an uncanny sense that the scenery—the iron-colored fields and naked gray trees—is pressed to the glass, looking in at him. Every house, cemetery stone, and cluster of cattle watches him with great care. Though it’s late autumn, the surrounding world is more present than a lush day in spring.

  The world expects something of him. The landscape waits for him to make his move. He doesn’t know how to move or what to do. He wishes his senses would just go to sleep and stay that way for a long time.

  He drops the groceries at the house and visits with Jodie for a while. They sit in the family room, not at the kitchen table, which is their habit. Jodie is distant, though friendly enough. How can he expect her to be anything else with him living off to himself?

  Then he survives the looming countryside enough to get to the stone house and shut himself inside. He turns on the radio and eats leftover stew. Spread across the south wall are his pitiful photographs, dangling cockeyed. All dead buildings, forsaken homes, empty places. Once more he takes them down and sorts through them, throws away a few, and puts the remaining ones back on the wall.

  It’s a puzzle, that’s all. Some puzzle with pieces but no theme. Just like his life. It’s only pieces now. And yet he thinks that being out here all alone will help him find the theme.

  Mack presses fingers into his forehead. He tries to think of how it would be that love is always the last thing standing.

  Kenzie

  The one event, next to prayer time, that now holds her life together is her nearly daily visit with Mitchell. She never dreamed that God would meet her needs so perfectly, so on time and truly matched to her deepest desires. But why should she doubt God Almighty? He is the God who parted the Red Sea, who made the sun stand still, who brought husbands and wives together, even through strange circumstances. God listened to every heartfelt prayer of David the shepherd, songwriter, and king. God sent an angel to bring Peter out of prison, made the oil in the widow’s bottle last and last beyond what it should have. God made Saul blind and then turned him into Paul, a new man. God raised Lazarus from the dead and fed a whole crowd with a few loaves and fishes. God has been working miracles in the lives of his people since before people started writing down the stories. Well, now God is writing Kenzie Barnes’s story, and why should it be less glorious than the others? What is to prevent her from becoming a Sarah or a Mary, or even a Deborah, who was a warrior and judge back before women did stuff like that?

  Finally, in view of what is happening in her life lately, all those Bible stories make perfect sense. Miracles don’t always make sense, but the life of God’s child is miraculous even when it’s just normal. She should have figured that out by now. It has taken Mitchell Jaylee’s spiritual companionship to help her understand what she’s always known and believe what she’s always hoped for.

  At the same time, it makes perfect sense that, now that she and Mitchell have found each other, the Enemy is bringing out all the worst ammunition. Dad is still out at the stone house. He’s still taking all those medications, which, according to Reverend Francis, are crutches that people use when they have no faith in the healing work of Christ crucified. As long as Dad is doped up, his spirit won’t have a chance to find its way free.

  Young Taylor is spookier all the time. Kenzie heard his argument with Mom that night through the heat register—an advantage of having a bedroom directly over the family room. Mom found this suicide website and figured out that Young Taylor was the only person who could have been looking at it. He didn’t even deny it, and he spoke so calmly that it made Kenzie feel cold. He called it simple curio
sity, and wasn’t Mom even curious about things that scared her? What a question to ask. Mom went at him for a long time, one question after another, and he answered every one in that dead voice, which seemed to make Mom more worried than ever. She told him it was cruel to even have something like that in the house, considering what the family had been through. He said that was reason enough to look closer. At that point, Mom gave up and slammed kitchen cabinets and cleaned things unnecessarily for an hour or more.

  So Kenzie prays for the blood of Jesus to cover Young Taylor and protect him from the Evil One.

  Bekka and other friends understand Kenzie less all the time. It seems that since she’s been seeing Mitchell, everybody else has been demanding time with her. They want to go to the mall or a movie or hang out at somebody’s house, gossiping and messing with makeup or clothes or hairstyles or any number of things that have no eternal value whatsoever. She tries to talk to them about spiritual things, but they just sigh as if she were stupid but there is nothing to be done about it.

  She has the sense that Mitchell is the one thing in her life that must be kept from Bekka and the others. Deep in her spirit she knows that they would not get it. They would make gagging sounds if she were to admit that she finds Mitchell Jaylee the least bit attractive or that she has any kind of friendly relationship with him. Mitchell Jaylee is so off their radar that they don’t even mention him when they are naming the people they don’t like or the ones they think are really bad or weird in some way. She knows that if she ever mentions his name, something bad will happen. Bekka and Janelle and the others will pass judgment and then cause trouble if Kenzie doesn’t admit on the spot that she’s just being silly. They will never, ever understand. Just as they have never understood her praying at the altar every day. She hasn’t risked telling them about Jesus’s eyes or about floating as she prays.

  All of these things—the holiest parts of her life—seem to be hers alone. She shares them endlessly with Jesus, and that will have to be enough for now. That, and her visits with Mitchell.

  There are days when Mitchell’s features are so animated that she imagines him to be part angel. He talks with such passion—about anything and everything—and he sketches out all sorts of plans for their lives. When that spiritual brightness is about him, sometimes he stays up all night, working on his art out in the barn. She’ll come by that afternoon and find him asleep on the couch or the back porch. His energy is so immense and single-minded.

  “There are times, Kenzie, when I see God in everything,” he whispered to her a few days ago. “I believe that I’m put on this earth to create works that will help other people see God too. But it’s so hard.” His eyes glistened. “It’s so hard when they look at what I’ve done and they don’t see anything.”

  “That’s their fault, not yours. You know what the Bible says about how to the pure all things are pure. People who love God can see God, but people who hate God don’t see anything. You have to let God take control of how your art affects people. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job, isn’t it?”

  He had smiled so beautifully, and hugged her. “I can count on you to keep my head straight. I love you so much, Kenzie.”

  He’s looking at her now, and she wonders if he can read her mind, can see it replaying these conversations they’ve had. He’s not glowing so brightly today. “I think demons are after me,” he stated quietly when he let her in a few minutes ago. He tells her that she’s never really seen him when he’s under satanic attack, and he hopes she never has to. This frightens her, but she sees his honesty and his heart for God, and she knows that God calls her only to what she is able to bear or carry out. She will stand by Mitchell no matter what attacks him or for how long.

  When she gets home, there are two messages on the answering machine for her, one from Bekka and the other from Janelle. Both sound irritated.

  From Bekka: “Kenzie, didn’t you say you’d study with us tonight? We’ve got that biology exam tomorrow—remember? Do you remember that we have school tomorrow and that, like, this is a really crucial test? We’re at Janelle’s—just come over.”

  From Janelle: “Hey, Kenz. Are you feeling okay? Today you looked like you were out of it. Even if you don’t want to study, come over, okay? We can hang out, you know, not study the whole time. If you can’t come over, please call, so we’ll know, okay?”

  She listens to both messages, with Mom nearby fixing supper. Mom doesn’t react; she’s intent on the onion she’s chopping. Mom is pretty good about staying out of Kenzie’s business unless it’s important or Kenzie asks for input. Bekka’s mom is much pushier, which is why Bekka is a brat so much of the time. But Mom is okay, just distracted and busy now, with Dad living at the stone house. She’s busy but doesn’t appear to consider that anything she does is that important. She pushes the knife through the onion in an intense way, but Kenzie knows that she will forget all about the onion a minute from now—throw it into the meatloaf or whatever and never think about it again. Sometimes Kenzie thinks that Mom has learned to get through her troubles by deciding that nothing is that important. She wonders if Mom ever prays. She goes to church, but concentrates on the singing and the praying and the sermon as though they were onions that need to be chopped and thrown into a skillet. They are things she needs to do for just a moment or two.

  Jesus, don’t let me ever be like that about you. Don’t let me ever think that spiritual things aren’t important, or forget that the thing I do right this moment could change the rest of my life.

  She picks up the phone in the family room, out of Mom’s hearing. Her friendship with Bekka has been closest, so she calls Janelle.

  “Hi, Janelle. Sorry I didn’t call earlier. I can’t come over—some stuff I need to do here at home.”

  “You aren’t going to study for biology? Why don’t you come over for just an hour?” Janelle sounds more upset than she should be. Kenzie hears Bekka’s voice in the background. “What’s the problem? Does she need a ride?”

  “I studied earlier—I know I said I’d study with you, but I really can’t leave the house right now.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  No, Kenzie thinks, nothing is okay. If you were any kind of friend you wouldn’t ask such a shallow question.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. But I can’t come over tonight. See you tomorrow.” She hangs up before Bekka can grab the phone at the other end.

  The pressure she feels now, when she’s at school among her friends, is ominous, like the pressure she has felt many times lately as she finished praying at the church and rode home quickly through the evening. Only lately has it occurred to her that Satan would of course use her closest friends to harm her.

  Her only safe place is with Mitchell. And because of that, she must keep him safe from even her best friends.

  When she puts down the phone, she wants to cry. She feels something ending inside her. She thinks that maybe the friendships that have been part of her life for years are now fading into something else. Not only will she not study with Bekka and Janelle tonight, but she probably will never study with them again. They are in one place, and her life has shifted to someplace else. It’s not just Mitchell, it’s her whole existence. Her prayers have called her away from the former life. She and Mitchell have talked about this, how they feel that they are being called to special service. They are scared, but also excited, so amazed that God would give them duties beyond what ordinary life has given them so far.

  She goes upstairs and lies on her bed and looks out the window. She can see the dark mass that is the outline of the trees at the edge of the alfalfa. The land is so bare and quiet. There’s a little sigh around the window, telling her that the wind is picking up a bit. Usually it’s not as windy at night, but the weather itself seems to know that her life has changed today, that she has made an important choice.

  She wants to record every bit of this journey. Life has become so complex that she is afraid she won’t remember the details later. She needs
to be able to look back at this time and see for herself how God’s hand was guiding every step. Satan will try to confuse her later, when she and Mitchell are in the midst of their work for God’s kingdom.

  Dear Jesus,

  Mitchell kisses me sometimes, when I first come to see him, or right before I leave. He’s careful not to kiss too long or too hard, though. And today he made a confession to me. He said that sometimes he sins against me in his mind.

  He was so embarrassed—I’d never seen him like that before. He said, “It’s hard to be close to you sometimes, and not think about what it could be like to, you know…” And then he acted shy all of a sudden—it was really sweet.

  So I said that I understood how he felt—sometimes I feel that way too. And he said that he didn’t know how two people can really care about each other and not think about it sometimes.

  I was really glad we could talk about it, you know, be so honest. It’s what I always imagined a man would act like who really loves you, Lord, and wants to do what’s best.

  Things are happening so fast, Jesus. You wonder for years and years if you’ll ever find true love. And then when it comes, you can hardly believe it. Thank you, thank you!

  Love and praise,

  Kenzie

  Mack

  He can tell by her face that Jodie is scared when she hops out of the truck and heads for the doorway of the stone house, where he’s standing.

  “Young Taylor’s in jail.”

  “No, what happened?” He puts down his coffee.

  “Oh, he went to school in all that makeup, with his black trench coat on. The principal called him in and told him to go home and clean up, that it wasn’t appropriate dress for school. And Young Taylor got belligerent, said, ‘Show me where it’s written down I can’t wear a coat or makeup.’ And it just got worse. The principal called Jerry over to escort him out and—” Finally her voice breaks, just barely. “And he started a fight. Wouldn’t go with Jerry, took a swing or something.”