This Side of Salvation

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Staring at Mara, Mom fidgets with her gold-cross necklace, twisting the chain around her index finger. “Of course you should, but—”

  “Good. Let’s go.” Mara turns and runs down the hill.

  Mom just gapes at her, unmoving. I lay a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t want to bring this up, but if you leave with us now, by this time tomorrow you could be enjoying a decent cup of coffee.”

  My mother runs her hands over her face, giving a shaky laugh. “That’s low, David. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  We sprint down the trail, trying not to trip in the darkness. I help keep my mother upright while Mara runs far ahead to untie the boat.

  Just as Mom and I reach the dock, I hear my sister groan with dismay. “The oars!”

  I come up beside her and shine my flashlight into the boat. They’re gone. “Where would they be?”

  “Hidden, so we can’t escape.” Mara’s voice is full of rage. “We were so close!”

  “I’ll check the other boats.”

  I make my way down the dock, checking under each boat’s tarp, praying that one of them will have a pair of oars.

  Finally, I reach land again and start searching for any implement—a branch, a pipe—that I can use as a paddle. At this point, I’m ready to use my hands if it means our freedom.

  Suddenly, a small engine sputters to life. Busted.

  I look up the hill toward the village, expecting to see an all-terrain vehicle driven by whoever considers themselves the law around here. But the noise is coming from the water, not the land.

  “David!” my sister calls above the buzz of the engine, which sounds no bigger than a chainsaw.

  I run back down the dock to find them sitting in our rowboat. Mom is tying the strings on my sister’s life vest, since Mara needs one hand to tilt the outboard motor above the water.

  Wait. I look at the motorboat across the dock, which is technically just a boat now, because the motor that was clamped onto its stern is—

  “Mara, did you steal that engine?”

  “Borrowed it.”

  “With no keys?”

  “I pulled the string inside. Now get in before I accidentally drive away and make you swim after us.”

  “Okay, okay.” Turning to lower myself into the boat, I see smoke rising above the tree line beyond the village. I pause, despite what Dad said.

  “Come on, David,” Mom says in a low, even voice. “Time to save ourselves.”

  My brain tells my hand to let go of the dock’s post, tells my legs to step down so I can join my mother and sister. But my eyes won’t leave that smoke.

  “Get in the boat,” Mom orders. “We have to leave now.”

  Her words make me shudder. They’re the same words Dad used to make her leave us behind.

  This isn’t over yet.

  I turn to her. “I’m sorry, Mom. I love you.”

  Then I meet my sister’s eyes, long enough for her to give me a nod of understanding and a quick thumbs-up. She lowers the motor’s whirring blades into the water.

  As I walk, then run back up the dock, I hear Mom’s shrieks over the whine of the outboard engine. But soon they both fade away.

  CHAPTER 39

  NOW

  Almost Heaven’s firebreak is easy enough to find by following the stragglers, mostly parents weighed down by small, pajama-clad children. In less than a minute I arrive at a large clearing surrounded by a wide ditch and a six-foot-high stone wall.

  Sophia is standing just inside the circle, greeting people by name as they arrive. Her blond-haired assistant is making checks on a clipboard.

  “David, there you are!” Sophia starts toward me, then pulls up short. “Where’s your family?”

  What?! “Dad’s not here yet?”

  “He’s part of the fire brigade, so I assume he’s dealing with the blaze. Where are your mother and sister?”

  “We got separated.” I turn back toward the entrance. “I need to make sure Dad’s okay.”

  “I told you, he’s fine. Why aren’t you worried about the others?” Sophia grabs my arm and forces me to look at her. I must be a lousy liar, because her eyes widen with horror. “David, what did you do? Where are they?”

  “About halfway down the lake by now,” I tell her with a smirk.

  “Are you—” Sophia’s hands shoot up, fingers curled in strangle formation. “You helped them leave? How dare you!”

  “They didn’t want to be here. It was a sin to hold them captive.” I can speak the language of guilt as well as any preacher.

  “They weren’t prisoners, David. This is their home! A home I built for them out of love and stewardship. A home you’re trying to destroy.”

  “I don’t want to destroy anything. What you do here is your business, but when you took my parents away, you made it my business.”

  The other Rushers inch closer, drawn by our shouts. Good. Let them hear what she’s done. Maybe they’ll change their minds and we can stage a mass exodus (assuming at least one mind-changer has keys to the boats).

  “Your mother and sister would’ve loved Almost Heaven if they’d given it a chance.” Sophia takes a breath and wipes her brow—the first time I’ve seen her sweat—then smoothes her shirt to regain her composure. “But I’m grateful you chose to stay and serve the Lord.”

  Her piety literally turns my stomach. “I chose to look out for Dad. I couldn’t leave him alone with you.”

  “David!”

  My father’s roar would normally make me cringe, but I stand tall as I turn to face his wrath.

  “Didn’t I tell you to go?” He stalks up to me in his rubber boots, his shirt dripping wet. “Where are your mother and sister?”

  Despite my determination, I take a step back. “Gone. They’re safe now.”

  “Why aren’t you with them?”

  His deep voice makes my own stutter and crack. “When I—when I saw the smoke, I—I—”

  “What did I tell you to do if you saw smoke?”

  I lower my head and whisper, “Row.”

  “I can’t hear you.”

  I lift my chin and look down—yes, down—into his eyes. “You can hear me just fine, Dad. We both know the answer: You told me to row, to leave you behind, leave you to the fire.” I cross my arms, narrowing the distance between our bodies. “And I didn’t.”

  The fury in his eyes dims to frustration. “David, why couldn’t you just obey me?”

  “Because nothing good ever comes of that.”

  Dad stares at me for a long moment, then looks away and rubs the back of his wrist over his mouth. I notice he smells like smoke.

  “You’re unbelievable,” he says finally, then gives a half chuckle, half cough. “Unbelievable.”

  “You know what’s unbelievable?” Sophia wedges herself between us, speaking to my dad. “That you risked a hundred and thirty lives for a selfish stunt.”

  “There was never any danger, Sophia.” He practically spits her name. “You know what a stunt is? Laying out our clothes in our bed to make it look like we’d been Raptured.”

  “I didn’t—we didn’t—” Sophia tries to back away from him and steps on my foot.

  “Then who did?” I ask her. “Don’t say ‘the pajama fairy.’ ”

  “There is no ‘Gathering of the Lost Sheep,’ is there?” my dad asks her. “You were happy to leave Mara and David behind forever, let them believe that we’d gone to heaven without them.”

  “That wasn’t the plan. But when your children ruined everything by skipping out on us that night, I wanted to put the fear of the Lord into them. I wanted to make them regret their scorn. I could see how much they’d hurt you, John.” She reaches out as if to touch his arm, but stops at the sight of his glower. “It was a stupid trick, I know, but please believe that I had the best intentions.”

  He shakes his head. “You still don’t get it, do you? You don’t even care that you’ve torn our family in half.”

  “Your son
tore your family in half.”

  “You both did,” Dad says. “The difference is, David’s trying to put us back together. What are you doing to mend us?”

  I expect her to keep sputtering accusations from her defensive arsenal. Instead she closes her eyes, presses the flyaway strands of hair back from her temple, then lets out a long breath.

  “I don’t know,” she says softly, dropping her hands to her sides. “I should check on the others.”

  My father and I watch her drift over to a thirtysomething man whose clothes are spattered in water like dad’s—another firefighter, I assume. They speak in hushed tones, glancing over at us, but end the conversation with calm nods.

  “I take it the flames didn’t get out of control?” I ask my father.

  “No, it was just a campfire, mostly smoke.” He gives a long, hacking cough.

  Sophia joins her assistant, who shows her the list on the clipboard. From the relief on their faces, I guess everyone is accounted for other than Mom and Mara.

  Then she turns to toward me and Dad, her gaze as wrathful as it was a minute ago. Instinctively, I step closer to my father, preparing to go another round with Sophia.

  But when he puts a protective arm around my shoulder, she just frowns and turns away.

  • • •

  It’s Saturday night now, nearly forty-eight hours since the fire. I’m sitting in the lodge’s great room, eating s’mores and playing chess with Eve, who is kicking my ass in a mathematically improbable number of ways.

  Sophia hasn’t appeared since yesterday morning, when she retreated to her room alone. The Rushers were informed their leader has “sequestered herself for somber reflection and prayer so as to better guide her flock into the future.” This statement has failed to reassure said flock.

  Both days have been drizzly, so Dad and I have spent most of our time in the wood shop, building and repairing furniture. He’s also helping me make a two-story funhouse for Juno and Tod, with open doors, round peepholes, and a spring for hanging cat toys. I guess he knows I don’t plan to stay.

  While we work, we listen to an Ontario radio station that plays sports news during the day and Blue Jays games at night. Sometimes we talk—about baseball and hockey, but also about faith and doubt and grief. Even about John.

  I don’t try to convince Dad to come home. No more bargains, no more deals. Just me and him, fumbling toward frankness.

  The other Rushers are pretty cool overall. Nearly everyone has a tragic, convoluted story of what brought them to Almost Heaven. Turns out we’re not the only shattered family searching for a place to heal.

  Some of the kids are scared by the move and by Sophia’s sudden absence. This afternoon when it stopped raining, I distracted the ten-year-old Hernandez twins by teaching them how to spot pitches by the spin of the ball. The girl twin, Lydia, is a heck of a slugger; it’s too bad she may never get to play on a league or high-school team. The adults have set up a home school, but I wonder what’ll happen to the kids when it’s time for college.

  I’m especially worried about Eve.

  “Checkmate. You suck.” She knocks over my king with a flick of her finger. “Wanna make out?”

  I hold back a laugh, to avoid choking on my mouthful of s’mores. “You just completely emasculated me, and now you want to hook up?”

  “You’re probably a better kisser than you are a chess player.”

  “God, I hope so.”

  “Don’t say ‘God.’ ” She shifts the chessboard aside. “You really don’t want to kiss me?”

  “I’m not going to kiss you.”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “Eve—”

  “My life is over!” She slumps onto the table, forehead on her arms. “I’m trapped here forever. I’ll end up marrying Jared Stuckler.”

  Jared is twelve years old and in desperate need of dentistry. He is also sitting at the next table with his parents.

  “She’s just kidding,” I tell the Stucklers, though I know she isn’t, and might even be right. Pickings are slim here—most of the kids are elementary-school age or younger—which is why I’m not letting Eve’s attention go to my head.

  “Do you make everyone despair, David?” asks a voice behind my back.

  “Leave him alone, Mom,” Eve says with a groan.

  Mrs. Decker stands beside our table, looming over me in her bright pink “Created Beautiful” T-shirt. “I hope you’re happy, young man. You’ve ruined everything.”

  Now what? My getting-yelled-at tolerance has reached its breaking point.

  “She’s gone.” Mrs. Decker raises her voice, trumpeting the news to the entire room. “Sophia Visser is gone!”

  My heart stops. The Rushers’ gasps and murmurs swell around me, blotting out every thought but one: Sophia killed herself.

  No—every thought but two: She killed my father, then herself.

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” asks Jared’s dad.

  “She took off, no note, nothing. She and her bodyguard Carter. A boat’s missing and so are they.”

  . . . like a thief in the night . . .

  I leap up from the table and run for the door. Maybe my family’s rebellion triggered Sophia’s escape, or maybe it was her plan all along. It almost doesn’t matter.

  Either way, this means freedom.

  • • •

  I find my father sitting on the second-lowest stair of the tree house he built me. Just . . . sitting, elbows on his knees, staring straight ahead. The soft porch light casts his motionless shadow on the pine-needle-strewn ground.

  When I join him, he says nothing. He barely blinks.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “Not sorry, like, apologizing. Sorry, like—”

  “I know.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Dad still hasn’t moved. “She took it all.”

  “All of what?”

  “The money. No cash in the safe. I used the satellite phone to call the bank.” He stares at his hands, where calluses have formed on his palms and fingers. “Sophia moved Almost Heaven’s operating funds to an overseas account yesterday. I don’t know how to break it to the others.”

  I guess I was wrong about Sophia not being evil. At least the televangelists look you in the eye—or the TV screen—when they steal from you. “You should call the police. When they catch her, she’ll have to give the money back.”

  “That could take years. I know how these things get tied up in courts. Until then, we have nothing.”

  I look past his defeated figure, down the trail into the village. A few Rushers mill about outside, spreading the news, but there’s no widespread panic.

  “You’ve built something cool here, Dad. It’s not what I would call an ideal life, but it’s more than nothing. Sophia could take the cash, but she can’t take the rest. And without her here to make the rules, you can do whatever you want with this place. We all own a piece of Almost Heaven, right?”

  “True.” Dad rubs his chin with his knuckles. “A couple dozen Rushers changed their minds at the last minute and decided not to come. Maybe we could rent their rooms.”

  “Definitely. The mountains and the lake are gorgeous. Plenty of people would pay to stay here for a few days. Or weeks or months. Like that place Sophia and her husband went to on their honeymoon.”

  “Holden Village.” He sits up straight. “We could turn this into a retreat center.”

  “And let anyone come, not just Rushers.” I have to admit, it sounds cool. “You should totally do it.”

  His smile fades before it’s fully fledged. “Or we could do it. Will you help me, David?”

  It’s hard to say no to the hope in his eyes, now that it’s based on something tangible.

  “Of course I’ll help you.” Before he can react, I add, “But I won’t stay here. I will literally be on the first boat back to civilization.”

  “You just said—”

  “I can help from home, maybe find ways to put the word
out about Almost Heaven. And I can come visit over the summer. We all can.”

  He gives a resigned sigh. “I’d like that. You should bring Bailey, too, if her parents will let her come.”

  “Can we sleep in this tree house together?”

  “Don’t push it.” Dad glances behind him and up the stairs. “Speaking of which, have you seen the inside?”

  “No, it’s always full of little kids.”

  “There’s no one up there now.”

  He doesn’t have to ask me twice. As I climb the winding staircase that wraps around the trunk of the towering beech, I hear voices singing “Abide With Me” down in the village.

  Inside, the tree house is just like the one at home, only newer: same size, same shuttered windows, same shelves for books and toys. It’s like walking into the past and future all at once.

  I go to the left front window, open its shutters, and lean out, elbows on the sill. From here the village looks serene, or maybe my impression is muted by the moonlight shimmering off the lake. I doubt Sophia thought her followers would absorb her absence so calmly. Of course, they’ll be pissed once Dad tells them about the money.

  My father appears several feet to my right, leaning out of the other window. This seems the easiest way to start saying good-bye, like we’re players in a puppet show. But first I have one last question:

  “Why did you buy those guns?”

  He drops his chin to look at the smooth gray branches below us. “So you found the new one.”

  “We searched your office for clues.” I consider mentioning the articles he kept about my baseball games last summer, but don’t want to get off track.

  “There’d been burglaries in the neighborhood.”

  “I didn’t know that.” I’m not sure I believe him.

  “Your mother and I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been safer—no, saner—to turn on the security system?”

  “The company who installed it went out of business. We would’ve had to put in a whole new system. It would’ve cost thousands.”

  “The gun could’ve cost more. I don’t mean money.” Hesitating, I run my thumb along the edge of the sill, the wood paler and fresher than on my own tree house. Finally I get the courage to say, “I thought you bought it because you wanted to kill yourself.”