by Sarah Willis
The flames twist and turn, racing along dry twigs, hovering tightly to thick logs, heating my face, relaxing everything inside me that is tightly knotted. Rusty comes over and offers me a marshmallow on a stick, but I tell him no thanks. I must say in just the right way, because he nods and leaves me alone. I have wanted so much today, but right now all I want is to watch this fire, and it’s so easy to do. I’m not mad at anyone. I’m not even mad at me. I just sit and stare. It is better than church.
I don’t move again until most of the logs have fallen, and the ashes are a city of blistering reds and oranges, alive and breathing. Sparks spit and fly up, becoming stars. Above me the Milky Way is a soft haze of starlight. The Big Dipper rises over the tree line and I can make out Orion’s Belt and the Archer among the millions of other stars. When I do move, it is only to pull the chair closer. I like the hot, burning feeling on my cheeks and knees. I watch the fire burn down as marshmallows are roasted and jokes told and people go back and forth, their shadows flickering against the trees. I give God a ten for this moment.
I am breathing so slow I don’t know I have fallen asleep until my head bobs and jerks me back awake. For a moment, I wonder where I am, but then Helen is leading me into her house and up the stairs to the bedroom, where a sleeping bag and pillow are already on the floor. As my head sinks into the pillow, I fall sound asleep, just across the road from the pretty little farmhouse I pretend is my own.
Eleven
“Wake up, Tamara,” Helen says, gently nudging my shoulder. “Time for church.” I can smell bacon and eggs. Blinking, I sit up and look around. I’m in Brenda and Helen’s room. It is the strangest bedroom I’ve ever seen. One side is neat to the point of frugality. A bed with a plain white cover, smooth as icing, a small bureau with a Bible and a brush. A few pairs of shoes lined up under the window. That’s it. The other half of the room is papered with torn-out pages from magazines. Pictures of James Dean dominate the others, but Audrey Hepburn is up there, along with Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, and Rita Moreno. These pictures also cover the closet door, the sides of Brenda’s bureau, and the headboard on her bed. The bed is a lumpy mess of blankets and clothes. Shoes poke out from under the bed, along with more clothes, pieces of paper, combs, notebooks, and stuffed animals. I couldn’t live on either side of this room, and they live in both.
I notice that my good peach-colored dress with the white-trim collar is hanging from a hook on the closet door. My black patent-leather shoes wait underneath.
“I sent Megan over to your house to get your dress,” Helen says. “We thought we’d let you sleep in, since you seemed so tired last night. Breakfast is almost ready, and everyone else is awake, so please get dressed and come down as quickly as you can.”
I almost say, Yes, Mother.
By the time I come down, everyone is sitting around the table, stools and chairs tight together so everyone can fit. Megan is wearing her yellow dress and Robert his suit jacket.
The food is on the table but no one is eating.
“Good morning, Tamara,” Mrs. Murphy says. “Please sit down and join us. We’re ready to say grace.”
I sit on a stool between Brenda and my brother. I feel like I’m dreaming. Everyone is dressed nicely, with their hands folded in their laps, hot food steaming from platters. My brother’s head is bowed. We are about to say grace and go to church. This would make my mother really sick, I think. Sicker, I correct myself.
“Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive. Amen.” Everyone says Amen. Helen nods to us. Platters are passed. We eat.
I look around, expecting to see cracks in the walls and junk all over, maybe even a car bumper. But the inside doesn’t look anything like the outside. It’s neat, dustless, everything in its place. The floors are covered with oval rugs made out of tightly rolled rags of different colors, mostly reds, oranges, and golds. The curtains are homemade, light blue with gold swirls, and the same material has been made into pillows and table covers. The gold color is picked up by small brass pieces: candlesticks and bowls and small vases without flowers. There is a picture of Jesus on the wall in the dining room. No other pictures at all. I’m glad now that Mr. and Mrs. Murphy never came in our house. What would they think of my nude mother, with her wide dark nipples and excessive pubic hair, on a two-and-a-half-by-six-foot canvas? I wonder what Helen thinks of us? I bet she believes we will be going to the deepest darkest regions of hell when we die, and to save us will be the greatest miracle she could ever perform.
After breakfast, Mrs. Murphy says, “Why don’t you boys go listen to the radio while we clean up. We’ll be ready to go to church soon.”
Rusty, Robert, and Mr. Murphy go in the living room. Mrs. Murphy and Helen put on aprons to wash and dry the dishes while Brenda, Megan, and I clear the table. Mrs. Murphy washes dishes like a machine; she could do this blind. There is not a motion of her hands that is wasted. Nothing clinks or bangs. She is so fast Helen is still drying dishes as Mrs. Murphy shakes the cloth place mats out into the garbage, wipes every counter spotlessly clean, and polishes the dining room table. Megan, Brenda, and I have to stand up against one of the walls just to get out of her way.
“Okay, gentlemen, we’re ready,” she says. Outside, I look behind me. It is the same house I have been looking at from across the street for the past few months, with the clutter, and the junk cars, and the forgotten toys in the high grass. The inside and the outside are so different, just like the two sides of Helen and Brenda’s room. We have never had a house that becomes like us. We have to fit into other people’s shoes. I understand now why my mother has to hang up my father’s paintings so quickly, the same ones every time, his oldest paintings. To remind us of who we are.
As I get in their car and we drive away I want my mom back so much it hurts. We hit a pothole and something rattles and clangs underneath our feet. I imagine my family falling apart like the Murphys’ car, losing pieces bit by bit. Robert is sitting next to me and I put an arm around him. He flinches and looks at me as if I might slug him next. That look makes me want to, but I don’t.
This is my eighth visit to church and I know what to do. I take the hymnal out of its wooden pocket and I am ready to open it to the right page number. We stand to sing, and I mouth the words, then sit to listen to the announcements, then pray, then sing some more, then pray.
Today, when we bow our heads to pray, I pray hard. I say, Dear God, you probably know this, but my mother was taken away to a sanitarium because she has TB, and I think she’s very sick. I’m worried she’s going to die and my father’s going to drive into a tree. I’m scared we are going to be left orphans and I’m going to have to take care of my brother and sister or end up living forever with the Murphys. I’ve been doing the cooking and cleaning, and I’m not very good at it, and the garden’s not weeded, and my sister won’t talk. I guess I’m pretty angry at my mother, and my dad, and I know I shouldn’t be. I really need some help. I am praying to ask you, first, to make my mother better. Just in case you heard me thinking about her staying sick,I didn’t mean it. If you are punishing her for not believing in you, can’t you just make her believe? If it’s impossible to make someone believe who really doesn’t want to, then you could make me believe, because I’m at least trying, and if you make me believe, I promise to work real hard on my mother. But I need to really believe, to convince her, because she is a good arguer. So, I am praying to you, asking you to show me that you are real and to make my mother better, and I know it’s a lot to ask, but I would think you would want me to believe, so I’m not asking you to do something wrong. So, please, help me. Thank you.
When I open my eyes, everyone is rising to sing. We sing “Jesus Is All the World to Me,” and this time I sing the words softly. No one can hear me, but I can. It’s a wonderful feeling, to be singing with the people in the church. As always, when I am here, listening to the voices, I feel this rush of hope that I might fit in.
The minister reads someth
ing from Luke 24, about Christ dying for our sins, and how we must all accept Him as our savior, which is the same thing the minister always talks about. But the people here are the ones who believe this. Why keep repeating it? I imagine that the minister’s words are like nail polish; with each coat we get stronger and stronger so we don’t chip, so our belief is harder to break. I will have to write to my mother about this idea. She’ll appreciate the humor, if not the sentiment.
I wonder if she misses me right now. What is she doing? What would she be doing if she were home? She’d probably be with Edith, or at the pond. She must miss those things. I grin, thinking about what I could send her to remind her of Edith. I wonder if God minds a sense of humor, or me thinking about cow manure in His church. I cover my mouth with my hand, in case He’s watching.
We sing “God Bless America,” and I know this is the end. I stand at the same time everyone else does, not after. I think God might have started helping me already.
In the Murphys’ car, I still have the hopeful feeling that I did in the church. This time it has followed me out. I am sure that God will do something amazing when I get back to the house.
I spend the rest of the day weeding the garden with Mrs. Burns, waiting for a sign, looking up into the sky as much as I can without Mrs. Burns noticing. It’s pretty cloudy, but I figure if God is going to show Himself to me, He can make the clouds go away. When the Burns leave, I sit on the front steps, humming bits of hymns I remember from church, but I hum softly, my ears listening for God to call my name. I tell Rusty I don’t want to go to the fort, that I need to be alone. The feeling from church, that I belong to something, is fading. My butt gets sore. By dinnertime, my jaw is tight and now I’m not only angry at my parents, but I’m getting angry at God. Why make me wait? What’s the point? If He’s there, why not do this now? Doesn’t He want to save me?
Sunday night is Mrs. Murphy’s night off from the dishes, so she can spend the evening reading the Bible. I help Helen clean up. I wash and she dries, because she knows where to put the stuff away. Megan scrapes the food into the compost bucket and helps Helen put away the silverware.
“I don’t get it, Helen,” I say. “I don’t know why God won’t let me know He’s real. You say you know. How do you know? Did He talk to you?”
Helen rubs at a plate until it’s more than dry. “He’s in my heart, Tamara. It’s like knowing that I have a hand, or a nose on my face. I don’t question it, because He’s right there inside me and I can feel Him. And He talks to me, but not with words. He leads me. Everything I do is because Jesus lives in me.”
“But I need to know, Helen, and I keep asking Him to let me know, but nothing happens. I’m feeling pretty stupid just staring into the air.”
“Well,” Helen says. “There’s only one thing I can say. You must trust in Him. He is there. You have to act on that trust, you have to believe before He does something for you. You have to do something for Him first. You have to accept Jesus as your savior. Trust in Him and you will find Him. Let me tell you a story.”
I scrub pots as Helen tells me a story about some kid named Lazarus, who, if I understand it right, died, and then Jesus brought him back to life. He was a friend of Jesus’. I point out to Helen that Jesus did special favors for friends, and since she’s so close to Him, maybe He would save me for Helen’s sake. Helen says that’s not the point of the story. I never get the point, even after she tells me the story twice. I wonder if I will ever understand any of this, if religion is like a foreign language that I would have understood a lot better if I had started earlier. These Jesus stories are so impossible to believe. If Jesus can do this stuff, why won’t He do other miracles, like helping that kid whose parents kept him in a cage for three years, or not letting Siamese twins get born? And if God is Jesus’ father, and more powerful, why doesn’t He end hunger or stop wars? It seems to me that God’s and Jesus’ miracles are getting smaller and smaller by the century. I don’t think He can help my mother get better. Helping Brenda get a C+ in math might be all He can handle these days.
That night, when we go to bed, Brenda kneels to pray, looking at me over her shoulder. I kneel down beside her. I’m going to try one more time. I pray to God. And to Jesus. I get confused who I’m supposed to have in my heart. I tell Him I need Him. I would like Him to be my friend. It would be nice to have a friend who I wouldn’t lose every time I moved. I tell Him to please, however He wants, let me know. While I’m sleeping will be fine. No signs. Just let me wake up knowing. He doesn’t even have to raise me from the dead.
In the morning, I’m just the same. Rusty asks me if I want to go to the fort. I say sure. I tell Robert if he follows us, I’ll burn his comics in the Murphys’ trash can. He looks at Rusty with the same big eyes Kip looks at Mr. Burns with, all wet and hopeful. Rusty tells him he better stay behind and Robert runs across the street to our house.
On the way through the woods, Rusty points out an area of fallen trees, mostly beech, lying across the forest floor like a forgotten game of giant pick-up-sticks. They’re on the side of a hill to our left. I’ve noticed them before, but never thought much about it. “Why are they all fallen down?” I ask.
He walks off the path and toward the trees. “A tornado. The summer before last summer. It came right over the hill from behind the Burns’ house, jumped over their house and our house, and came back down right here, less than a quarter mile from our house. We were in the basement. My dad knew it was coming ’cause the sky turned yellow. Holy moly, I was scared. The walls shook. We could feel the trees falling, right through the floor.” Rusty weaves around a patch of thornbushes and under some low branches. I follow right behind him, wondering why we’re not going to the fort. Doesn’t he want to kiss me?
“A real tornado?” I say. It sounds lame, but it was what he was hoping I’d say, I guess, ’cause he turns and grins.
“Yeah. Huge. It picked up the Griffins’ trailer and dumped it upside down in their pond and Mrs. Griffin’s aunt died.” It’s an odd thing to say with a grin, but I know what he means. This was real-life stuff, and it happened right here. Nothing happens here.
Rusty walks along a fallen tree, his arms spread out like wings. He’s going on about the tornado, the damage it did, how branches were scattered all over his roof, how the cattle got so scared they stuck together in a tight pack for days.
“The weirdest thing was Kip. He just disappeared. The Burns went crazy about it, then some farmer they know found Kip a mile away and drove him home. I think he got caught in the tornado. Can you believe it?”
“He could have just gone for a long walk,” I say.
Rusty’s face loses some of its sparkle. “I suppose—”
“And then again, it probably was the tornado,” I say. “Maybe it dropped him in a pond and he just swam out.” I climb up on a fallen tree parallel to Rusty’s and try to balance myself.
He nods, his grin back. “I bet that’s what happened. That dog hasn’t been the same since.”
Maybe Kip is different because his boy died and never came back to call his name or pet him, but I don’t mention it. We wobble around on the trees for a while, trying to jump from one fallen tree to another, pinwheeling our arms and laughing when we fall. “The tornado scared the shit out of me,” Rusty says. “But what I’m saying is, I liked that. It’s a funny feeling, getting scared and then being okay.” He holds on to a branch sticking up from the tree and spins around. “I’m going to join the Air Force. My dad says it’s a good idea.”
“Why?” It’s all I can say. I’m trying hard to balance and think about Rusty leaving. My foot slips off the log and I have to start all over again.
“My dad was in the armed forces, in the war. That’s how he got hurt. He really loved it, but he wishes he joined the Air Force. He says I could learn a lot of stuff in the Air Force, a vocation, and I could see a lot of places. I’d like to learn to fly an airplane. That would be so neat.”
I have to stop moving. I sit do
wn on the tree I’m standing on, straddling it like a horse, not that I’ve ever ridden a horse. “You could get killed. There’s going to be a war with Russia.”
“Well, sure, but I won’t get killed. You should see my dad’s medals. They are so cool. Did you know he’s got a Purple Heart?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. How could he get a purple heart? “Is that some disease he got from the war?”
Rusty stops in mid-step on a log and stares at me. “What? Are you kidding me? Shit. You got to be kidding me. You don’t know what a Purple Heart is?”
I shake my head.
“Shit. It’s a medal. For getting wounded in the war, for being brave. He’s got a Distinguished Service Cross too. Don’t your dad have any medals?”
“He wasn’t in the war. He had a punctured eardrum.”
“What?” Rusty’s looking at me with his eyes all narrow, his feathery eyelashes bunched up together. “What are you talking about?” This subject is embarrassing me. It’s just another way I don’t fit in. I remember all those blue stars on the windows. I told my mom I wanted a blue star on our window, and she got mad. She said not to mention it again. It was a sore subject. It made my dad feel bad. I told her I didn’t care, I still wanted a blue star. I was five years old and I made one with my crayons and taped it to our window, and my mother tore it down and spanked me. It was the only time she spanked me. “His eardrum, in his left ear, has got a hole in it, so he couldn’t join the Army,” I tell Rusty. “And he was too old. He was too young for World War I.”
