by Lara Zielin
The Changs—staunch supporters of my parents for the past few months—walked up and bravely engaged my dad in a discussion about the future. Would we be staying in Birch Lake? Would he be starting a new church? As they spoke to him, Mom turned to me. The effect of the cruel situation was etched into her face in lines and dark circles.
“Em—” she started, but then her voice gave out and her tears suddenly poured forth like a dam had been broken.
“I’m so sorry, Em,” she said.
I bit my lip. Here, her whole world was falling apart, and yet she was apologizing to me. Again. To me, when I’d been so wrong about her.
“No, Mom, it’s okay.”
She shook her head and then reached out quickly to pull me close to her. My mom was hugging me again. It was weird. But good weird.
She held me for a long time, and when she finally let go, I saw Jake was standing there. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was so glad he’d stuck around.
My mom saw him standing there too, and to my surprise, she turned and hugged him as well.
Jake’s face reddened and he looked flustered.
“Thank you for coming over,” she said.
Jake nodded.
I grabbed his hand, and he did his best to smile down at me.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Actually, yeah. I am.”
Dad rejoined us as the Changs walked away. He looked at Jake, then at me, then back at Jake.
“Son,” he said to Jake, reaching out his hand.
“Sir,” said Jake, taking it.
It wasn’t the warmest moment on record, but it wasn’t awful either. I think my dad really was determined to keep an open mind.
“Emma, could I have a moment with you?” he asked.
I nodded and we walked to a far end of the parking lot. As we did so, cars pulled past us. Some people waved, others just drove on.
“So, Jake O’Connor?” he asked when we stopped walking.
“Sometimes the fruit falls really, really far from the tree.”
“Like you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I fell very far away at all.”
“Well, then maybe you rolled.”
I smiled. “Okay. Maybe I rolled.”
“Em,” my dad said, looking off toward the trees at the other end of the lot, “I came over here to ask you something.”
Beads of sweat had formed on his upper lip. He clasped and unclasped his hands. Was he going to ask me to stop seeing Jake? Was he going to ask me to not go to college so I could stay around Birch Lake and help support the family? I clenched my jaw, suddenly fearful that everything he’d said in the pulpit had just been a show—just good filler to make the church think he wasn’t going to be defeated by what had happened.
As bravely as I could, I nodded. “Fire away.”
“I wanted to ask you . . .” he said, then stopped. He turned and faced me fully. “I don’t have anything to ask you,” he said in a low voice. “I just—I just wondered if we could stand here and pretend to be talking about something. I don’t want to have to face all those people and pretend to have any more answers.”
I looked into his eyes and was suddenly so proud that he was my dad. He looked so tired, but he was so much stronger to me this way—as a man who admitted things and faced them instead of just “praying through them” or whatever. He had meant what he’d said at the altar: he was done having all the answers.
“Sure, Dad,” I said. “We can just hang out here for as long as you need.”
He nodded.
I rubbed the sole of my shoe along the blacktop and he stood there silently, watching me do it. Somewhere in the distance a car door slammed. “We don’t just have to pretend to talk,” I said finally. “I mean, we really could talk.”
He nodded. “Sure. Is there something in particular you wanted to discuss?”
“Well, I was just wondering: why didn’t you just flat-out tell everyone this morning about the prophecy being fake and the Owosso land deal? Don’t you think the church members have a right to know the truth?”
Dad rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “They do. And I have no doubt the truth will come out about this eventually. But right now, it seems like the board really does believe the current course of action is God’s will. I have to believe there will be many meetings after this to discuss the unfortunate details and consequences of such blind faith. But as for me disclosing it—well, I just wanted this morning to be about something else.”
“About how God lets us make decisions even when they ’re the wrong ones?” I asked.
“Yes, that. And about how it’s never too late to admit you’re wrong about something, and to try and fix it.”
We were quiet for a few seconds until I said, “You know, if you and Mom need money while you figure out what to do next, I wouldn’t be mad if you guys used my college fund. I don’t want you guys to be broke.” The words had tumbled out quickly, but I didn’t regret that I’d said them.
Dad blinked a few times. “Em,” he said, and then he seemed to lose the ability to speak. Finally, after a second, he put his arms around me. I could feel him shaking, which meant he was crying again.
I held my breath, trying not to bawl myself. I really hadn’t meant to make my dad turn on the waterworks, I’d just wanted to help my family. Really help them. Whatever money they had set aside for my college fund—they could use it. After all, I was good at working hard and saving money. I could find a way to pay for my own school—whichever school that might be.
He pulled away from me and wiped his eyes. “Thank you, Emma,” he said, “but your mom and I would never dip into your college money. It means the world to me that you would offer it, but your mom and I will be okay. The Lord will provide.”
I threw up my hands. “What does that even mean?”
“It means we’ll probably have to cash in our 403b retirement fund,” he said dryly.
I couldn’t help it—I laughed, and my dad laughed too. And although I ached to know that he was hurt and upset, I was glad that he was still smiling—and that he was finally being real with me and not just blindly pushing ahead and quoting a bunch of scriptures.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, “do you and Mom have plans for the rest of this morning?”
He thought for a second. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Then would you guys like to come hang out at the donut camp? Crispy Dream is officially open now.”
“The donut campout? Now?” He didn’t look convinced.
“Look, I know it sounds dumb, but I think Bear’s Harley gang and some donuts might cheer us all up a little. Plus, you’ll love this—they ’re born again. I’m not even kidding. They used to be called Death’s Screamers, but now they’re the Angelfire Witnesses.”
Dad ran his fingers through his hair, which was coffee-colored in the morning light. “That so?”
I nodded. “Seriously. Hanging out in front of the Crispy Dream can help a person get perspective. And really, you should just trust me on this one.”
Dad put his arm around me. “Okay,” he said. “I guess that sounds all right. But I want to ask you one more thing.”
“Okay.”
“Is Nat coming?”
It was such a simple question, but such a loaded one too. I didn’t say anything right away. Because if Nat came along, then we’d probably have to figure out if we could ever be friends again after fighting for so long. We’d have to figure out if we could make peace, or if we needed to just go our separate ways.
And the idea of losing Nat? Well, I’d rather not go down that path at all. Why kill off something that might just die anyway? If the relationship had to end, I’d rather have it be like Nicole Kidman passing out at the end of Moulin Rouge than, say, every single scene in Kill Bill. I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Good. Because from what I can tell, Natalie was really trying to help you today. I know you two have had your problems, but she stood up for you at the
police station the best way she knew how.”
“But Dad, she set me up.”
He nodded. “And then she repented. You may not have agreed with her actions, but it seems to me like she hasn’t always agreed with yours either. But up until recently, you were both willing to stand by each other. And I think that’s worth trying to save.”
I studied my hands for a second. “Hey, Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think you can be friends with someone even if you disagree with them about stuff? Like important issues and whatnot?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes. I think so. I think I’d have precious few friends if I befriended only people who thought the same way as I did about everything. Sometimes the richest friendships are the ones where you find a way to stick by someone, even when you disagree with them.”
I locked my lips together and blinked against the flash of revelatory light that exploded in my brain. Everything he was saying—that’s exactly what Nat had tried to tell me that day after biology class. She was trying to get me to open my eyes and see that the cornerstone of a relationship isn’t about who’s right. It’s about standing by the people you care about because they’re what matter—not issues or politics or disagreements. I closed my eyes for a second, realizing what a jerk I’d been.
Oh, man. If Nat and I both finally understood each other—well, then maybe there was a chance we could be friends, best friends, despite whatever differences we might have. And I suddenly wanted that to be true more than anything, because otherwise, what hope was there for the world, really? Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan, me and Nat. It was global, really. Or maybe it just felt that way right then.
Dad smiled as if he could read my thoughts. “If you run, I’m pretty sure you can catch Natalie before she leaves the church.”
I looked across the parking lot and there she was, getting into her family ’s silver minivan.
“Nat!” I hollered, sprinting toward her. “Nat! Hold up!”
Chapter Twenty-two
Jake, Nat, and I rode to the camp in his Jetta; my parents and Lizzie rode in the Maxima. I was glad it was a short ride, because the uncomfortable silence between me and Nat was louder than if we’d blared the music.
Drive faster, I silently pleaded to Jake, because Nat and I may have been in the car together, but we certainly didn’t know what to say to each other. And it was awful. Making up with Nat after everything that had happened was going to be way harder than I thought. Much to my relief, Jake pushed down harder on the gas. We flew into the Crispy Dream parking lot, and then Jake slammed on the brakes because the place was packed. Packed.
A small army of newspaper and radio reporters swarmed the scene like busy ants, interviewing anyone and everyone about the opening. The line for the donuts was out the door and stretched all the way to the edge of the field where the campers were. Music played and people danced and ran around, high on sugar and on being part of something big. Well, big for Birch Lake, anyhow.
“I think the whole town is here,” said Dad, looking around at the crowd.
“And that means we’ll probably have to wait for ages for a donut,” I said, quickly counting more than a hundred people in the line.
“Hey,” said Jake, elbowing me, “isn’t that Anita?”
And sure enough, there was Anita, sitting on Bear’s shoulders, waving to us above the crowd. They had donuts!
“Dad! Mom! This way!” I grabbed Jake’s hand, and we went over to where they’d spread out a blanket on the blacktop, surrounded by all their Harleys.
“I thought I’d partake in a donut before I left for the rehab center,” said Bear, smiling and easing Anita off his shoulders. He motioned to a box filled with a dozen of Crispy Dream’s classic glazed donuts and said, “Help yourself.”
There were also blueberry donuts, crullers, apple fritters, crème filled, twists, and, well, just about every kind of donut Crispy Dream carried. I reached up and threw my arms around Bear’s thick neck. “Thank you,” I said, kissing his cheek.
After we’d all dug into the box for our respective pastries, I introduced my parents and Lizzie to the Angelfire Witnesses, who shook hands politely with everyone. Lizzie, who had hardly blinked since we’d arrived at the camp, was standing next to Tex and staring hard at the eagle tattoo on his arm. It didn’t take Tex long to notice.
“You ever seen something like this before?” he asked, bending down to show Lizzie the eagle up close. His enormous nose was almost the size of her whole face.
Lizzie shook her head no, and her ringlets bounced. She looked terrified—and fascinated—at once.
“Look here,” said Tex, flexing his bicep. As he did so, the eagle’s wings moved up and down.
“Whoa!” said Lizzie, extending a finger toward the eagle. She stopped just short of touching it, then looked at Tex.
“It’s okay,” said Tex, smiling. He moved his arm closer to Lizzie. “You can touch it.”
Lizzie placed her hand on the eagle, looking at the image intently. Then she frowned and looked back up at Tex.
“Is that real?” she asked, removing her hand from Tex’s arm. I smiled to myself. Maybe Lizzie was more of a skep-tic than I gave her credit for.
“It sure is,” said Tex. “And that look in your eyes says you’d know a lie if you heard one. You sure are a sharp little thing. Maybe you should go to detective school.”
Detective school—it was such a silly idea. But instead of laughing, I pictured Lizzie studying criminal justice in college, walking on a tree-lined campus with a thick textbook tucked under her arm. Instead of the image feeling weird, like I was peeping at something I shouldn’t, it was easy to imagine Lizzie in this place: confident, beautiful, doing whatever she wanted. Not to mention attending whatever college she wanted, I thought. Because I paved the way. I couldn’t help it—my heart swelled a little that I’d done something good for her.
“You giving my sister a hard time, Tex?” I asked, sidling up to Lizzie and putting my arm around her. She looked up at me, her blue eyes sparkling, grinning like Santa himself had just dropped onto the scene.
“No, ma’am,” said Tex. “I was just telling her she could be a detective.”
“Well, how about you tell her the story of Louisa and see if she can figure out if it’s real or not?”
Tex launched into the story of chasing Louisa into the woods and I glanced at my mom and dad, who were watching the whole thing go down, and gave them a small thumbs-up. My mom, apparently satisfied that Lizzie wasn’t going to get mauled by a biker if she didn’t pay close attention, started up a conversation with Anita a few feet away. “What do you do?” she asked politely.
“Used to be a waitress,” said Anita, her thin hair blowing in the breeze. Without hesitation, Anita launched into her story of Happy’s and, moments later, I saw my mom wrap both of Anita’s nicotine-stained hands in her own. When I saw that, I had to stare at the ground for a second and swallow a few times. Because no matter what the scriptures said, that’s why she was qualified to preach. Because after everything that happened, she still cared about people and wanted to help them.
When I looked up, Dad was sitting on Bear’s motorcycle and Bear was towering over him, pointing out all the different features. “It’s got a two-cylinder, V-twin engine, which is a good thing if you ever need to accelerate quickly to get away from authority,” Bear said.
My dad glanced up in surprise.
“I mean, for example, if you did such a thing before you were saved,” Bear said quickly.
I put a hand over my mouth to cover my laughter, then trotted over to where Jake and Nat were standing—just beyond the picnic site.
“I think someone’s about to win that brand-new RV over there,” Jake said, standing on his tippy toes and craning his neck so he could see. “They’ve set up a microphone and people are crowding around. Let’s try to get closer.”
“It could be Connie Belford!” I said as the three of us elbo
wed our way through all the campers.
“Who?” Nat asked. It was the first word she’d spoken to me since we’d arrived at the camp.
“Connie Belford,” I said as Nat and I squeezed past a man wearing springy antennae—like the kind you’d buy from a costume shop if you wanted to go as an alien for Halloween, except on the very ends of them, he’d replaced the Styrofoam balls with donut holes. “Connie and her husband were trying to break the Crispy Dream camping record,” I continued, “and she’d been here for almost two solid weeks when I met her. She was competing against these brothers from Brainerd and she wasn’t sure who the donagers were going to award the RV to.”
Nat cocked an eyebrow at me. “The who?”
“The donagers,” I said. “Donut managers. Like those guys straight ahead, standing by that RV, wearing the white pants and white hats.”
“The ones who look like they’re getting ready to make an announcement,” said Jake, quickening his step.
“Yep, that’s them,” I said, breaking into a trot.
When the three of us were closer, one of the donagers grabbed the nearby microphone and feedback blasted through the camp. Nat, Jake, and I stopped and covered our ears.
The donager, whose hands were shaking nervously, tapped the microphone once, and the feedback stopped. “We’d like to officially announce the winner of Crispy Dream’s brand-new Road Wolf RV,” said the donager, his voice shaking almost as much as his hands. “This prize is awarded to the campers who have broken the previous Crispy Dream record by staying at the camp for more than thirteen consecutive days. We are proud that the record has been broken here, in advance of Birch Lake’s very own brand-new Crispy Dream store!” A roar of approval went up from the crowd.
The donager coughed once, clearing his throat. “We are pleased to announce,” he said, “that the winner is . . .”
Please let it be Connie, I prayed silently.
“. . . Connie Belford and her husband, Martin Belford!”
I whooped happily and jumped up and down as Connie emerged from behind the RV, her round, dimpled face glowing. Her husband, Martin, who was almost as big as Connie was, followed. His face was pink with excitement. The donager handed over the keys and the crowd cheered even more loudly. I hollered along with them, glad that Connie had beaten out the Brainerd brothers.
