by Camy Tang
But marry Kazuo? She couldn’t believe she was considering it. Yet what options did she have? Hardly any.
“How far along?” Lex studied her abdomen, which was rather embarrassing since she’d always had a small pooch there.
“Two months.”
“Oh.” Venus straightened in surprise.
Trish’s nose closed again, and tears filled her eyes, but this time, she saw everything through a red haze. “Did you think I’d slept with him again? How could you? I’ve been trying so hard to prove to you that I was really trying to change.”
“Trish — ”
She didn’t have patience for Jenn’s placating tone. “No, you’re my cousins. You’re supposed to love me and believe in me, not wait around to see how I mess up again.”
Venus looked away, and Lex scuffed the floor with her sneaker.
“Is that all I am to you? A screw-up?” Okay, now she had started screeching. Not a good sign. She needed to calm down, except she had a raging pot of jook rice porridge in her gut about to boil over.
“I’m sorry.” Venus faced her with steady, humble eyes. She wasn’t one to try to hide anything. “You’re right, I wasn’t believing in you. And I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” Lex wouldn’t look at her, but her words carried clearly.
Trish gave a loud snuffle. It was kind of hard to be dignified with her nose running.
“You have been trying hard.” Jenn touched her shoulder.
“What kills me is that I’ve been doing my best to follow my three rules and become a better person. I changed my image, my lifestyle, and what happened?” She wiped her face with her soggy tissue. “It’s almost as if I hadn’t even tried to regain my chastity in the first place.”
“Your three rules weren’t bad — ”
“They obviously didn’t prevent this from happening. I don’t feel like being wholly devoted to God anymore, either.”
Lex stabbed a finger at her. “But think about it. Why were you doing all that serving? Did you have a heart for the people you were helping, or were you just trying to look better in God’s eyes?”
“Was it primarily to get references for your MDiv?” Venus didn’t accuse her, but her tone said she wanted Trish to be honest.
“Maybe. At first.” She liked the Sunday school kids, but she didn’t really know what she could do to help them grow in Christ. She just liked playing with them. She didn’t have anything to add to the support group at the Pregnancy Crisis Center — well, she did now — because those women had been through so much worse than what she’d had to endure with Kazuo. She did enjoy the time at Katsu Towers, but part of that was watching the K-dramas with the ladies. And even though people said they liked having her on the worship team, they didn’t know she was so bad that they turned her mic off.
Was she useful at all for God? Did He make this happen because she wasn’t pulling her weight or working hard enough?
Or maybe that whole thing about “the old has gone, the new has come” only applied to girls who stopped sinning as soon as they accepted Christ, rather than backslidden chicks like her who couldn’t stop struggling with the same things over and over again. Why hadn’t He helped her overcome her problems?
For that matter, why was it so wrong that she liked boys? It’s not as if she’d ever been unfaithful to a boyfriend. Maybe God didn’t like who she was, period. A red haze fell down over her vision. “You know why this is happening to me? Because God only sees the good girls. He doesn’t give a flying flip about people like me — ”
Venus’s hand flew so fast she didn’t even have time to blink before it slapped her across the face. Trish was so cold she barely felt the sting, but the blow knocked a gaping hole in her heart. Jenn and Lex both gasped.
“Don’t you be blaming God.” Venus’s almond-shaped eyes had shrunk to dark sesame seeds. “He doesn’t promise an easy life. We still have to face whatever the consequences of our actions are.”
Venus’s slap had jolted the hysteria bubbling inside her, but it hadn’t dulled her anger. “Yeah, well I thought if we repented, He helped us out.” Trish stabbed at her abdomen. “This isn’t helping.”
Her cousins were silent. A part of her wanted them to say something enlightening, to make her feel better or realize something profound about God and her situation, but another part of her wanted to feel angry and abandoned. Anger was easier to understand than why God had allowed this to happen.
“I honestly repented. I honestly wanted to turn my life around. But I can’t even serve at church without messing up.” Helping in the kitchen, the Sunday school Pet Day disaster, bonking into the microphone.
Lex flung her hands out. “God doesn’t expect you to be perfect.”
“Well, I still feel filthy. I feel like a whore, especially now. It makes me wonder if He really has forgiven me.” She waved to stop Jenn’s immediate protest. “I don’t want to argue about it. I know in my head I’m forgiven when I confess, but I don’t feel it.”
Jenn’s mouth worked back and forth a few moments before she asked a question Trish had been dreading. “Are you going to give the baby up?”
She closed her eyes. Griselle’s words still haunted her. Would she regret giving it up?
“You could keep it, you know.” Lex crossed one leg over the other. “Financially, I mean. You’ve got a good job, and we all know people who could provide daycare for you.”
“We can help out, too. My work schedule is very flexible.” Trish appreciated Venus’s offer, although to be honest, she had a hard time picturing Venus holding a baby.
Jenn nodded. “I’m taking care of Mom, but I can help, too. And Mom loves babies.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t know, practically speaking, how much they’d be able to help her, but their willingness to gather around her and shoulder some of her burden lifted some of the heaviness that had been weighing her down the past day.
There was so much she had to think about, so much to do. And so many other things to lay aside — would she need to give up her work on the worship team? At Katsu Towers? And she wouldn’t need references for her MDiv anymore — she couldn’t take classes right away, not with the baby.
She sighed as her eyes strayed to the paper strewn on the kitchen counter. She’d been trying so hard to impress others, including God. What use had she been?
“Well, but your dating life would be down the toilet.” Lex started to laugh, then suddenly choked as she gasped. “Did you tell Spenser yet?”
“Spenser?” Jenn’s brows furrowed. “Your coworker?”
Trish glared at Lex. “We’re not even serious yet, loudmouth.” And probably never would be.
“Sorry.” Lex ducked her raspberry-red face.
Venus’s sympathetic look seemed to mirror the ache in Trish’s heart. “Do you like him?”
“I don’t know.” Yes, she did. More than she wanted to.
“Will he . . .” Jenn licked her lips. “Would he stand by you after, you know . . . finding out?”
She couldn’t answer.
Venus had the courage to ask the hardest question. “Will it devastate you if he walks away?”
She swallowed — or rather, tried to. A gigantic pinecone had lodged in her throat and lacerated her esophagus, making it painful to breathe. “He’d never stay.” The words fell in the quiet kitchen, lying there like dirty snow.
“He might — ”
“No, he won’t. I don’t blame him. Kazuo had an affair with his wife, broke up their marriage.”
Jenn’s hand flew to her mouth. Lex stared at her in disbelief.
Venus sighed. “You have to tell him, then.”
Her heartbeat went from zero to sixty in 0.4 seconds. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it. Spenser’s involved with you, even if it’s not serious yet. Kazuo stole his wife. You need to tell him before he finds out himself.”
Jenn and Lex spoke at the same time.
“He’ll think you were trying to
hide the baby from him.”
“He’ll think you were trying to deceive him.”
“At the very least, you have to let him know so he can break it off without too much emotional involvement from either of you.” Venus scrutinized her face. “You’d want that, right?”
“I want him to stay.” Trish buried her face in her hands. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“That’s not a good reason for him to stay.”
“I know. I’m being selfish.” She felt the tickle against her fingers and grabbed the fresh tissue from Jenn. She blew her nose. “It would have been nice to find out if he were The One or not. Now I’ll never know.”
“You might — ”
Venus cut Jenn off. “Don’t give her false hope. It’ll be nice if he surprises her, but don’t make her believe it would happen.”
Lex stuck her hands on her hips. “You are so cynical.”
“I’m realistic. People with their heads in the clouds trip and fall.”
“Hmph.” Lex crossed her arms.
“When are you going to tell him?” Venus shifted her weight to one hip. Trish almost expected her to start tapping her toe.
“I have to set a date?”
“If you don’t, you’ll never do it.”
Trish sighed, but Venus was right. “Sunday after church.”
“I’ll drive you,” Lex said. “That way you won’t have to drive home afterward.”
Trish felt like they were planning military strategy. “Fine.
Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “There’s something else. I kind of need housing . . .”
She was going to throw up all over his nice Italian leather shoes before she even got a word out.
“Hey, Trish — whoa. You don’t look so good. You’re pale.” Spenser guided her to a seat in the sanctuary.
“No . . .” She didn’t want to tell him here, with stragglers still making their way out, with people chatting in the foyer through the sanctuary doors. At least the worship team had finished clearing their equipment away, except for the few cords in Spenser’s hand.
“Sit down.” He pushed her into a seat.
She pressed her palms to her temples. “I need to tell you something — ”
“Hey guys. Going out to lunch?” One of the singles came up to them, then caught sight of Trish’s face. “Are you sick?” He took a large step backward. “You’re not contagious, are you?”
She growled at him.
“Uh . . . yeah. See ya later.” He headed up the aisle toward the doors. His voice carried back to them as he spoke to someone else. “Man, she’s crabby.”
This was just great.
“Spenser, I need to tell you something.”
He sat in a seat in the row ahead of her, twisted around so his arm draped over the back of the chair, but he didn’t look at her. “Diana told me you wanted to transfer to Pleasanton.”
“I did, but she won’t let me.” Maybe that was a good thing, making her stay and face this. It would be shameful and deceptive to run away. But it would protect her reputation — whatever good she’d accomplished for it, in this church and with her family.
“I don’t want you to move because of me.”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that.” Fabulous. Now she’d hurt his feelings before she’d even talked to him. “It’s something else. And I might not move.”
She cleared her throat. She didn’t want to tell him. She had to tell him. The silence in the sanctuary roared in her ears. She couldn’t do this.
She could. She had to.
“Spenser, I’m two months pregnant.”
At first she thought she’d said it too softly for him to hear. He sat there, blinking, not looking at her. His face didn’t change.
Then his jaw flexed.
His skin turned white. Whiter than white. Translucent enough to almost see the skeletal bones underneath. His eyes had sunk back into his head and his mouth disappeared into a thin line.
He said a single word. “Kazuo.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He stood and walked away.
THIRTY-FOUR
She didn’t know how long she sat there, staring at the empty stage, still lit by the front lights. She must not have been there that long, because Olivia found her.
“Are you okay?”
Dry-eyed, she shrugged. She didn’t have any more tears. She’d been emptied. She was like a burned-out building, a charred shell.
Olivia’s touch on her hand made her jump. “Trish, you’re like ice.”
Funny, she felt like she was on fire.
Olivia sat down, ironically in the seat Spenser had vacated. “Did you guys have a fight?”
She took a deep breath. “No, he just . . . did what I expected him to.” She hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. She’d been skewered straight through the sternum, leaving jagged edges that burned and throbbed. Yet the rest of her body felt nothing. Nothing.
“Did you want to talk about it?”
“I’m pregnant from my ex-boyfriend.” She didn’t care anymore. She felt both numb and reckless at the same time. “Spenser just walked away.”
“I’m sure he has a reason.” No mention of Trish’s utter lack of moral fortitude.
“It doesn’t matter if he does. It’s over. Not that we had anything. Only a couple dates. It shouldn’t feel this bad.” She rubbed her chest. She had almost expected to feel a gaping hole.
“Let me pray for you — ”
“I don’t want to pray. I can’t pray.”
Olivia turned away to look at the empty stage. She swiveled back. “Tell me about it.”
She shook her head and shrugged again. What was there to say?
“Trish, I’m not going to give you platitudes. I want to help.”
“With what? There’s too much and too little.”
“Honey, He’s God. It’s not too much for Him.”
“He did this to me.” Dad’s affair, Mom’s collapse, now this. “He’s punishing me for all my bad choices when I should have known better.”
Olivia’s eyes darkened. “He doesn’t punish people anymore. But bad choices have consequences.”
“But I was trying so hard to be someone He’d forgive.” The words hit her square in the chest like a blow.
“He did forgive. He forgave as soon as you said you were sorry. You’re still His child. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to take responsibility for the things you’ve done.”
Responsibility. “I was trying to be a responsible person.” But it didn’t erase what she’d already done when she should have known better. Her three rules weren’t the Dry Erase alcohol solution that could wipe it all away.
“Let me say this again: He’s God. He has His reasons. Who are any of us to question them?”
Trish stopped and felt the weight of those words, the weight of the truth of it all. She felt especially small in the empty sanctuary. “I feel so alone.” Her voice cracked.
“Even — and especially — when you don’t see Him, He sees you.”
“Yeah, but what does He see in me?” Whore.
“He sees Christ’s blood.”
She shook her head, and her hands started to shake, too. “That doesn’t mean anything to me anymore.”
“Trish, blood is more precious than gold.”
Precious. “I don’t feel precious.” She sobbed into her hands.
Olivia moved to sit beside her. She surrounded her with light cinnamon scent and arms wrapped tight around her shoulders. “You are more precious than you know.”
The tears rained down her face. “I don’t have anything.”
“You are even more precious to Him when there aren’t any walls between the two of you.”
The darkness behind her closed eyelids was too black, too deep. She wanted this mercy, like a light, like a ribbon of silver, like a hand on her head.
“You are His. You don’t have to follow certain rules or be a perfect Christian to be His. You h
ave to trust and believe how much He loves you. That’s all that matters.”
She cried harder. Even her heart was crying. Her soul cried out like a physical hand reaching out to Him. And she thought . . . she thought she felt Him take it.
She sat there, and sobbed, and hung on.
Trish sat on her concrete front step, staring at the newly-cleared front lawn in the fading sunlight. The neighbor’s teenage son had done a great job pulling up the weeds on Friday. Twenty bucks for his labor had made him ecstatic. Trish considered that cheap compared to the quotes from commercial landscapers.
Of course, she’d enjoyed it for all of one weekend.
Luckily, most of her stuff was still stored in her parents’ garage. The rest had been packed into her SUV, ready to drive to Venus’s place tomorrow. Trish would get a spot on the loveseat. Woo-hoo.
She needed someplace else for long-term. How could she find anything she could afford with a baby?
There she went again, thinking like she should keep it. She shouldn’t. She couldn’t give it a nuclear family, a stellar life. She could barely take care of herself.
She looked out over the front lawn and remembered her rejoicing that she could finally see the sidewalk from her front door. Well, maybe she wasn’t that helpless.
Oh. She sat up straighter. What she should do was pray about it. (Imagine that!) The reconciliation and peace she felt in the sanctuary still covered her, embracing her like a soft chenille blanket. Lord, I don’t think Kazuo would want this baby. Do you want me to keep it?
She didn’t expect a voice in her ear, but she suddenly saw a picture of the child in her arms, her mother’s smile beaming at her, maybe Grandpa’s dimples peeking out.
If you want me to, I will.
No writing on the wall or in the sky, but she also knew somehow — deeper than emotions, from somewhere down inside her — that He’d let her know definitively. Eventually.
She shifted when the crack in the step started digging into the seat of her pants. She breathed deep of the cooling twilight air and dropped her head into her bent knees. She should go inside soon.
