Straightened

by Alana Terry

  “Oh, wait. Do you think we could swing by your house? My wallet’s back there, and ...”

  “No, don’t you worry about that.” Sandy twisted around once more. Kennedy wondered if she’d have a kink in her neck for the rest of the day. “I know how it is for you starving college students. You’ve got more important things to do with the little bit of money you have, so you just sit back and let Carl and me spoil you for the day, all right? What about clothes? You need new shoes or anything?”

  From the front seat, Carl muttered something about budgets and emergency funds.

  “That’s ok.” Kennedy made a mental note to call her dad and get him to find a subtle way to reimburse the Lindgrens for anything they got for her over the next couple days.

  Carl turned the radio back on, but as soon as he did, Sandy switched it to the praise and worship station.

  Jesus, you’re my Healer, my Shepherd, my Shield.

  Kennedy shut her eyes. Her soul drank in the words.

  Jesus, you’re the One who makes me whole.

  It had been a grueling thirty-six hours. There was no way she’d be starting her fall semester as rested and relaxed as she’d hoped. Somewhere, a teen boy was sitting in a jail cell for a crime he couldn’t have committed. A father was dead, as well as a counselor who’d done what he could to help others. Woong was working his way into another fit after Sandy told him it’d be another day of shopping centers and clothes stores. But somewhere deep within Kennedy’s spirit, buried so far down she had to channel all her mental energy to focus on it, was a peace.

  A certainty.

  The world was dark. Full of hatred and violence. But somewhere in the midst of the chaos, somewhere above the darkness and confusion, was a God of love. A God of refuge.

  A God gentle and compassionate enough to give her soul the rest it so desperately craved.

  CHAPTER 26

  Kennedy lost track of how many stores she’d been in by the time Sandy pulled up in front of a little sandwich shop in downtown Cambridge. “Now, I know Carl’s worried about the budget, but I can’t have you and Woong starve now.” She waited for the song on her worship album to finish before she turned the Honda off.

  “So tell me, sweetie, how was your summer? I feel like you landed here, and then everything happened all at once, and we never really got a chance to talk about anything.”

  Woong jumped out of the back seat, obviously in a better mood now that they had pulled up in front of a restaurant and not another clothes store. Medford Academy was a charter school with a dress code nearly as strict as the one at Kennedy’s girls’ school back in Yanji. The trunk of the Lindgrens’ Honda was filled with bags of khaki pants, khaki shorts, brand new socks and underwear, and a dozen or more polo-style shirts in just about every shade of blue, green, and tan. Sandy had been right about one thing. Getting her son ready for school, even a publicly funded one, was ridiculously expensive. What Sandy had spent on Woong’s school supplies and clothes was more than the amount Kennedy had to budget for a whole semester’s worth of college textbooks.

  “Shut that door a little harder, son.” Sandy took Woong’s hand when he joined her on the sidewalk, but he quickly snatched it away and shoved it in the pocket of his shorts.

  Once they were seated at a table in front of their oversized sandwiches, Sandy took a sip of her sweetened tea. “I’m still waiting to hear about your summer.”

  Kennedy had to stretch her mind back to what felt like the distant past. Had it only been yesterday she landed in the States? “It was good. I got a lot of reading done. Lots of Shakespeare. I wanted to get ahead for the lit class I’m taking.”

  Sandy nudged Woong with her elbow. “Honey, you need to finish one bite before you take another.” She gave Kennedy an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, dear. Could you say that again?”

  Kennedy told Sandy about her summer reading list, about the classes she’d be taking this semester, about how relaxing it had been to spend three and a half months away from deadlines, lab reports, and research papers.

  “You work so hard, pumpkin. I still remember how tiny you used to be with your little pigtails sitting in my Sunday school class. I want you to know Carl and I sure are proud of the young woman you’ve become. Woong, darling, swallow your food and then drink your juice. Now look here. See how many floaties you got in it?” She glanced up at Kennedy again. “And your friend, the one from Kenya? How’s he doing? How’s his health?”

  Kennedy stared at her veggie sub. “Fine. There’s a good hospital right there in Nairobi.”

  “Well, it’s a shame he won’t be around this semester.” Sandy wiped some mustard off of Woong’s nose with a napkin. “He was a real nice boy. I bet you’ll miss him.”

  “Yeah.” What else was there to say? It was like splashing sulfuric acid in your eyes and having the doctor look at you and say, “I bet it hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, the Lord brings people into our lives. Sometimes it’s only for a season, but he always knows what he’s doing.”

  Did he, though? It seemed like such a waste. Such a senseless injustice for someone like Ruben to end up with HIV. For what? What good could possibly come from it? Of course, Kennedy knew the verse about how all things work together for good for those who love God, and she had seen that principle played out in her own life a time or two. But then she looked around her, at the injustice in the world, at the senseless violence, the hatred. That couldn’t all really be part of God’s plan, could it? If God could make good come from something like Ruben’s sickness, couldn’t he have stopped him from contracting the virus in the first place? If God wanted to show his glory and goodness, couldn’t he do it by allowing his children to stay healthy and safe?

  She was too tired to think through any of this. It was past midnight now in Yanji, and Kennedy was growing less and less sure of her resolve to stay awake until the sun set over Massachusetts.

  Woong pushed his empty plate away from him. “I’m still hungry.”

  Sandy started to pile all his trash into a heap. “I have some snack things in the car. Help me throw all this away, and then we’ll go take Daddy his sandwich. Maybe we can all have a little picnic at the church.”

  “So how do you feel after everything that happened last night?” Sandy asked as they drove back toward St. Margaret’s to see Carl.

  “I don’t know.” Kennedy hadn’t had time to process anything yet. She wondered how she’d find room in her brain to fit all the equations and nomenclature rules she’d have to memorize this semester in organic chemistry when her mind was reeling over murder and arson.

  Sandy sighed and glanced at Woong in her rearview mirror. “You can take a little nap, son. We’re just driving over to Daddy’s work, and Miss Kennedy and I are talking.”

  Woong didn’t answer.

  “I wonder if there’s any news about the murders.” Sandy shook her head. “It’s just so hard to believe that Wayne’s dead. No matter who it was. People are just so set in their ways. We’re raising up a whole generation of folks who believe it’s ok to hate somebody just because they believe different from you.” She glanced again at Woong in the mirror.

  “We had this foster boy once,” she began. “Saw him all the way through his high school graduation. The only reason we didn’t adopt him was because he didn’t become legally free until he was seventeen, and we wouldn’t have had time to make it formal. Name is Guy. Charming boy. Big dimples. Never seen someone so popular with the girls. And he never gave us no trouble. He was a good help around the house. Always eager to please. Pitched in with the littler ones without ever having to be asked. He and Carl got real close. Once he moved out and got a place of his own, he and Carl still had regular lunch meetings every week. And then one night, Guy asked us over for dinner. Said he had something important to tell us. We thought maybe he’d proposed to one of those girls he was always hanging out with. Or maybe he’d finally launched this computer design business he’d been working on. Anyway,
whatever the big announcement was, I baked a big pineapple cake to celebrate, and Carl brought out the sparkling cider, and we went over to see him. He had this nice little place in Jamaica Plain. A little townhouse he was renting. Cutest little rock garden, quiet part of town. We were just tickled Guy was doing so well for himself, because we’d seen enough foster kids age out of the system and end up with nothing.

  “So we got to Guy’s house, and he’d fixed this delicious pasta dish, seafood and Alfredo sauce and homemade rolls. And we could tell he was nervous and trying to make a good impression, and we just wanted him to know how proud we were of him no matter what news he had for us. So Carl asked straight out what the big announcement was, but Guy said we should eat first and he would tell us while we had dessert. So I was cutting up the pineapple cake, and I was wondering by now if maybe it wasn’t just an exciting announcement, but something he didn’t quite know how we’d react to. Like maybe he’d gone and eloped, or maybe his girlfriend was pregnant and he didn’t know what we’d say to that, but anyway, he just finished putting some whipped cream on top of Carl’s piece of cake and then he says, ‘I’m gay. I’ve been gay for as long as I can remember, but I was too embarrassed to admit it.’

  “Well, this was a good ten years ago. Things like that weren’t as out there as they are now. You didn’t read about it every day in the news or things like that. So Carl and me both, we were pretty surprised, but we wanted him to know we appreciated him being honest with us. And so we talked a little, and he told us how he always felt more comfortable around girls, and even the ones he dated in the past, he just did it to try to fit in. And I’ll go ahead and admit it, it was an awkward discussion. We’d dealt with pregnant teens and drug addicts and runaways by then, but not something like this, so it felt like new territory. We muddled through it, though. Guy hadn’t told many people yet either, so it was a learning curve for all three of us, but it went all right.

  “Then time went on, and we still got together with Guy, and he and Carl had their lunches even though Guy was busier now with his new business, so it weren’t quite so regular. And we didn’t talk much about him being gay, because I think he sensed it was something Carl and I weren’t a hundred percent comfortable with. Kind of like our daughter Blessing wouldn’t come home and tell us all the details from when she was out partying all weekend. You know, some things you just don’t tell your parents, and once our kids are grown, we don’t ask.

  “Anyway, Carl and I didn’t want to make a big deal about his lifestyle, because he was an adult, and far as I knew he’d never professed to being a Christian, and we just didn’t feel like it was our place to judge. Well then, must have been about a year after he came out to us, Guy did the same thing. Invited us to dinner, only it was fancy steaks this time and lobster tails too, so we knew right away whatever it was, it was going to be big, and we just hoped God would give us the grace to handle it well. We’d read a few books by then, wanted to understand more of what Guy was going through, and what we’d both decided was we just wanted to keep our relationship with Guy open. If God wanted to deal with him and his choices, God could do that in his own time and in his own terms. We got some flak for it, too, Carl and I did. One of the elders at St. Margaret’s in particular was pretty incensed we were still having dinners with Guy and getting together with him regularly. And Carl told him even if we didn’t agree with all his choices, that didn’t change the fact we thought of him as our son. None of our kids are perfect, but that’s no reason to shut them out of our lives. But that elder just couldn’t handle it. Ended up leaving the church, but that was over another issue.

  “So anyway, Guy’s serving up this lobster and steak, and Carl and I are just looking at each other wondering what’s about to happen next. And this time, Guy doesn’t make us wait for dessert. He just comes out and says, ‘I met someone. We’ve known each other for a little over half a year now. And I’ve just gotten back from visiting his family, and I really want you to meet him, too.’ So Carl (you know how he can get so thoughtful sometimes), Carl sits back and gets this little frown on his face, and I didn’t know what to expect, but he says, ‘Well, son, of course we’d be delighted to spend some time with him. Any friend of yours is a friend of ours.’ And I thought that was pretty decent of him to respond that way, ’cause I know some fine, upstanding Christians who wouldn’t have stood for it.

  “So the big day comes, and we invite Guy and this friend of his over to our home, and we’re both real nervous, Carl and me, ’cause we’ve never done this sort of entertaining before. But what we figure is we’re all just people. Strange as it might be, this is a chance to get to know someone. Who knows how God’s gonna use our time together, right?

  “So Guy and his friend come in, and he’s this real intelligent, real smooth kind of character. Real intellectual. This is the Southern girl in me talking now, but he was what you’d think of as a typical rich Yankee kid, really. Nice guy, though. Very polite. And I could tell Guy was going head over heels trying to impress him and make him feel comfortable in our home. So we start eating. It was something real simple we made up, something Carl threw on the grill if I remember right, and then Guy explains to us how he and his friend are planning a union celebration. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that phrase, but it’s basically a gay wedding before gay weddings started to become a thing. And what Guy wants is he wants Carl to be the one to say the prayer at the ceremony. And Carl gets thoughtful again but eventually says he’s sorry but that’s not something he thinks he can do. And that’s when things got ugly, because Guy’s friend jumped in and said something like, ‘What’s the big problem? You marry straight folks all the time.’

  “So Carl explains real calmly how it wouldn’t be fitting for him as a pastor to give a blessing for this union. And by now, our son Guy, he’s just trying to keep peace, but Felipe, his boyfriend or fiancé or whatever you’re supposed to call him at that point, he says if Carl really cared about Guy, he’d give his blessing at this union celebration no matter what. And then he started to press Carl, demanding Carl account for it on a moral level, so Carl says it’s nothing against the two of them personally, but the Bible’s clear that homosexual activity’s a sin. He wasn’t saying he didn’t want to be involved in their lives at all. He made it clear no matter what that they’d both be welcome at our home, that we’d give them the love and support we’d give to any other of our adult kids, but that union ceremony just wasn’t something that he as a pastor could give his official blessing to.

  “So things kind of blew up from there, and Guy left with Felipe, just stormed out before we got to dessert. We didn’t hear from him for another month, maybe longer, and by then they’d gone through with their ceremony, and he wrote us this letter. Said that if we wanted to have any relationship with him, we had to tell him that we agreed with his decision. And Carl wrote back. Said that we wanted the best for him and his partner, and we’d love to keep on spending time with both of them, keep up a relationship, but we couldn’t in good conscience approve one-hundred percent with their choices.

  “And that’s the last we heard from Guy. It’s a real pity, too, because I think we could have all stayed good friends, even that Felipe he lived with. We had them in our home, invited them into our family. We were willing to keep those lines of communication open, see? We were willing to keep Guy in our lives no matter who he’d married or unionized himself with or however you say it these days. But they needed more than that. They needed us to say we were ok with their behavior, and that just wasn’t the way we felt. They called us close-minded, but Carl and I, we didn’t ask Guy or his boyfriend to change a thing in order to be part of our lives. We didn’t say they couldn’t live together or get married or anything like that. But they wanted us to change our beliefs, and if we didn’t do that, well it wasn’t good enough for them.”

  She sighed. “Our kids have done things we know are against the Bible, but when they’re adults, they’ve got to make those choices
for themselves. They don’t have to be perfect to have a relationship with us. That’s not the way God works. But Guy needed more than we could give. It would be like if our daughter Blessing — she’s the one that got married last February. It would be like if she came to us and said, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m marrying Damion, and I’m six months pregnant with his child, and unless you tell us we haven’t been sinning, you can’t come to our wedding.’ That’s not how it works. Yes, they sinned, but it wasn’t Carl’s and my place to make a big deal out of it.”

  Sandy pulled the Honda into the St. Margaret’s parking lot. She turned around in her seat. “Aw, look at that. Sweet little pumpkin fell right to sleep. Well, he’s had a long day.” She gazed at her son with more adoration than Kennedy had seen in any sculpture or any painting of the Madonna.

  “Tell you what,” Sandy said. “Why don’t you tell Carl I’m out here and I have him a sandwich and a small picnic packed for whenever he’s ready. I’ll just stay in here so Woong can get a little more rest. And take your time. The longer Woong sleeps, the easier it’s gonna be on my poor nerves today.”

  As Kennedy entered Carl’s massive church, she thought about Sandy’s foster son. She knew it was possible for two people to have a close relationship even if they didn’t share the same moral values. Her friendship with her roommate was a perfect example. Willow knew that Kennedy didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs, and wasn’t planning on having sex until her wedding day. And as much as she teased her about it in her good-natured way, Willow never tried to change Kennedy’s mind about any of it. Likewise, Kennedy knew Willow partied hard and slept around with just about everyone in Harvard’s theater department. That didn’t stop the two of them from enjoying a peaceful co-existence that eventually morphed into friendship. They enjoyed each other’s company and shared a mutual respect for one another, different as they were. Kennedy didn’t try to change Willow’s behavior, and Willow didn’t try to change Kennedy’s convictions.