A Certain Slant of Light (33 page)

  
James laughed again. "Because Billy is an irresponsible, immature, insensitive—" James paused, "boy."

  
"What are we going to do?" I asked.

  
"It's all right," he soothed me. "He won't be home when
we're together."

  
This, foolishly, placated me immediately I told myself that to
morrow, again, I would be in his bed. A chain of days reaching into forever but starting with tomorrow and the next kiss.

  
A voice in the distance on James's end of the line made him
stop and call, "What?" Then to me he whispered, "I have to go."

  
"Goodnight," I said, and he was gone.

When Cathy came tapping at my bedroom door, a piece of thick yarn held back her hair, the edges wet from her shower. Without
makeup, she looked younger. She was wearing a flannel bathrobe
and slippers and brought me a book.

  
She put
Why Christians Should Only Date Christians
on my
bedside table and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  
I looked at the book, repelled. Cathy probably meant it as the treasured wisdom passed down from mother to daughter. Perhaps
she had also shown Jenny the ritual of ironing a man's shirt and
defrosting a freezer. I wondered what Mitch had taught Billy about becoming a man. Had he taken his brother to work with
him or taught him to shave? Or perhaps rites of passage had become extinct. I tried to remember my own lessons—did I strug
gle with the washboard or feel victorious after plucking a dead
chicken bald? I could not recall.

  
Cathy paused in the doorway. "Do you understand why we
don't want you talking to strange boys at school?"

  
"You're protecting me."

  
"We want you to choose right and have a good Christian mar
riage."

  
"Of course."

  
"Your father and I have words sometimes." She tightened the
belt on her robe. "But it's nothing to worry about." Something
she wasn't saying aloud made her eyes tear up. "I have so much.
There are women in this world whose husbands beat them, who
have no homes, who can't feed their children." She nodded in
agreement with herself. "I'm blessed."

  
I felt I should say something. "That's true."

  
She sighed. "Say your prayers." Then the door closed.

  
I couldn't sleep. I read
Jane Eyre
until the clock said 1:37. That's when I heard the garage door grinding. I turned off my
lamp and put my book on the floor. I heard the floorboards in the
hall creak and my door handle turn. I closed my eyes and lay very still. After a moment, I heard my door latch gently click shut, and
I smelled it again. The very faint scent that I thought I'd imag
ined on his white shirt.

Thirteen

When CATHY SUMMONED me to Prayer Corner, Dan was already
keeping shepherd over the trio of chairs. We sat holding our
Scriptures. I flipped through Jenny's transcriptions, and phrases
flew by—
abomination to God
—
rejected the word of the Lord
—
punish all disobedience.
I remembered then why July 6, the date
in Jenny's progress folder, was familiar. The diary in my hands
began July 7, one day after Jenny brought home a less than per
fect report ca*rd. Someone had ripped out whatever was written in
her journal, and the next morning she had sat in the Prayer
Corner and neatly printed the words
Honor thy father and
mother.
I fingered the edges of Jenny's lost memoirs.

  
"Is there anything you wish to tell us?" said Dan.

  
"About what?" I asked.

  
"Give the whole truth to God in prayer," he warned me.
"He'll tell you what to do."

  
During silent prayer, Dan loomed over me, placing a leaden
hand on my head. I fought the urge to jerk away. More chilling
still was the hot dampness of Cathy's hand on my back.

  
"Lord, we call on you." Dan's voice was a death bell through
my bones. "Come into Jennifer Ann's heart and purify her. Give
her divine endurance in the face of temptation. Turn her
thoughts from sin. Purge her of all unclean ambitions, Lord. You blessed us with this child, but she is yours."

  
An image of Abraham raising a sword over his child's head
made me shudder. I was sweating under Dan's fingers. He en
treated God to enter me, but I was sure that God had no interest
whatever in comforting me, a stowaway in this girl's temple.
Perhaps I'd be chased out like a demon, the legion banished into
the herd of swine. No hope of heaven.

  
"Heal her of all deceit and willfulness. Show her the path of
the holy."

  
When I spoke, my words overlapped with Dan's "Amen."

  
"I'm not your child." I regretted it even before I saw Dan's
face.

  
"Jennifer—" Cathy was so shocked, she couldn't form words. She jerked her hand off me.

  
Dan pulled back a step. Cathy looked from one of us to the
other. The journal stuck to my hands, I was gripping it with such
fervor.

  
"I'm afraid you won't believe me," I said.

  
Dan spoke as if countering a blasphemy. "Whether you are
five years old or a hundred and five, we are your parents."

  
"I mean that I'm not who you believe me to be."

  
"Don't talk to your father like that."

  
"Cathleen," said Dan. "I'll handle this."

  
"I just can't pretend to be Jenny anymore," I said.

  
"We know you're trying." Cathy was almost in tears.

  
"Your daughter—" I couldn't think how to explain Jenny's
departure.

  
"Stop this nonsense right now." Dan placed his hand back on
my head, heavier now. This wasn't going well. I had promised
myself to be kind to Cathy, and now I was frightening her.

  
"Apologize to your mother." His grip tightened on my skull
until my eyes ached and my scalp was sweating.

  
"I'm sorry."

  
"Your will is God's will," said Dan. "Say it."

  
"My will is God's will," I said. His grip loosened slightly. My
head itched under his palm. "It's probably just part of growing
up." I retreated as best I could. "I feel changed."

  
Cathy seemed relieved, but Dan still held me, so I added,
"Closer to God."

  
"Explain," said Dan.

  
"I almost feel like another person. As if I should have a new
name. I feel so different. I was scared you wouldn't believe me."

  
Finally Dan gave my head a little jerk and released me. He
took up the Bible and paced as he read aloud. "'And just as they
did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them
over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil.'"

  
I was so glad he wasn't touching me anymore I almost
laughed, but instead I swallowed back the skittish instinct.

  
"'Full of envy,'" Dan read. '"Murder, strife, deceit, malice,
they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God.'" He rattled off the
rest of the list and was flushed by the time he shoved the Bible at
Cathy.

  
She'd been nodding in sheeplike agreement, but her hand
gripped the edge of her chair. The verse Dan gave her to dictate
to me was from Ephesians. '"Put on the full armor of God that
you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.'"
I was halfway through the passage before I realized that I was
writing in a curved hand nothing like Jenny's printing.

  
In the kitchen Cathy handed me a can of breakfast. "Don't
forget your Bible." When I just stared at her, she said, "Bible
study on Wednesdays, right?"

  
God bless her, she had forgotten, or never knew, about the half
day of school. I went to the bedroom and found Jenny's Bible on
the dressing table. Maybe I would read Song of Solomon to James
in bed. Then I had another thought and opened the bottom
drawer of the dresser. I tucked the Polaroid camera into my bag,
hidden under the Bible.

  
As I passed the study, I caught a glimpse of Dan through the
open door as he took two books off the shelf and put them in his
briefcase. Something about the way he adjusted the books he'd
left behind seemed peculiar to me, a man covering his tracks. He
had an open accordion file on his desk chair. He packed his brief
case with an odd assortment—I glimpsed a jackknife, a few mu
sic disks, a stack of letters, a framed picture, a little wooden
plaque that read: CHAMBER OF COMMERCE EXCELLENCE IN SMALL
BUSINESS. This was curious, but thoughts of seeing James pushed
the puzzle of Dan's habits out of my mind.

  
"Where did you get that button?" Cathy asked me as we drove
to school.

  
"They handed them out in English class."

  
"You don't have English class," Cathy said.