Joey didn’t deny it. “She said I could be a soldier and have a uniform. It might be fun.”
“We can’t stay that long,” Aaron said.
“We have food here, Aaron. We don’t have to break into people’s houses. We have as much water as we can drink. And Doug and Jeff keep us safe.”
“
I
can keep us safe. I don’t need them.”
“You don’t even have the gun anymore. I’m just saying, Sarah’s gonna cry. She’s had enough happen to her, Aaron. Let her stay here and be happy for a while. What’s so bad about that?”
“She might get to feeling like they’re
her
family, that’s what. But they’re not. And as soon as they get what they want, they’ll dump us. Then how will she feel?”
“What if I don’t want to go?” Joey asked.
Aaron’s eyes flashed. “
I
decide what we’re gonna do, Joey. Haven’t I always decided what’s best? Haven’t I always took care of all of us? Don’t you think I can do it again?”
“But it was nice to be in a family with a mom and dad.”
Aaron turned on him. “They’re not our family, you little twerp! We’re all the family we got. We have to stick together and do what’s right for all of us. So I don’t want to hear you whining no more. Got it?”
Joey didn’t answer.
“Joey, answer me.”
Finally, his brother crossed his arms, pouting. Aaron hated it when Joey acted like some stupid little kid. Being seven was no excuse.
“I got it,” he bit out.
“Good,” Aaron said. “We’re going tomorrow, and that’s that. We’ll have our own play. I’ll make you a general, and Sarah can be a queen.”
Joey kept brooding. “We don’t got a stage or costumes or music. You think you’re so smart, but you can’t do everything.”
But Aaron didn’t feel smart at all.
T
ORRENTIAL RAINS CAME JUST AFTER SUPPER, TURNING THE
tilled part of the Brannings’ yard into a mud pit. Aaron hid his packed bag under the bed in Logan’s room, then went downstairs and out to the patio. He sat down, pulling his feet up onto the chair. He rested his chin on his knees and looked out at the rain, wishing tomorrow would hurry and come.
Most of the family was in the kitchen, watching the rain out of the bay window.
The rain had cooled the summer heat, and a breeze blew a fine mist into Aaron’s face. He wished he could walk out into the middle of it and let the warm water pour down over him, pool at his feet, then rise to his knees, his waist, his shoulders, his face. He wished he could drown in the clean warmth of it, leaving all his cares behind.
It would be so cool if there really was a heaven, if he could just close his eyes and drift up to some beautiful place, where the lights were on and there was food hanging from trees, where his sister and brothers could be safe, where a nice God welcomed him and loved him.
But if a God like that existed in a real heaven, he wouldn’t want the likes of Aaron Gatlin there. Not after all he’d done.
You made your bed, now sleep in it
. His mother had said that so many times, as if her own bed wasn’t a filthy mess.
No, a real God wouldn’t have a bunch of snot-nosed orphans dirtying up his heaven. He’d be scared they’d steal some of those fancy pearls off the gate.
A tear rolled down his face, and he roughly smeared it away. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be weak like some whiny little baby. Sarah, Luke, and Joey depended on him.
He heard distant thunder, and the rain came harder.
Doug and Kay came out, their arms full of recycled containers, bowls, and buckets, and they set them out in the rain to catch the water. Doug glanced at him. “Might save us a trip to the well.”
Aaron doubted they’d catch enough to make much difference.
“Hard rain, huh?” Doug said over the roar of rain hitting the patio roof. “We needed it.”
Aaron didn’t turn around. He didn’t want them to see his stupid tears. Pulling up his shirt, he dried his face.
He heard someone else come out, then Kay said, “Beth, what are you doing?”
“Taking a shower,” she said, shooting past him out into the yard. She was wearing her bathing suit and held a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. She walked out to a place in the yard that hadn’t been tilled and stood in the grass with her face turned up to the rain.
“What is she doing?” It was Deni’s voice behind him, and Aaron turned and saw the rest of the family spilling out onto the patio.
Sarah giggled wildly and jumped up and down. “I want to get wet too!”
“Aaaah,” Beth cried. She let the rain roll through her hair, then poured out a handful of shampoo and lathered up.
“You’re really gonna regret that when it stops raining before you can rinse,” Logan said.
Beth just laughed. “It’s not gonna stop. Look at it! It’s pouring.”
She rinsed the shampoo out, then started soaping her arms, her neck, her legs.
“That’s it,” Deni said. “I’m getting into my bathing suit. Come on, Sarah. We’ll change you into something and we’ll both play in the rain. I’ve been dying for a shower.”
Logan and Jeff pulled off their shirts and ran into the storm. Aaron dropped his feet, and a slow grin tugged at his lips. Luke was next to strip down to his shorts, then Joey. But the kicker was when Doug tore off his shirt and went sliding across the grass. “Give me that soap!” He shouted.
Soon all six Brannings and Aaron’s brothers and sister were dancing and playing in the rain, lathering up with soap and shampoo, fighting with the suds, laughing their heads off.
And the rain kept coming.
“Come on, Aaron. It feels great!” Logan said.
“Yeah, Aaron,” Kay shouted. “Don’t make us come get you.”
He couldn’t help smiling now. He pulled off his sweaty shirt and slowly sloshed out to the grass. Before he knew it, Jeff and Logan and Doug had descended on him, soaping him up like a greased pig, tickling him and making him laugh even if he didn’t want to. Suds went flying, hitting Kay in the face like a pie, Doug in the back of his head, and Deni right between the shoulder blades.
They looked like the opening theme song of some TV sitcom. The perfect family, having fun and acting silly. Even the parents.
For a good hour, it all seemed like reality.
D
OUG
’
S SERMON
S
UNDAY MORNING SEEMED TO STRIKE A CHORD
with the flock he had accumulated over the past month. The group that had started in his living room had now outgrown his home, and they’d had to start setting up church at the lake. The bring-your-own-lawn-chair service had become a little more popular. Twenty families were coming now, and more joined each week. He hoped that the sound of their praise music would rise on the wind and waft across the neighborhood, luring others who needed time to worship during this dark time of their lives.
He had never planned to be a preacher. Just ten weeks ago he’d been a jet-setting stockbroker, working the economy to his advantage. But when the lights went out and he realized how little control he really had over his life, he had felt a yearning in his soul to worship the God who did have control. And since their home church was twenty miles away, too far to make it by bike every Sunday morning, he’d felt the need to start a church of his own.
Since then, he’d embarked on a serious study of God’s Word — a study that had sustained him through this trial and enabled him to lead his small congregation.
He’d carefully prepared today’s sermon about helping others in need, and the group had listened earnestly, many of them glancing at the Gatlin children sitting on the front row, lined up like object lessons of the sermon itself.
He paced as he spoke, his voice rising on the breeze. “I’ve realized after all these weeks that I can’t make the electricity come back on. I can’t make my generator come to life. I can’t make my car crank up. My cell phone will probably never work again, and my computer may be a thing of the past. The Pulses could last years. My whole career is down the tubes, since the stock market hasn’t been open in months and the banks are still closed and the economy has tanked.”
He had their attention. They all knew of that out-of-control pain he spoke of.
“And as I prayed about that and cried out to God, he brought some children into my life.”
He glanced down at the Gatlin kids, thankful they were still here. Kay had found their packed bags under the bed this morning, and they’d had to do another song-and-dance to keep them from leaving. Sarah was coloring on a piece of paper on the front row, and Luke was almost asleep. Joey and Aaron sat side by side, mirror images of one another, arms crossed like sentinels guarding their deepest secrets. Their faces were red in the hot sun.
“And these children led me to a place I needed to see. It was an apartment complex called Sandwood Place, not far from this neighborhood, and what I saw there made me realize that we in Oak Hollow, who before the outage, were the haves who towered above the have-nots, had not changed our status. This was a surprise to me, because I believed that we were in poverty.
“But then I went to Sandwood Place, and I saw people starving because they can’t grow food. I saw children stealing just so they could eat. I saw people having to walk over a mile to get water. I saw sewage backed up and garbage stacked on itself, festering and breeding rodents and insects. And I started to understand how rich I truly am, even without electricity, even without computers and cell phones and cars. Even without a running refrigerator or a telephone. I’m rich because I live in a beautiful home with lots of rooms and lots of comfortable beds. I’m rich because my family is intact and they’re all here with me. I’m rich because Oak Hollow just finished working together to dig a well, and now we have clean water. And I’m rich because, before that, I had a lake that was meeting my needs.”
His eyes grew intense as he stepped closer to the crowd and leaned in. “And I’m rich because I know the God who holds all of this in the palm of his hand, the one who provides for me and guides me. And this morning when I was reading the Psalms, I came across Psalm 105, verse 19. It said, ‘Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him.’ ”
Doug looked up at the congregation. “You see, God made it clear to me weeks ago when my own daughter was missing — ” he glanced at Deni — “that he had created the Pulses for a purpose. He’s doing a mighty work with all the suffering and all the inconvenience, and it’s going to have the results that he wants. But in the meantime, he’s testing us, and as we’ve all found out, God doesn’t work on our timetable.
“And so I started really asking what my test was in this. And I realized that it had to do with loving my neighbors as myself. So today, I’m asking each of you for your help. I know of one apartment complex in town where people are suffering, and I have to believe there are many more. In Oak Hollow, we figured out a way to dig a well, and some of us are growing food, and we can do even more if we co-op. Digging up our front and backyards will give us acres of property that we could till and cultivate and grow food on. I’m going to present it to the neighborhood and see if we can’t arrange a co-op. But I think while we’re doing that, we — as the church — need to reach out and give a helping hand to those people who don’t have those resources. And it might mean getting our hands dirty, and it might mean extra sweat, and it might mean that we take time away from our work for our own survival to help them. That’s what the Lord is showing me.”
He paused as a low mumble started up, people whispering to each other, some frowning as if they didn’t want to be asked to do anything else.
But he went on. “Now we have twenty families here. About half of us are kids, but that leaves thirty adults. I’m suggesting that we get together, and as a church, go to that apartment complex. We start with that one area and try to clean up the garbage, try to educate residents on how to dispose of their garbage when there aren’t any garbage trucks running. Heaven knows, if Eloise hadn’t educated my family, we’d still be piling the garbage up in our backyard. Educate them on composting, teach them to recycle, help them clean up the backed-up sewage in their bathrooms. Show them ways around their problems. It can be done. We can change their quality of life with a little muscle and a lot of sweat.”
He couldn’t tell from their faces whether they were with him or not. He sure hoped he’d gotten through to some of them.
“My family has already agreed that we’re in. Who will go with us?” He waited, hoping for everyone there to raise a hand. But there was a long pause.
Finally, Stella Huckabee spoke up. “Doug, there’s just not enough time. Already, we’re doing everything we can to survive ourselves. We don’t have time to go digging up somebody else’s garbage. And if we’re going to survive winter, we have a lot of hard work to do now.”
“I’m not suggesting we spend hours and hours a day there. Maybe one day a week, or maybe just a couple of hours a day. We were able to take time out to dig a well. Why can’t we do this?”
“Because,” Hank said, “you’re talking about people who don’t want to help themselves.”
“How do you know they don’t want to, Hank?”
Doug saw Aaron look over his shoulder at the man. His face grew harder.
“If they wanted to, they would have done it by now.”
“Hank, what do you suggest they do? If they have no place to grow food, if they have no place to get jobs, if they have no place to get water, what else can they do? Yes, some of them are stealing to get by, and there are people looting and stealing things that have nothing to do with survival. But let’s not paint the whole group with that brush. I don’t think any of us should provoke God by saying we would never do the same things.”
Andy Honeycutt looked troubled. “Doug, I want to do what God wants us to do, but this is something new to me, and I want to make sure before we do this that we’re not just throwing our labor down the drain. I mean, what if we go and clean up all their garbage, and then a week later it’s all right back where it was?”
“It’s going to take some patience and some time,” Doug said. “There may be some people there who
don’t
want to do for themselves, but there are others who are seriously trying to survive and doing everything they know how to do — but it’s not enough. There are a lot of people in that apartment complex who worked hard for a day’s pay before the outage. They don’t have any place to go now to get a paycheck. The Bible commands us to help our brothers.”