This Side of Salvation, Page 3

  I clutched the paint, filled with the desire to sign my name. My hand shook so hard, the ball inside the can began to rattle.

  Then Rajiv barked my name from across the field, followed by a string of impatient profanities.

  Self-preservation won. I ran for the car and made my escape.

  • • •

  “Get up,” Dad said. “We’re worshipping somewhere new this week.” He rapped his knuckles on my open door until I grunted in acknowledgment. Then his footsteps retreated down the hall.

  I rolled out of bed without opening my eyes. The inside of my skull felt coated with peanut butter. It had been only a few days since the WHY GOD WHY? graffiti night, when the adrenaline rush had kept me awake until it was time to go to school. I’d hoped to catch up on missed sleep that Sunday morning, but a peek at the clock revealed that Dad had woken me an hour earlier than usual.

  I wondered why we were going to a new church all of a sudden. I wondered if St. Mark’s Episcopal had tired of Dad’s Bible-study rants, or if he’d tired of them explaining every verse’s historical context and “intellectualizing the truth out of Scripture,” as he put it. Most important, I wondered if I could wear jeans.

  I barely had time to grab a bagel on the way out the door. In the car, Mom kept glancing back at me from the passenger seat. I thought maybe it was because I was scattering sesame seeds all over the place, but she wasn’t usually a neat freak. Something was up.

  We turned off Lancaster Avenue and immediately slowed, a traffic jam forming a block south of the busy boulevard. For once, my father didn’t complain about the weekly mass pilgrimage to Stony Hill church. He just sat there, humming.

  We reached a side street, where I assumed he’d turn off to get around the traffic.

  He didn’t turn off. We were part of the traffic.

  I stopped chewing, my throat tight and stomach churning. Do Mom and Dad know what I painted on this church? Did they bring me here to see if I’d confess? Will I get in more trouble if I don’t?

  The child locks on the rear doors were engaged. No escape.

  On Stony Hill’s outside wall, my WHY GOD WHY? was already painted over in stark white, like it had never existed. This hasty erasure pissed me off. How could they obliterate humanity’s most basic question and anguished howl?

  I finished my bagel with hostile bites. No way I’d confess. No way I’d stop. Next time it won’t be paint. Next time I’ll make it permanent.

  • • •

  Stony Hill was no less intimidating on the inside. Its sanctuary was three times the size of my middle school auditorium. The pulpit had a giant screen to its right and a five-piece band warming up to its left. And that squat black contraption upstage—was that a fog machine?

  We sat in the center-left section, in cushy movie-theater-style seats instead of pews. Everyone in the row in front of us turned and smiled, clasping our hands like we were old friends. I wondered how, in a congregation this size, they could tell we were newcomers.

  Dad introduced me as “My son, David. My only son,” as he had since about two months after John died, sometimes running it all together in “MysonDavidmyonlyson.” I’d trained myself not to wince at the sound.

  By the time we’d met everyone within reach, my cheeks hurt from fake smiling. To avoid small talk, I pretended to examine the prayer list on the back of the bulletin, as if memorizing the names of those sick or troubled enough to warrant divine intervention.

  Finally the music began. I stood on the aisle, next to Mara, who always sang loudly enough for both of us.

  Maybe Mom and Dad heard me sneak out my window Thursday night. Maybe I left footprints on the sunroom roof or a dust mask in the maple tree next to the house. Maybe Mom smelled paint fumes on my clothes. But I’ve always been so careful.

  Stony Hill’s flashy onstage show dragged my attention from my panic. The fog machine sent mist floating across the stage to curl around the musicians’ swaying forms. Lights strobed in red, blue, green, and yellow, color coordinated with lyrics flashing on the screen.

  At the music’s crescendo, the pastor swept onstage like a rock star. But his arms unfolded out toward us, as if we were the stars. Midthirties and wearing a blue polo shirt and khaki pants, he looked nothing like St. Mark’s old black-robed priest.

  Mom and Dad clapped and sang along with the congregation. If they were mentally trying me for vandalism, they were hiding it well. Maybe this is a test. Mom and Dad only suspect I’m the vandal and want to see if I act suspicious. Maybe if I stay quiet, it’ll all blow over.

  I focused on Pastor Ed’s sermon to calm my agitation. He paced and gestured, the mic clipped to his collar picking up every whisper. Instead of the Bible banging or fire and brimstone I’d always imagined this church would put forth, he spoke of God’s unconditional love for anyone who would receive it. It was like he was having a one-on-one conversation with all three thousand of us, promising an end to the pain of wandering in the wilderness of sin. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it felt true.

  As Pastor Ed’s sermon ended, he hopped down off the stage and strode to the front of the sanctuary.

  “None among us is perfect. No one is without sin.” He clasped his hands and spoke softer. “If you find it in your heart to repent today and commit yourself to loving the Lord, He will accept you without question.” He spread his arms. “Are you ready to change? Are you ready to accept His grace and forgiveness?”

  I thought it was a rhetorical question, but as another song began, people started coming forward. A man here, a woman there, a kid my age here and there. They strolled with purpose down the aisles to where the preacher stood beckoning. Those who stayed behind raised their hands, palms to the ceiling, swaying, singing, smiling in support.

  Within a minute, more than a dozen congregation members had lined up along the front of the sanctuary, hands folded in front of them, faces lifted to the lights above.

  I wanted what they had, that surety and serenity and love. I wanted it so bad, I couldn’t stop my feet from carrying me down the aisle, or my face from pointing straight ahead despite Mara gasping my name behind me. I had no clue what I’d receive from Pastor Ed, only that I was starving for it.

  He moved down the line, laying his hands on each person’s bowed head, uttering words I couldn’t hear over the music. Those waiting to be blessed or healed or whatever raised both hands, fingers relaxed and palms up. I copied their posture, feeling a calm sweep through me, like I was buoyed by light and air.

  When Pastor Ed reached me, he met my eyes and beamed as if I’d given him a Christmas present. “I’m glad you’ve joined us, son. What’s your name?”

  “Cooper. David Cooper.” Why I said it James Bond–style, I had no idea. Maybe I was nervous again, standing in front of the guy whose church I’d desecrated. But as he laid a gentle hand on my head, I felt . . . accepted, even for my mistakes. Especially for my mistakes.

  “David, welcome into the loving grace of the Lord. However often you stray, He will forever yearn for your return. May you always crave His love and ask forgiveness with humility.”

  I nodded, unsure of what to say. Then he had me repeat a short prayer after him, acknowledging I was a sinner and that I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Pretty straightforward stuff, nothing wild or radical that would’ve sent my fellow Episcopalians running for the vestibule.

  “Amen,” I whispered when we were finished. He started to move on, but I grabbed his arm before I could stop myself. “Wait.”

  Pastor Ed raised his eyebrows in a kindly expression. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry. I was the one—I painted—” I cleared my throat so he could hear me over the swelling music. “I’m the ‘Why God Why?’ guy.”

  I expected him to turn away, or tell me to get out of his church, or trumpet my guilt to the crowd. Instead his face softened, then he pulled me into a back-thumping embrace. Over his shoulder I looked up at the cross shining on the giant screen.


  “Thank you,” Pastor Ed whispered. “Come see me afterward. We’ll talk.”

  As the pastor moved on, the kid next to me, maybe a year younger than I, nudged my elbow. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing. Hey, what just happened?”

  The boy squinted up at me through thick glasses. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m new here.” I nodded at the line we were standing in. “What exactly did we just do?”

  The kid laughed and shook his head. “Dude, we just got saved.”

  • • •

  Pastor Ed and I did talk, after church that day, and the next week, and the next month. In Stony Hill’s huge congregation there were, sadly, enough teens in Mara’s and my situation to warrant our own grief-counseling group. Pastor Ed and the youth minister, Mrs. Caruso, didn’t preach to us mourners the standard garbage about why bad things happen to good people. They said it was okay to be angry, that God was big enough to handle it. And because God had become small and human, He could weep with us. We never had to be alone.

  Since I’d owned up to my crimes, and because John’s death and my unique experience of it were “mitigating circumstances,” I got off with financial restitution (which Mom took out of my allowance), along with community service at Stony Hill’s soup kitchen. I could’ve done my time at another charity, but I wanted to show the congregation that I was truly sorry and had renounced my wicked ways forever.

  I never found out if my parents already knew or suspected I was the WHY GOD WHY? guy before they brought us to Stony Hill. Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe they’d read in the paper about the vandalism and thought, Let’s try that church.

  In any case, I took it as a sign that for the first time in years, I was where I belonged.

  CHAPTER 5

  NOW

  My phone still lies on my nightstand, undisturbed. I left it there on purpose before going to Stephen’s after-prom party so my parents couldn’t use it to track my location. Mara’s phone has no tracker app, since they trust her. Trusted her—past tense now, I guess.

  There’s only one text, from Kane, from ten minutes ago: Home yet? In huge trouble?

  I reply: Home. Yeah, don’t call. If he heard my voice, he’d know something was up. Instinct tells me to keep Mom and Dad’s disappearance secret for now. Bailey ok?

  No answer comes. Since Kane hadn’t been drinking, he had no reason to run away, so right now he’s probably following the cops, taking notes. He’s wanted to be an FBI agent since he went to the bureau’s headquarters on a sixth-grade field trip, and he’s pretty much memorized every crime show in the history of television.

  I toss the phone on my bed, following it with clean boxer shorts, sweatpants, and a T-shirt from my dresser. I use a stray towel to wipe the accumulated grime off my chest and arms, knowing I should shower but not wanting to miss Kane’s reply, or a call or message from Bailey.

  Naturally, I think of her as I strip off the swim trunks. Was it only two hours ago we were alone together for the first time in weeks? Those minutes in the pool house feel like a lightning flash in the middle of a long, dark storm. In those minutes, I could see, with blinding clarity, who I was and what I wanted.

  Once dressed, I sit on the bed and stare at my phone’s empty screen. We haven’t found Mom’s phone yet. Mara ran around the house, listening for our mother’s goofy ringtone of the week, while I collected the shrapnel of Dad’s BlackBerry, wishing my pitching coach could see the dent it left in the wall.

  At the thought of calling Bailey, my head gets light and swimmy, as if that one swig of Jack Daniel’s in the hot tub was an entire bottle. Are we back together now? Maybe our time at the party was just a fun good-bye. I never figured out how to ask, “Are you my girlfriend again?” without sounding clueless. Obviously I didn’t anticipate the night getting cut short by cops.

  Time to man up.

  I dial her number and immediately reach voice mail: “Hey, it’s Bailey. Leave a message and I’ll call you back. Leave a creative message and I’ll call you back faster.”

  Her voice calms my racing pulse enough for me to speak. “It’s David. I know it’s”—I look at the clock—“oh, wow, four a.m. Sorry. And I’m sorry I ran out on you at Stephen’s. I had to get Mara away from the police. You saw how she was.” Getting off topic. Reel it in. “Anyway, I hope you’re okay. Let me know as soon as you can. I, uh, I’m worried. About you. About a lot of things. Also, I realized I never said I was sorry about what happened last month. It was my fault too. Probably mostly my fault. Maybe totally.” After an awkward pause, I add, “I love you.”

  I hang up and head downstairs. In the event Bailey calls back tonight, I’ll sound a lot less crazy if Mara and I can figure out what’s going on.

  I find my sister in the kitchen, yanking open the junk drawer. She’s wearing pajamas and glasses now, but her hair is still pinned up in the straggly remnants of her trip to the salon.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Mom’s phone.” She slams the drawer shut. “Since we couldn’t hear it ring, I thought maybe she stuck it in a drawer and the battery ran out.”

  “Are their phone chargers here?”

  “Dad’s is on the table, can’t find Mom’s.”

  I spy the leftover pizza I left on the counter and pick it up. “Laptops?”

  “Check their room. Did you search the cars?”

  “For what?”

  “Duh. Clues!” Mara flaps her hand at me. “How can you eat at a time like this?”

  On the countertop, her cell phone bleeps with a text. She grabs it, hands shaking, but her face falls when she sees the screen. “It’s just Sam. ‘Home safe. How about you?’ That’s nice of him to check in.”

  “Told you he was a good guy.”

  “I’ll say I’m home, but I’m grounded and can’t see him this week.” She starts thumbing in a message. “No one can know Mom and Dad are gone until we figure out where and why.”

  I take the pizza upstairs to the master bedroom. Both laptop cases sit against the wall beside the dresser, with the computers inside them.

  Mom’s browser window is open to the website of Sophia Visser, the preacher who convinced my parents that Jesus was returning to “Rush” His beloved followers to heaven. At the center of the page is the animated countdown clock that was scheduled to turn to zero about an hour ago, signaling His coming. The clock currently shows “-4:05:32,” which would’ve been about eleven p.m., when Mom and Dad went to bed.

  As the laptop connects to the wireless network, the animation on Sophia’s website automatically updates before my eyes. The clock slowly dissolves, replaced by six words stretching across the screen:

  . . . like a thief in the night . . .

  CHAPTER 6

  THREE YEARS TO SLIGHTLY LESS THAN TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE RUSH

  After my confession and saving, my parents decided that public school was a “corrupting environment” for their juvenile delinquent son. So Mom quit her real estate job to home-school me and Mara.

  Surprisingly, it rocked. As long as we didn’t fall behind, we could make our own work schedules. I finished two years of math, English, French, and history in nine months, along with a semester each of chemistry, geography, religion, and earth science. After the first year, we took online courses and community-college classes, rather than being taught by Mom. It was almost like being a grown-up.

  Rather than turn into asocial shut-ins, we had more outside activities than ever. Mara followed her two passions: choir and cars, while I still played for the high school baseball team. My fastball was reaching legendary status across the Delaware Valley, and scouts were sure to start sniffing around next spring.

  Mara and I joined an accelerated-math homeschool group taught by a community-college professor. “Math Cave” was the students’ affectionate-turned-official term for the classes in Mr. Ralph’s basement. It was like a one-room schoolhouse, with a whiteboard and desks for the twenty or so students spl
it into two sections. We ranged in age from twelve to sixteen, though we were all taking eleventh-grade trigonometry.

  One day, halfway through what would have been my sophomore year, I was at my desk before class, double-checking my homework. Francis (the kid from Stony Hill who’d told me, “Dude, we just got saved”) was sitting in front of me. He kept turning around to allegedly get hints on the last problem, but I suspected he was just checking out his current crush sitting behind me: Mara.

  My sister was talking in a hushed voice on her cell with her best friend, Jackie, discussing Middle Merion High School’s Valentine’s dance.

  “I do like Sam, but I can’t go to dances until I’m a senior. Mom says they count as one-on-one dates, even if we go as a group. Besides, I can’t subject Sam to my dad’s inquisition.” She snorted. “No way I can sneak out. They changed the security on our bedroom windows so the screens can’t open without setting off the alarm. Only my parents know the disable code. Thank my criminal brother for that.”

  She flicked the back of my head, hard, but I ignored her. Mara was lying to Jackie—we all knew the disable codes. She just didn’t want to risk her status as the “B-E-T-T-E-R child,” as she would chant at me while doing a little shimmy dance, whenever I screwed up.

  From the front row, Eve and Ezra Decker turned around with the precision of synchronized swimmers, giving us the stink eye.

  When Math Cave had started in the fall, I had insta-hate for Ezra, a skinny, thin-haired guy with a triple-size Adam’s apple. He wore shirts and ties to class, used any excuse to mention his perfect SAT scores, and spoke to girls’ chests instead of their eyes. The kind of guy who gave homeschoolers’ social skills a bad name.

  His little sister, Eve, was only a year younger than me, but she always smelled like bubble-gum-scented shampoo, the kind little kids use. She hardly ever talked. Maybe the Deckers had a spoken-word-sharing plan—the way some families share cell phone minutes—and Ezra was using them all up.