Read Online Down from the Mountain by Elizabeth Fixmer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Elizabeth Fixmer
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I keep coming back to the sentence she started and didn’t finish. “I wish …” How would she have finished that sentence? I wish … I wasn’t having a baby. I wish … you could get more education. I wish we could leave here.
My own thought stops me cold. No! That’s blasphemy. She would never say that.
One thing I remember is how happy Mother was when she decided to join Righteous Path. It was like night and day. Before she was angry with Daddy all the time, but after she met Reverend Ezekiel, she would sing songs of praise with so much joy.
I force myself to stop thinking of Mother and put all my attention into getting ready for the bonfire.
After dinner, the campfire seems to lift everyone’s mood. Annie sits on one side of me and Jacob on the other.
“We could make four campfires,” Jacob says. Annie and I can’t stop laughing when we hear this because Jacob’s voice keeps cracking and he shifts between a familiar high voice and an emerging low voice in the same sentence. At first it looks like he’s insulted, but then he laughs too.
Mother Rose tries to reassure him with her squeaky voice, which makes Annie and me laugh so hard my belly hurts. It feels good to laugh, though. It really does. Everyone around the circle is smiling with us. Except Reverend Ezekiel.
He looks at Jacob as if he’s seeing him for the first time. As he watches Jacob, an awful coldness fills his eyes. I’m puzzled by his reaction to Jacob. When Jacob sees this, he seems to fold in on himself like he wants to disappear.
Jacob catches my eye. His look is a question. I give him a warm smile and shrug my shoulders as if to say, “Who knows what’s going on with him?”
Everyone is quiet now, waiting for whatever will happen next.
Mother Helen hands Ezekiel his guitar, and as he starts to tune it, I begin to relax.
This may be the kind of bonfire night we used to have before the big split. We would praise God through song for hours, and sometimes Ezekiel would even encourage us to sing solos. Sometimes we even got to roast marshmallows on a stick.
“Who wants to hear a parable?” Ezekiel asks, his mood improving already.
“I do,” we all say.
It’s one of Ezekiel’s gifts. He can take any parable and set it to song, complete with a good melody and refrain.
“What parable would you like to hear?” he asks. I look around for Mother but she’s not here.
“The projigle son,” Daniel says.
“Yeah, the projigle son,” David agrees.
“It’s prodigal ,” Reverend Ezekiel corrects. “So what does that mean, boys?”
The twins look at each other to decide in their silent language who will do the talking.
“It’s about brothers. One is good and one is bad,” Daniel says.
David chimes in. “Yeah and God loves both of them.”
“Hmmm, I wonder why you two want that story,” Ezekiel says.
Everyone laughs. The six-year-old boys are so cute with their matching blond cowlicks, light skin, and freckles. Mother Miriam has her hands full with them all day, especially with that left arm of hers. It hangs limp at her side. She can’t bend or extend it since she broke it during the move.
Ezekiel begins singing the parable. His voice is strong and deep and holds such authority that you can’t help but listen and follow. When I was little and new here, I obeyed him out of fear. But it was his singing—deep, clear, certain—and his radiant smile that finally won me over all those years ago. I wanted to please him. I craved hearing his voice directed at me when it was gentle and loving, and especially in song. I quickly learned that we all wanted that, wanted his approval and acceptance. In my mind Ezekiel’s voice was the voice of God, and his smile was God smiling. Of course I wanted him to smile at me.
When we’ve finished that parable, Annie requests the song we made up that we sing to the tune of “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore.” But we sing it like this: “Mother Rose is heaven bound, alleluia.
My own thought stops me cold. No! That’s blasphemy. She would never say that.
One thing I remember is how happy Mother was when she decided to join Righteous Path. It was like night and day. Before she was angry with Daddy all the time, but after she met Reverend Ezekiel, she would sing songs of praise with so much joy.
I force myself to stop thinking of Mother and put all my attention into getting ready for the bonfire.
After dinner, the campfire seems to lift everyone’s mood. Annie sits on one side of me and Jacob on the other.
“We could make four campfires,” Jacob says. Annie and I can’t stop laughing when we hear this because Jacob’s voice keeps cracking and he shifts between a familiar high voice and an emerging low voice in the same sentence. At first it looks like he’s insulted, but then he laughs too.
Mother Rose tries to reassure him with her squeaky voice, which makes Annie and me laugh so hard my belly hurts. It feels good to laugh, though. It really does. Everyone around the circle is smiling with us. Except Reverend Ezekiel.
He looks at Jacob as if he’s seeing him for the first time. As he watches Jacob, an awful coldness fills his eyes. I’m puzzled by his reaction to Jacob. When Jacob sees this, he seems to fold in on himself like he wants to disappear.
Jacob catches my eye. His look is a question. I give him a warm smile and shrug my shoulders as if to say, “Who knows what’s going on with him?”
Everyone is quiet now, waiting for whatever will happen next.
Mother Helen hands Ezekiel his guitar, and as he starts to tune it, I begin to relax.
This may be the kind of bonfire night we used to have before the big split. We would praise God through song for hours, and sometimes Ezekiel would even encourage us to sing solos. Sometimes we even got to roast marshmallows on a stick.
“Who wants to hear a parable?” Ezekiel asks, his mood improving already.
“I do,” we all say.
It’s one of Ezekiel’s gifts. He can take any parable and set it to song, complete with a good melody and refrain.
“What parable would you like to hear?” he asks. I look around for Mother but she’s not here.
“The projigle son,” Daniel says.
“Yeah, the projigle son,” David agrees.
“It’s prodigal ,” Reverend Ezekiel corrects. “So what does that mean, boys?”
The twins look at each other to decide in their silent language who will do the talking.
“It’s about brothers. One is good and one is bad,” Daniel says.
David chimes in. “Yeah and God loves both of them.”
“Hmmm, I wonder why you two want that story,” Ezekiel says.
Everyone laughs. The six-year-old boys are so cute with their matching blond cowlicks, light skin, and freckles. Mother Miriam has her hands full with them all day, especially with that left arm of hers. It hangs limp at her side. She can’t bend or extend it since she broke it during the move.
Ezekiel begins singing the parable. His voice is strong and deep and holds such authority that you can’t help but listen and follow. When I was little and new here, I obeyed him out of fear. But it was his singing—deep, clear, certain—and his radiant smile that finally won me over all those years ago. I wanted to please him. I craved hearing his voice directed at me when it was gentle and loving, and especially in song. I quickly learned that we all wanted that, wanted his approval and acceptance. In my mind Ezekiel’s voice was the voice of God, and his smile was God smiling. Of course I wanted him to smile at me.
When we’ve finished that parable, Annie requests the song we made up that we sing to the tune of “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore.” But we sing it like this: “Mother Rose is heaven bound, alleluia.
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