Church. The church was six blocks from Bea’s house in the hedge-lined middle-class black neighborhood in northwest Dade where Jessica had grown up. The area was now in the shadow of Pro Player Stadium, the Miami Dolphins’s football stadium, with horrific traffic jams on game days; during the football season, it was nearly impossible to make it to her mother’s house on Sundays because of the steady flow of fans.
David rarely agreed to sit through a service, but he came today because he wanted to be with her and Kira. She’d glanced at him during the sermon for signs of acceptance, some enlightenment, but his face always grew stony in church. Once, she saw him staring at the painting of The Last Supper, especially the bearded Jesus figure in the middle, with nothing short of contempt. She’d seen that look before, prompting her to ask David if he hated God. He paused before answering.
“If there truly is one God, then it’s God who’s displeased with me,” he said simply. He never answered when she asked why in the world he would say such a thing, claiming it was a joke. But she knew it wasn’t.
Watching David methodically remove her mother’s old spark plugs with counterclockwise twists of the wrench, Jessica told herself that her husband would never be saved. She would have to accept it. He’d been too poisoned against Christ as a Muslim orphan left to missionaries who were bent on converting rather than consoling him. He did not believe. If she trusted her Scriptures, that meant she would spend eternity without him.
Jessica had gone to church all her life, in her frilly pinafores and white gloves, but when she was young it was only another place she had to go. Home, school, church. She didn’t really learn what faith was until after her father died, when she stood on her toes to see what was in the rose-colored casket. She didn’t know what to expect, why she’d been so anxious to take her place in the line at the front of the church, clinging to her mother’s hand. There, inside, was the grim, washed-out face of Daddy.
Daddy was going to stay in this box? And they were going to bury this box in the ground? He had to be somewhere else, like her mother kept saying. That wasn’t him at all.
On that day, Heaven kept Jessica’s world from caving in.
David, somehow, lived without believing in a better place. And yet he could still wake up in the morning and carry out his day and go to sleep without being frozen awake with fears of death, of darkness, of nothing. She didn’t understand how he could do that. She tried, telling herself one night This is all, there is nothing after this , but she felt swallowed by the vast barrenness. She thought of her father’s bones, crumbling to black dust inside that beautiful casket beneath the ground.
Maybe David had a point. Religion was a crutch, a way people rationalized away their pain in life, like the slaves yearning for a better existence. A denial. When there is no fear of death, David had told her once, there is no need for religion.
For a moment, watching David examine her mother’s dirty air filter and shake his head, she envied his strength. Here I am with a two-month-old scratch on my wrist from Teacake, but he heals by himself, she thought. His spirit, his body, everything. No wonder he never seemed to age a day.
“Din-ner!”
Her sister’s shrill voice flew out of the open living room jalousie windows, a reminder of childhood. That was the same window where Jessica had stood vigil, waiting for her father to come home from his job working on the telephone lines; she’d probably been waiting by that window when he drove to Burger King in his billed Oakland Raiders cap, the one night he never came back. Jessica saw Alex’s hazy figure in her place, in a bright-purple dress. Kira was beside her in the window, a ball of white taffeta and lace. “Dinner, Mommy! Dinner, Daddy!” she echoed. As usual, Kira needed to be a part of the production,
David rarely agreed to sit through a service, but he came today because he wanted to be with her and Kira. She’d glanced at him during the sermon for signs of acceptance, some enlightenment, but his face always grew stony in church. Once, she saw him staring at the painting of The Last Supper, especially the bearded Jesus figure in the middle, with nothing short of contempt. She’d seen that look before, prompting her to ask David if he hated God. He paused before answering.
“If there truly is one God, then it’s God who’s displeased with me,” he said simply. He never answered when she asked why in the world he would say such a thing, claiming it was a joke. But she knew it wasn’t.
Watching David methodically remove her mother’s old spark plugs with counterclockwise twists of the wrench, Jessica told herself that her husband would never be saved. She would have to accept it. He’d been too poisoned against Christ as a Muslim orphan left to missionaries who were bent on converting rather than consoling him. He did not believe. If she trusted her Scriptures, that meant she would spend eternity without him.
Jessica had gone to church all her life, in her frilly pinafores and white gloves, but when she was young it was only another place she had to go. Home, school, church. She didn’t really learn what faith was until after her father died, when she stood on her toes to see what was in the rose-colored casket. She didn’t know what to expect, why she’d been so anxious to take her place in the line at the front of the church, clinging to her mother’s hand. There, inside, was the grim, washed-out face of Daddy.
Daddy was going to stay in this box? And they were going to bury this box in the ground? He had to be somewhere else, like her mother kept saying. That wasn’t him at all.
On that day, Heaven kept Jessica’s world from caving in.
David, somehow, lived without believing in a better place. And yet he could still wake up in the morning and carry out his day and go to sleep without being frozen awake with fears of death, of darkness, of nothing. She didn’t understand how he could do that. She tried, telling herself one night This is all, there is nothing after this , but she felt swallowed by the vast barrenness. She thought of her father’s bones, crumbling to black dust inside that beautiful casket beneath the ground.
Maybe David had a point. Religion was a crutch, a way people rationalized away their pain in life, like the slaves yearning for a better existence. A denial. When there is no fear of death, David had told her once, there is no need for religion.
For a moment, watching David examine her mother’s dirty air filter and shake his head, she envied his strength. Here I am with a two-month-old scratch on my wrist from Teacake, but he heals by himself, she thought. His spirit, his body, everything. No wonder he never seemed to age a day.
“Din-ner!”
Her sister’s shrill voice flew out of the open living room jalousie windows, a reminder of childhood. That was the same window where Jessica had stood vigil, waiting for her father to come home from his job working on the telephone lines; she’d probably been waiting by that window when he drove to Burger King in his billed Oakland Raiders cap, the one night he never came back. Jessica saw Alex’s hazy figure in her place, in a bright-purple dress. Kira was beside her in the window, a ball of white taffeta and lace. “Dinner, Mommy! Dinner, Daddy!” she echoed. As usual, Kira needed to be a part of the production,
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