or
better at sports, but you know in your heart they’re superior to you in some
way.
Posie is good at morals. She kicks
my ass at morals. They come as easily to her as physics comes to Jason.
Posie will never have to worry
about whether she should lie to advance her career or cheat to get a higher
score on a test. It won’t even enter her mind. When you’re Posie, the world
is black and white. Decisions are easy. You know what’s right and you go for
it.
And in my case, she’d know exactly
what was right. You call the police. No hesitation whatsoever.
In Posie’s world, it would all work
out no matter what. Those things I was worrying about? My father going to
jail and how we’d support ourselves and all that? Not even an issue. You
start by doing the right thing, Posie would argue, and everything else will
magically fall into place.
And maybe she’s right. I like to
think she’s right. But some of us are just too weak and lack her superior
faith.
And so we fudge it. We try to
manage things ourselves. And that’s what I was doing.
If I told Posie, I wouldn’t have a
choice anymore. But if I kept it secret, I could try to handle it myself.
Thinking you can handle it
yourself? Always—hear me?—ALWAYS a mistake.
The Watchmen Guard In Vain
[1]
Psalms isn’t my favorite book in
the Bible—I want stories, not just poems—but there are lines here and there
that stick with me and that mean something at different times.
Psalm 127 is one of Solomon’s. It
isn’t sexual, like the Song of Songs, which is quite beautiful in parts
although it was never taught in church because it was so scandalous.
Psalm 127 goes like this:
Except the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it.
Except the Lord watch over a
city, the watchmen guard in vain.
In vain do you rise early,
toiling for your food,
For while they sleep the Lord
provides for those he loves.
It means, I think, that whatever
you do needs the blessing of God for it to succeed. I can struggle and sweat
and burn out every ounce of energy, but if the project isn’t approved, nothing
I do will matter.
It creates a problem. On the one
hand, you think, “Everything is preordained, so why bother striving for
anything?” On the other hand, you realize that striving for something might be
exactly the piece that’s needed, and without that you might never know what
good things await you. In other words, God helps those who help themselves,
and although he knows ahead of time which efforts and which people will
succeed, it is exactly those efforts by those people which cause the thing to
come about as planned.
In other words, I had to do
something, and I prayed that I was right.
[2]
Here was my strategy:
Remember how my mother had used me
as a human chastity belt? Why couldn’t I do that for Mikey?
So I started hanging out in his
room every night, playing video games with him, doing my homework, generally
keeping watch.
And it seemed to work. No tandem
showers, no underwear wrestling, nothing out of the ordinary.
And it was actually nice to be with
my brother. I don’t think we ever spent that much time together. We brought
out Monopoly and chess and a deck of cards and amused ourselves many nights in
a row.
I kept waiting for him to tell me. “Dad’s touching me. Dad’s scaring me.” Whatever it might be. But he
talked about day camp and his friend Cort’s chameleon and the new Space
Chargers movie that was supposed to come out in a few weeks.
My father knocked on Mikey’s door
every night and stuck his head inside.
“Good night, kids.”
“Good night,” I answered with a
smile. I had him. It was working. He wouldn’t get by on my watch.
Silly, silly girl.
[3]
I’ve always found that if your life
is hurtling out of control, it’s best to bake a batch of chocolate chip
cookies.
I’m serious. I don’t know where I
learned
better at sports, but you know in your heart they’re superior to you in some
way.
Posie is good at morals. She kicks
my ass at morals. They come as easily to her as physics comes to Jason.
Posie will never have to worry
about whether she should lie to advance her career or cheat to get a higher
score on a test. It won’t even enter her mind. When you’re Posie, the world
is black and white. Decisions are easy. You know what’s right and you go for
it.
And in my case, she’d know exactly
what was right. You call the police. No hesitation whatsoever.
In Posie’s world, it would all work
out no matter what. Those things I was worrying about? My father going to
jail and how we’d support ourselves and all that? Not even an issue. You
start by doing the right thing, Posie would argue, and everything else will
magically fall into place.
And maybe she’s right. I like to
think she’s right. But some of us are just too weak and lack her superior
faith.
And so we fudge it. We try to
manage things ourselves. And that’s what I was doing.
If I told Posie, I wouldn’t have a
choice anymore. But if I kept it secret, I could try to handle it myself.
Thinking you can handle it
yourself? Always—hear me?—ALWAYS a mistake.
The Watchmen Guard In Vain
[1]
Psalms isn’t my favorite book in
the Bible—I want stories, not just poems—but there are lines here and there
that stick with me and that mean something at different times.
Psalm 127 is one of Solomon’s. It
isn’t sexual, like the Song of Songs, which is quite beautiful in parts
although it was never taught in church because it was so scandalous.
Psalm 127 goes like this:
Except the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it.
Except the Lord watch over a
city, the watchmen guard in vain.
In vain do you rise early,
toiling for your food,
For while they sleep the Lord
provides for those he loves.
It means, I think, that whatever
you do needs the blessing of God for it to succeed. I can struggle and sweat
and burn out every ounce of energy, but if the project isn’t approved, nothing
I do will matter.
It creates a problem. On the one
hand, you think, “Everything is preordained, so why bother striving for
anything?” On the other hand, you realize that striving for something might be
exactly the piece that’s needed, and without that you might never know what
good things await you. In other words, God helps those who help themselves,
and although he knows ahead of time which efforts and which people will
succeed, it is exactly those efforts by those people which cause the thing to
come about as planned.
In other words, I had to do
something, and I prayed that I was right.
[2]
Here was my strategy:
Remember how my mother had used me
as a human chastity belt? Why couldn’t I do that for Mikey?
So I started hanging out in his
room every night, playing video games with him, doing my homework, generally
keeping watch.
And it seemed to work. No tandem
showers, no underwear wrestling, nothing out of the ordinary.
And it was actually nice to be with
my brother. I don’t think we ever spent that much time together. We brought
out Monopoly and chess and a deck of cards and amused ourselves many nights in
a row.
I kept waiting for him to tell me. “Dad’s touching me. Dad’s scaring me.” Whatever it might be. But he
talked about day camp and his friend Cort’s chameleon and the new Space
Chargers movie that was supposed to come out in a few weeks.
My father knocked on Mikey’s door
every night and stuck his head inside.
“Good night, kids.”
“Good night,” I answered with a
smile. I had him. It was working. He wouldn’t get by on my watch.
Silly, silly girl.
[3]
I’ve always found that if your life
is hurtling out of control, it’s best to bake a batch of chocolate chip
cookies.
I’m serious. I don’t know where I
learned
Similar Books
