Read Online The Loveliest Dead by Ray Garton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ray Garton
Ads: Link
Suddenly, they had to memorize Bible verses and learn Bible trivia and color in Bible coloring books. Dad, a successful landscapes and Mom, an office manager at a veterinary clinic, even changed the way they talked—suddenly, their conversations were peppered with phrases like “God willing” and “Praise Jesus” and “I felt the Holy Spirit.” David didn’t like the sound of that— Holy Spirit . He was skeptical of its existence, doubted anyone who said they “felt” it, and he would believe people were “moved” by it when he saw it happen with his own eyes (he’d imagined the Holy Spirit “moving” people by picking them up off the floor and levitating them around the room). When David asked his mother why they were doing everything differently, she had said, “Because we live for Jesus now, honey. Only people who live for Jesus go to Heaven, and you want to go to Heaven, don’t you?” David did not want to go to Heaven if it was going to be filled with the kind of people his parents had become.
Jerry and Karen had grown into good churchgoing Christians, but David had fought it every step of the way, becoming the family’s sinful black sheep. He could not imagine that the creator of the universe, the creator of all living things, of life itself, required people to drop what they were doing and pray to Him every few hours, and to behave in a certain way so He wouldn’t throw them into a fiery pit, and to pass judgment on other people according to what they believed, or did not believe, about the creator. He came to the conclusion that there could not possibly be a God at all, because if there were and He saw what had been done on earth in His name, He would vaporize the planet in a heartbeat and start all over again.
David did not stay in touch with his family. He often missed having a family to stay in touch with—he knew they would not respond if he called or wrote. His brother and sister sent Christmas cards every year, but that was all. His dad had let him know he’d been written out of the will years ago. That meant very little, because Dad was leaving most of his money to the church, anyway.
After seeing what it had done to his family, David had spent his life steering clear of organized religion in any form. He saw no difference between people who believed in spirits and an afterlife and the religious fanatics who went door to door passing out their literature. They were all peddling the same thing—a better life after this one.
David believed this was the only life anybody ever got. The life he and Jenna had made for themselves had not gone very well the last few years, but they had clung to each other instead of a belief in some better life to come, or the idea that their suffering in this life would only enrich the next. They had found their strength in each other, and they had endured so far.
While he did not believe Jenna had seen anything like a ghost, he understood how she could think she’d seen Josh. The day before, while job-hunting in Arcata, David had to fight the urge to turn down a side street to follow a woman who’d been walking along the sidewalk with a little blond boy who looked, at first glance, exactly like Josh. It was not the first time something like that had happened since the move. He knew exactly how Jenna felt.
“Chatanooga Choo-Choo” played on Grandma’s radio on the sill of the breakfast nook’s greenhouse window. The four of them ate breakfast in silence. They all looked tired, but Grandma seemed to be especially sluggish.
“You feeling okay, Grandma?” David asked.
She shrugged. “Just tired. It’s hard, you know... getting used to sleeping in a new place.”
“Especially with our screamer, here,” Jenna said as she reached over and messed up Miles’s hair.
“I thought I heard something going on up there early this morning,” Grandma said.
David said, “Miles just had a bad dream. Happens to everybody.”
Miles
Jerry and Karen had grown into good churchgoing Christians, but David had fought it every step of the way, becoming the family’s sinful black sheep. He could not imagine that the creator of the universe, the creator of all living things, of life itself, required people to drop what they were doing and pray to Him every few hours, and to behave in a certain way so He wouldn’t throw them into a fiery pit, and to pass judgment on other people according to what they believed, or did not believe, about the creator. He came to the conclusion that there could not possibly be a God at all, because if there were and He saw what had been done on earth in His name, He would vaporize the planet in a heartbeat and start all over again.
David did not stay in touch with his family. He often missed having a family to stay in touch with—he knew they would not respond if he called or wrote. His brother and sister sent Christmas cards every year, but that was all. His dad had let him know he’d been written out of the will years ago. That meant very little, because Dad was leaving most of his money to the church, anyway.
After seeing what it had done to his family, David had spent his life steering clear of organized religion in any form. He saw no difference between people who believed in spirits and an afterlife and the religious fanatics who went door to door passing out their literature. They were all peddling the same thing—a better life after this one.
David believed this was the only life anybody ever got. The life he and Jenna had made for themselves had not gone very well the last few years, but they had clung to each other instead of a belief in some better life to come, or the idea that their suffering in this life would only enrich the next. They had found their strength in each other, and they had endured so far.
While he did not believe Jenna had seen anything like a ghost, he understood how she could think she’d seen Josh. The day before, while job-hunting in Arcata, David had to fight the urge to turn down a side street to follow a woman who’d been walking along the sidewalk with a little blond boy who looked, at first glance, exactly like Josh. It was not the first time something like that had happened since the move. He knew exactly how Jenna felt.
“Chatanooga Choo-Choo” played on Grandma’s radio on the sill of the breakfast nook’s greenhouse window. The four of them ate breakfast in silence. They all looked tired, but Grandma seemed to be especially sluggish.
“You feeling okay, Grandma?” David asked.
She shrugged. “Just tired. It’s hard, you know... getting used to sleeping in a new place.”
“Especially with our screamer, here,” Jenna said as she reached over and messed up Miles’s hair.
“I thought I heard something going on up there early this morning,” Grandma said.
David said, “Miles just had a bad dream. Happens to everybody.”
Miles
Similar Books
