Can I Get An Amen? Read online

  When it came time to order, Mitch’s and Luke’s selections were adventurous and bold, as they skipped the rolls and headed straight for sashimi. Jill and I had more pedestrian tastes, Jill unabashedly so. While I pretended to be comfortable with the esoteric menu, Jill asked the waiter if they had anything cooked. “Like shrimp? Or scallops?” But it wasn’t the sort of place that had volcano rolls, so we made do with tuna maki and miso soup.

  “If I get a parasite,” whispered Jill after the waiter had departed, “I’m going to be seriously pissed.”

  “But what if you get one of those worms that makes you lose, like, thirty pounds?” teased Luke, fully aware of Jill’s obsession with her weight.

  “Shut up,” she retorted, rolling her eyes as if Luke were her brother. But as she looked consideringly at the sushi bar, I knew she was weighing the relative pros and cons of having a tapeworm set up camp in her intestine.

  When the miso soup arrived with shrimp heads floating it, Jill and I squealed like schoolgirls, thoroughly embarrassing Mitch and Luke in their temple of authenticity. This restaurant was exactly the type of place where the initiated came to avoid the likes of Jill and me, with our McSushi palates.

  “Stop it, you two,” scolded Luke with restrained amusement, “or I’m sending you back to Jersey without your supper.”

  But Luke was right about the food. We ate around the shrimp heads, and when our rolls came, even we confessed how superb they were.

  “So,” said Luke tentatively, in a tone that signified a turn toward the serious, “any trips to Boston planned?” He dipped an almost translucent rectangle of pale pink fish into his tiny pool of soy.

  “Yeah,” I said, “in a couple of weeks.” Jill and Luke exchanged glances and the mood of the table sobered appreciably. I hadn’t told them that Gary had called with a date for the final hearing. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I imagined all the paperwork, so carefully complete, with the lines needing my signature so considerately pointed out with neon flags.

  “Really?” asked Jill quietly.

  “That’s good, Ellen,” said Luke confidently. “You’re ready.”

  “Am I?” I asked, unconvinced.

  “Yes, you are. I was worried for a while,” he confessed, “but you’re ready now.”

  I simply refilled my soy moat and avoided their empathetic expressions.

  . . .

  On the way home, I slumped back in Jill’s leather passenger seat as the city began to disappear behind us. Jill was a shockingly fast driver, whipping from lane to lane and weaving between cars like she was in a video game. She had already been to traffic school once, despite the fact that she had something of a sixth sense for the police and usually spotted them in plenty of time to slow down.

  Why she ever drove in the right-hand lane I didn’t know, though I suspected she enjoyed bearing down on the cars in front of her, then zooming by them with the kind of exaggerated velocity that was supposed to shame them for obeying the speed limit. I watched her go through the routine again and again, as she sped past luxury cars, nondescript sedans, and finally a somehow familiar dark blue Subaru wagon.

  I gasped when I saw it and whipped around and stared at the rear window to get another look.

  “What?” asked Jill. “What’s wrong?”

  From the bright glow of the tall sentinel lights of the highway, I could just make out the lines of his face before his turn signal went on and he veered off to the exit behind us.

  “That was Mark,” I said with certainty. “That was him.” I was at once elated that I had found him, bereft that he was gone again, and confused as to why I should feel this heart-pounding longing. My initial attraction could be explained by the whole white-knight phenomenon, but I shouldn’t still be thinking about him. The only man I should still be thinking about was Gary, and finding the strength to stand in the same room with him in front of a judge.

  Jill furrowed her brow, taking her eyes off the road to look at me. “Who’s Mark?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  I glanced over at the alarm clock, which read 8:22. Clearly we weren’t going to the eight-thirty service today. Pushing the covers off, I got up to get dressed for church. It was all becoming so routine, just as it always had been. Every Sunday we used to pile into my mother’s minivan and drive to Grace Bible Church. This was before my parents made the switch to Christ Church, when we thought everyone’s mother spoke in tongues.

  Later, when we were old enough to ask the questions that we had been afraid to consider as children, my mother would remind us of our roots. “I remember when you came off the bus after the preteen retreat and told me that you’d been saved,” she said. “Jesus lives in you, Ellen.” Like the prodigal son, we may wander, she thought, but we’d always return to Christ.

  My father looked up from his paper when I walked into the kitchen. “Morning, Ellie,” he said. There was a weariness in his voice, and I wondered how long it had been there. “How is work going?” I hadn’t seen much of Dad since I started at Kent & Wagner.

  “Oh, it’s okay,” I said, grabbing a mug out of the cabinet. “It’s a paycheck, ya know?”

  My mother approached the kitchen and, as usual, I could hear her before I could see her. “Roger, where is the…,” she called, stopping when she saw me. “Oh, hey, honey.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  My mother turned her attention back to my father. “Where is the checkbook?” she asked, lacking her usual Sunday morning enthusiasm.

  “Why?” he asked, almost defiantly. Since they had written a fairly large check to the church every week for as long as I could remember, even I knew the answer.

  My mother said nothing and simply planted her hand firmly on her hip and tilted her head, her face becoming stern.

  “It’s in my top left desk drawer,” he answered.

  She turned on her heels to go fetch it. When she returned, she poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the counter, while my father stayed at the table.

  “So I guess we’re going to the ten-thirty service today?” I asked, thinking of Lynn and Edward Arnold, who would no doubt be seated front and center.

  “Yes,” my mother replied firmly. “Then I’m going over to Prince of Peace again. Ellen, why don’t you come with me?” She said it as if the thought had suddenly occurred to her, when I was sure she had been planning this pitch all morning.

  I groaned. “One church, Mom. I said I’d go with you guys to one church a week.”

  “Well, maybe next week we can go to Prince of Peace instead. Now, that is a cool church. I would just love for you to hear that minister.”

  “Mom, please stop trying to sell me on that kook.”

  “Ellen Louise Carlisle,” she said, slapping the table. “How dare you assume that he is a kook? I’m telling you, you kids pretend to be so open-minded, and here you are judging a man you’ve never even met.”

  I instantly regretted what I had started. The blatant hypocrisy that, as she put it, “politically correct liberals” had toward Christianity was one of her favorite soapbox rants. “They want to accept everyone and everything except Christian values,” she would say. “I’m telling you, it’s like the time of Herod all over again.”

  “All right, all right. I get it. Don’t judge the minister,” I said, employing the same inflection used for don’t shoot the messenger. Without looking up from his paper, my father gave a quiet chuckle, but my mother didn’t get it.

  She furrowed her brow. “I don’t catch on. What’s so funny?”

  . . .

  I could tell my parents were ill at ease when we walked into church, and my mother’s pale blue eyes darted around the building. She was looking for the Arnolds. We took our seats in a pew that was just a bit farther back than usual. My mother flipped through the program to see that the head pastor, her least favorite, would be speaking today. “Shit,” she whispered. “It’s Thomas Cope.” I chuckled silently at my mother, the preacher’s daughter, resorting to profanity over wh
o would be leading the service.

  My mother kept her gaze on the aisles, waiting for the Arnolds to make an appearance. When they finally did arrive, my parents gave them a small wave, which they returned, before they took their front-and-center seats, which almost seemed to be reserved for them. After the dreaded first encounter was over, my parents’ stress level seemed to diminish palpably.

  When the service began I could see that Thomas Cope was something more of a showman than John Blanchard, using grander gestures and more high-flying language. Aside from the delivery and variance in content, however, the services were largely interchangeable from week to week, the wildcard always being whether Communion was being offered. I followed the rest of the church as we stood and sang “Blessed Assurance” and then read responsively Psalm 150. When the prayer concerns began, I flipped through the church bulletin in my lap, almost tuning out the booming voice calling for the faithful to “come together in the spirit.”

  Together, we silently asked the Lord to protect twenty-six-year-old Michael, who was leaving for a tour in Afghanistan: “Lord, shelter him in your secret place, Lord. Protect him and his fellow soldiers as they stand against darkness, and let no weapon formed against them prosper!” As the minister spoke, the words seemed to gain speed and strength like a growing wave. There were murmurs of agreement throughout the church. Reverend Cope stopped and patted his brow, as if allowing time for the prayer to reach heaven, and when he began again, his tone had softened. “And Lord, we hold up to you this morning Ellen”—my head lifted ever so slightly, like an antelope alerted to a lurking lion—“who at thirty-one is struggling with infertility and divorce.” I froze, feeling the blood rush to my face as my stomach dropped. I looked at my mother, whose eyes remained squeezed stubbornly shut, and then at my father, who looked as confused as I did. Reverend Cope paused dramatically before continuing. “We ask you to fill her heart with love and her womb with light, healing both, by your stripes, Lord.”

  “Amen,” my mother whispered.

  I was frantic, furious. I grabbed a felt-tipped pen and a sheet of “Hello, my name is…” name tags, which were always kept in slots with the hymnals for visitors. WHAT THE FUCK??!! I wrote on one of them, before sliding it forcefully to my mother. She glanced at it quickly, then pursed her lips and shot me her most menacing look, warning me not to make a scene. This was a common tactic when one of us was angry with her, to see our rage and raise it.

  I crossed my legs away from her and slid toward the end of the pew, turning as much of my back to her as possible while still officially facing forward. I wanted to walk out, to get up and leave and refuse to ever come back. But I knew such a scene would only confirm to my parents’ less well-informed friends that the prayer request was, in fact, for Ellen Carlisle. Seething and humiliated, I scripted the monologue I planned to deliver in the car on the way home. How could she possibly think it was appropriate to air that here?

  Throughout the rest of the service, I made sure that my body language was speaking for me. Reverend Cope said the Lord’s Prayer, and then the offertory began. “And this morning, as you are called upon to tithe,” he said, addressing the congregation, “I ask you to consider the church’s need for an expanded youth center, to better serve our young members who are just beginning their walk with Christ.” I quietly snorted and rolled my eyes. This would be my last visit to Christ Church. That I guaranteed.

  I heard my mother as she rustled around in her purse in search of the checkbook, which she gave to my father. When the usher arrived at our aisle with the collection plate, which was to be passed down the pew from parishioner to parishioner, I handed it roughly to my mother without looking at her. Seconds later, I felt the cold metal rim tap my arm. I glanced down at its contents before returning it to the usher. Although my parents’ check was folded in half, I could see that it was in the amount of one thousand dollars. “You give out of your own need,” my mother used to say. “The more of a sacrifice, the less you can spare it, the more pleased the Lord is.”

  As the ushers made their way from row to row, the rest of the parishioners placed their checks in the red velvet–lined brass tray. Lynn and Edward Arnold had exchanged affectionate glances as Ed placed in his check, which almost seemed to land with a thud. I looked subtly behind me, to see just how full the church had been for my mother’s little prayer request. Fucking full, I thought to myself as I glanced from face to face.

  And then I saw them.

  Philip Kent was closing a leather-bound checkbook case and putting one of his Montblanc pens back in his inner jacket pocket. Parker Collins was staring straight ahead, with picture-perfect posture and an almost indiscernible smile on her face.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The moment the service ended and the congregation began to mill about, I grabbed my coat. “I am getting out of here,” I hissed. Keeping my eyes focused on the exit, I marched down the aisle, excusing myself as I sidestepped and squeezed between bodies. It was a relief to feel the blast of cold air as I pushed open the heavy wooden door and walked out into the clear November day.

  After making my way across the parking lot, I leaned against my father’s black Mercedes, which was becoming conspicuously dated by the standards of my parents’ circle, and kept my eyes on the church’s front door, ready to bolt at the first sign of Parker. Tapping my foot like a metronome, I counted the seconds and became increasingly furious that my parents had the audacity to linger. Kat would never just sit here like this, waiting for them as they clasped hands and double-kissed friends and acquaintances.

  The congregants had started to make their way outside, forming cozy little groups as they stood chatting on the sidewalk. When I saw my mother’s silver bob emerge from the church, I gestured wildly for her to hurry up. She ignored me and rested her hand on the back of a chubby gray-haired woman with a body like a penguin. The penguin squawked in delighted surprise at the sight of my mother and the two began talking. My father stood with Reverend Cope and another older man who looked like a well-fed, aging Baldwin brother. I did not yet see Parker or Philip and surmised that they must be collecting their children from Sunday school. Seizing my opportunity, I darted into the crowd and interrupted my father.

  After greeting Reverend Cope and the Baldwin with a quick hello, I asked my father for his car keys. “I’m not feeling well. I think I need to lie down.”

  My father played up his parental concern just a bit for the benefit of his audience. “Why, sure, honey,” he said, reaching into his pocket with a creased brow. “Would you like me to walk you to the car?”

  “No, I’m fine. Just feeling a little nauseated.” I scurried back to the car, got in the backseat, and lay down, hoping that I couldn’t be spotted by a passing Parker. As I lay there, with my knees hanging off the seat and my head wedged uncomfortably against the door, it occurred to me that this was probably the least elegant and mature way to handle the situation. Rather than hiding like an escaped convict, I should graciously approach Philip and Parker and exchange warm but restrained hellos; I should take whatever subtle barbs Parker might throw my way squarely on the chin and then tell her how nice it was to see her. Though I had no intention of budging from the backseat, at least I was able to identify the best course of action. That had to count for something.

  . . .

  After a few minutes I heard the passenger door swing open. “Well,” started my mother, sounding as upbeat as an Osmond, “you’ll never guess who I just saw. Parker Collins!”

  “Are you kidding me?!” Still lying down, I smacked the leather seat back. “After what you just did, you are going to come out here and tell me that you saw Parker Collins.” Parker’s name came out in a mocking version of my mother’s singsongy southern chirp.

  “Well, first of all, yes, it was lovely to see Parker.” Her tone was reprimanding and superior. “And as a matter of fact, I had a rather nice chat with her and her husband. She said that Lynn Arnold recommended this church and they’ve been co
ming for a few weeks now.”

  “What?!” I gasped. “You talked to them?”

  “Yes, I most certainly did. My goodness, Ellen,” she said, clearly ashamed of my behavior as I cowered in the backseat. “That man is your employer. And for your information, I told him how grateful you were to have that job.”

  I covered my face, picturing Parker’s poised little smile as she listened to my mother go on and on about sad, childless, unemployed Ellen, and what an act of mercy it was for Philip to hire me.

  “And I have no idea why you are so upset. Parker used to be one of your good friends.” On this I couldn’t entirely fault her. She never knew what happened with Parker, never knew that we weren’t just friends who drifted apart.

  My father opened the driver’s side door and peered into the car while my mother and I initiated a brief and tacit cease-fire. It was clear that he had delayed joining the melee for as long as possible and decided to take preemptive action on the part of my mother, unaware that we hadn’t even gotten to the bit about my loveless heart and lightless womb. “Ellen,” he began sternly, “your mother can’t be blamed for Thomas Cope’s interpretation of her prayer request.”

  “Interpretation? How many ways are there to interpret that?” I said, lurching into an upright position. “He pretty much nailed all the bullet points, wouldn’t you say? And do you realize that Parker Collins is the last person on the planet I wanted to know that? You completely violated my privacy.”

  Confused by the reference to someone named Parker, my father, who had never been much involved with our social lives, started the car.

  “Ellen, you need to shed your pride,” scolded my mother.

  “You need to cut all the religious shit! I don’t want to hear about how pride cometh before the fall. You humiliated me!”

  “I will not apologize for requesting prayer for you. The Lord answers prayer.” She sounded more desperate than assured. “Where two or three are gathered in his name,” she began, referring to Matthew 18:20. But I cut her off, feeling my hot, red face tighten as I was hit with the full force of my aching sadness. I thought of the words that had come silently, the quiet pleas that had found their way to my lips, all those nights when I lay awake wondering if I was going to get pregnant, then whether Gary would come back.