“You seem to think you’re thinking clearly, but what I’m hearing is a person who’s forgotten how to listen to his heart. You think I don’t understand you, but I know how devastated you would be, how utterly shattered, if you had to see a child burned up with napalm, a village bombed for no reason. You can do all the rationalizing you want, you can try to reason your way out of having a heart, but I know it’s there in you. I’ve been watching it grow, my God, for twenty years. You’ve made me so proud that you’re my son. Your kindness—your generosity—your loyalty—your sense of justice—your goodness—”
His father broke off, overcome with emotion. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to Clem that he could be anything but an adversary to his father; that his animosity might not be reciprocated. It seemed unfair to him—intolerable—that his father still loved him. Unable to think of a rejoinder, he jerked open the door and ran out into the hallway. For relief from the remorse that was rising in him, his mind went reflexively to the person who validated his reasoning, who shared his convictions, who freely and wholly gave herself to him. But the thought of Sharon only deepened his remorse, because he’d broken her heart that very day. Broken it violently, with merciless rationality. He’d shot her down with her own moral arguments, and she’d said it in so many words: “You’re breaking my heart.” He could hear the words so clearly, she might have been standing next to him.
There was no telling how long Becky might have stayed in the sanctuary, exploring what it meant to have found religion, if she’d eaten anything but sugar cookies since the night before. As God’s goodness routed the evil of marijuana, leaving only a fluish hotness in her eyes and chest, stray wisps of strange thought, she was beset by images of the baked goods in the function hall. She recalled a moist-looking chocolate layer cake, a loaf of cheese-and-chive bread, practically a balanced meal in itself, and a tray of lemon bars—she’d noticed lemon bars. She was so famished that she finally gave up on praying. By way of apology, she stood up and kissed the brass of the hanging cross.
“I’m your girl now,” she told it. “I promise.”
Hearing her own words, she felt a quake in her nether parts, as if her promise were romantic. It was akin to the shudder of ecstasy with which she’d beheld the golden light inside her. She wondered if the satisfaction of accepting Christ, becoming his girl, might enable her to renounce more worldly pleasures, such as kissing Tanner. The wrongness of kissing him before he’d broken up with Laura was clear to her now. So was the wrongness of her behavior in the ice cave of his van. Instead of celebrating the news that an agent was coming to hear the Bleu Notes, instead of sharing in his joy, she’d selfishly pressured him to dump Laura, and now God had shown her what to do. She needed to apologize for pressuring him. She needed to tell him that if he just wanted to be friends with her, see her in church on Sunday, explore Christianity with her, forget they’d ever kissed, she would cherish his friendship and be glad of heart.
First, however, she needed to see if any chocolate cake was left. It was nearly nine thirty and the concertgoers would be hungry. Letting the sanctuary door lock itself behind her, she paused in the front hall to collect herself. There was a scraping rumble from a snowplow in the street, a nasty rip in her beloved coat. She pulled on the loose threads, wondering if it could be repaired. She’d reentered a mundane world in which it wouldn’t be so easy to stay connected with God. For the first time, she understood how a person might actually look forward to Sunday worship in the sanctuary.
She must still have been lingeringly stoned, because her torn coat pocket had absorbed her for quite a while, without her reaching any conclusions, when she heard footsteps in the church parlor. Into the front hall came an older man with permed-looking hair and thick sideburns. He wore a wide-lapelled jacket of apricot-colored leather. His face brightened as if he knew her. “Oh, hey,” he said. “Hey.”
“Can I help you?”
“Nah, just looking around.”
She waited for the man to leave, so she could proceed to the baked goods, but he approached her and extended a hand. “Gig Benedetti.”
It would have been rude not to shake his hand.
“Sorry, didn’t catch your name,” he said.
“Becky.”
“Nice to meet you, Becky.”
He smiled at her expectantly, as if he had nowhere else to be. He was an inch or two shorter than she was.