Soon, we’re heading down the front steps and taking our usual right turn up the quiet suburban street.
This walk is a ritual for Mom and me, a little moment for us to connect in ways directly spoken and otherwise. The modest neighborhood loop has gotten me through a lot, but nothing quite like this.
We remain silent at first, the soft pulse of our middle-class hamlet filling in the spaces between words. Sprinklers shuffle and churn as dogs bark in the distance. I pick up on children laughing behind the fence next door, and the faintest chime of a bicycle bell rings out just a few blocks onward. It’s not as crowded as other neighborhoods, with plenty of distance and swaths of forest between the houses, but this time of the evening it seems like everyone’s up to something.
After we pass by a handful of familiar abodes, my mother points over at a home on the corner.
“Adultery,” she offers. “Husband is cheating on his wife with…”
Mom drifts off for a moment, considering her options.
“The maid,” she finally concludes.
I remain silent, unable to play along. I refuse to turn and assess the target.
“Come on, Rose,” my mother continues.
All I can do is shake my head, then abruptly stop in my tracks as tears begin to well.
Mom sees it coming, but she doesn’t demand I pull myself together. That’s what my dad would do.
To be fair, though, he’s absolutely right.
Tobias Herrod Cobel wouldn’t have accomplished a damn thing without perseverance and sacrifice, and that spirt runs deep through the congregation. The Industrial Revolution wasn’t a great time for a workplace accident, especially one that took his hand and stole two months of his life in a coma, but without that horrible moment the Prophet would never have received his vision, and without his vision we wouldn’t have Kingdom of the Pine.
Prophet Cobel managed to pull himself up by his bootstraps, and he had it much worse than this.
My mother doesn’t recite any of the tenets, however. She doesn’t remind me of Tobias’s story or tell me to have faith. Instead, she opens her arms wide and wraps me in a tight hug.
We stay like this for a long while, until I finally pull back and instinctively reach up to brush the tears from my eyes. There’s nothing to wipe away, however. I’m all cried out.
My mother starts walking again and I follow her lead.
“Husband cheating with the maid,” she reminds me.
I glance over at the light blue structure, warm light emanating from the kitchen where a family loudly clinks their dishes and laughs with their whole bellies. It’s hard to picture the story Mom’s created, especially given that the Kimberlys live here and we know them very well, but I go with it.
“Send the couple to church counseling,” I offer. “Fire the maid. Remind them of John 3:18, Ephesians 5:33 … Exodus 20:14, obviously.”
Mom nods along, my skills of biblical recollection so precise that it actually prompts her to chuckle in amazement. “That’s great,” she offers. “Consider them saved.”
We continue onward, strolling up the next lane as it curves and sweeps around a large hill. This section of the route is a little more forested than the rest, trees stretching out over the road and a modest creek trickling parallel to cracked pavement.
A car passes, slowing to a crawl as the driver offers a friendly wave. I have no doubt our neighbors would take this care either way, but by now the news of Martina’s death has permeated our community and soaked into everything like spilled ink. Everyone knows I was there when it happened.
Deep in the forest, another home can be seen perched atop its own modest hill.
“I love this place,” my mother announces. “So quiet.”
She says this every time we pass, and although this little comment has been deeply ingrained in my mind, I never understand it.
Lisa is a warm, beaming member of the community, a blond-haired, blue-eyed beacon of light at every church function and a consistent host of book clubs and women’s prayer groups. Almost everything I’ve learned about navigating social cues I picked up from her, a brilliant teacher whether she knows it or not.
This house on the left, however, is the last place I’d ever picture Lisa Darling yearning for. It’s the smallest home in the neighborhood, much older than the rest and featuring a single chimney that’s likely the only source of heat. It’s a one-or two-room cabin, barely visible through the woods: a place of solitude.
“Secular influence,” my mother begins, nodding toward the cabin as we pass. “The daughter brought home terror fiction from her school library; public school, of course. She’s starting to act out.”
This one is easy.
“Remove the secular influence. Schedule a youth pastor one-on-one,” I suggest. “Assign a meditation on 1 Corinthians 10:31 and a reading of Romans 1, top to bottom.”
“The whole thing, huh?” Mom questions.
“Sure,” I reply.
My mother is impressed.
As our walk enters its second half, I find a strange, creeping dread beginning to simmer deep within. The overwhelming sadness I’ve been feeling has been momentarily sidelined, and for that I’m thankful, but this method of ignoring the problem can only hold for so long.
We can’t keep walking forever, and as vast as the subject of death remains, I’ll eventually run out of facts to fill my skull like dry bandages.
The spiritual bleeding hasn’t stopped. In fact, it’s gushing more than ever.
Once I’ve finished tackling death and trauma, there’s only one topic left to shift over to. It’s a question that hangs like a specter in the back of my mind, haunting me.
What does it mean to see things that aren’t really there?
Even more frightening: What if they really are?
Kingdom of the Pine is strict in its teachings about demonic forces, taking a firm but realistic approach over the last decade. We live in the modern age now, and we’re fortunate enough to understand these creatures as a metaphor for the dark cravings within ourselves.
But when’s the last time you saw an abstract metaphor shatter anyone’s spine?
“Rose!” my mother snaps angrily, her sharp tone breaking through my haze of concentration. “Fingers!”
I glance down to realize I’ve been doing my counts, a massive transgression in the Darling household. My hands immediately stiffen, then relax.
Lisa’s face remains stern over the remaining block, finally relaxing by the time we’ve reached our next sharp turn. This area transitions back into newer suburban houses, a cozy lane featuring some of my favorites. Other Kingdom of the Pine families are clustered here.
Mom gestures to another house as we pass, the porchlight on and a lazy orange cat sitting confidently on the front stoop. Inside, the television chatters, a prayer service drifting out through the cool evening air.
“Suicide,” my mother suggests. “The father took his own life.”
I’m always trying to impress her with my responses, answering these hypothetical queries of spiritual warfare with a quick and firm solution. This time, however, I falter.
I know exactly what she wants me to say, but as I open my mouth the words refuse to emerge. Something doesn’t quite fit.
“For the family?” I finally manage to question.