Revival Season - Monica West (recommended ebook reader TXT) 📗

“Miriam!” Micah, my best friend for as long as I had memories, shouted as she barreled toward me. Her father was the longestserving deacon in the church—he followed Papa out to East Mansfield from Midland, and the story went that Micah and I had been friends since we slept in adjacent cribs in the nursery. She ran over to me like she was unaware of how the pieces of her body worked together—her stride halting and interrupted, her back permanently slouched, her knobby knees protruding from opaque tights as she almost knocked me over with the force of her hug. It looked like she’d grown about an inch since we’d been gone, and now she was almost my height.

“Welcome home!” she squealed as I was enveloped in the tangle of her arms. Before more words could make their way out, her hand shot to her mouth—we couldn’t be too loud in earshot of Papa’s office. I led her by the arm away from the multipurpose room into the sunlight outside. When the door eased shut behind us, she fired off a series of questions: How was it? How are you? When did you get back? What did you bring me? Her questions sailed above me as more cars turned into the parking lot—it was still early, which meant that we were on track to have another massive post-revival crowd.

As we leaned against the wall with the backs of our dresses snagging rough bricks, I started at the revival in Americus. Micah’s face brightened as I gave the elaborate retelling of Papa making the boy walk; the auspicious revival beginning seemed like a lifetime ago. But, as I recounted the details, I wondered if it hadn’t actually been quite the miracle we’d all thought.

“What about the rest of revival season?” she asked at the end of my story. I fed her a rehearsed, sanitized version of the cities we had seen and the souls that had been saved, omitting the fact that the numbers had plummeted after Bethel. Before she could ask a question about healing, I reached deep into my pocket and fingered the soft edges of the postcards that I had purchased at various gas stations. I fanned the bright skylines and sunset landscapes—it was the closest that she would get to seeing the rest of the world, which was what we called everything that wasn’t here.

Ten minutes before service started, Micah and I took our seats at the back of the sanctuary. Hannah sat between us, coloring, and Micah reached down every so often and brushed Hannah’s bangs out of her eyes. With no siblings of her own to care for, Micah relished the role of surrogate mother. She never used baby talk with Hannah, and she never saw the intricate braces on her legs as impediments. I watched them from a few inches away, my hands resting on my lap in a rare moment of having nothing to do.

As service started, I wanted to be anywhere else, especially as the congregation jumped to its feet before Papa entered the sanctuary. People closest to the aisle grabbed on to his suit like it was the hem of Jesus’s garment. With each grasping hand, I slunk deeper into the divot in the seat. Micah was on her feet before Papa entered, her face aglow with admiration as he walked down the aisle next to us. While everyone clapped, I wrapped my hand around Hannah’s and pressed the brown crayon into the paper until it tore, the waxy nub crumbling in my hand.

Hannah and I made trees and clouds and rainbows and birds during the white noise of the sermon; I looked up for a few minutes each time Micah mouthed for me to pay attention, but before long, my gaze slipped back to Hannah’s picture.

“What are you doing?” Micah was loud as the percussion provided a backdrop for the climax of Papa’s sermon. Her eyebrows were raised in confusion—she and I were the ones to take notes during every sermon, but my notebook and Bible were closed next to me. “What’s gotten into you?”

I shrugged and forced myself to watch Papa jump around on the stage—the movements not unlike what he’d done on that street corner. When Hannah’s picture was complete, a line of junior deacons came to the front of the congregation to serve communion—there were a few boys among them who I recognized, boys who used to run around the church and terrorize me and Micah. These boys, who I was supposed to call young men now, fanned off from the front and positioned themselves behind the table piled high with gold serving dishes. Senior deacons like Micah’s dad presided over the solemn ceremony.

A boy I didn’t recognize stood at the end of my row; although he was wearing a white dress shirt and black pants—the usher uniform on first Sundays—it looked different on him than on the others. The blue crayon fell from my hand when I looked at the whisper of stubble that dotted his top lip and the broadness in his shoulders that strained his shirt. A bronze nameplate pierced the right side of his dress shirt: Jason Campbell. Campbell, Campbell, Campbell. I had no memories of his family, so they were either new or his parents weren’t members. The blunt edge of his stubby nail and the coarseness of his flesh grazed my hand as he passed the communion plates. I gave the plate a little tug and he tugged back for a second before letting go, ending our mini-game before it really started. On the surface of the plate, the warmth that his hand left behind still lingered; my skin flushed as I pinched the plastic cup of grape juice in one hand before grabbing the cracker. I pressed my legs together to extinguish the tingling in my crotch, but it made the feeling sprout outward to my hands and feet instead. His right knee nudged mine in the slightest, knocking