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

probably already told their friends, who were calling their friends now. He had gotten too big too quickly, they would say. A fighter can never really be a preacher. It was the salacious news that they salivated over, not thinking about what that fall meant for Papa’s family. And now that other people knew what I knew—that he hadn’t been able to heal for a while—what would that mean for the sick people who still needed to be healed? For the Dawns of the world?

I stepped back inside the house in my rain-soaked pajamas; a puddle collected on the kitchen floor below my feet. I didn’t have Dawn’s number, but Papa had it in the log where he kept the contact information for anyone who had ever been to a service. I crept upstairs to the study, where I flipped through the log and found the number. It was too late for calls, but I wouldn’t have the nerve in the morning, especially when Papa would be back.

The phone rang several times—it was silly to think she would answer this late. I pulled the phone away from my ear to hang up when a man’s voice, scratchy with sleep, answered.

“Hi, Mr. Herron. It’s Miriam Horton. I know it’s late, but it’s urgent. Can I please speak to Dawn?”

He called her name into the echo chamber of a house that sounded empty. Then the rustle of a phone being passed.

“Hello?” Dawn’s breathy voice finally said.

“I’ll do it. Next Wednesday.”

NINE

I woke up the next morning with the residue of my words to Dawn still on my lips—I’ll do it. A sleeping Caleb was in a heap in the middle of the floor, and I stepped over him on the way to the hallway. The study door was closed—not how I left it last night. Papa must have come home when I was sleeping.

Muffled words came through the door as I passed. I leaned closer to hear them. “I don’t care what you need to do, but remove him from all positions at the church immediately.”

I’d hoped that he was all bluster last night, that he would have a cooler head when he returned, but he was doubling down.

“Figure it out,” he chimed in again. I assumed he was speaking to Deacon Farrow—the head of the deacon board. Papa would need his support to remove Deacon Johnson from church leadership.

“I don’t want to see him at the church again. End of conversation.”

The phone slammed down on the cradle, and I heard Papa stand up. Before he could reach the study door, I slipped back into the bedroom.

“What’s going on?” Caleb rubbed his eyes and rolled over, blinking me into focus.

“He just fired Deacon Johnson.” As I said it out loud to Caleb, it hit me that firing Deacon Johnson meant that Micah would be gone too. I collapsed onto the edge of my bed and placed my chin in my hands.

“He can’t do that.”

“He can do whatever he wants. I just heard him.”

“Did she tell you?” Caleb rolled over on his back and slid his hands beneath his head.

“Did she tell me what?”

“That she was sick again.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“He felt blindsided by it. Deacon Johnson is his best friend. Was.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“There are no sides, Miriam.” Caleb rolled over onto his forearms and released an exasperated sigh. “You always see a problem when there isn’t one.”

“There’s no problem? Did you hear what happened downstairs last night? How he hit Ma?”

“Wait, what?” He shot up to a seated position. Hannah stretched in bed. We both froze, silent for a few moments until she rolled over and resettled into sleep.

“He hit her, just like he hit that man in Bethel,” I lowered my voice.

“How do you know? Did you see it?”

My stomach fell at his accusation. I hadn’t seen what happened with Ma, but how could I tell him that there were other ways of knowing beyond seeing? “Why are you so blind?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why do you think that you know him so much better than I do?”

Caleb massaged his temples. “He’s going through a lot right now. You need to be more understanding.”

“But what about what he’s doing to us? To me?” My voice broke at the end, at the thought of never seeing Micah again.

Caleb reclined on the floor. “Give him time, Miriam. You know that these things blow over. In the meantime, we have to give it to God.”

I looked at Caleb, at his eyes, which were farther apart than mine, at the spray of moles over his nose whose pattern I knew by heart, and at the faintest shadow of stubble that clung to his chin and cheeks. As he spoke, his face didn’t indicate even the smallest bit of shock about what I’d just said. He’d already chosen not to believe me about the man in Bethel, but I figured things would be different when he knew that Ma was the recipient of Papa’s violence.

Papa had been drawing lines between us ever since Bethel—but also long before that, as soon as he’d decided that Caleb was old enough to become his apprentice. Recent dinners involved whispered secretive conversations between Papa and Caleb that were too important for me, Ma, or Hannah to hear. I remembered a time when Caleb and I were the keepers of our own secret language; these days I couldn’t even rely on him to stand up to Papa. I stood back up and walked to the door.

“Miriam, don’t do anything stupid. You’re overreacting,” he said.

I opened the bedroom door and stepped into the empty hallway.

“Or you’re not reacting enough,” I said, closing the door behind me.

Ma tried to pretend that everything was normal, despite the fact that we ate our meals that day off paper plates while Papa worked nonstop in the study upstairs. As we bowed our heads to pray, Ma’s words about gratitude didn’t mesh with my