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

aisle and reached my hands out to Hannah. She grabbed hold, and I pulled her to a standing position. When she was on her feet, she braced her body. She knew something was wrong—no one was walking down the aisle now. Ma opened her eyes and lunged for us in the aisle, but she was too late: her closing fist clutched air.

“C’mon, Hannah,” I chided. “It’s time.” People around us cheered as Hannah and I took slow steps toward the front. With my arm around her back, I supported most of her weight. She kept her eyes on me, pleading for an explanation. I looked away from her and toward the pulpit where Papa’s eyes narrowed behind the thin barrier of his glasses. He sucked air into his cheeks as his chest heaved. The keyboardist stopped mid-chord, and the cheering that had just been deafening faded into silence.

Without music, my feet shuffled down the aisle in time with Hannah’s. Neither of us had ever been this close during one of his services; the whole production looked so large from where we were standing. The speakers onstage, now silent, seemed to pulse—maybe it was the remnants of percussion or maybe it was the rushing of blood between my ears as Papa made his way over to us.

I had rehearsed this moment over and over—I had to grab the microphone and tell the congregation that I was going to heal Hannah. A moment of silence hung in the air. Papa’s eyes tried to read my intentions while Hannah stood between us, her legs becoming less steady with every second. I reached for the microphone from Papa’s hand, and it hit the ground as I grabbed it. All the excitement and strength that I felt back in the audience was fading, like a star exploding—bright against the dark sky at first and then diminishing to nothing. Fumbling in my dress pocket for the elusive bottle of holy oil, my fingers finally landed on the rounded plastic. It tumbled out of my hand in slow motion, hurtling through the air, and the top came off as it landed. A pool of viscous vegetable oil leaked from the open spout and glistened on the grass, inching ever closer to Papa’s shiny shoe.

Papa fumbled in the grass for the microphone. Time lengthened as he stayed crouched; when he rose, he massaged both clean-shaven cheeks with a trembling left hand. But it wasn’t just his hands that were shaking: everything on him shook as he exhaled heavy, amplified breaths into the tent.

“Brethren, it appears that we have a special healing this evening. My daughter Hannah.” Papa cleared his throat. He took one step closer to Hannah. “How many of you are ready for one more miracle?”

The congregation erupted in thunderous applause.

“When Hannah was born, the doctors told us that she was stricken with cerebral palsy and would never walk without crutches.”

Though I knew this about Hannah, no one had ever said it out loud, much less over a booming microphone to a group of strangers. I pulled her closer to me, and she resisted.

“But, saints of God, do we believe that report?” Papa continued.

“No,” the congregation asserted in unison.

“Saints of God, do we believe that report?” Papa asked again.

“No.” The congregation was much louder this time, their voices threatening to send the roof of the tent careening into the sky.

Papa dropped to his knees next to Hannah, encircling her arched back with his arm. Hannah relaxed her neck onto his shoulder, and he pressed his lips against her forehead. Then he whispered something into her ear that I couldn’t hear. Maybe he told her that he loved her, or that he was sorry that he couldn’t heal her when she was a baby. Or a mixture of the two.

Papa carried Hannah onto the stage like she was a rag doll. No heavier than a sack of sugar, Ma always said whenever she lifted Hannah. I watched from the ground below as, like magic, a bottle of holy oil appeared in his hand.

“Hannah, I believe that the Lord can heal your body. Do you believe?”

Hannah’s body grew rigid in Papa’s arms as she nodded in response to his question. With her head cocked back, Papa traced a sign of the cross on her forehead. He laid her on the ground with her weight resting on her forearms. She looked around, confused, at the people in the congregation who were staring at her. Her right eye probably saw them in crisp colors and shapes while her left eye saw them in grades of shadow and light. Then she turned to me on the ground below, powerless to rescue her.

“Rise up and walk, my child.” Everyone was Papa’s child when he did a healing, but his words felt more tender now, like this was the first time he meant them. Hannah balanced herself on her forearms and pulled herself forward, the way she did when she played with Tiger. She had moved about an inch, but a Red Sea of turf separated her from Papa. She should have been on her feet by now, or at least trying to get there. Her scissoring legs cut the fake plastic grass, but she didn’t rise.

“Rise up and walk, my child.” Sweat dropped from Papa’s forehead as he leaned closer to her, as if the words themselves would be sufficient to bring her to her feet. Hannah continued her slow crawl, closer and closer to him.

“Congregation, I need your help. The devil is working here. I need you to pray.”

Moans and wails rose from behind us as people stretched out their hands to Papa. The keyboardist plinked the opening chords to another song. Papa flailed his arms like he was losing his balance even though he was on solid ground. It startled Hannah, and she started to cry, burying her face into the ground.

I sprang to the stage, crouching by Hannah’s side. It was against the rules for women to be in the