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

can wait in the waiting room with the rest of your family, and we’ll let you know as soon as she’s out of surgery.”

As I looked at her fingers wrapped around mine, I knew that she had loved me the best way she knew how—the only way she knew how.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” I managed. As I spoke those three words, it felt like something was stabbing me from the inside.

She came into my field of vision and pressed her finger against my parched lips. “Don’t speak, Miriam. You know how much I love you. I’ve never told you that I don’t know what I would do without you. But I don’t.” Her voice cracked as she spoke, and tears leaked out of puffy eyes. I wanted to reach up and hug her, but even the smallest movement was excruciating.

She didn’t say goodbye, but her hand slowly lost its grip on mine. I couldn’t turn around, could barely move my neck, as we pushed our way through the double doors. She couldn’t hear me whisper I love you as the doors closed.

I opened my eyes to a soft, hazy light—what I imagined heaven might look like. But I wasn’t dead, even though part of me wanted to be. My chest rose and fell beneath a smooth sheet as tubes that I couldn’t feel snaked into my veins. I could only keep my eyes open for seconds at a time: could see brief glimpses of my family as they passed in front of my eyes. Ma paced with sleeping Isaac cradled in her arms; Caleb and Hannah ate metallic bags of chips as crumbs fell onto Hannah’s dress; Hannah leaned on Caleb’s shoulder as he pointed to pictures in a book. Memories, piecemeal shards, came back—the warmth from Hannah’s head on my shoulder the night before, her look of fear as she stared up at me from the floor of the pulpit as I begged her to walk.

The next evening, Ma, Caleb, and Hannah wheeled me outside to the minivan, and we drove back to the compound. I hadn’t seen Papa since he left the hospital the day before and imagined him, miles away, repairing the damage in the revival tent—damage that I’d caused. Back inside the Dixons’ house, our boxes and bags had already been packed. Sometime while I was in the hospital, Papa must have also gotten the news that his service this revival season had come to an end. We no longer need you, I imagined Reverend Dixon saying.

“We’re home, Samuel,” Ma announced when we stepped inside.

Suddenly Papa was downstairs and standing inches from my face. His lips wobbled from rage or fear or relief—I wasn’t sure which. He took a step closer, and I closed my eyes in preparation for the rebuke. But there was no contact, no heat on my cheekbone, no lingering feeling of fingertips on my face. When I opened my eyes again, he was still standing in front of me, his hands at his sides.

“Look at you.” Now I could see that his expression was one of fury. He scanned my broken body—my slumped posture on crutches—before landing back on my face. “Are you proud of yourself? Are you proud of what you’ve done to this family? You’ve ruined us.” It was easier to focus on his Adam’s apple bobbing out of time with his words than on the words themselves.

“Enough, Samuel,” Ma said, pulling him back from my face. “Can’t you see she’s been through enough?”

“She needs to say something for herself, Joanne. God has already punished her sin, but I want to hear her say she’s sorry. God got His due, now I need mine.”

The rubber bottoms of my crutches straddled perpendicular grout lines in the tile. Nothing in the room moved. He was not going to relent. What I wanted to say was, You’ve ruined us I was trying to save us. To save you. But my windpipe felt like it had been snapped along with the other broken bones, and no words escaped.

He was still inches from my face, ignoring Ma’s pleas to leave me alone. I looked down at his hands. Knew the harm that they’d done two nights ago. Knew what else they’d been capable of.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Papa. I can’t apologize for something God gave me.”

“God didn’t give you the ability to heal,” he seethed.

“What if He did? Have you ever thought about that?”

“No, I’ve never thought that because it’s ridiculous.” His laughter jangled among the boxes and bags.

“Is it? I’ve read the same Bible you have, Papa. Show me where it says that women can’t heal.”

“I’m not going to argue Scripture with you, Miriam. If you could heal, why didn’t you heal Hannah?” He was getting impatient—I could see it in the way the vein in his neck bulged. But I couldn’t explain what happened with Hannah beyond what Papa said—that some people weren’t meant to be healed. That she was whole as she was. I had tried so hard to make him see that I could heal that I’d tried to heal someone who didn’t need it.

“You didn’t heal her either. Twice. Maybe because she doesn’t need healing. But you didn’t heal Ma—I did. And you didn’t heal the man from Bethel; you beat him when he questioned you.”

Ma and Caleb gasped—a reminder that they were still in the room. Papa straightened his hand, and I flinched—a reflex. But instead of hitting me, he took a few steps back and focused his anger on a nearby packing box, which he turned over in a rage. He did the same with two other boxes, spilling and kicking their contents like a spoiled toddler. We all watched, silently, none of us stooping to clean up after him.

The grandfather clock dinged eleven in the living room. As if something deep within him was spurred by the clock’s reminder of the time, Papa stopped. He sat down on the floor—his shoulders slumped