32
I wake up the next morning to the international coalition of Zeller children leaping onto the couch. I get up, get dressed, and am helping Sylvia with the toaster waffles when Ben pads out, rubbing his eyes.
“Want to get coffee on the road?” I ask him.
“You’re leaving already?” Sylvia asks.
I make apologies, say we should get out of their hair, but Sylvia says we’re no trouble. “And it’s Sunday.”
“Services start at ten,” Richard says, coming out in a cleanish-looking pair of jeans and a T-shirt with no drug references on it. “Can’t you stay? The rev will be bummed otherwise.”
I glance at Ben, who hasn’t spoken to me since last night. He shrugs the question back to me. I look at Richard and Sylvia and realize it doesn’t matter if I brought a gift. This is what matters.
I look down at my cutoff shorts and tank top. “I’d better change.”
“You can if you want,” Sylvia says. “But we’re a come-as-you-are congregation.”
We caravan over at nine thirty, Richard driving with me and Ben, the rest of the family in the van, which has one of those Coexist bumper stickers on it.
Outside the church the various Zeller children are scooped up by different congregants, and Sylvia and Jerry go into greeter mode. Richard slips inside with Ben and me.
We take our seats. The pews are a little worn, and it smells slightly of cooking oil. It’s the dumpiest of the churches I’ve been to, and this past year, I’ve been to a lot. Before that, I hardly went to church at all—Meg’s first communion, and the occasional midnight mass. Tricia usually works late Saturday nights, and Sundays are reserved for worshipping the pillow.
The service here is unlike any I’ve been to. There’s no choir. Instead, different people get up and sing and play guitar or piano and anyone can join in. Some of the songs are religious, but others aren’t. Ben’s all pleased when a bearded guy plays a soulful tune called “I Feel Like Going Home.” He leans over and tells me it’s by Charlie Rich, one of his favorite artists. It’s the first normal thing he’s said to me since we argued last night. I take it as a peace offering. “It’s beautiful,” I tell him.
Jerry sort of stays out of the way for much of the proceedings, allowing a younger guy who leads the youth ministry to run the show. And then, when all the singing is over and announcements have been made, he uncurls himself from his seat where he’s been sitting calmly, and in a voice that is quiet but somehow commanding, steps to the pulpit and starts talking.
“A few weeks ago CeCe was sick. She had a fever, was sluggish—that bug that’s been going around. I know a lot of us went through it.” There is some murmuring and tongue-clucking in the congregation. “Pedro didn’t have school that day, so he had to tag along with us to the doctor’s. CeCe doesn’t like doctors’ offices, having been to so many of them. So she was agitated and crying, and the longer we waited, the worse it got. And we were waiting awhile. An hour went by. Then an hour and a half. CeCe kept crying, and then she threw up. Mostly on me.” There’s sympathetic laughter.
“I’m still not sure if it was because of the virus, or because she had gotten herself so worked up about being at the doctor. Doesn’t matter. But this one mother sitting with her own daughter visibly flinched at CeCe’s mess. And then she chastised me for exposing all the other children to her.
“On some level, I got it. None of us wants our kids to be sick. But as a father, I was livid. In my head I said many unchristian things about that woman, to that woman. CeCe being sick was the point of our being in the pediatrician’s office in the first place, and this was not a Christian way to behave. The nurses were too busy to offer much help aside from giving us some wipes and sanitizer. All the while, CeCe kept crying.
“Eventually, I got her cleaned up and she fell asleep. Pedro found a puzzle, and with a few seconds to spare, I picked up a magazine. It was two years out of date, this being a doctor’s office. I opened to a random page. It was an article about forgiveness. Now, this wasn’t a religious publication. It was a medical journal, and the article was describing a study that had analyzed all the health benefits of forgiveness. Apparently, it lowers blood pressure, decreases anxiety, minimizes depression.
“I understood then that I’d been sent this article on purpose. As I read it, I thought of Colossians 3:13: Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
“And so I forgave everyone in that room: the woman for being so rude, the nurses for being too busy to help, the doctor for keeping us waiting, even CeCe for her histrionics. And then I forgave myself. As soon as I did, my worry over CeCe eased. I felt calm, peaceful, and full of love. And in that moment, I was reminded just why God wants us to forgive. Not simply because it’s the key to a better world, but because of what it does for ourselves. Forgiveness is God’s gift to us. Christ forgave us. He forgave our sins. That was his gift. But by allowing us to forgive each other, he opened us up to that divine love. The article had it right. Forgiveness: It’s a miracle drug. It’s God’s miracle drug.”
Jerry goes on, quoting more lines from scripture about forgiveness. But at the moment, I’m just not feeling it. Last night I went to bed first, leaving Ben and Richard around the fire. Those two barely tolerate each other, so I figured they’d call it a night soon after. But now, as Richard’s father goes on, I can see that’s not what happened. Tongues went wagging. So much for a sacred circle.
Jerry continues: “After we saw the doctor, I was settling up at the front desk and I ran into the angry mother again. All the rancor I’d felt was gone. There was no effort to rise above. It just vanished. I told her that I hoped her little girl was feeling better.
“She turned to look at me. I could now recognize how tired she was, like so many of us parents are. ‘She’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘The doctor said she’s healing well.’ I looked at the little girl and saw a small welt, red, still fresh, on her chin. I turned back to the mother and saw something much fresher there: anguish, not nearly so well healed. I wanted to ask her what happened, but Pedro and CeCe were yanking to go, and besides, it wasn’t my place. But I suppose she needed to unburden herself, because she told me how a few weeks earlier, she’d been rushing to get out the door in the morning, but her little girl had been dawdling by the flowers. She’d yanked her by the hand and the girl, still busy watching the bees dancing, had slammed into a gate. That’s how she’d gotten the cut. ‘She’ll always carry that scar,’ the mother told me in a voice pinched with agony. And then I understood her anger. Just who it was she hadn’t forgiven.
“‘She will, only if you do,’ I told her back. She looked at me, and I knew what I was asking her to do, what God asks us to do—what I’m asking you all to do—isn’t easy. To let our scars heal. To forgive. And hardest of all, sometimes, is to forgive ourselves. But if we don’t, we’re squandering one of God’s greatest gifts: his miracle cure.”
When the sermon ends, Richard turns to me, grinning almost. He seems so proud. Of his father, or himself, for orchestrating this public service announcement. “What’d you think?”
I don’t answer. I just push my way out of the pew.
“What’s wrong?” Ben asks.
What’s wrong is that Richard Zeller and his dad don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. They don’t know about the mornings when anger is the one thing—the only thing—to get you through the day. If they take that from me, I’m wide open: raw and gaping, and then I don’t stand a fucking chance.
I go to the lobby, holding back tears of rage. Richard is right behind me.
“Couldn’t take the rev anymore?” he jokes, but there’s worry in his eyes.
“You told him. You said you wouldn’t and you told him. You lied.”
“I didn’t even see my dad until breakfast, and you were right there.”
“Then how’d he know? How’d he have such a perfect sermon waiting?”
Richard glances toward the sanctuary, where the singing has started up again. “For the record, Cody, he works on his sermons for weeks in advance; he doesn’t pull them out of his ass. Also for the record, you’re not the only one with a chip on her shoulder and some crap to forgive, but if, like the rev says, the magazine opens to the right page—”
“Are you stoned?” I interrupt.
This makes him laugh. “I didn’t tell the rev about your trip. If you want to know the truth, I had to talk McCallister out of turning around. You’ve got bigger balls than him, no surprise there.” The singing ends. Richard nods toward the pulpit. “Come on back. It’s almost over. . . . Please.”
I follow Richard back to our row right as Jerry is offering up blessings for the congregation, for the sick and the grieving, for those getting married, expecting babies. Right at the very end, he says: “And may God bless and guide Cody and Ben. May they find not just what they’re looking for, but what they need.” I look at Richard again. I’m not entirely sure that he’s telling the truth about not saying something to his father. But right now, the betrayal, if there was one, feels less important than the benediction.