Under the Light

Chapter 19





Jenny


I RUMMAGED THE CELL PHONE out of my bag—I’d forgotten to turn the ringer back on after we’d left the library. I’d missed a call from home two minutes ago.

“What’s wrong?” asked Billy.

“I have to go,” I said. “Don’t follow me.” I started down the steps toward the van as the phone rang. My father parked in the no waiting zone as if rules didn’t apply to him. He got out looking happy. He held a cell phone to his ear, a bright blue one I’d never seen before. The number on my mom’s cell in my hand showed the word “Judy”—was he actually using his lover’s cell phone to call me?

I didn’t answer. I walked up to him and he hung up.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I needed to see you, Puppy.”

“Mom’s supposed to pick me up.”

He sighed patiently. “Jennifer, I know you’re angry with me right now, but get in the car. I’m not kidnapping you. Your mother knows I’m here.”

I didn’t want to throw a fit in front of Billy, who might still be watching us from the steps. As I opened the passenger door I realized I still had Billy’s sweatshirt jacket tied around my waist. I slipped it off and stuffed it in my bag before sitting down in the front seat—my father didn’t seem to notice.

He got behind the wheel and fastened his seat belt. My phone rang again, muffled by Billy’s jacket pocket. I fished it out as we pulled away from the curb. It was home.

“Put on your seat belt,” he ordered. “Just because your mother and I are ending our marriage does not mean I stop being your father.”

I pulled the belt across my chest—it smelled like some flowery perfume, not like Mom. Then I answered the call.

“I’m okay, Mom.”

“Your father is coming to get you.” She sounded panicky.

“He’s just bringing me home,” I faced him. “Right, Daddy?”

He didn’t bother to respond.

“He says he’s not kidnapping me,” I said. “See you in a few minutes.” I put the phone into my bag. “You left without saying goodbye,” I told him, but he didn’t react at all. “Mom told me you’re moving to San Diego.”

“We are.”

“What did you want to tell me?”

He raised one eyebrow but was in too good of a mood to actually be angry with me. “There’s no need to be disrespectful.”

He had always been the director of my tone. If he said I sounded belligerent or insincere or ungrateful, it was so. But this time instead of apologizing for sounding rude, I asked, “How long have you been seeing Judy?”

He gave a little puff of indignation, but smiled, pleased with himself. “That’s none of your business, young lady.”

He wore a shirt I’d seen him in dozens of times before, but he had the sleeves rolled up and he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. “We need to make plans,” he said. He’d changed his hairstyle.

“If you’re leaving, I should make plans with Mom from now on.”

“Your mother does not decide what happens to you,” he said. “You’re still my daughter. I know what’s best.” We paused a little too long at a stop sign. I was afraid that he wasn’t taking me straight to the house. That he would take me out to dinner or to Judy’s place, but after a long moment he drove on toward home.

He was never frazzled, always right. I tried a different line.

“We didn’t have as much time to get used to this as you,” I reminded him.

Ignoring this, he said, “I hear your mother wants to homeschool you.”

I pictured the pew where Judy always sat in church, right in front of us, and how she and my father often stood together talking at coffee hour.

“San Diego is beautiful,” he said. These words made my stomach tense up. He’d been there with Judy already, I knew it. Some long weekend he’d pretended to be at a small business conference, probably. They’d chosen a neighborhood and maybe a house to rent.

I hated it when he got angry, but I couldn’t stop the words that came out of me. “Does Judy have any children?”

His voice went cold. “You know she doesn’t.”

“Does she want kids?” I looked at him a long moment, and when he glanced over I knew he wasn’t sure how to read my meaning. Was I asking if Judy wanted to have his babies? Or was I asking if she would be acting as my second mother?

“I didn’t want to talk about it over the phone,” he said. “I’ve decided it would be better for you to live with me in San Diego.”

My ears started ringing.

“Your mother is simply an unfit parent. There’s no way around it.”

“What did Mom do?”

“Wives are responsible for the house and children.” He was so relaxed, he rested his arm over the steering wheel, his wrist bouncing gently to some happy song I couldn’t hear. He was wearing a new watch. Maybe Judy had bought it for him and he’d never been able to show it off until now. “Your mother was the one who let you get out of control.” He wore a new, peppery aftershave like a teenager on a first date. “Let’s face it,” he sighed. “She’s not smart enough to manage a budget, and she’s ill-equipped to make money.” He smiled at me sympathetically. “We both know what she’s like,” he said. “But no one knows her abilities and shortcomings better than I do.”

I had an urge to slam my hand onto the steering wheel and lay into the horn, just to interrupt him. But I didn’t, which made his sudden flinch a mystery. He swatted at a fly that wasn’t there.

Recovering, he said, “You need guidance, and your mother’s not spiritually mature enough to interpret God’s plans for you. It’s not her fault. Her character simply lacks the strength to protect you or manage your walk with Christ. I’m the one who has the means and the will to see you into adulthood.”

There was no way even a man as cocky as my father could take me away from my own mother.

“You can pack a few of your things,” he said. He was always so dismissive of my belongings. “But we’ll buy you whatever you need. It’ll be a fresh start.”

My throat had tightened up. I suppose the silence bothered him.

“Don’t you think it might be nice to begin again without people gossiping behind your back?” he asked me. “No one needs to know what happened here.”

Before the car could come to a full stop outside our house, I opened my door and flung off my seat belt.

“I haven’t finished,” he reminded me.

I told him a lie I was sure would make him want to get away quick. “I think Pastor Bob is coming over in a few minutes.”

That he drove off should have felt good, but he left a shadow over me that I couldn’t escape. I tried to outrun it, but dread trailed after me as I ran up the walk and settled in deep as I found my mother in the dining room.

She had a dozen file folders and pieces of paper—receipts, letters, bank statements—spread across the table.

“He says we’ll lose the house,” she told me.

“Who says?”

“Your father’s lawyer.”

“That can’t be true,” I tried to tell her, but she was in another plane of reality.

“He won’t sue for sole custody if I let you go to San Diego.”

“No judge would give him that.”

“More than fifty percent of cases find for the father.”

“Did Daddy tell you that?” I put down my book bag and came to her side. “He lies.”

“But people believe him.” She started to cry, and I put my arm around her waist. I expected her to hold me, but she only held her eyes with one hand and a bank statement in the other. “I don’t want to be alone,” she sobbed. “They’ll take you to church in San Diego and people will think she’s your mother.”

“I’m not going with him,” I told her. “You’re my only mom.”

But as soon as I went to my room, I heard her go into the garage. I heard her drag the stepladder to the high shelves and the hollow scrape of her sliding down the big suitcases.

In my room I sat on the bed—I wanted someone to talk to but there was no one. Then I wondered about Helen. I scanned the room slowly in case she was nearby. If she could send me messages in church, words, and visions of a flood, I thought, she might be in this room right now. But I didn’t know what to look for. She might look like a shadow or a mist or an orb of light. Or she might be completely invisible.

I jumped up and took my Bible from the dressing table. I stood in the middle of the room and held out the book. “Okay, Helen,” I said aloud. “Talk to me.” I dropped the Bible and it fell open. I picked it up without looking at the page and closed my eyes, slammed my finger down, but when I looked it had landed in the white space between columns.

I thought she might need to warm up. “Guide me,” I said. I let my finger move all around both pages. I didn’t feel any push or pull on my hand. I finally stopped and saw that my finger was pointing at a blank space again, this time between two chapters.

Maybe she was taking a vacation from me. Or maybe she didn’t like to be ordered around. Or maybe she was done with earth and had moved on. I shut the Bible and set it aside.

Or maybe I had only imagined us having a conversation. I could have dreamed the flood because I was overwhelmed by everything. I was a bad soap opera.

I sat again on my bed. “Or maybe I’m just crazy,” I said aloud. No ghost contradicted me.

But it felt like the mattress rocked very gently. Something light was sitting by my side.