“That’s great,” Tracy says. “Why don’t we all start by introducing ourselves?”
The girls go around the room, sharing their names and their denominations. Some of them have been religious since birth and others found it in jail.
“Isn’t there a pastor?” I ask, when they’ve gone around the circle.
Tracy shakes her head. “We used to have a pastor, but he was called to do mission work in Burma. He’s doing great things there, and I’m certain all those little dying children needed him more than we did. Since then, we lead our own sessions. We read passages of scripture and discuss it, and we talk about the things we’re going through.”
“How do you know if you’re doing it right without a pastor?” I ask.
“Any questions we have, we consult the Bible.”
“How—” I start to ask, but stumble on my words.
“How do we know if the Bible’s right?” Tracy asks.
“Never mind.”
“No, no, it’s a valid question. Girls, what can we say to put Minnow’s mind at ease?”
Tracy looks pointedly at Rashida who’s gnawing on a cuticle. Rashida shrugs and shakes her head.
Next to me, Wendy leans forward and takes a big gulp of breath. “Tell her about your surgery, Taylor.”
A small freckled girl with jittery muscles almost jumps out of her seat. “Yeah, yeah,” she says. “When I was fourteen, they found a brain tumor in me. I had to have, like, three surgeries to remove it. And during the last one, I felt the presence of God. His grace. And, after that, I knew I’d never have to question Him again.”
“You really felt it?” I ask. “How do you know for sure?”
“I just knew,” she says, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear. “It felt like . . . sunlight. Like warmth.”
“But . . .” I say, and even as the words come out, I know I should stop them. “Don’t you want proof? The light could’ve been a surgical lamp. The warmth could have been you pissing yourself; that happens during surgery.”
Taylor’s face falls a fraction. “I guess I choose not to think that way. I’m an optimistic person. Why, do you think I’m lying?”
“No,” I say, eyes darting to the side. “But I can’t believe in something I don’t know for sure.”
“Well,” Tracy interjects from across the circle, “how do you know anything is real? I mean, Minnow, picture the most real thing you can think of. How do you know it actually happened? How do you know for sure?”
Of course it’s Jude I think of. How can I prove he ever even existed? If I had my hands, I’d look at my palm where I had a scar from when he taught me how to whittle a fallen branch into something beautiful like he could. I spent an hour on a whittled sculpture of him but before I was done, the knife slipped over the smooth surface of wood and sliced the meat of my hand, and blood dropped over his wooden face. Jude propped the sculpture on the tree house windowsill. “It’s like you’re a part of me now,” he said. “That seems right.”
But the hands are gone, and with them that scar and any proof I ever knew him.
I look back at Tracy. “I guess the answer is you just do,” I say finally.
“I think so, too,” Tracy says.
She clears her throat and looks over at the others. “Girls,” she says to the group, “in honor of our new member, I think we should go around the room and tell one another what made us believers. Wendy, you want to start?”
Tracy turns to Wendy, whose wheezing noise halts for a moment. “I never thought anything about God until Tracy talked to me on my first day here. She said, ‘Wendy, you may not believe in God, but God believes in you.’”
The room grows silent. “That’s it?” I ask.
Tracy darts me a look. “Thanks, Wendy. That’s really helpful. Rashida, want to share your story?”
Rashida’s eyes twitch toward the ceiling, as if considering. “I just think it don’t make sense not to believe in God. If I believed and He turned out to be fake, how am I gonna know that after I’m dead? I’ll be stuck in the ground with nothing on my mind except there better not be any worms trying to get inside my coffin. But if I didn’t believe and He’s actually real, well then I just got myself a life sentence in Hades with, like, fire pokers jabbing my ass and having to sit in a Jacuzzi of boiling oil with Hitler and shit, and you are crazy if you think I’ll be putting up with that kind of treatment for the rest of time, no sir. This bitch is going to heaven.”