Never had Edna Mae been so riveted by the TV screen. Never had she allowed the younger children to watch the kind of TV she feared would give them “bad thoughts” and “nightmares.” But things seemed different now, a curious excited calm to Mawmaw observed by Dawn and by Luke (who’d come to his aunt’s house to watch news of the “terrorist attacks” with his family, when his workhours were cut short) as if all that Mawmaw had feared and hoped-for had come true and there was no point in trying to shield her young children from knowledge of God’s terrible wrath.
The flaming explosions of the World Trade Center twin towers were many times replayed. Footage of the chaotic streets of New York City, shocking sights you were not meant to see—human figures falling from high buildings, bodies indistinguishable from the rubble in which they lay. Fires, sirens. Though it was midday, it was twilight at Ground Zero. Long after the original explosions the air was aswirl with something like ashes, shredded paper and pulverized bone. A news commentator stunned by what he was seeing made a clumsy joke about rats, supposed to be millions of rats in New York City, what’s become of the rat population?—but no one laughed. Cut to another replay of the falling of the twin towers. Overlapping and contentious voices.
The United States has been attacked by a foreign country.
Which country?
One of the Arab countries. Or maybe more than one. In the Middle East.
Why?—because Arabs are followers of Mohammed and not Jesus Christ. These are “Mohammedans” who hate our U.S. democracy and want to kill us.
They are called “Muslims . . .”
They are sometimes called “Mohammedans”—that is a term that is used.
Generally they are called “Muslims.” Their religion is “Islam.”
“Is-lam”—is that their name for themselves, or is it our name for them? They are worshippers of a “prophet”—Mohammed . . .
They have a hatred of Christianity and a hatred of Jews and it has been their goal since 1948 to destroy the State of Israel.
Why?—there is a hatred in the Muslim world of an open freedom-loving society that is educated like the United States.
There is a hatred of Jews because Jews are superior to their Arab neighbors as demonstrated in the Six-Day War . . .
Today’s terrorist attacks are just the beginning. If they are not stopped by U.S. airpower they will destroy the “free world.” They hate all Christians. They are enemies of Jews as well and it is their goal to destroy the State of Israel before the coming of Christ and the conversion of the Jews.
Another time they saw the tower burst into flames. And another time, the second tower struck by the careening airplane. And—(it was always a miracle, if but a miracle of horror)—another time, as they stared, the towers collapsed in flame and rising dust like clouds of vapor.
Edna Mae suddenly realized. This had to be the beginning of the “last days”—the start of the Great Tribulation.
She recalled to Dawn and Luke how the last time she’d taken them to visit Luther in the detention facility, they’d been surprised at how much leaner he’d become, and his hair grayer and sparser; how hard-muscled his shoulders and upper arms, as if he’d been exercising in his cell. And how quiet Luther was, a new calmness in him, seeming just to smile at them without hearing much of what they said, for Edna Mae chattered nervously at such times, and even Dawn heard herself say inane things. But then, when they’d been about to leave, Luther leaned forward to touch the opened palm of his hand on the Plexiglas barrier, in silence—“Like he was blessing us. Like Jesus would do. He didn’t say a word. But—maybe—he knew.”
By this time Aunt Mary Kay had gone to bed. The younger children had fallen asleep on the sofa exhausted. Dawn and Luke exchanged a glance, and a shudder.
Edna Mae continued, with a vague smile: “He was thinking maybe he wouldn’t see us again. In our earthly selves. But he didn’t want to scare us . . .”
Luke said: “You think Dad was predicting the future? That’s crazy.”
Edna Mae protested: “You know how your father is. He worries about us and not about himself.”
“Christ, Mom! That is so weird.”
“It is not weird. What do you think is happening now, these bombs, and ‘terrorists’—and your father—what happened to him . . . All at the same time.”
“Jesus!”
“You watch your mouth, Luke! Taking the Lord’s name in vain . . .”
“Jesus is not the ‘Lord.’ Jesus is the ‘son.’ Just so’s you know, Mawmaw.”
Luke did not pronounce Mawmaw with any of the childish tenderness with which he’d once pronounced it but rather with an air of disdain. Stricken by his rudeness Edna Mae slapped his shoulder with the flat of her hand, and Luke laughed.
“Jesus forgive you. I hope He will.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath, Mom. Jesus has plenty of work cut out for him without giving a damn about us.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“It’s a true thing to say.”
Dawn was helping the younger children to bed. First Noah, then Anita. She hoped that, in the morning, they might have forgotten much of what they’d seen on the TV; she did not think it was a good idea for Edna Mae to have let them watch.