And this is how I wind up initiating an epic stare-down: me versus Jesus Christ our Lord.
From my seat on the piano bench, I narrow my eyes against His alabaster ones, thinking: Blink. Come on, blink. He refuses.
This is because He’s a sculpture—which, in a staring contest, really seems like cheating.
He stands on the altar, stone arms wide and ivory palms up—a pose that used to look welcoming. Now He looks halfway to a shrug. Your mom has cancer again and there’s nothing you can do about it. He’s right. I feel helpless, hapless, planless.
No member of White Hills United Methodist filing into the pews would believe the nasty voice in my head is mine. I substitute-teach elementary Sunday school, I play the “Hallelujah Chorus” on the pipe organ with gusto every Easter, and I’ve been able recite the books of the Bible in chronological order since I was six.
And I love this church—the stained glass, the carved wood, the familiar faces. I love my dad’s little office and the kitchen downstairs and the rec room, even though it’s old and musty. I know every closet and nook; I’ve watered every plant in the courtyard a hundred times. I love Christmas here, our tall evergreen and the candlelight, every drawn-out “gloria” that fills the rafters as we sing.
Cancer is like seeing all the magic of Christmas stuffed into clearance bins. The beautiful pine tree stripped to rust-colored needles in a garbage bag. White candles melted to stubs, blackened with scorch marks.
I can’t unsee it. I have discovered the presents from Santa in my parents’ closet. And I wish I could go back.
I’m on the last verse of my final selection when the choir files in. This hymn finishes: I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake. I almost laugh darkly at the irony.
When no one is looking, my mom turns, green robe swishing, to stick her tongue out at me. I can’t quite laugh. How can she laugh?
Normally, I’d get up from the piano so the choir accompanist could sit, I’d walk down the side hallway, and I’d slide into the pew next to Lukas.
But the walls tilt inward, my eyes blurred. My lungs ache as if filled with hot smoke.
I cannot listen to my dad tell the congregation the news. I lived through it once, their dabbed tears and covered mouths. I can’t do it again, with their gazes crawling over me and watching for a reaction, for reassurance, for something.
I can’t be here. I cannot be here.
As calmly as I can, I smooth my skirt and exit through the side door where the choir has just filed in. But I don’t duck into the end pew. I keep going, ballet flats tapping down the hallway as I hurry out. I can’t stop; I’m in the sunshine now, propelled away from my church like we’re opposing magnets.
The rational part of me is screeching: What are you doing? You can’t leave! Stop! Are you insane? Maybe I am insane, but I can’t stop. I grab my inhaler from my purse and take a deep pull.
I’m across the street, almost on my front lawn, before Lukas catches up with me. With all his varsity letters in track and cross-country, I’m not sure why I’m surprised.
“Luce. Hey. What’s goin’ on? You okay?”
“I’m fine. I just . . .” I gesture backward to the church, unable to look it in the face. “I can’t be there right now.”
He catches my hand. “Are you not feeling well?”
“Yeah, tell people that’s what it is.”
“But that’s not what it is?”
I pull away to punch in the code on our front door. The electronic padlock was a Christmas gift from my dad, a joke for my mom, who loses keys even in her smallest purse. “My mom has cancer again, Lukas.”
“I know,” he says quietly.
“I can’t be in there.”
“Okay . . .” He’s looking down at me—I can feel it—but I stare at the decorative bows on my shoes. “Can you help me understand? Is it that you need some space to cry?”
“No. I need . . . I need to scream.”
He almost takes a half step back, surprised, but he stops himself. “You’re angry?
“No, I’m pissed.”
Lukas leans back now, put off. But “pissed” is a more satisfying word than “angry,” which could be French: ang-ree. It’s lovely, no hard sounds to press your lips against. “Pissed” is a hiss and a thud. Do you hear that, God? Pissed.
I thought saying it would be a release, that it would exorcise some of my anger. But in fact, it only amps me up. “Like, honestly, fuck this. The entire situation.”
“Lucy!” I’m as shocked by my language as he is. I’ve never said that word in my life. Thought it a few times, sure—but felt guilty about even that.
But no thunder shakes the ground beneath me; the clouds do not part to reveal a wrathful God. It is only me, almost incoherent as I yell, “I did everything right! I do! Everything! Right!”
Lukas stands utterly still in my yard, as proud and golden as our spring daffodils. “I know you do. But—”
“Do you remember freshman year?” I prayed without ceasing; I fasted like Moses and David and Esther. No one had more faith—more belief—than me.
“Of course I do, Luce . . .”
“And I still don’t drink or smoke or skip class or even do anything sinful with you.” I’d blush if my face weren’t already enflamed. “I trusted that God would heal my mom, and He did. Except He didn’t.”
Before he can stick up for Our Heavenly Abandoner, I add, “My mom is the best person I know. Why her? It doesn’t make any sense. She lost her parents when she was five, and then wound up in foster care. Hasn’t she been through enough? Seriously.”
Lukas’s mouth twitches into a frown. “Well, sometimes God’s plan doesn’t make sense at the time it’s happening. If we knew everything, it wouldn’t be faith, right?”
Normally, I find Lukas so helpful. His calm insights—about everything from the excellent success rates of lumpectomies to the most relevant scriptures for serious illness—kept me sane freshman year. But this question clicks something in me, and my blood rises to a simmer.
It’s just so patronizing. Like he’s talking to a particularly stupid first grader, instead of his honor-roll, pastor’s daughter girlfriend. I know how faith is supposed to work.
“Well, Lukas, it’s easy to say that when nothing bad has ever happened to you.”
He recoils from me as if dodging a punch. “That’s not fair.”
It actually is. All four of his grandparents are alive, even. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Can’t do what, Luce?” He sounds pained, his empathy muscles stretching to reach me. But he can’t quite get there.
“Church, this conversation.” I laugh, gesturing widely at the world around us. “Anything.”
I slam the door behind me, and the brass knocker handle slaps against its base—a bonus slam.