Chapter 48: Hallelujah

April

She continues to smile in that sugary sweet southern way. Then she walks to the window and looks out at the night sky. "Oh, well, you know Bree and I go a long way back. She and Cash were together for...I don't even know. When did you two start dating, honey?" She asks Bree. "Was it freshman year?"

Bree nods. "Yes ma'am."

"Wow, almost four years. So, as you might reckon, we got pretty close during that time. Bree was Cassie's big sis in cheerleading and all before she...transferred."

I look at Bree and shake my head. I have no idea what she's talking about.

"Cassie is Cash's younger sister," Bree says. "She's a freshman."

"Anyway," Mrs. Carson turns back around and continues, "I just wanted to come by and see how she was doing, going into labor so early and all. See if there was anything I could do...to help. And I brought y'all a gift for little Colt." She nods toward Bree's bed where a box has been opened. Inside there's a preemie-sized pajama and hat set. It's light blue with footballs all over it. Underneath the PJs is a receiving blanket with the initials CGC on it.

"I thought that would be perfect for the little angel," she says batting her lashes at me.  "He's such an angel."

"Have you seen him?" I ask. I'm going to be super pissed if Bree let her back into the NICU.

"Just the pictures on Instagram that Bree posted this morning."

I spear Bree with a look whose meaning she can't possibly misinterpret. Why does she feel like it's okay to post pictures of our baby on social media without even asking me?

"He just took my breath away," Mrs. Carson continues. "So tiny. So perfect. Congratulations to both of you."

*****

After she finally leaves, I turn to Bree. "You already posted Colt's picture on Instagram?"

"Well, yeah, of course I did. Most people get to do it the first day. But you know I was totally out of it, so I couldn't do that until today. I persuaded the nurse to take his tubes off him and stuff."

"You did what?"

She rolls her eyes. "It was like five seconds. Jesus, don't have a conniption."

I shake my head. I'm so angry right now I can't even breathe.  

"Chap, come on. He's fine. I just wanted...I don't know...to feel normal. To have everything be..."

"Perfect?" I snap.

"Normal." She starts to tear up.

Oh, spare me the waterworks.

"It was the sweetest picture, and he looks so beautiful, and I just love him so much that I wanted to show him off to the world, Chap."

I take a deep breath and go sit next to her on the bed. "Bree," I say softly, "I need for you to hear me, okay? He's my baby too, and we have a long future together, the three of us. I need you to include me in decisions regarding his welfare. Can you please do that for me?"

She looks down at her lap and nods.

There are so many more things I need to say to her, but I don't.

She seems so sad. So tired.

"I promised my parents I'd go to the Easter service with them in the morning, so I think I'll try to get some sleep. You need anything?"

She shakes her head.

"Did you eat?"

She nods.

"What did you have?"

"Some Jello."

I throw my head back. "Bree, you're killing me here. You can't recover unless you eat. Colt needs you to eat. I need you to eat."

"Okay," she nods her head. "I will. But tomorrow. My stomach is all in knots now." 

Good lord. I guess that's my fault.

"Okay, then I'll get you some water."

"Thank you."

"And some apple sauce?" I ask her. "Graham crackers?"

"Chap." She sighs.

"Okay, water then."

As we're laying there in the dark, just a few feet away from each other, I can't stop thinking how weird it is that Cash's mother came to visit Bree. Her friends haven't even been here yet. She kept saying she wanted to wait until Colt was old enough to show him off.

And how the fuck did Mrs. Carson have time to get his blanket monogrammed?

As I drift off to sleep, for some reason the poems I read this morning come back to me in pieces—a secret can grow inside, until you split open—now of us, there are four—a life of their own—innocent eyes—they feed on the lives of others. I can't get the words out of my head. I think back to when I first saw her journal last fall. The way she acted in Ms. Pickle's class with all the crying and trips to the bathroom. That was before homecoming.

That was before we even slept together.

I scrunch my eyes shut pushing the thought out of my head.

Colt is mine. Bree would never do something like that to me. Not on purpose. We're friends. We've always been friends.

No. No. Things will be better tomorrow. I just need a good night's sleep. This hospital is fucking with my head. Everything. It's been a lot.

It'll be okay tomorrow.

*****

I told my parents I'd meet them at Blue Lake First United Methodist church for the 11am service. I'm standing on the front steps to the church waiting for them. It's an old building constructed of white painted wood siding and black double doors opening straight into the chapel. It's situated on a large field adjacent to the Old City Cemetery, surrounded by wildflowers and dotted with the occasional Live Oak.

The chapel itself is small and neatly compact, the pews made of pine. Most of the windows are clear glass, except the largest one that serves as the backdrop for the altar, which is stained glass, filtering the morning sunlight through red and blue and purple and gold. The ceiling soars high, up into pine rafters that are kept meticulously clean and free of cobwebs, despite their age. I always wondered who cleans them and how they get up there.

After the singing and announcements are over, the sermon begins. Pastor Dan is a little old man with white tufts of hair shooting haphazardly from random places on his mostly bald scalp. He has kind eyes and a soft, raspy voice.

He shuffles up to the pulpit, his long blue robe fraying at the edges.

"The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him. It is important to forgive...yes. We all know that Christ is our highest, most perfect example of forgiveness and unconditional love. But we are only human. We are not perfect," he says, and I swear to God, he looks right at me, like he's speaking directly to me.

It's eerie. I break eye contact with him and scan the room. I notice a girl with short blonde hair a few rows up.

That can't be her.

She's wearing a white sundress and flanked by a hunched old man on one side and a big guy with black dreads on the other. He has his arm around her golden shoulders.

It is her. My heart races.

"And we often struggle to love as God loves us—unconditionally. We all struggle to forgive as God forgives us. And that's okay. See, people talk a lot of rot about forgiveness. And they get up on their high horses and cite the Bible and such. It is often those very people who are the first to require forgiveness and the last to extend it."

I can't pull my gaze away from the back of her neck, skin tanned against the thin white straps. She turns her head slightly to say something in his ear. Then her eyes shift up, as if she senses someone looking at her. We stare at each other briefly before we both turn our attention back to the pulpit.

"You see, they are missing an important piece," Pastor Dan continues. "And that is contrition. In order to be forgiven, one must ask for it. One must repent. Truly. To God, yes. But he must also repent to those whom he has betrayed."

As he's talking, I think about my dad. He was always the type who expected forgiveness without asking for it. Without contrition. And he didn't extend forgiveness unless a price was exacted. The more I think about him, about everything, the angrier I get. And, just as I'm getting myself all worked up, Pastor Dan looks right at me again.

"The temptation is to become angry with those who refuse to repent. Who require forgiveness but do not grant it. It can be...well, frustrating. You have to let them find their way. Do not be angry with such people. Do not try to show them the way. They will find it eventually, one way or another. Holding on to your anger will only take you further from God. Christ died for our sins, so that we could release these earthly trials. And today is the day we celebrate His eternal life. And all the people say Hallelujah! He has risen."

"He has risen indeed. Hallelujah!" The parishioners respond. 

My memory takes me back nine years ago to the day my father went to church for the very first time. It was several months after Ma kicked him out and before he had come back home.

*****

"Please open your Bibles to Second Corinthians, 4:17-18. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

I sat beside my mother shifting uncomfortably in the pew, tugging at my shirt collar. When I was a kid, I always hated wearing my Sunday best. Mom glanced at me and smiled.

I didn't return her smile.

Instead, I gazed around the room. Up at the rafters, the stained glass, the other parishioners sitting quietly.

My father was seated across the aisle, two rows behind us. When I turned my head, we exchanged glances. I remember thinking that was strange because he never attended church with us before Ma kicked him out of the house. He waved briefly.

I didn't return the gesture. 

As we made our way out of the chapel, the brightness of my mother's white dress blinded me in the spring sunshine. When they were able to adjust, I saw my father standing there, waiting. "Good morning, Madeline. Jack."

"Morning, Eli."

I was silent. My father held his cowboy hat at his waist, turning the brim in nervous circles. "Can we talk for a minute, Maddy?"

I edged closer to my mother, eyes darting from her face to his.

"Jack, why don't you run along and play. I'll come get you when we're ready," she told me.

I hesitated for a moment, then nodded and made my way down to where the bluebonnets grew beside the old gravestones. The spring sun was hot against my Sunday clothes, so I found a spot at the back of the cemetery under the shade of a live oak. I sat down on the bench, swinging my legs and watching my parents at a distance.

She was shaking her head. My father put his hand out to grasp hers, but she pulled it away and took a few steps backwards.

I unbuttoned my collar. Then my hands grazed across the tops of the long fescue. I grasped a blade and began picking at the seed heads, one by one.

My mother touched his arm lightly, then she nodded and turned, walking away.

"These bluebonnets are pretty as a picture," she said as she walked toward me.

"What did he want?" I asked.

"To come home."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Are you gonna let him?"

"I think he's doing better. But I just don't know. If I knew exactly the right thing to do, I would do it. No matter the cost. But I just don't know what that right thing is yet."

"Yeah. Me neither," I said softly.

"So what should we do? Have any ideas?"

I shook my head. "What's a memorial garden?"

"A what?"

"The sign there, it says we're sitting in a memorial garden."

"Oh, I believe it's just a special place where you go to think about those you've loved. Those you've lost."

"But why do you need a special place to do that?"

"What do you mean, sweetheart?"

"I mean, it seems like you carry the people you love with you anywhere you go. You think about them everywhere. All the time."

"Yeah," my mother said, squinting up into the sunlight. "I guess you do."

*****

After the service, my family files out the doors making our way to the parking lot. I look around for Peyton, but she's heading toward the memorial garden with Marshall. As I stand there watching them walk away, someone taps me on the shoulder.

When I turn, Mrs. Carson is standing there.

"Well, well. We meet again," she says, fake smile pasted on her face.

"Hello, Ma'am." I nod.

"Jack, I know you've got a lot going on right now, but I wondered if...if you and I could talk for a moment."

I glance around searching for my parents. I wave for them to go on ahead. Then I look down at her waiting for whatever it is she has to say to me.

"You must know Cash pretty well, being a teammate and all. And you've probably noticed Cash's daddy out at the fields. Cain is pretty hard on him. He's, well, he's got certain expectations for Cash."

"Yes ma'am." I stare at her, not sure where she's going with this.

She glances around at the people milling in the lot. "You mind if we take a little stroll in the courtyard?"

As we walk over to the courtyard, she just keeps on talking. "The Carson family has been around these parts since Texas was Mexico. His people were planters. Very successful planters. But Cain, he had big dreams. After college, he was going to live in the city and make something of himself. We met when I was waiting tables in Fort Worth. Cain was a student at Texas Christian, and he told me about where he came from and where he wanted to go."

She gazes out at the bluebonnets, a wistful look in her eyes. Then she continues. "My people were not on the same level as his, but I understood his desire for escape. I was escaping too. I grew up dirt poor in Huckabay. My mama struggled to raise five of us alone after my daddy left. We were on food stamps and scraping by. I remember constantly being hungry. But even worse, hungry for love. When Mama died from cancer, I was only seven. My brothers and sisters, they did the best they could, but they were just children too. My oldest sister was only eighteen."

She sits on a stone bench next to the fountain. How long is she planning to yammer on and on?

"Anyway, Cain took me home that night. Cash was born nine months later. And Cain, he's a good man. He took care of his own. He took care of us. But his own dreams, well, they got put on hold. He started working for the safety marking company in Huntsville selling crime scene tape. But he worked hard, and we saved and scrimped until he had enough money to buy the company. It was not an easy road, but he provided for us." She raises her palms face up in the air as if she's holding all of their accumulated wealth in them. "So I understand that when he's hard on Cash it's because he loves him. He doesn't want him to make the same mistakes he made. Doesn't want him to limit himself. In so many ways, I think he sees Cash as an extension of himself. A chance to fulfill his unrealized dreams."

I nod. I have no idea what she's trying to tell me. "Yes ma'am. I don't mean to rush you or anything, but I need to get back to the hospital, to Bree and Colt."

She nods. "Such an angel," she whispers. Then she stares at me for a few beats, her face clouding over. "I stopped by last night to visit with Bree, to check in on her. But also...to express my concerns...about everything."

What the hell is she talking about?

"So I was just wondering, now that you've had a chance to talk with her, if y'all have made a decision."

"A decision?" I ask.

She looks down at her feet, brushing dust from her sandals.

"Yes," she says looking up at me. "About whether you're willing to have a paternity test done."