“For our guest,” the minister said.
“Amen.”
It was over too suddenly. It hadn’t lasted long enough. Already the minister was saying, “Any other prayers, any other prayers …”
There weren’t any.
“Hymn sixteen, then,” the minister said, and everyone stirred and rustled pages and stood up. They were so matter-of-fact; they were smoothing skirts, patting hairdos. Ian’s neighbor, a stocky, round-faced woman, beamed at him and tilted her hymnal in his direction. The hymn was “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” The minister started it off in his soaring tenor:
“What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms …”
This time Ian sang too, although really it was more of a drone.
When the hymn was finished, the minister raised his palms again and recited a benediction. “Go ye now into the world and bear witness to His teachings,” he said. “In Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Amen,” the others echoed.
Was that if?
They started collecting coats and purses, buttoning buttons, winding scarves. “Welcome!” Ian’s neighbor told him. “How did you find out about us?”
“Oh, I was just walking by …”
“So many young people nowadays don’t give half enough thought to their spiritual salvation.”
“No, I guess not,” Ian said.
All at once he felt he was traveling under false pretense. Spiritual salvation! The language these places used made him itch with embarrassment. (Blood of the Lamb, Died for Your Sins …) He looked yearningly behind him, where the first people to leave were already sending a slap of cold air into the room. But his neighbor was waving to the minister. “Yoo-hoo! Reverend Emmett! Come and meet our young person!”
The minister, already choosing a path between the knots of worshipers, seemed disconcertingly jubilant. His smile was so wide that his teeth looked too big for his mouth. He arrived in front of Ian and shook his hand over and over. “Wonderful to have you!” he said. (His long, bony fingers felt like dried beanpods.) “I’m Reverend Emmett. This is Sister Nell, have you introduced yourselves?”
“How do you do,” Ian said, and the other two waited so expectantly that he had to add, “I’m Ian Bedloe.”
“We use only first names in our place of worship,” Reverend Emmett told him. “Last names remind us of the superficial — the world of wealth and connections and who came over on the Mayflower.”
“Really,” Ian said. “Ah. Okay.”
His neighbor laid a hand on his arm and said, “Reverend Emmett will tell you all about it. Nice meeting you, Brother Ian. Good night, Reverend Emmett.”
“Night,” Reverend Emmett said. He watched as she swirled a navy cape around her shoulders (so she was, after all, a nurse) and sidled out the other end of the row. Then he turned back to Ian and said, “I hope your prayer was answered this evening.”
“Thanks,” Ian said. “It was a really … interesting service.”
Reverend Emmett studied him. (His skin was an unhealthy shade of white, although that could have been the fluorescent lighting.) “But your prayer,” he said finally. “Was there any response?”
“Response?”
“Did you get a reply?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“I see,” Reverend Emmett said. He watched an aged couple assist each other through the door — the very last to leave. Then he said, “What was it that you needed forgiven?”
Ian couldn’t believe his ears. Was this even legal, inquiring into a person’s private prayers? He ought to spin on his heel and walk out. But instead his heart began hammering as if he were about to do something brave. In a voice not quite his own, he said, “I caused my brother to, um, kill himself.”
Reverend Emmett gazed at him thoughtfully.
“I told him his wife was cheating on him,” Ian said in a rush, “and now I’m not even sure she was. I mean I’m pretty sure she did in the past, I know I wasn’t totally wrong, but … So he drove into a wall. And then his wife died of sleeping pills and I guess you could say I caused that too, more or less …”
He paused, because Reverend Emmett might want to disagree here. (Really Lucy’s death was just indirectly caused by Ian, and maybe not even that. It might have been accidental.) But Reverend Emmett only rocked from heel to toe.
“So it looks as if my parents are going to have to raise the children,” Ian said. Had he mentioned there were children? “Everything’s been dumped on my mom and I don’t think she’s up to it — her or my dad, either one. I don’t think they’ll ever be the same, after this. And my sister’s busy with her own kids and I’m away at college most of the time …”
In the light of Reverend Emmett’s blue eyes — which had the clean transparency of those marbles that Ian used to call ginger-ales — he began to relax. “So anyhow,” he said, “that’s why I asked for that prayer. And I honestly believe it might have worked. Oh, it’s not like I got an answer in plain English, of course, but … don’t you think? Don’t you think I’m forgiven?”
“Goodness, no,” Reverend Emmett said briskly.
Ian’s mouth fell open. He wondered if he’d misunderstood. He said, “I’m not forgiven?”
“Oh, no.”
“But … I thought that was kind of the point,” Ian said. “I thought God forgives everything.”
“He does,” Reverend Emmett said. “But you can’t just say, ‘I’m sorry, God.’ Why, anyone could do that much! You have to offer reparation — concrete, practical reparation, according to the rules of our church.”
“But what if there isn’t any reparation? What if it’s something nothing will fix?”
“Well, that’s where Jesus comes in, of course.”
Another itchy word: Jesus. Ian averted his eyes.
“Jesus remembers how difficult life on earth can be,” Reverend Emmett told him. “He helps with what you can’t undo. But only after you’ve tried to undo it.”
“Tried? Tried how?” Ian asked. “What would it take?”
Reverend Emmett started collecting hymnals from the chair seats. Apparently he was so certain of the answer, he didn’t even have to think about it. “Well, first you’ll need to see to those children,” he said.
“Okay. But … see to them in what way, exactly?”
“Why, raise them, I suppose.”
“Huh?” Ian said. “But I’m only a freshman!”
Reverend Emmett turned to face him, hugging the stack of hymnals against his concave shirt front.
“I’m away in Pennsylvania most of the time!” Ian told him.
“Then maybe you should drop out.”
“Drop out?”
“Right.”
“Drop out of college?”
“Right.”
Ian stared at him.
“This is some kind of test, isn’t it?” he said finally.
Reverend Emmett nodded, smiling. Ian sagged with relief.
“It’s God’s test,” Reverend Emmett told him.
“So …”