Revival Season by Monica West (romantic novels to read txt) 📕

“I’m sorry too,” she mouthed before pulling away. I let her go, my hand falling to the still-warm empty space on the pew next to me.

Long after Micah and her father left, I abandoned Ma and Hannah in the sanctuary’s cavernous emptiness and followed the departing parishioners into the parking lot that shimmered in the fresh rain. It was tempting to pretend, even if only for a few seconds, that I could jump into one of their cars and drive far away from here. When the parking lot was empty, save for our van, I stared at the crescent moon that dangled overhead like a fingernail in the starless night, reveling in the stillness and silence that would shatter as soon as we got home.

Back home, I pressed the cylindrical lock on the bedroom door when Hannah, Caleb, and I were inside. When we were younger, Caleb would come into our room on nights like this, saying that he wanted to comfort us when he was the one who really needed comfort. Through the thin floor of safety, I heard Ma pleading with Papa to sit down and have a cup of tea. Then their voices shifted to a lower register. I slipped Hannah into pajamas even as she complained about being hungry, her hand pointing to her stomach. There will be no dinner tonight, I wanted to tell her, my mind bouncing back to the way the women left with their foil-covered pans long before the deacons exited.

A crash of dishes. Ma’s pleas rose through the vents, curdling by the bedroom carpet. Another crash—a harder one this time—followed by a plaintive scream from Ma. Hannah rustled against the tight bindings of her comforter and sheets, howling even as Ma kept screaming and more plates and cups shattered downstairs. Papa yelled in between the crashes. I shuddered with each roaring swell; then there was a deafening crash that sent my head into the detergent smell of Hannah’s pajamas. I waited for it all to stop while Caleb buried his head into my pillow.

Papa’s rage subsided sometime later; in its wake, I twisted the knob until the lock popped and cracked the door open. One step into the upstairs hallway, past the study on the right, and then another few steps toward the stairs. Downstairs, I rounded the corner by the open front door, and then I was at Ma’s side, placing my hands on top of hers on the broom handle as she continued her work of sweeping ceramic shards into a pile. She swiped at long rivers of mucus that glistened on her face.

“Where is he?”

She shrugged as she released the broom. “Gone, I guess. He didn’t say where.”

“Did he—?” I couldn’t get the final words out. She wrapped her arms around her expanding stomach and shivered. I scanned the visible parts of her—her wrists, her neck—for bruises. She pulled her sleeves down as though feeling the heat from my gaze.

“No.”

Images of him in the middle of the mob in Bethel came back. Then I remembered her knowing moan by the pool when I’d told her about his violence.

“Can I see?” I tugged her wrist, but she tugged back harder.

“There’s nothing to see, honey.” She choked on the last word. “I’m okay. I’m going to bed.”

Her kiss on my forehead was a reflex without feeling before she turned away and walked upstairs. A few seconds later, her bedroom door clicked, and I surveyed the damage in the kitchen. Jagged shards of all our dishes were on the floor, and kitchen cabinet doors had been flung open. I knelt in a square of linoleum next to a beige dish that I’d made for Mother’s Day a few years back. We are all clay in the Master’s hands, Ma had said as I dug the heel of my hand into the wet clay and left behind an imprint that my hand currently dwarfed. Now a ragged fault line ran through the center of the hand. I dropped the piece back on the floor where I’d found it and swept it into a pile.

The sharp hunks fell into the trash bag, making the thin plastic bulge and tear. The patio blinds were open, and the rain outside had become more violent over the course of the evening. I slid the patio door open and stepped into the driving rain as a streak of lightning split the sky in two. A clap of thunder resounded overhead; I balled my fists and screamed once, and then again and again until my throat burned. My weight pitched forward until I fell on my knees on the wooden planks of the patio, the splinters digging into my skin. I used to think that storms were evidence of God’s wrath at His people, and though I knew now that the God of famines and floods didn’t punish people that way anymore, there had to be some message in the way the clouds roiled and the sky illuminated in patchwork flashes. God was punishing all of us for Papa’s sins now. Or maybe he was punishing me for the sin of healing Micah.

Another jagged ray of lightning made the house white and then indigo before returning it to black. Somewhere out there, Papa stood under the same rain, raging against a God who he thought was taking away his ability to heal. Meanwhile, Ma was probably upstairs cleaning cuts on her hands and icing other wounds that she hadn’t let me see. Ma’s words came back again—We are all clay in the Master’s hands—we only had one Master and that was God. Ma had always used that saying to remind us of who was in control of our destiny, but on nights like this, it felt like we were clay in Papa’s hands rather than God’s.

The news would pass quickly in the church—the families who’d been gathered at the healing service had