Sing You Home

beginning of John 20. When Mary Magdalene was grieving after Jesus’s death. He wasn’t Jesus to her, you know, he was her friend and her teacher and someone she really cared about. She came to the tomb, because she just wanted to be close to his body, if that was all that was left of him. But she got there, and his body was gone, too. Can you imagine how lonely she felt? So she started crying, and a stranger asked her what was wrong-and then said her name, and that’s when she realized it was actually Jesus talking to her.” Liddy glances at me. “There are lots of times I’ve been sure God’s left me. But then it turns out I was just looking in the wrong place.”

I don’t know what I’m more ashamed of: the fact that I am a failure in the eyes of Jesus, or in the eyes of Liddy.

“God’s not at the bottom of that bottle. Judge O’Neill, he’ll be watching everything we do. Me and Reid, and you.” Liddy closes her eyes. “I want to have your baby, Max.”

I feel electricity run through me.

Dear God, I pray silently, let me see myself as You do. Remind me that none of us are perfect until we look into Your face.

But I am staring at Liddy’s.

“If it’s a boy,” she says, “I’m going to name him Max.”

I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to.” Liddy turns toward me. “Did you ever want something so bad you think that hoping is going to jinx it?”

In all the spaces between the words, I hear ones she hasn’t spoken out loud. So I grasp the back of her head, and I lean forward and kiss her.

God is love. I’ve heard Pastor Clive say that a thousand times, but now, I understand.

Liddy’s arms come up between us, and with more force than I would have expected her to have, she shoves me backward. My chair screeches across the floor. Her cheeks are bright red, and she’s covering her mouth with one hand.

“Liddy,” I say, my heart sinking, “I didn’t mean to-”

“You don’t have to apologize, Max.” Suddenly there is a wall between us. I may not be able to see it, but I can feel it. “It’s just the alcohol, acting out.” She blows out the candle. “We should go.”

Liddy leaves the chapel, but I stay behind. For at least another minute, I wait, completely in the dark.

After my car wreck, when I let Jesus into my heart, I also let Clive Lincoln into my life. We met in his office, and we talked about why I drank.

I told him that it felt like a hole inside me, and I was trying to fill it up.

He said that hole was quicksand, and I was sinking fast.

He asked me to list all the things that made that hole bigger.

Being broke, I said.

Being drunk.

Losing clients.

Losing Zoe.

Losing a baby.

Then he began to talk about what could patch that hole in me.

God. Friends. Family.

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at the floor. “Thank goodness for Reid.”

But Pastor Clive, he can hear when you don’t mean what you say, and he leaned back in his chair. “This isn’t the first time Reid’s bailed you out, is it?”

“No.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“How do you think it makes me feel?” I exploded. “Like a total fuckup. Like everything comes so easy to Reid, and me, I’m always drowning.”

“That’s because Reid’s given himself over to Jesus. He’s letting someone else lead him over the rapids, Max, and you-you’re still trying to swim upstream.”

I smirked. “So I just let go, and God takes care of it?”

“Why not? You sure as heck haven’t been doing a bang-up job lately, yourself.” Pastor Clive walked behind my chair. “Tell Jesus what you want. What does Reid have that you wish you could have, too?”

“I’m not going to talk out loud to Jesus-”

“Do you think He can’t read your thoughts anyway?”

“Fine.” I sighed. “I’m jealous of my brother. I wish I had his house. His bank account. Even his faith, I guess.”

Speaking it so baldly made me feel like shit. My brother had never done anything but help me, and here I was coveting everything he had. I felt ugly, like I had peeled off a layer of skin to find an infection underneath.

And God, all I wanted to do was heal.

I might have cried then; I don’t remember. I do know it was the first time I really saw myself for the person I was: someone too proud to admit his flaws.

I left one thing off the list, though, when I was talking to Pastor Clive. I never said I wanted Reid’s wife.

I kept that secret.

On purpose.

I apologize at least fifty more times to Liddy on the way home, but she stays cool, tight-lipped. “I’m sorry,” I say again, as she pulls into the driveway.

“For what?” Liddy asks. “Nothing happened.”

She opens the front door and lifts my arm over her neck, so that it looks like she’s supporting me. “Follow my lead,” she says.

I’m still a little unsteady on my feet, so I let her drag me inside. Reid is standing in the foyer. “Thank God. Where did you find him?”

“Throwing up on the side of the road,” Liddy answers. “He’s got a nasty case of food poisoning, according to the ER.”

“Man, little brother, what did you eat?” Reid asks, wrapping an arm around me so that he can take some of my weight. I pretend to stumble, and let him pull me downstairs to the guest room in the basement. After Reid lays me down on the bed, Liddy takes off my shoes. Her hands are warm on my ankles.

Even in the dark, the ceiling’s spinning. Or maybe that’s just the ceiling fan. “The doctor says he’ll be able to sleep it off,” Liddy says. Through slitted eyes, I notice that my brother has his arm around her.

“I’ll call Pastor Clive, tell him Max got back safely,” Reid says, and he leaves.

Pastor Clive was looking for me, too? A fresh wave of guilt floods over me. Meanwhile Liddy steps into the closet and reaches onto the top shelf. She shakes out a blanket and covers me. I consider apologizing again, but then on second thought, I pretend to be asleep.

The bed sinks under Liddy’s weight. She is sitting close enough to touch me, and I hold my breath until I feel her hand brush my hair away from my face.

Her voice is a whisper, and I have to strain to hear it.

She’s praying. I listen to the rise and fall of her words, and pretend that, instead of asking God for help, she is asking God for me.

The morning of the first time we are scheduled to appear in the courtroom, Wade Preston shows up at Reid’s front door holding a suit. “I have one,” I tell him.

“Yes,” he says, “but do you have the right one, Max? First impressions, they’re critical. You don’t have a chance for a do-over.”

“I was just going to wear my black one,” I say. It’s the only suit I own; I got it from Eternal Glory’s goodwill closet. It’s been good enough for me to wear to church on Sundays, anyway, or when I’m out doing mission work for Pastor Clive.

The one Preston’s brought is charcoal gray. There is also a crisply pressed white shirt and a blue tie. “I was going to wear a red tie,” I say. “I borrowed it from Reid.”

“Absolutely not. You don’t want to stand out. You want to look humble, stable, solid as a rock. You want to