“No!” I shouted. “He hasn’t! Can’t You do anything?”
And then God looked at me. I felt Him look, and everything went still and my skin prickled. He said: “If I were you, I’d be asking myself that question.”
God laughed. “Judith, look at what you’ve done already!”
I blinked. Then I put my head in my hands. When I took it out I said: “I’ve done quite a lot, haven’t I?” And then, in a smaller voice, a voice so small that no one but God could have heard it, I said: “If anyone dies it should be me.”
“Clever girl,” God said softly.
“Well,” said God. “You’re right, of course; if it hadn’t been for you, none of this would have happened. You are the only one who can save your father. He’s sinned, Judith; he’s lost faith—the greatest sin of all. He deserves to die; he
“Who?” I said. “How?”
God sighed. “Don’t you remember? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—”
“A life for a life,” I said.
“If someone were to give Me their life instead…”
“Oh,” I said, and my voice was quiet, like a breeze on its way somewhere else.
“It’s the only way,” said God. “The Fundamental Law. Remember?”
I felt wind buffet my face, as if I was standing at the edge of a cliff, and I felt the ground shift under me.
“You love him, don’t you?” said God.
“Yes.” But I wasn’t thinking about Father anymore. I wasn’t thinking about anything just then.
God said: “Now, are you going to save him? Hurry up and decide or you may as well not bother.”
“Yes,” I said, because there wasn’t really any decision to be made; there had been a moment when I wondered if I would get to see the Land of Decoration after all, then that, too, stopped mattering.
But I had to be sure of something. “If I do this,” I said suddenly, “You have to promise me—You have to
“Where’s your faith?” said God.
“All right!” said God. “Dear me! You have My word.”
I swallowed and looked at my shoes. I said: “Then can I see him?”
“If you’re quick.”
I went to the door. I meant to go quickly, but my body was moving as if its battery had run down.
At the door, I put my hand on the handle. “God,” I said, “can I really save him?”
“Yes,” God said, “you can.”
The Biggest Miracle of All
I CLOSED THE bedroom door and went along the landing and none of it was real. I went down the stairs step by step, holding on to the banister, and they weren’t very real either. At the bottom, light was coming through the panels in the kitchen door. I went along the hall and turned the handle.
Father was sitting with his back to me at the table. He was the only thing that looked real. I closed the door.
I could see his shirt rise and fall. I could see the hairs on his head catch the light. I could smell him and hear him breathing. I stood there for ever so long, just looking and listening to him.
Suddenly he turned. He put his hand on his chest and said: “You frightened the life out of me.”
“Sorry.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
His voice wasn’t thick anymore and his eyes weren’t glassy, and his face was gray now instead of red. He said: “I came back up and put a blanket over you to keep you warm. I didn’t want to wake you….” He looked very sad.
He stopped talking and I was glad, because I had a lot to say to him and not much time to say it in. I took a deep breath and said: “Father, I’m sorry I got you into trouble with the elders and I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about the miracles.”
He shook his head and passed his hand over it. “Oh, Judith, it’s not your fault. You really didn’t help things, but there would have been trouble anyway, what with the strike and everything.”
“No!” I said, and my heart beat hard. “It was me! If you knew half the things I’ve done!”
Father said: “All right; let’s not get into that now.”
I hung my head and said: “I did it all.”
Then Father said: “Judith!” so I was quiet.
He put his finger and thumb in the corners of his eyes as if they hurt him. When he took them away, his face looked grayer than before and his eyes were red and more tired than I had ever seen them. He said: “I’m sorry about your room.”
“It’s all right.”
He put his head in his hands. “It’s not all right, but it’s done now. I was drunk.” Then he took his head out of his hands and said: “You know I love you very much, don’t you?”
The words were so strange. They rolled into the middle of the room and rocked there between us, and we listened till they settled, and afterward there was such silence.
I was trying to think quickly, I was trying to think what to say, but there was a pain in my heart and breathing was difficult. Father turned back to the table. He said: “I love you more than you know.”
Then my heart hurt more than it had ever hurt before in my life, and I thought it might have broken, but I knew what to say. I said: “I do know.” And suddenly I did.
I remembered how he had looked after me all this time even though I had made Mother die, how he had taken me to the doctor when I was little and read the Bible to me to help me talk, how he had warned me about the miracles only to protect me, hadn’t told me about the strike so it wouldn’t worry me, had chased the boys away to protect me, taken my hand so I wouldn’t be afraid when we walked through the bikes, forgiven me for lying, built the fence to keep me safe, pretended the note through the door wasn’t about me, sat on my bed after the accident and told me everything was going to be all right, offered to take me to the meeting though he couldn’t come in, bought me fish and chips and walked hand in hand with me that day for eleven miles, and was going to take me on a hot-air balloon.
He was saying: “I haven’t been much of a father to you, but I tried. There are things I’ve never been able to say to you, things about the time after your mum died, how you were suddenly there, asking for attention, asking to be taken care of, asking so much, and I had nothing—heck, I could hardly take care of myself; sometimes I couldn’t even look at you because you reminded me so much of her.” He sighed. “This probably isn’t making much sense….”
He was saying other things as well, but he was going too fast and I was still thinking of the first thing he had said, the thing about loving me. What he said after that didn’t matter much. He stopped talking in the end and didn’t look at me again, and I was glad because he didn’t like seeing people cry. He said: “Well. We have to look to the future now,” and I said: “Yes,” but I couldn’t think properly.
Then he said softly: “It’s almost tomorrow. You’d better go up.” And I remembered that it was late, later than he or anyone else realized, that I had only come to say goodbye, but I still couldn’t make myself go.
He said: “We can talk some more tomorrow.”
“OK.”
“Good night, Judith.”
“Good night.”
When I made no move, he turned back around, and I went to the door. “Father?”
