Liddy looks up at the cross behind the lectern. “You know what my favorite passage in the Bible is? The beginning of John 20. When Mary Magdalene was grieving after Jesus’s death. He wasn’tJesusto 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?”
