“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 therightone, 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 look the way you will when you go to the kindergarten parent-teacher conference.”
