“Like the Bonus Jonas,” I say.
The hymn ends, and Pastor Clive stands on the stage, his hands clasped. “Today,” he bellows, “is all about Jesus.”
There is a chorus of agreement from the congregation.
“Which is why, today, our newest brother in Christ is going to tell us his story. Max, can you come on up here?”
With Reid’s and Liddy’s help, I make my way down the aisle on crutches. I don’t like being the center of attention, usually, but this is different. Today, I’ll tell them the story of how I came to Christ. I will publicly announce my faith, so that all these people can hold me accountable.
Welcome,I hear.
Hello, Brother Max.
Clive leads me to a chair on the stage. It must come from a classroom; there are tennis balls on the feet of the chair to keep it from scratching up the linoleum. Beside it is what looks like a meat freezer, filled with water, with a set of steps leading up to it. I sit down on the chair, and Clive steps between Liddy and Reid, holding their hands. “Jesus, help Max grow closer to You. Let Max know God, love God, and spend quality time with His word.”
As he prays over me, I close my eyes. The lights from the stage are warm on my face; it makes me think of when I was little, and would ride my bike with my face turned up to the sun and my eyes closed, knowing that I was invincible and couldn’t crash, couldn’t get hurt.
Voices join Pastor Clive’s. It feels like a thousand kisses, like being filled to bursting with all the good in the world, so that there isn’t any room for the bad. It’s love, and it is unconditional acceptance, and not onlyhaven’tI failed Jesus but He says I never will. His love pours into me, until I can’t keep it inside anymore. It spills out of my open throat—syllables that aren’t really any language, but still, I get the message. It’s crystal clear, to me.
Refugee (3:06)
VANESSA
Ihaven’t given much thought to Zoe Baxter until I find her drowning at the bottom of the YMCA pool.
I don’t know who it is, at first. I am swimming my laps at 6:30A.M.—just about the only exercise I can drag myself out of bed for—and am midstroke doing the crawl when I see a woman slowly floating down to the bottom, with her hair fanning out around her head. Her arms are outstretched, and she doesn’t look like she is sinking as much as just letting go.
I jackknife and dive, grab her hand, and yank her through the water. She starts fighting me as we approach the surface, but by then the adrenaline has kicked in and I haul her out of the pool and kneel over her, dripping on her face as she coughs and rolls to her side. “What the hell,” she gasps, “are youdoing?”
“What the hell wereyoudoing?” I reply, and as she sits up, I realize whom I’ve saved.“Zoe?”
It is quiet at the Y. Pre-Christmas, the lap lane occupants have dwindled down to me, a few elderly swimmers, and the occasional physical therapy/rehab patient. Zoe and I are playing out this little scene on the tile edge of the pool without anyone really paying attention.
“I was staring up at the lights,” Zoe says.
“Here’s a news flash: you don’t have to drown to do that.” Now that we’re both out of the water, I’m shivering. I grab my towel and wrap it around my shoulders.
I heard, of course, about the baby. It was horrible, to say the least, to have the guest of honor at a baby shower rushed to the hospital to deliver a stillborn. I wasn’t even planning on going to the shower, but I’d felt bad for her—what kind of woman has so few friends that she has to invite people who’ve contracted her music therapy services? Afterward, naturally, I felt even worse for her. I’d helped her bookkeeper clean up the restaurant, after the ambulance screamed away. There had been little baby-bottle bubble wands at each place setting; and I’d collected them on the way out, figuring that I’d give them back to Zoe at some point in the future. They were still somewhere in my trunk.
I don’t know what to say to her.How are you?seems superfluous.I’m sorryseems even worse.
“You should try it,” Zoe says.
“Suicide?”
“Once a school counselor always a school counselor,” she answers. “I told you, I wasn’t trying to kill myself. Just the opposite, actually. You can feel your heart beat, all the way to your fingers, when you’re down there.”
She slips back into the pool like an otter and looks up at me. Waiting. With a sigh, I throw down my towel and dive back in. I open my eyes underwater and see Zoe sinking to the bottom again, so I mimic her. Twisting onto my back, I look up at the quivery Morse code dashes of the fluorescent lights, and exhale through my nose so that I sink.
My first instinct is to panic—I’ve run out of air, after all. But then my pulse starts beating under my fingernails, in my throat, between my legs. It’s as if my heart has swelled to fill up all the space beneath my skin.
I could see why, for someone who’s lost so much, feeling this full could be a comfort.
When I can’t stand it anymore, I kick to the surface. Zoe splashes up beside me and treads water. “When I was little, I wanted to be a mermaid when I grew up,” she says. “I used to practice by tying my ankles together and swimming in the town pool.”
“What happened?”
“Well, obviously I didn’t become a mermaid.”
