Lucy by the Sea (Amgash, #4)(29)

I thought about that for a long time.



* * *





It was not long after this that my sister, Vicky, called me. I was surprised when I saw her number show up on my phone; she never called me but always waited for me to call her, which I did once a week, as I have said.

Vicky said to me, “Lucy, I’ve joined a church.”

I said, “You have?”

And she said, Yes, she had joined—and I cannot remember the name of it, but I recognized right away that it was a Christian fundamentalist church—and she said it had changed her life.

“In what way?” I asked her.

And Vicky said, “I know you’ll be snotty about this, Lucy. But when you really pray—and when you pray with other people—the spirit of the Lord can honest and truly come to you.”

So I said, “You mean you’ve seen the light?”

And Vicky said, “I knew you’d be sarcastic, I knew you would. I don’t know why I even told you.”

“I’m not being sarcastic!” I said. I was sitting on the lumpy red couch and I stood up as I said this. I walked around the room as she talked. She said she had joined two months ago, that she had never been in the presence of people so kind, and so I made another mistake and I said, “You’re attending services with people? Vicky, there’s a pandemic.”

And Vicky said, “The Lord will protect me.”

“But are you wearing masks?” I asked.

“We don’t wear masks at church, Lucy. I have to wear one when I work, but at church we do not wear them. It’s the government trying to force us to do that, Lucy. And I know you think differently, but you are being fooled.”

I closed my eyes for a second and said, “Where are you getting your news from?”

She paused and then said, “Lucy, I have watched you on so many TV shows over the years, all those morning shows. And I believed them. I believed what I saw, but now I don’t anymore. It’s all baloney.”

This startled me, because—in a way—she was right. I had been struck by that increasingly over the years: that when I did a television show, how there was always something slightly false about it, the perkiness of the newscasters, the setting, the whole thing. And the fact that the station was always looking for what was called “a hook.”

Vicky went on. “I don’t watch television anymore. I don’t believe they are telling us the truth. They are telling us their truth to try and sway us in the wrong direction. I’m not going to tell you where I get my news, but that’s how I feel.”

I waited a moment and then I asked, “You joined this church two months ago, and you’re only now telling me?”

She said, “You’re wondering why I didn’t tell you? Honestly, Lucy, look at your response.”

I was suddenly tired, and I sat down again. “I didn’t mean to be rude,” I told her.

“Well, you were rude,” Vicky said. “But I forgive you.”

I asked if her husband and daughter Lila had joined the church as well. “They have,” Vicky said. “And it has made a lot of difference in our lives, I will tell you that. We used to not even eat together, but now we do every night, and we say grace, and it becomes a whole different experience.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “I’m glad to hear that you’re all eating together.”

Right before Vicky hung up, she said, “I’m praying for you, Lucy.”

“Thank you,” I said.



* * *



—

When I told William he just shrugged and said, “I hope it makes her happy.”



* * *





I still walked, once in the morning and again in the afternoon. The old man who sat on his front steps smoking—Tom—we became friendlier. A bush by the steps was tilting toward his head as he sat there one day. “Tom,” I said, “how are you?” And he said, “Doin’ okay, de-ah. How about you?” There was not much to talk about, and so we talked about how there was not much to talk about. Then he said, “How’re you liking the Winterbourne house?” And I said it was fine. His eyes went to the side for a moment, and when he looked back at me he said, “Well, I’m glad you’re there.” And then I suddenly understood that Bob Burgess might have been right about Tom putting that sign on our car months earlier, because of how Tom had specifically mentioned the Winterbourne place and the way his eyes had looked away for a moment. But I just said, “Well, thank you, Tom, that makes me glad.”

As I turned to walk away, Tom said to me, squinting his eyes against his cigarette smoke, “It makes my day to see you, de-ah. It always does.”

I told him it was the very same for me.





v


And then this happened:

Toward the end of June, Becka got the virus.

Chrissy called to tell me this; it was midafternoon, and I was just getting ready for my walk. William was out looking at the guard tower. Chrissy said: “Mom, listen and don’t freak out. Please.”

I said, “I won’t freak out, but tell me.”

And she told me that Becka had the virus; she had gotten it from Trey. Becka had gone back to Brooklyn to see him and they had sex. He said he had no idea that he had the virus, but he became sick the next day, and Becka became sick five days later.