The Names They Gave Us(29)

My dad gives us a few moments of hanging on before he clears his throat. “Luce, I wanted to ask you. Would you play something to start the service?”

“Sure. Which hymn?”

“Oh, anything you feel like. Just something to wake people up.”

My mind leafs through the pages of the red Methodist hymnal I know so well. “Come, Thou Fount.”

He nods.

I breathe the chapel in like it’s a candle scent. Wood polish and dust, altar candles, and crisp leaves outside. My camp. The campers from Bethel Methodist in Ohio start to file in, and I wave at a few familiar faces from years past. They’re sleepy-eyed in rumpled T-shirts and swishy athletic shorts. It’s always felt so scandalous, to attend camp chapel in casual clothes.

My mom squeezes my arm before I take my spot at the piano. It’s old, a little more pang to the keys than I’d prefer, but I love that it gives each song a specific, Holyoke tenor.

“Good morning, Bethel campers and counselors!” my dad says from the platform. “Please turn to number 265 in the red hymnal in front of you.”

I play an intro and the first chords, nodding to cue the congregation. The chords are straightforward, but they sound too plodding to me. Too stale for such beautiful words. Tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing. The bass clef chords should be triads, but I break them on the second verse, pulling my fingers long across the keys. I coax my right hand into sixteenth notes like trotting footfalls—into a staccato, and then, next verse, fluid as violin bow strings. Every pounding chord is a plea, since I can’t seem to find the words or will to pray the way I should.

When I finally slam my hands into full chords, I press it all into the piano. The notes widen through the chapel. There’s a drama to it, a weight that resounds. I’m moving my shoulders, my head swaying, forcing out my sadness and frustration through my fingers. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. This is a fugue state; I’m not even fully here.

And when I sit back, music still ringing off the strings, my cheeks burn. I only play like that when I’m alone. Not when there are rows full of random Ohioans.

Someone in the pews sneezes. No one says, “Bless you.”

“Thank you, Lucy,” my dad says, looking back at me from the pulpit, “for that passionate rendition of an old favorite. That was . . . something.”

He’s smiling, but his eyes are unblinking, searching for why I almost went full-on Holy Ghost this early in the morning. I don’t know, Dad. I’m losing it. But, God help me—God literally help me—that’s the closest I’ve felt to faith in weeks.

I sit beside my mom in a back pew, too embarrassed to look at her. I don’t want to know what she’ll see.

“That was beautiful, Luce,” she whispers. She takes a sip from the big water bottle she has by her side. This is a new addition, and I file it away in my mind. I already hate being out of the loop on her treatment and side effects.

My dad preaches about the prophet Jonah, about miracles in the Bible, about where we see God today. Some of the younger kids fidget and whisper, and are scolded by camp counselors. But the older kids—my age and even a bit younger—scribble notes in their journals. I watch the back of their heads, bobbing at the finer points of my dad’s sermon.

And I’m jealous—disgustingly, hotly jealous. My heart aches like the sore muscle it is. I covet their innocence, their easy belief. They trust the world; they trust God. They see Him everywhere. Like I did, my whole life, and I didn’t even know to appreciate how good I had it.

After the service, my mom leans in. “Let’s have breakfast at the cabin, yeah?”

I say good-bye to my dad, who will drive an hour home to our church for the ten-thirty service. My mom and I walk back, just the two of us, as she tells me about the hospital visit. The way she describes it, she might as well have been at bridge club, chatting with the other women hooked up to IVs. I assume the positivity is for my benefit. She gathers up some fruit in a big bowl, and we take our tea out to the porch.

She settles into her Adirondack chair, plucking a prune out of the bowl. It is beyond me why she thought that belonged with green grapes and strawberries. “So. Tell me about your week.”

“Well,” I say. “I’m exhausted, for starters.”

“Are you drinking enough water? Getting enough sleep?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Are you sure? Are you regular? Here, eat a few prunes. They’ll—”

“Mom. I’m fine. Although sharing a bathroom is the worst.”

“Ha,” she says.

It’s not rational, but I wanted her genuine pity—even for something so stupid. Because I can’t tell her about the ache I felt, watching the counselors go off on Friday night without me. I huff out a breath, annoyed. “I don’t fit in there, Mom.”

“In the bathroom?” She smiles.

“Don’t joke.”

The expression drops. “I’m sorry. Why do you say that?”

“I just . . . don’t belong. I’m too different from them.”

“Different how?” She’s genuinely perplexed.

“I don’t know. But I am.” It seems too dorky to admit that I cringe when my fellow counselors mutter “Jesus” like a swearword. That my face flushed when Tambe made a sex joke in the Bunker yesterday. Everyone else laughed and clearly got the punch line, which I’m not totally sure I did.