The Names They Gave Us(92)

“It’s okay, Bird,” my dad says quietly, and I can hear how insane I sound, offering up my organs. Offering up a stranger’s organs! But my knees threaten to buckle, loose hinges bending, bending. I wrap my hand around the inhaler in my pocket.

“We’re going to do everything we can,” the doctor says.

“Thank you. Please update us as soon as you can,” my dad says.

That’s it? I turn to stare at my dad in horror. I don’t know why a part of me expects him to fix this.

“Dad?” It’s a question and a plea, spoken in a whispered tone.

“Your mom knew it was a possibility. People do recover from it. She’s young and strong.” It sounds like he is reciting from something.

“I shouldn’t have left the room,” I whisper.

“It was easier for your mom that you weren’t there to see. I promise.” His tone is calm, but his face is ashen.

Rachel wipes her face, gesturing back into the room. “I’m just gonna pack up her things real quick. In case she can have them in the ICU.”

“Thanks, Rach. That helps.” He glances around, disoriented. “I should . . . I need to go to the chapel, I think . . .”

“I’ll stay in case there’s news,” she says.

I walk out beside him to the waiting room, where Anna jumps up first. The others stay seated, nervously trying to read our faces.

“Septic,” I whisper to her. “They’re moving her to the ICU.”

“Okay,” she says, nodding. “Okay.”

“If you could just excuse me,” my dad says thinly. “I . . . need to . . . uh, call Pastor Dana. While I have a moment. I’ll be right back.”

Anna keeps her arm around my shoulders as my dad hurries through the waiting room. It registers too late: he’s not calling Dana. Dana already knows my mom’s here.

“Dad,” I say, but not loud enough. The automatic exit doors slip open, swallowing him up.

“I’m just . . . I think I need to be with him,” I tell Anna.

“Yeah, go,” she says, clearly trying to read my expression. “We’ll be here.”

I follow my dad outside, into the fading daylight. I don’t want him to be alone any more than I want to be alone in this.

Sure enough, neither hand reaches for his phone as he walks to the car. I trail behind him because yelling seems too loud, too brash. This is a sadness for whispers.

I’m about to call out when he throws open the driver’s door. Where is he going? He wouldn’t leave me here. I stand on an island of mulch and saplings in the parking lot, staring from a distance. Something anchors me here, an inner voice insisting that I stay where I am.

And I watch as my father beats his hands against the steering wheel. He hits the roof of the car, slaps his palms at the windows—mouth open in wails I cannot hear.

I watch his teeth press fiercely against his lower lip and pull open into a swearword I can make out from here. He screams it, using all his air until his face turns red. His balled fists hit the dash again and then he leans over the wheel, shoulders heaving.

But I back away one step, then two. I won’t go comfort him. Because I know my dad, and he would never forgive himself for letting me see this. But I do see him. My dad—the pastor—is only a man. Staring down loss, and blinking.

Inside the car, he props his head against his hand. One last time, I see his mouth spit out the word—lips against teeth for the “f,” the guttural uhh of the vowel, the crisp “k.”

If I’m going to believe, it has to be in a God who would forgive my father for this word.

I have to believe in a God who knows how much my father loves my mother.

I have to believe in a God who would sit beside my father in that car, place His hand on my father’s back.

And maybe it took me until now—until this horrible moment—to realize, but I do.

I believe in nature, in science, in jazz, in dancing.

And I believe in people. In their resilience, in their goodness.

This is my credo; this is my hymn. Maybe it’s not enough for heaven, and maybe I’m even wrong. But if I can walk through the fire and, with blistered skin, still have faith in better days? I have to believe that’s good enough.

So I turn back inside, shoulders squared. Not because I’m Saint Lucy or Queen Lucy the Valiant or even particularly tough. Because I’m me, and I’m trying, and I have a family of friends who wrap around me like clouds. Because there are surely other names for grace, and mine are Mom, Dad. Rachel. Henry. Anna. Keely. Mohan. Rhea. Bryan. Lukas. Our congregation and my swim team and, somewhere, a half sister who might someday become a whole one.

In them, my sense of holiness only grows.

It’s not the Bible or the light bending through the church’s stained glass or the rafters filled with glorias. Although it is still those things.

It’s the white light that fills you, wide and glowing, expanding your seams. And maybe you find it in the smooth lake water or piano chords, so lost in them that you sway back and forth. In brassy hits of trumpet, playing until you pant, breathless. Maybe you find it somewhere beneath the tall pines, during a summer that changes everything. Or in an Airstream trailer on an open road that you earned. In every dance move that sets you free. In the hands that mend your split-open knuckles. In the people who teach you, who forgive you.