Release(11)

“I said–” she ruthlessly cropped an uncooperative chrysanthemum– “I don’t know why you always need to make such a big production out of it. It’s just a run.”

“What?”

She made a series of honking sounds so ugly, it took him a second to realize she was making fun of his breathing. “It’s just a jog around town,” she said. “It’s not like you finished a marathon.”

Adam swallowed once. “Marty got a girl pregnant.”

She didn’t even consider believing him. “Oh, drama, drama, drama. One day, you’ll grow up, baby boy, and we’ll all–”

“He’s telling you and Dad this weekend. They’re going to get married and live in housing the school provides for families.”

She opened her mouth to respond, then closed it, then opened it again. “I don’t like this kind of story, Adam. You think it’s very amusing, but in the end, it’s just a lie. And about your brother.”

“Speak of the devil,” Adam said, “and in he drives.” For indeed, with timing so perfect he could have laughed, there was Marty’s truck, cresting the gully behind him.

His mom was severe now. “This isn’t funny, Adam.”

“No. I don’t suppose it is. I don’t know where he’s going to get the money to raise a baby and pay for his last year of school. Not with how strapped we are for cash right now.”

They watched Marty pull to a stop. He looked out at their faces, trying to figure out how much trouble he was in. It was probably this that made it start to sink in for his mother.

“Katya?” she almost whispered.

“Nope,” Adam said, turning his music back on and heading inside before all the shouting started.

He went straight to the shower, but within moments, he could hear them, even under the pouring water. His mother, mainly, wailing – there was really no other word for it – though possibly only because here was an opportunity to have a good wail rather than that she was genuinely that upset.

Marty came and pounded on the door of the bathroom. “Why?” he shouted through it. “Why, bro?”

Adam just laced his hands behind his neck and stuck his head under the torrent.

Why indeed?

His chest still burned, so much he couldn’t tell where the anger stopped and the wound began. Because there was always a wound, it seemed, kept freshly opened by a family who also kept saying they loved him.

This was a day for crying, he knew that already, with Enzo leaving at the end of it. But not now. No. He wouldn’t.

They sure did know where to shoot the arrow, though.

Because what if they were right? What if there was something wrong with him? What if, on some level, way down deep inside, right down to the very simplest, purified form of who he was, what if he was corrupted? What if there was some tiny, tiny fault in the first building blocks of who he was, and everything since that first moment of life was just papering over an essential crack? And he was just a carapace built on a facade built on scaffolding and there was no real core to him, no real central worth? At all?

Can I love? he thought. Can I?

Can I be loved?

He finished the shower, dried himself, and – making sure Marty had left – snuck down the hall to his bedroom. He changed into his uniform for the Evil International Mega-Conglomerate – polyester, of course, but with some actual tailoring; the Evil International Mega-Conglomerate didn’t want to make its customers uncomfortable by having them think they were being assisted by the poor – and picked up his keys, an outfit to change into at Linus’s, and his phone.

He hesitated, then messaged, Sorry for telling them, bro. But you need to say sorry, too.

He sent it and tapped another name. Marty got a girl pregnant, he messaged. Not even kidding.

WHAT?!?! Angela messaged back. Did he even READ Judy Blume?

Things are kinda hairy over here. My mom is wailing.

You’re so lucky. My parents never get upset about anything.

He smiled to himself, but only because he knew he was supposed to, that this was what he’d been asking for. He didn’t feel it, though.

He waited and listened, trying to guess the right moment to slip out of the house without anybody seeing him.





EVIL INTERNATIONAL MEGA-CONGLOMERATE





The simple fact of it was that the Thorns were poorer than they looked. The house – chrysanthemums included – was owned by the church for tax reasons, and the Thorns, as the job’s best perk, paid no rent on it. But nor did they own it, so they couldn’t borrow against it to pay for things like Marty’s and, presumably, Adam’s upcoming tuition. Plus, the salary from The House Upon The Rock took into account the home as a benefit and was surprisingly not very much at all.

The situation was apparently different at The Ark of Life, Frome’s largest evangelical church. It wasn’t a rival to The House Upon The Rock – for how could churches be rivals, perish the thought, we’re all doing God’s Work – but Big Brian Thorn had competitiveness down to his bones. His years at The House Upon The Rock had been one long, unsuccessful plan to topple The Ark in both attendance and holiness in the God’s Work team standings.

But it was still Ark Pastor Terry “The Hair” LaGrande and his wife Holly-June who had four congregations of a thousand-plus each stretching over even Saturday night. It was Terry and Holly-June whose sermons on the Prosperity Gospel didn’t sound hollow because they drove a gold Mercedes. It was Terry and Holly-June who had three perfect brunette daughters, the eldest of whom had signed a recording contract with a contemporary Christian music label and was just about to release her first song, “Single Ladies (For Jesus)”.