The Dark Divine(7)

“See!” April pinched my arm. “I told you he likes you.”

Jude playfully punched April in the arm. “So are you coming this time?”

April’s cheeks flared red. “Uh … no. I can’t.” Little splotches of crimson spread from her face to her ears. “I, uh, I, have to …”

“Work?” I offered.

I knew from experience that no amount of coaxing was going to get her to come. April was absolutely mortified that Jude would think she was just a tagalong. Even getting her to occasionally eat lunch at the café with Jude and me was as difficult as taking a dog to the vet.

“Work … Yeah, um, that.” April hitched her pink JanSport backpack up on her shoulder. “I’ve gotta get going. See you later,” she said, and scurried off to the main doors.

“She’s … interesting,” Jude said as he watched her leave.

“Yep, that she definitely is.”

“So …” Jude looped his arm around my shoulder, leading me through a throng of sophomores toward the exit. “Tell me more about this date.”

“It’s not a date.”





AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER




“Pastor D-vine is truly an angel of the Lord,” Don Mooney said in awe as he scanned the jam-packed social hall of the parish. There were boxes upon boxes of food and clothing—and Jude and I were in charge of sorting through all of them. “I hope you still need these.” Don adjusted the large box of tuna cans in his arms. “I got them from the market, and I even remembered to pay for them this time. You can call Mr. Day if you want. But if you don’t need them …”

“Thank you, Don,” Jude said. “Every donation helps, and we especially need high-protein foods like tuna. Right, Grace?”

I nodded and tried to pack one last coat into the bulging box marked MEN’S. I gave up and dropped it into a half-empty women’s box.

“And it was good of you to remember to pay Mr. Day,” Jude said to Don.

A huge grin spread across Don’s face. He was as big as a grizzly, and his smile resembled a snarl. “You kids are truly D-vine. Just like your father.”

“We do no more than anyone else,” Jude said in that diplomatic voice he picked up from Dad that let him be humble but contradict someone at the same time. He grunted as he tried to lift the box out of Don’s burly arms. “Wow, you brought a lot of tuna.”

“Anything to help the D-vines. God’s angels, you are.”

Don wasn’t the only one who treated our family like a group of celestial beings. Dad always said the pastor over at New Hope taught from the same good book as he did, but most everyone wanted to hear the gospel from Pastor Divine.

What would they think if they knew our last name used to be Divinovich? My great-great-grandfather had changed his surname to Divine when he immigrated to America, and my great-grandpa found it came in handy when he joined the clergy.

I often found it a hard name to live up to.

“Well, how about I let you carry that box out back.” Jude clapped Don on the arm. “You can help us load the truck for the shelter.”

Don paraded his hefty box through the social hall with his trademark snarl/grin on his face. Jude picked up my box of men’s coats and followed him out the back door.

My shoulders relaxed once Don was gone. He was always lurking around the parish “wanting to help,” but I usually tried to avoid him. I wouldn’t tell my dad or brother this, but I still felt uneasy around Don. I couldn’t help it. He reminded me of Lenny from Of Mice and Men—the way he was kind of slow and well meaning but could snap your neck with one movement of his baseball-mitt-sized hands.

I still couldn’t shake the memory of the violence that lived in those hands.

Five years ago, Jude and I (and that person whose name starts with a D and ends in an aniel) were helping Dad clean up the sanctuary when Don Mooney stumbled through the chapel doors for the first time. Dad greeted him nicely despite his dirty clothes and sour stench, but Don grabbed my father and pulled a tarnished knife to his throat, demanding money.

I was so scared I almost broke my cardinal “Grace does not cry” rule. But Dad never faltered—even when blood started to roll down his neck. He pointed up at the big stained-glass balcony windows that depicted Christ knocking on a wooden door. “Ask and ye shall receive,” he said, and promised to help Don get what he really needed: a job and a place to live.

It wasn’t long before Don became Dad’s most devoted parishioner. Everyone else seemed to have forgotten the way we met him. But I couldn’t.

Did that make me the only Divinovich in a family full of Divines?





EVENING




“I don’t know what to tell you, Grace.” Pete lowered the hood of my father’s decade-and-a-half-old, teal-green Toyota Corolla. “I think we’re stranded.”

I wasn’t at all surprised when the car didn’t start up again. Charity and I regularly lobbied for my parents to get rid of the Corolla and buy a new Highlander, but Dad always shook his head and said, “How would it look if we got a new car when this one runs fine?” Of course, Dad meant “runs” in a relative sort of way. As in, if you said a heartfelt prayer and promised the Lord to use the car to help the needy, it usually started on the third or fourth turn of the ignition. But this time I wasn’t sure if even divine intervention could get the car moving.