Like Sweet Potato Pie (9 page)

Kyoko’s snores wheezed from Mom’s bedroom—a guest room now, while I claimed Mom’s extra bedroom as mine. I eased slippered feet into the kitchen, the sky shining a dull cloudy gray through the curtains. A chill sank through the house; cold rain had spattered during my early morning run through Crawford Manor’s empty neighborhood streets.

Christie stretched, toddling across the shiny floor like a ball of smoke.

I glanced nervously at Kyoko’s closed bedroom door then scribbled a note. An addendum to my detailed instructions to take Christie out two hundred times an hour, don’t let her eat the kitchen chairs, and so forth. I tucked it on the counter so she could find it after she’d had some tea—to minimize the impact and improve her mood first.

She’s going to hate you, Shiloh!

Or maybe jet lag will take over, and she’ll never figure it out.

I hesitated then kissed Christie good-bye and left her in the laundry room with her rubber chew toy. Floor well-papered with newspapers, and everything bite-able out of reach.

While Christie whined at the laundry-room door, I grabbed my purse and sunglasses. Slipped on bone-colored Jimmy Choo heels at the door, another beautiful remnant of the life I no longer had.

And backed out of the driveway, Bible on the passenger’s seat.

T
he church rose over the hills like a glimpse of sun, exactly as MapQuest predicted. I pulled into an empty parking space and turned off the car. Just sat there, wondering if I’d lost my marbles—like Kyoko already thought—by coming here. Mom had probably parked this same car, in this same parking space, and only a few irretrievable months separated us.

The sun hid again, and bitter wind tossed scarlet and brown leaves across the rain-wet parking lot. I shut the door and pulled my delicate sweater tighter around my soft ivory dress, the wispy bow trailing from my waist. Never in a million years did I guess, when I bought this combo at a trendy boutique in Shinjuku, that I’d wear it to a
church.

I accepted a bulletin at the door, the whiff of pungent coffee spreading warmth throughout an otherwise chilly foyer lined with photo-scattered bulletin boards. A man’s voice slipped through the sanctuary door—along with pale light from the stained-glass cross, dappling the carpet and wooden pew backs. Spilling nearly to my feet.

I slipped into the sanctuary with a faint squeak of the door, streaking those expensive heels with luminous color as the sun dazzled for a moment in the round glass. There, in the very back: a space on the blue-cushioned pew between a blond couple with a toddler gobbling fistfuls of Cheerios and an older African-American woman in yellow, all with plenty of room between us.

I wonder where Mom sat. I wonder what she wore.
My heart pounded as I sat down, dropping my purse and Bible and glancing around the large, airy sanctuary. Globe-shaped lights suspended from a vaulted wooden ceiling, its shiny beams a homey, comforting golden brown.

The sanctuary retained a crisp coolness, despite the warm lights and rows of people, but I unwound my scarf and placed it in a soft pile over my purse. I wrinkled my nose, smelling new carpet and a hint of flowers from the altar. Chrysanthemums. Golden orange and sweetly pungent. I knew their smell.

I dropped my head, fingering a ring and trying not to think about the yellow spider chrysanthemums that covered Mom’s casket, tendrils quivering in the summer breeze.

The man in front—who wore khakis and an open-collared shirt, not the full suit I expected to see at a pulpit—stepped down. Piano and violin music streamed, and I groped for Mom’s Bible, turning my head from side to side to catch someone’s movements.

No, I need a hymnal, not a Bible to sing, right?
But I saw none, except a blue book tucked in a pocket of the pew in front of me. Nope. Another Bible.

People stood, and I followed them.
Should I try to find a hymnal? Should I sing? What should I do?
My clenched fingers, white on the bulletin, relaxed as the yellow-clad woman pointed to the overhead screen, on which song lyrics suddenly appeared. Oh. Easy. Okay. More modern than I’d expected.

As the music swelled, I forgot my nerves. Simply listened. And, for the first time in my life, hesitantly opened my mouth and sang with the others. About Jesus. How He died for our sins, and He is everything we need.

Strange words, but enchanting—calling my name in the same beautiful tone as Mom’s journal. Wrapping around my heart like warm arms, filling the empty spaces.

All of a sudden, I needed Faye, my second mom. Needed Becky and Tim. I should have told them to expect me. Should have … I don’t know. Done more than throw on a dress.

“Excuse me,” I whispered to the woman in yellow. “You don’t happen to know Tim and Becky Donaldson, do you?”

Without missing a beat, she put her arm around me and pointed.

“Thank you,” I whispered back, returning her hug and gathering my purse. And I fled headlong to the space.

When I slid in beside them, Tim nearly bowled over a pewmate with his double take. He slapped me with a high five and hugged me, rattling my teeth.

“Well, I’ll be!” Tim hooted. He forgot about the music, grinning so much his cheeks nearly split. Scooted his Bible and stuff to hastily make a space. “Welcome to our church, Shah-loh, and to the people a God!”

People turned and stared, chuckled at Tim, and I ducked my head. Becky just sniffled and smiled and tried to sing then dug in her purse for some tissues. I looped my arm around her shoulders, and hers around mine, and lost myself in the glorious music that had somehow become my very own song.

“I know somebody who’s gonna be real excited,” Becky whispered, beaming through her tears.

“Huh?” I bent closer.

And then a few rows up on the opposite side, I saw a head turn. Tall and sandy blond, dressed in a crisp blue dress shirt and tie. Arm on the shoulder of a kid who looked like Todd Carter—the little guy who stole my heart when I doled out medications for Rick while Adam rushed their dad to the emergency room with a broken arm.

Yep. That’s my life. One ridiculous crisis after another.

Blue eyes swept across the congregation in midsong and then did a double take when they met mine. Adam faltered and dropped his arm. He turned partially then whispered something to Todd, who grinned and waved.

I wish I could have preserved what I saw in that shock of blue—the thousand emotions, the curiosity, and then a surprising warmth.

I waved back to Todd then glanced away. Pretending not to notice Adam’s hands clench slightly against the pew back then brush nervously through his hair.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whispered to Becky.

“Huh?” She put a hand on her hip. Mocking me.

Adam had turned back to the screen, but in the next second I saw another flash of blue. Asking.

I nodded. And a slight flush rose in his face before the smile covered it.

I could hardly look at Adam after the service. My head floated, full of the sermon, in which Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life. How He offered His broken body on our behalf. How Adam and Eve sinned by taking the first bite, but we could partake of Christ and never go hungry again.

Hunger I knew. I’d never forget digging under lockers in the elementary school hallway, starving and hoping for enough change to buy a candy bar. Mom out with her cults again, forgetting to pack me a lunch or leave food in the apartment. I’d learned to make do with powdered Jell-O packets and canned corn, and sometimes filed through the soup kitchen line at St. John’s homeless shelter.

But a different hunger gnawed in me these past years: anxiety, hurt, anger. Wondering if my drive and accomplishments could fill me, could make me forget my past and give me the love I’d always wanted.

Bread of Life!
Rockets fired off in my head.

“So yer gonna do that beginner’s Sunday school class with Pastor Davis?” Becky stood next to me, pink leather Bible in one hand. And a camouflage-patterned cloth Bible cover snapped over it.

“His first name’s not Jefferson, is it?”

“Jefferson Davis?” Becky laughed and slapped the pew. “Like the president a the Confederacy? Shucks, that’s a good’n, Shah-loh! The pastor’s name’s Matt. Real nice guy. Former army chaplain an’ pro ball player, an’ his wife …”

But I didn’t feel like meeting anybody. I needed to think. To drive. To be alone with my thoughts and sort through the surfacing questions, like shredded blossoms bobbing in a Japanese pool after the rain.

And to think of how to break the news to Kyoko, who would chalk one more tick onto her lunatic collection. “A religious nut job,” she’d call me. “So you’re gonna marry a truck driver and start pumping out bucktoothed kids?”

Kyoko didn’t scare me.

But Kyoko being right
did.

While Becky yakked with somebody, laughing and tugging on Tim’s arm, I glanced down at my sleek Jimmy Choos and designer dress. A Versace bracelet sparkling on my wrist.

I felt like a fake, a fraud. I didn’t belong here, with Tim’s striped Western-style dress shirt and polished cowboy boots. Southern accents and hand slaps twanging over the pews like Confederate bullets.

I’m a Yankee snob, for crying out loud! Not a redneck denizen of the Bible Belt!

Then I noticed my nails. Clipped short and hastily slapped with cheap pinky-beige CVS nail polish, already chipping around the edges from hot dishwater and too many hand washings.

My longer-than-usual strand of brown hair curling down over my shoulder, coarse from cheap drugstore hair products and not enough time and money for expensive cuts. My old socialite friends would frown and cluck their arrogant tongues.

Fine. Let them. I didn’t want to be them anyway.

Not now. Not after Jesus.

But as I stood and awkwardly shook hands with somebody, not hearing my own words, I realized one thing: I didn’t know who I was anymore.

Where do I fit, God? Who am I supposed to be?

The last time Kyoko saw me, my face kept a stone-like mask over Mom’s death; I neither cried nor prayed. I knew no more about Jesus than biophysics, and I didn’t care to. I could build my own kingdom, thank you very much.

The kind of kingdom Adam’s brother Rick called
dust.
Because when I scooped it up, it crumbled and sifted through my fingers like cool Virginia soil.

Dust. Ashes. Death.
I felt light-headed, like when I first heard about Mom’s brain aneurysm back in Japan. I shouldn’t have brought up death.

The scent of Mom’s Avon perfume in its yellow globe mixed with funeral lilies and chrysanthemums crowded in my head as I glanced around at the sanctuary where she once sat. Once laughed, once flipped through these same Bible pages, finger on the black-and-red lines.

Before I knew her.

And now I never would.

My stomach suddenly roiled. Becky reached out to introduce me to someone, but instead I bolted for the door.

The main aisle out of the sanctuary crawled with strangers—albeit noisy, happy, laughing strangers—but I didn’t feel like seeing anyone. I opened another door and pushed deeper into the heart of the church, finding myself in a gigantic gym, people milling around and voices echoing loudly over the high, white ceiling, which crisscrossed with bars and echoing voices. A couple with too many kids blocked the door to the parking lot.