Sing You Home Read online

  A half hour later, we've almost finished the popcorn. When the tarantula is finally electrocuted and falls, I turn to find tears running down Liddy's face.

  I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know she's crying.

  "Max," she asks. "Can we watch it again?"

  There's the obvious benefit to joining a church like Eternal Glory--being saved. But there's another advantage, too, and that's being rescued. Unlike finding Jesus, which is like a strike of lightning, this is much more subtle. It's the elderly lady who shows up at Reid's door the week after I go to church for the first time, with a banana bread to welcome me into the congregation. It's my name on a prayer list when I have the flu. It's putting up my plowing flyer on the church message board and finding all the little tags with my phone number ripped off within days by Eternal Glory folks who like to support their own. I wasn't just born again, I was given a large, extended family.

  Pastor Clive is the father I wish I'd had growing up--one who understands that I may have stumbled in the past but who sees endless possibility. Instead of focusing on everything I've done wrong in my life, he celebrates the things I've done right. He took me out to an Italian restaurant last week to celebrate my third month of sobriety; he has gradually given me more and more responsibility in the church--from being called on to do a reading during a Sunday service to this afternoon's shopping adventure for our annual church chicken pie supper.

  It is just past three-thirty, and Elkin and I are each manning a grocery cart at the Stop & Shop. This isn't where I usually get my food, but the owner is a member of Eternal Glory and gives Pastor Clive a discount and, even more important, has agreed to donate the chicken for free.

  We have loaded our carts with piecrust mix and frozen peas and carrots, and we are waiting in line at the butcher counter to get the chicken that's been reserved for us when I hear a familiar voice. When I turn, I see Zoe reading the label on a jar of Caesar salad dressing. "I think there should be new nutrition guidelines," she says to another woman. "No fat; low fat; reduced fat; and fat, but with a great personality."

  The woman she's with plucks the Caesar dressing from Zoe's hand. She puts it back on the shelf and picks up a vinaigrette instead. "And I think pudding should be its own food group," she says, "but we can't always get what we want."

  "I'll be right back," I tell Elkin, and I walk toward Zoe. Her back is to me, so I tap her on the shoulder. "Hey."

  She turns and breaks into a wide smile. She looks relaxed and happy, as if she's spent a lot of time laughing lately. "Max!" She gives me a hug.

  I pat her awkwardly. I mean, are you supposed to hug back the woman you divorced? The woman she's shopping with--who's taller, a little younger, with a boyish haircut--has her lips pressed tightly together in what's supposed to be a smile. I hold out my hand. "I'm Max Baxter."

  "Oh!" Zoe says. "Max, this is . . . Vanessa."

  "Nice to meet you."

  "Look at you, all dressed up with nowhere to go." Zoe playfully pulls on my black tie. "And you got rid of your cast."

  "Yeah," I say. "Just a brace now."

  "What are you doing here?" Zoe asks, and then she rolls her eyes. "Well, obviously I know what you're doing here . . . there's only one reason to come to the grocery store . . ."

  "You'll have to excuse her," Vanessa says. "She gets this way when she's had too many cups of coffee in the morning . . ."

  "Yeah," I say quietly. "I know."

  Vanessa looks from Zoe to me and then back to Zoe again. I'm not sure why, but she looks a little pissed off. If she's Zoe's friend, surely she knows I'm her ex-husband; I can't imagine why anything I've said might have upset her. "I'm just going to grab the produce," Vanessa says, backing away. "It's very nice to meet you."

  "Same here." Zoe and I watch her walk away toward the organic section. "Remember the time you decided to go a hundred percent organic and our grocery bill quadrupled for the week?" I ask.

  "Yeah. I stick to the organic grapes and lettuce now," she replies. "Live and learn, right?"

  It's a weird thing, divorce. Zoe and I were together for almost a decade. I fell in love with her, I slept with her, I wanted a family with her. There was a time--albeit long ago--when she knew me better than anyone else in the world. I don't want to talk to her about food. I want to ask her how we got from dancing at our own wedding to standing three feet apart from each other in a grocery aisle making small talk.

  But Elkin appears with his cart. "Man, we're good to go." He jerks his chin at Zoe. "Hi."

  "Zoe, this is Elkin. Elkin, Zoe." I look at her. "We're having a church supper tonight--chicken pie. All homemade. You ought to come."

  Something freezes behind her features. "Yeah. Maybe."

  "Well then." I smile at her. "It's good to see you."

  "You, too, Max." She pushes her cart past me and goes to join Vanessa near the Swiss chard. I see them arguing, but I am too far away to hear anything they are saying.

  "Let's go," Elkin says. "The ladies' auxiliary gets really steamed when we don't get the ingredients back on time."

  The whole time Elkin is loading the items onto the conveyor belt of the checkout counter, I am trying to figure out what didn't seem quite right about Zoe. I mean, she looked great, and she sounded happy. She obviously had found friends to hang out with, just like I had. And yet there was something off the mark, something that I could not put my finger on. As the cashier scans the items, I find myself glancing at the aisles behind us, for another glimpse of Zoe.

  We head to my truck and start loading the groceries into the flatbed. It's started to pour. "I'll bring the cart back," Elkin yells, and he pushes it toward one of the receptacle cages two rows behind us. I am about to get into my truck when I am stopped by Zoe.

  "Max!" She's run out of the grocery store, her hair flying out behind her like the tail of a kite. Rain pelts her face, her sweater. "There's something I need to tell you."

  On our fifth date, we had gone camping in the White Mountains with a tent I'd borrowed from a guy whose lawn I cared for. But it was dark by the time we arrived and we wound up missing the campsite and just going off into the woods to pitch our tent. We'd crawled into our little space, zipped it shut, and had just about managed to get undressed when the tent collapsed on us.

  Zoe had burst into tears. She'd curled up in a ball on the muddy ground, and I'd put my hand on her shoulder. It's okay, I'd said, although that was a lie. I couldn't make the rain stop. I couldn't fix this. She'd rolled over and looked at me, and that's when I realized that she was laughing, not crying. She was laughing so hard she couldn't catch her breath.

  I think that was the moment I really knew I wanted to be with her for the rest my life.

  Every time Zoe cried after she found out she wasn't pregnant, I always looked twice, hoping it would turn out to be something other than tears. Except it wasn't.

  I don't know why I'm thinking of that right now, as the rain straightens her hair and sets off the light in her eyes. "That woman I'm with," Zoe says, "Vanessa. She's my new partner."

  When we were married, Zoe was always talking about how hard it was to find people who understood that music therapy is a valid tool for healing, how nice it would have been to have a community of therapists like she'd known when she was studying at Berklee. "That's great," I say, because it seems to be what she needs to hear. "You always wanted someone to go into business with."

  "You don't understand. Vanessa is my partner." She hesitates. "We're together."

  In that instant I realize what wasn't quite adding up for me inside the store. Zoe and this woman had been shopping with the same cart. Who goes grocery shopping together unless they share a refrigerator?

  I stare at Zoe, not sure what I am supposed to say. Building behind my eyes is a headache, and it comes with words:

  The wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves,