Sing You Home: A Novel Read online

  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, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

  It’s from 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, and to me it’s a pretty clear comment on God’s opinion of a gay lifestyle. I open my mouth to tell Zoe this, but instead, what I say is “But you were with me.” Because the two must be, have to be, mutually exclusive.

  Elkin pounds on his side of the pickup, so that I will unlock it and let him get out of the rain. I push the button on the keypad and hear his door open and close, but I still stand there, stunned by Zoe’s revelation.

  There are so many layers to the paralysis I feel that I can barely begin to count them. Shock, for what she’s told me. Disbelief, because I cannot believe she was faking her relationship with me for nine years. And pain, because even though we are not married now, I can’t stand the thought of her being left behind when Christ comes back. I wouldn’t wish that horror on anyone.

  Elkin honks the horn, startling me. “Well,” Zoe says with a little half smile, the kind that used to make me fall for her on a daily basis. She turns and sprints back toward the awning of the grocery store, where Vanessa is waiting with the cart.

  As she runs, her pocketbook slips off her shoulder and catches in the hook of her elbow. As Zoe starts to push their cart into the parking lot, Vanessa adjusts the purse, so it sits where it belongs.

  It’s a casual, intimate gesture. The same kind of thing, once, I would have done for Zoe.

  I can’t tear my eyes away as they unload the groceries into the back of an unfamiliar car—a vintage convertible. I keep staring at my newly gay ex-wife although I am getting drenched to the core, although this rain keeps me from seeing her clearly.

  Because the Eternal Glory Church makes its home in the auditorium of a middle school, the actual offices are in a different location. It’s a small former law office in a strip mall that adjoins a Dunkin’ Donuts. There is a waiting area with a receptionist, a copy machine/break room with a small table and a minifridge and coffeemaker, a chapel, and Pastor Clive’s office.

  “You can go in now,” says Alva, his secretary. She is small and bent like a question mark, with a sparse dusting of white pin curls on her scalp. Reid jokes that she’s been here since the Flood, but there’s a part of me that thinks he might be right.

  Pastor Clive’s office is warm and worn, with floral couches and an abundance of plants and a bookshelf filled with inspirational texts. A lectern holds an oversize, open Bible. Behind the desk is a huge painting of Jesus riding a phoenix as it rises from the ashes. Pastor Clive once told me that Christ had come to him in a dream and told him that his ministry would be like that of the mythical bird, that it would soar from a cesspool of immorality into grace. The next morning he’d gone out and had the artwork commissioned.

  The pastor is bent over a spider plant that has seen better days. The tips of all the leaves are brown and brittle. “No matter how much I take care of this little baby,” he says, “she always seems to be dying.”

  I step up to the plant and stick my finger into the soil to check the hydration. “Does Alva water it?”

  “Faithfully.”

  “With tap water, I’m guessing. Spider plants are sensitive to the chemicals in tap water. If you switch to distilled water, and trim off the tips of the leaves, everything will go back to a healthy, normal green.”

  Pastor Clive smiles at me. “You, Max, are a true gift.”

  At his words, I feel like there’s a fire glowing inside me. I’ve screwed up so much in my life that hearing praise is still a rarity. He leads me to the couch on the far side of the room and offers me a seat and then a bowl of licorice. “Now,” he says, “Alva tells me you were pretty upset on the phone.”

  I don’t know how to say what I need to say—I only know that I have to say it. And the person I’d normally confide in, Reid, has got his own problems right now. Liddy’s better, but she’s by no means a hundred percent.

  “I can assure you,” Pastor Clive says gently, “your brother and Liddy are going to come through this latest challenge even stronger than they were before. God’s got a plan for them, even if He hasn’t seen fit to let us in on the secret yet.”

  Hearing the pastor talk about the miscarriage makes me squirm—I should be praying for my brother, not wallowing in m