Revival Season - Monica West (10 ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Papa pulled in front of a tiny brick building with only a narrow white steeple to identify it as a church. It was much smaller than the churches we were accustomed to visiting. He took a long glance at the parking lot with only a few dozen spaces and released a sigh that sounded like it had built up over the entire ride.

“Here we are,” Papa announced in a flat tone before getting out of the car.

Through the windows, we watched a large, dark-skinned man with a swollen belly that protruded over the top of his pants approach Papa. They embraced in an awkward hug; then the man looked over Papa’s shoulder and pointed to the car where we all sat. As he lifted his arms to beckon us, two oblong stains darkened the armpits of his dress shirt. We tumbled out of the van: first Caleb, then my mother, then eight-year-old Hannah, then me.

We followed Reverend Davenport into the claustrophobic sanctuary of the New Rock Baptist Church, where three rows of folding chairs faced a raised pulpit. Behind the altar, an ornate gold cross was situated between two paintings of the crucifixion.

“Thanks so much for inviting us.” Papa scanned his surroundings, probably comparing this sanctuary to the cavernous ones of last year’s circuit. “This is my wife, Joanne; my son, Caleb; and my daughters, Miriam and Hannah.”

Ma handed Hannah over to me—I folded my arms around Hannah’s chest and felt her fragile rib cage like so many bowed toothpicks, her rapid heartbeat, her body’s metronomic perpetual motion. Ma stepped in Papa’s long shadow to meet the reverend, but he looked past her to Caleb. Ma, Hannah, and I were barely a blip on his radar.

We followed the reverend to the fellowship hall, where a platter of fried chicken, a bowl of mashed potatoes, and a plate of crisp string beans were arranged on a long table. Reverend Davenport dipped his chin ever so slightly. I couldn’t even tell that he was praying until I heard his soft words. “Lord, bless these gifts that we receive for the nourishment of our bodies and the building of Your kingdom. Amen.”

We sat down to eat. The food was passed in silence, first to Papa and Caleb, then to the reverend. When my mother received the platter, she carefully selected a breast—not too small, not too big. When it was finally my turn, I selected a drumstick for Hannah before reaching back on the platter for my piece.

“Don’t take too much,” Ma whispered as I selected a thigh. She yanked the plate from me before I could get another piece and nodded at Papa. I gnawed on the crispy skin as Reverend Davenport pulled Papa aside during the meal. They walked to the far wall and stood below an oil painting of the Last Supper. I pretended to study the Apostles as I tried to hear what they were whispering. Reverend Davenport drew invisible shapes in the air with his index finger. He shielded his mouth with his hand as they talked, but snatches of the conversation about money and revenue and how to bring the most people to Christ rode the air back to me. Reverend Davenport was saying something about healing when his gaze found my face, and I hurried to shift my stare to the translucent grease spots that the chicken had left behind on my plate. But I was too late, my eyes too slow in their sockets to change course.

“You’re curious, aren’t ya?” He said it like a joke, but it wasn’t—the emphasis on curious made sure of that. I kept my eyes fixed on my plate; when I looked up, my mother’s eyes were once again narrowing, this time at me.

“We’ve had a long drive. Do you think that you could show us to the house? Then you and my husband could have some quiet time to talk. Alone.” My mother spoke up with a mouthful of partially chewed chicken. I thanked her with a sheepish glance that she didn’t return.

Before Reverend Davenport could respond, a thin, light-skinned woman appeared from the kitchen adjacent to the fellowship hall. She wiped her hands on an apron and offered to walk us back to where we would be staying for the weeklong revival.

“I’m Frieda Davenport,” she said when we got outside. She shook hands with Ma. As they walked beside each other, Ma’s short stride quickened to keep pace with Mrs. Davenport. With each step, Ma’s knee-highs slid farther down her calves and pooled around her ankles above the scuffed flats that she always wore on long trips. Hannah and I trudged through the grass several yards behind them.

For most revivals, they put us in a mobile home or a small house attached to the church, but Mrs. Davenport opened the door to a house so new that it still smelled like plywood and drywall. Hannah broke free of my grip and dropped to her knees, her knotted hands running along the hardwood floor in a back-and-forth motion, the corners of her mouth lifting into the closest thing to a smile she could manage.

“I’m glad someone noticed the floor we just had done,” Mrs. Davenport said. “Reverend Davenport ordered it all the way from Chattanooga.”

Chattanooga. The Sunday school kids back in Texas had likely never been to Chattanooga and probably couldn’t even point it out on a map, but we’d driven through it last summer on our way to a weeklong revival at City of Eternal Hope Baptist Church. I remembered how the heavy air seeped into the walls of the tent, and how Papa had converted 218 souls in that seven-day period, more than any other revival in the church’s history.

I unzipped my duffel bag in the room I would share with Hannah. Hannah’s clothes were always easy to fit into the top drawer—small T-shirts with logos of zoo animals, long skirts in earth tones, and knee socks that covered