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

me about any of this?” he growled. “I’ve been doing this work longer than you’ve been alive. You know nothing about what it takes to make a successful revival. There are months of planning—years—behind every minute that you get to witness.” He raised his arms to emphasize his point; his hands inched closer to my face, and I slid away from where I stood between him and the door, backing toward the railing.

“So don’t you dare question me. I have nothing to explain to you. Nothing.” On his final word, he swung a fist in my direction. I leaped back, out of range, landing with my back against the railing’s vertical bars. I cowered with hands in front of my face as he came closer, unable to get to my unsteady feet. I will never hurt you; I will never hurt you played on repeat in my head. His eyes were closed as his hands swung in the emptiness. He couldn’t have been fighting with me because his punches whizzed in the air, faster and with more force, with none of them landing anywhere close to me.

When he finally opened his eyes, he looked around in the darkness as though expecting to see something, but his head flinched at a lone mosquito that sailed in front of his face. He finally looked back at the ground, and his face collapsed as he saw me in a pile, my knees to my chest, my arms around my knees. But a moment later, he straightened to his fullest height and slid his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. Only when they were back on his face did he seem to realize where he was.

A door clicked—I tried to scramble to my feet, but they wouldn’t grip. Caleb stepped outside, rubbing his eyes with his fists. He furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at me on the ground and back up at Papa.

“What’s going on?” Caleb reached out an arm to yank me to my feet.

“Nothing. We were just talking.” Papa spoke up even though Caleb was still only looking at me.

“It sounded like you were arguing.”

“Miriam had a misunderstanding.”

“There was no misunderstanding.” My steady right hand against the railing belied the wobble in my knees. My voice came out strong, clear of the cottony fuzziness that had been in my head. Papa stared at me, but he wouldn’t do anything in front of Caleb.

“It’s late. We should get some sleep. We can talk about it in the morning.”

Papa slid his key card into the reader and slipped inside. Caleb and I stood in the hallway watching the bronze numbers—211—long after the door closed.

“Are you okay?” He finally asked when we both realized that Papa wasn’t coming back out to explain anything.

“Not really.”

“Where are you hurt?” He scanned the common places for physical injuries—elbows, knees.

“I’m not hurt like that.” How could I tell him that the hurt was in a place he couldn’t see? That only a couple of days before I still believed that Jesus Christ was Lord, Papa had the healing gift from the Holy Spirit, and we had to follow his lead. But those final two truths had been splitting themselves in my brain, like cells during mitosis. One truth became two possible truths, and then four, and then eight. By the time we arrived back in Texas next month, it would be impossible to know what was true anymore.

SIX

In the six remaining revivals after Bethel, I expected Papa to seem chastened, but rather than admit fault for anything that had happened, he told us that God was using this test to strengthen our faith. All the while, he raved about the end days in front of mostly empty tents in Tennessee and Oklahoma, becoming the corner preacher all over again. By the time we pulled into the garage back home with 3,253 new miles on the odometer, Papa stepped onto the driveway as a shell of his former self. We spilled out of the car, our feet desperate to be on familiar ground again. I slipped off my shoes and stood on the warm concrete. It was my ritual for returning home, even though the house didn’t look like the one we had left.

“Gather around,” Papa said to all of us, cupping the air with his arms to emphasize his statement. We circled him and knelt next to oil stains on the driveway. Papa bowed his head and we all followed suit.

“Lord, thank You for another successful revival season,” he began with a voice louder than normal. “Thank You for all the souls that You brought into the tents for deliverance, and thank You for the power You have given me to continue doing Your will.”

I opened my eyes to see Ma and Caleb nodding at Papa’s words as though their desire to believe him made what he was saying true. It was easier to accept things without questioning them, but wasn’t that just blind faith—the very thing Papa had preached against for so many years?

“Amen,” Papa said.

“Amen,” Ma and Caleb repeated in unison. I struggled to make the words pass through my clenched lips, but Papa didn’t seem to notice as he brushed the dirt from his pants and stood.

As they headed into the house, I dawdled outside for a few minutes before lying down on a patch of grass. A pillow of blades prickled my back as clouds churned above, evidence of the earth shifting even though I couldn’t feel its subtle movements. Then there was a darkening in my field of vision. Ma’s face entered my view, lines of concern etched on her forehead. A few seconds later, Hannah appeared next to her.

“What’s wrong?”

How could I tell her that I wasn’t okay when everyone else was? That I needed a bit of what she and Caleb had taken to forget what I had seen. Or maybe I just needed an extra dose of belief because that was always the