Chapter Forty-One
Iwas halfway through the battered screen door of our trailer when my father’s voice crackled behind me. “Where do you think you’re going dressed like that?”
My hand froze on the warped metal handle, the chilly air biting at my exposed legs.
I turned slowly into a hallway lit by a single bare bulb.
My father stood there in a crisp white shirt, sleeves iron-creased, dark slacks pressed into neat lines— already dressed for some solemn Saturday event.
Behind him, my stepmother hovered, smoothing phantom wrinkles from her dark floral skirt.
Her lips gleamed with fresh berry lipstick, and her curls were sprayed stiffly into place.
I frowned. “Morgan’s birthday party?”
My father’s expression shifted immediately into disappointment that made me feel twelve years old again.
“Lola,” he said slowly, “we signed you up for this a month ago. Please do not tell me you’ve forgotten your own baptism already.”
“Oh fuck,” I muttered. I had definitely forgotten.
My stepmother gasped softly, hand fluttering to her chest. “Language.”
“Sorry,” I muttered automatically, clicking my emerald fingernails together. “I just—I promised my friend I’d help her set up for her birthday party.”
My father crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, you promised Christ you’d get baptized, so.”
I stared at him.
The trailer hummed around us with familiar sounds—the electric heater wheezing as it tried to warm the small room, and that damn radio station.
“I was already baptized when we joined the church,” I said carefully. “Why do I have to do it again?”
My stepmother smiled the way people smiled at children asking stupid questions.
“Because you’re an adult now, honey. And you’re getting ready to go off to college.” She stepped closer, touching my arm gently. “It’s important to keep your faith about you during this period of your life.”
Faith. The word churned in my stomach.
What they meant was control. They could feel me slipping through their fingers already.
College. New people. New places. Less supervision.
They wanted to dunk me underwater in front of God and the congregation before I escaped Woodland entirely, like branding cattle before release.
So that no matter how far I ran, I’d still wear their mark.
A strange hysterical laugh almost climbed up my throat at the thought of August seeing this. August, who kissed me like prayer but looked at churches like haunted houses. I swallowed it down.
“Okay,” I sighed finally. “But can I still go to the party afterward?”
Even as I asked, my fingers were already moving across my phone screen drafting a text to Morgan.
Running late. Church thing. Be there asap.
My father gave me a look that immediately told me I’d asked the wrong question. “Pastor Spires wants to take you out to dinner after to celebrate,” he continued.
My stomach pitched further.
Then my stepmother clasped her hands together excitedly. “Oh, it’ll be so fun! Like a little triple date!”
Triple date. The phrase nearly made me physically recoil.
I pictured myself squeezed into a booth beside Andy while Pastor Spires smiled benevolently over cheap steak and sweet tea.
The pastor and his wife on one side. My father and stepmother on the other.
Andy and I stuck in the middle of them looking at us like a good investment finally maturing properly.
Meanwhile August would be at Morgan’s party waiting for me. I forced a tight smile. “Sounds fun.”
My father nodded once, satisfied enough with my performance to stop watching me quite so closely.
I escaped down the narrow hallway toward my bedroom where muted sunlight leaked through the thin curtains in weak gold stripes across my ivory bedspread. Fabric scraps littered the floor beside my sewing machine where I’d finished the dress I’d finished making for Morgan that morning.
I shut the door behind me harder than necessary. Then immediately leaned against it with my eyes closed. “Jesus Christ,” I whispered to myself. The irony of saying it while preparing for baptism nearly made me laugh again.
I crossed the room and yanked open my closet. White dresses hung crowded together along the rod like phantoms. I stared at them for a long moment before my eyes landed on the shortest one I owned.
White cotton and sleeveless. The hem landed high enough above the knee to irritate every adult woman in the congregation while still technically qualifying as modest because it was white.
Perfect. If they wanted their symbolic rebirth so badly, then I could at least show up dressed like temptation.
The sanctuary smelled like river water and old perfume, the sharp mineral scent of the baptism trough cutting through the usual haze of lemon wood polish and dusty hymnals.
The overhead lights buzzed faintly, turning everyone’s white baptism clothes almost blue beneath them.
From where I stood in line beside Andy, I could see half the congregation craning their necks to watch the people ahead of us step into the silver trough one by one like lambs being led to slaughter.
The church felt overheated despite the cold rain outside, thick with body heat and damp fabric and expectation.
My stepmother had taken my phone the second we walked through the doors, slipping it into her purse with a bright smile that somehow felt more threatening than if she’d yelled at me outright.
Now I stood trapped at the front of the church while Pastor Spires droned on about rebirth and salvation behind us.
Beside me, Andy shifted, barefoot and restless. The long white shirt his mother had picked out for him hung loose over his shoulders, and I could feel irritation rolling off him in waves.
I leaned toward him slightly, keeping my voice low beneath the pastor’s speech. “Did you not tell your parents we broke up?”
Andy looked down at me slowly, his mouth twitching into something bitter. “Oh, sorry,” he muttered. “Are you talking to me again?”
I rolled my eyes hard enough my head hurt. “You’re the one who stopped sitting with us at lunch. I didn’t kick you out of the group, Andy.”
He scoffed softly, jaw tight. “I know that. I’ve been trying to catch up on extra credit so my dad doesn’t fucking murder me.”
There was enough venom behind the joke to make my stomach turn. I glanced sideways at him. Up close, the shadows under his eyes looked bruised purple.
“I can help you,” I whispered. “If you need it.”
“Yeah?” His gaze slid toward me then, sharp around the edges. “Your new boyfriend is gonna be okay with that?”
My throat tightened instantly. Around us, people clapped politely as the first teenager emerged dripping from the baptism trough while Pastor Spires smiled like a televangelist. I stared straight ahead instead of answering.
Andy laughed under his breath. “Thought so.”
The silence stretched ugly between us before he muttered, “You haven’t told your parents either.”
“Yeah, well, we’re gonna have to eventually. I can’t do this weird family dinner tonight anyway. It’s Morgan’s birthday.”
August was probably already helping his sister set up decorations. I imagined him stringing lights along the garage roof with that furrow between his brows he got whenever he concentrated too hard on something simple.
Andy exhaled sharply through his nose. “We’ll get out of it after this. Let’s just…get fucking baptized first, okay?”
I glanced sideways at the massive bin of river water before Pastor Spires, silver and cloudy beneath the stage lights.
“I didn’t realize this was gonna be a community event,” I muttered. “It’s kinda gross for all of us to be getting in and out of the same water.”
Andy barked out a laugh before he could stop it. “It’s no different than a public pool.”
I grimaced. “Have you ever seen me get in a public pool?”
His mouth twitched despite himself. “Nah. You’ve always been too much of a princess to do anything dirty.” Then his expression shifted, something crooked and nostalgic moving through it. “Except cornfields, I guess,” he added. “You always seemed pretty fond of those.”
I stuck my tongue out at him automatically. “Was I?”
For the first time all evening, Andy smiled for real. It was brief and tired and achingly familiar. The kind of smile that reminded me why I’d loved him once.
“Fuck,” he muttered, scrubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “I cannot wait to get this over with. My dad’s gonna absolutely love rubbing this in my face.”
“What?”
He shot me a look. “The breakup. You know how he is about purity and all that.”
I did know. Everyone did. Pastor Spires stepped forward then, his scuffed shoes creaking softly against the stage. The chatter in the sanctuary died almost instantly.
“Baptism,” he announced warmly, “is the outward declaration of an inward transformation.”
His voice rolled smooth and practiced through the church while the line ahead of us shortened. One by one people descended into the water, came back dripping and blinking beneath applause, transformed supposedly.
I wondered if God got bored watching the same performance over and over.
When Andy’s turn came, he stepped into the trough heavily, river water sloshing against the metal sides. He almost didn’t fit in it.
His father placed one hand between his shoulders and the other over his clasped hands, reciting scripture while Andy stared blankly toward the ceiling.
Then the pastor lowered him beneath the water.
When Andy emerged again, his white shirt clung immediately to his skin. My breath caught so violently it hurt.
A dark bruise bloomed across the lower left side of his back, half hidden beneath the soaked fabric. Black fading into purple fading into green. Several more dotting over his chest and shoulders. New, large, and evil. But more importantly, visible to everyone in the congregation.
Andy smiled widely as if he’d known this would happen.