7. Micah
MICAH
Iwas twenty-eight years old and still got anxious driving to church. Sunday morning traffic slowed to a crawl around the massive parking lots surrounding Ascension Fellowship while I gripped my coffee cup, and seriously considered turning the car around… Again.
The giant LED sign near the entrance flashed through announcements in polished graphics:
WELCOME HOME
ASCENSION YOUNG ADULTS TONIGHT
FIND GOD INSTEAD OF THE BOTTLE
I snorted softly at that last one. Considering my younger brother was in charge of that group, the irony that was not lost on me.
I parked near the back of the lot and stared at the sprawling building rising ahead of me.
Ascension didn’t even look like a church anymore.
Not really. It was all glass walls and industrial modern architecture.
A massive digital screen wrapped the entrance.
Once inside there was a coffee shop bigger than some actual cafés downtown.
Hundreds of people poured through the doors, carrying designer diaper bags and branded tumblers while worship music drifted faintly across the parking lot.
If Jesus came back today, I genuinely thought he’d ask why the sanctuary had concert lighting.
I checked the time and groaned. Late. Again.
Not catastrophically late, but enough that my mother would surely notice.
I hurried inside through one of the side entrances just as music thundered through the walls. The worship band was already halfway through the second song.
I slipped into the back hallway quietly, hoping to avoid attention.
“Wow.”
Too late.
My older brother Daniel leaned against the wall near production control with his arms crossed, and a grin already forming.
“There he is,” he said. “The prodigal son.”
I pointed at him tiredly. “Can we not?”
Daniel’s eyes drifted slowly down my outfit.
I was still in black pants and wrinkled black button-up hanging open over a t-shirt.
My sleeves were down to hide my tattoos.
I wasn’t sure why I was still hiding it from them.
There were plenty of people here with tattoos.
But to me it felt like a piece of the real world that anchored me away from the smoke and mirror of this one.
And unfortunately, the priest collar was sticking halfway out of my pants pocket, because apparently I was no longer capable of functioning like a normal person after Robbin’ Banks.
His eyebrows shot up immediately.
“…What on earth are you wearing?”
I looked down at myself and sighed.
“Don’t ask,” I said, shoving the white collar deep into my pocket.
“Oh no.” Daniel’s grin widened. “Oh, this is good.”
“It’s not good.”
“You finally joined a cult?”
“Ironic location for that accusation.”
Daniel barked out a laugh while I shoved past him toward the empty seat in the control room overlooking the sanctuary.
Inside, Ascension Fellowship looked exactly like every polished mega church in America.
It was a dark auditorium with stage lights sweeping over raised hands.
Huge screens projected lyrics in cinematic fonts on either side of the stage.
And there, front and center, stood my father. He remained perfectly composed beneath lighting and thousands of admiring eyes.
Pastor Daniel Nottingham. The face of Ascension Fellowship. People loved him. Honestly, sometimes, I understood why. He was charismatic and brilliant on stage. He was the kind of man who could make an arena feel intimate with nothing but a microphone and a smile. Too bad I knew him offstage too.
I sat quietly while guilt settled into my chest for reasons I still couldn’t untangle.
Because the worst part was, I didn’t even know what I believed anymore.
No, that’s not entirely true. I did know what I believed.
Science made more sense to me for years now.
I needed observable things. Tangible things that could be tested.
I longed for questions allowed without shame attached to them.
But when you were a Nottingham, true belief didn’t matter. You showed up. You smiled. You played your role. The machine kept moving.
After service ended, the crowd flooded into the lobby in waves of expensive perfume and cheerful small talk. I was halfway to freedom when my mother appeared like a beautifully dressed sniper. “There you are.”
Damn it.
Mom looped her arm through mine immediately, elegant and perfectly put together as always. “Why were you late?” she asked.
I took a sip of coffee to buy time. “Car trouble.”
“Micah.”
“Traffic?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. I’d always been terrible at lying to my mother. Still, after a second, she sighed softly and smoothed imaginary lint from my shoulder.
“You look tired.”
I almost laughed at that considering exactly why I was tired. “Late night.”
“If you joined us for dinner more often, maybe you’d sleep better.”
Ah yes. The Nottingham family solution to all emotional distress was usually more family dinners. Mom’s gaze drifted briefly toward the sanctuary stage where volunteers were already resetting equipment for the next service.
“You know,” she said carefully, “we still need another bassist.”
I suppressed a groan. “Mom—”
“Jason leaving for college put the team in a difficult position.”
“I helped train Jason specifically so I could stop playing.”
“But you were so wonderful.”
“I hated it.”
She gave me the patient look mothers perfected when they believed their children were being dramatic. “Micah, people loved having you up there.”
That was the problem.
I rubbed the back of my neck slowly. “I’m busy.”
“You play at bars until midnight.”
“Not often.”
“Micah.”
I sighed. The truth was harder to explain. I didn’t want to stand on Ascension’s stage anymore. I didn’t want to help sell certainty I no longer felt. I didn’t want to play bass beneath sermons that preached things I no longer supported, if I ever even had.
“I’ll think about it,” I said finally.
Mom smiled immediately, clearly taking that as progress. Which was exactly why I shouldn’t have said it, because now guilt settled heavier in my chest all over again.
“I’ll see you at the house for dinner,” she said as she turned, making her way down the hallway. No question, just a statement of expectation. That was enough.
Guilt was a currency in my family. Nothing but the church mattered. My mom loved the image and prestige of it all. My father seemed to mostly love the money of it all.
And somewhere beneath all of it, one terrible realization kept surfacing over and over: If Robin ever learned who my family was, she’d probably never look at me the same way again.
I couldn’t imagine her in a place like this.
She seemed like someone who would be able to see through a facade, even one as carefully crafted as Ascensions was.
There was nothing to be done about that right now. I just had to make it through Sunday dinner, then I would head over to Nate’s for our weekly game. I couldn’t wait to shake all this off with a couple rolls of a twenty-sided dice.
Sunday dinners at my parents’ house felt less like family meals and more like mandatory staff meetings with catered food. The Nottingham house sat on the edge of Briar Glenn behind iron gates that still made me uncomfortable, no matter how many years passed.
I hated this house. It was a massive white brick McMansion, with floor-to-ceiling windows, a three-car garage and a professionally landscaped yard that looked like nobody had ever stepped foot on it.
It was the kind of place people in town slowed down to stare at while talking about how blessed the Nottingham’s were.
We hadn’t moved here until I was fifteen.
Before that, we’d lived in a normal two-story house a few towns over.
Back then, Dad pastored a regular church with folding chairs, burnt coffee, and potlucks in the fellowship hall.
He’d preach in rolled-up sleeves with handwritten notes and spent evenings helping people move furniture or fix roofs or sit beside them in hospitals.
Somewhere along the line things changed, or maybe money just revealed what had always been there.
Now Ascension Fellowship had a media team and VIP donor dinners and private green rooms behind the sanctuary stage. And my father, Pastor Daniel Nottingham, moved through them all like a celebrity instead of a shepherd. Man of God… What did that even mean anymore?
I parked beside Caleb’s SUV and stared at the house for one long second before forcing myself out of the car.
By the time I stepped inside, Sunday dinner was already in full motion. The dining room looked like a magazine spread, complete with perfect table settings and candles lit. My mother floated gracefully between the kitchen and table making sure everyone had drinks before sitting down herself.
Then there was Caleb slouched in his chair, scrolling through his phone beneath the table with bloodshot eyes hidden behind an easy smile.
He was the youth pastor at twenty-three, and charming enough to get away with almost anything.
Including the increasingly obvious drug problem everyone politely ignored, because acknowledging it might crack the perfect family image straight down the middle.
Next to the fireplace stood my father and older brother, Daniel Jr, looking over the days offering, trying to figure out how to get more money from the donors. He didn’t even bother calling them congregants anymore.
And me? I was just... there. Micah Nottingham. Middle child. Science teacher. Bar musician. Resident disappointment hidden beneath enough charm to remain functional at family gatherings.
“Micah!” Mom smiled immediately when she saw me. “Sit down before everything gets cold.”
I slid into my usual chair while Dad clapped one hand against my shoulder. I jumped, hardly noticing he even moved.
“Your mother tells me you’re considering coming back to the worship team.”
Traitor. I shot Mom a betrayed look while she pretended sudden interest in the breadbasket.
“I said I’d think about it.”