Jeri Smith-Ready - This Side of Salvation

“Can I bring Kane and Bailey?”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t afford both right now.”

“What if we leave Mara at home?”

My sister stuck her tongue out at me.

“I’m showing a house, so I have to go now,” Mom said. “And no, your sister comes tonight or she gets to keep the gift she bought you.”

We hung up. “Who are you bringing?” Mara asked me, then spoke like a movie trailer. “Faced with a choice between his best friend and the love of his life . . .”

I couldn’t finish her sentence. I craved more time with Bailey the way a man in the desert craves Gatorade. But did I want to trap her in a two-hour discussion with my parents in their current state? That seemed like the fastest path to losing her forever.

Besides, Kane and I had spent every birthday with each other since we were six. Our dads built our tree house together, with our help and occasional interference. In the month after John died, Mrs. Walsh cooked or bought dinner for us every night.

Best of all, Kane had known my parents when they were normal, so he understood they weren’t themselves these days. Or these years.

So he was the obvious choice. I hoped it wasn’t a choice we’d both regret.

NOW

"Suicide?” Kane asks me. “You think your parents might’ve had a pact?”

“Maybe that was their Plan B if the Rush didn’t happen.”

Mara’s face turns almost as pale as the whiteboard. “They wouldn’t—” Then she tilts her head like she’s remembering something troubling. “I overheard them talking on March nineteenth.”

The date is like a sledgehammer. I set my breakfast plate aside, my appetite fleeing.

“What was March nineteenth?” Kane asks cautiously, fork poised above his omelet.

“The four-year anniversary of John’s death,” I tell him.

“Oh. Sorry, man, I forgot the date.”

“What did they say?” I ask Mara, dreading the answer.

“Dad said he hated living in this house, with all the memories. Mom said she still expects to come downstairs and see John at the table reading the back of the cereal boxes, lining them up the way he used to do.” Mara twists the cap of the whiteboard marker, making it squeak. “Then Dad got real quiet, and finally he said that he didn’t want to live in this world anymore.”

The sentiment doesn’t surprise me, only its declaration. “Dad said all that in English?” I ask her. “Not in Bibleish?”

“I wish. He quoted some verses, but I don’t remember what he said, just what he meant.”

“Not wanting to live in this world anymore?” Kane shakes his head and spears a piece of green pepper. “I hate to say it, but that does sound suicidal.”

I can’t exactly blame Mara for not mentioning this before, since I never told her about my own extremely concrete grounds for suspicion. “There’s a difference between thinking the world is a cruel place and actually planning suicide.”

Mara shows her dark bangs back from her forehead and starts to pace. “If Dad wanted to leave this world, he probably thought the Rush was the solution. Let Jesus come and make it all better.”

“That is Jesus’s job,” I remark only half-ironically. “They don’t call him Savior because he passes out coupons.”

“But when the Rush didn’t happen,” she continues in a rising voice, “they went to Plan B.”

“Obviously.” Kane gestures to the ceiling. “I mean, they’re gone. But what if reality is actually a combination of options three and four? They ran away voluntarily with Sophia, who’ll make them all kill themselves.”

“No way.” My stomach adds a lurch to my protest. “That’s insane.”

“It happens in cults, especially with these End Times people. If Sophia pretends the Rush really happened, and then her followers turn up alive, it’ll prove she’s a fraud. But if they all conveniently disappear, then it’ll seem like they were Rushed.”

“That’s sick,” Mara says.

“It’s happened before, sort of. There was that guy in the seventies—what was his name?” Kane snaps his fingers. “Reverend Jones. He had his cult join him at this place he named after himself in South America. When the authorities started closing in on him, he passed out poisoned Kool-Aid to his followers. They all drank it and died.”

“Kane, shut up. You’re freaking my sister out.” And me, too.

“Did they know they were killing themselves?” Mara shrills at him.

“Yeah, they’d even rehearsed it once. Though I’m sure the babies didn’t know.”

“Babies?” She sways a little, like she’s going to pass out.

I’ve got to rein her in and stop Kane’s history lesson. “Mara, you met Sophia. She was a little wifty, but she didn’t seem like a homicidal maniac.”

“Do any homicidal maniacs seem like homicidal maniacs?”

“We can’t panic.” I get up to join her at the board. “The whole point of making this list was to be logical. That’s why we didn’t argue about whether the Rush actually happened. I say we stick with number three, they ran away, until we have a good reason to believe that they committed—” I can’t force out the word. “They wouldn’t—” Yes, he would. “Mom wouldn’t do that to us.”

“The question is,” Kane says slowly, “would she let your dad end his life without her? They’ve been married how long now?”

“Thirty years this August. They renewed their wedding vows on their twenty-fifth, right after I turned thirteen.” Mara strides over to the mantel and lifts the eight-by-ten framed photo, the one I was staring at last night. “John was here at the time. He hadn’t gone to Afghanistan yet.”

Her voice chokes with tears again, but before I can figure out how to comfort her, she gasps. “Wedding bands! the bed!”

She drops the photo on the sofa and races up the stairs, stumbling halfway up. I look at Kane, who shrugs and reluctantly sets down his half-finished breakfast so we can follow.

We find her in my parents’ room, peeling back the maroon-andgold bedspread, with the careful precision of a medical examiner uncovering a corpse.

No rings.

“Wait a second.” Mara lifts the gold-cross necklace from Mom’s pillow. “David, this isn’t hers.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s not twenty-two karat. It’s a cheap knockoff.”

“So someone else laid out their clothes, probably after your parents left.” Kane runs his finger along the edge of Dad’s tall mahogany dresser. “But why? Just to mess with you two? Or did they think you’d believe in the Rush and call the media?”

“No idea,” Mara says. “I wonder if any other Rushers got the pajama treatment.”

My phone buzzes in the pocket of my sweatpants.

A text from Bailey: Are you awake? Matinee?

I answer without consulting Mara. We need help, and I need Bailey.

Don’t buy tickets—just come over.

EIGHT MONTHS TO SEVEN MONTHS BEFORE THE RUSH

When we picked up Kane for my sixteenth birthday dinner at IHOP, I could tell my mom was seeing him with new eyes. It was embarrassing the way she studied his outfit as he got in the backseat and strapped on the safety belt (which he never had to be reminded to do).

She looked vaguely disappointed. Maybe she was expecting gayer clothes than his neat blue rugby shirt and jeans, which were not too new but not too ratty either. Over the rugby shirt he wore an unbuttoned flannel shirt with a red-white-and-blue checkered pattern. Your basic American boy next door, the one who mows your lawn and shovels your snow for free just to be a good neighbor. The same kid she’d known and loved for ten years.

Over dinner, Mara and I managed to keep the conversation on sports and music as much as possible. One of her dreams was to be on Joyful Noise, the Christian version of American Idol. The new season had already started, so that gave her and Mom something to talk about. Then pancakes arrived, and we were all quiet and happy.

While we waited for dessert, Mara, Mom, and Kane brought out my gifts: his in a white plastic bag, Mom’s wrapped in a metallic blue paper, and Mara’s in a card.“Family first,” Mom said.

I opened Mara’s card, which contained a ticket to Tree of Life at the Trocadero Theatre. “Sweet! You told me the concert was sold out.”

“It was sold out,” she said. “Just not before I bought the tickets.”

“Francis and Brooke are going to the concert too,” Mara said. “Also my friend Aleesha and her boyfriend Nate. I think he’s on your team?”

I didn’t look at Kane, for fear of giving away his crush. “He’s our first baseman.”

“Small world,” my best friend said under his breath, sadly.

Mom handed over her gift. It was the exact shape and size of the MLB 2K video game I’d been whining about since March. Getting it in September meant missing most of the real-time season updates, but I didn’t care. I wanted—no, needed—the new features and better graphics. I would’ve even been happy with the new Madden NFL game, though I wasn’t as much a football fan.

I yanked off the paper, expecting to see a high-res graphic of a major league star at bat or, worst case, a Pro Bowl quarterback.

Tribulation Squad 6.

“It’s the latest installment,” Mom said quickly, “but you don’t need the first five versions to understand how to play. According to the online reviews.”

I turned the game over to read the back. “The Rapture has occurred, and you’ve been left behind. Time to gather your army against the Antichrist. Convert your foes and rise in rank!”

“What is it?” Kane asked. I passed it to him without comment, then put my hands under the table to hide their trembling. I couldn’t believe Mom and Dad would get me any game with weapons after what had happened to John. Even my friends knew better than to play shooter games around me.

“It’s a strategy game,” Mom explained. “Like the Sims you liked when you were a kid, remember, David? In Tribulation Squad, you build a life for yourself after the Rapture. Gather food for your flock, raise their spirits with song and Scripture, defend yourself against enemies—”

“Convert the nonbelievers?” Kane finished, reading the back. “What if they don’t convert? Is that what the weapons are for?”

“No,” Mom said. “It’s intended to be a nonviolent game. In fact, the reviews say that your spirit points drop if you kill your enemies. Except in self-defense, of course.”

Predictably, my father rattled off one of the Ten Commandments. “You shall not murder.”

I shut my eyes, twisting my hands in my lap. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to tear a tendon, which would totally screw up my off-season training schedule. I focused on steadying my breath.

“Check this out,” Kane read on. “It says you can play for the Antichrist’s team. Then you get points for killing.”

Mara scoffed. “Leave it to boys to turn Bible strategy into bloodshed.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“David!” My mother’s voice rang out. “Do not tell your sister to shut up.”

“Sorry.”

“Mara has a point,” Kane said with a laugh. “The bible is a very violent book.”

“It’s a multiplayer game,” Mom added, “so if you buy a copy for yourself, you and David can play over the Internet.” She adjusted her gold-cross necklace, so the clasp was at the back. “Until then, you should probably withhold judgment.”

“I’ll burn a copy.” Kane handed me the Tribulation Squad 6 game and his plastic bag. “Open my present now. I spent hours wrapping it.”

I tossed the Rapture nightmare aside and reverently drew Kane’s gift out of the bag. It was, in fact, the new MLB 2K.

“Yes!” I pumped my fist. “My life is complete.” I tore off the plastic wrapper, then picked up my knife to remove the annoying anti-theft tape holding the case together.