This Side of Salvation

CHAPTER 37

NOW

I sleep until midmorning, when the sun finally glares directly on our tent. Mara and I pack up our stuff and head out, scarfing more protein bars for breakfast. I wonder what Almost Heaven will serve for dinner tonight, and whether we’ll still be there.

Over the drone of Mara’s reading comes the soft, rhythmic slap of oars in the water, the chatter of birds, and the occasional splash of fish or maybe the Loch Whatever-Lake-This-Is Monster. No rumble of jets, no hum of cars, no clank and whistle of trains. The silence calms me, and at the same time leaves me feeling raw and exposed.

“Are you feeling better today?” Mara asks casually, as if I’ve had a slight cold instead of a cataclysmic emotional breakdown.

“I don’t know what happened last night. When I went to bed I felt totally calm.”

“That happened to me once while we were going to grief group. One night I was feeling at peace with what happened to John, and then the next day, boom! It was worse than ever. Pastor Ed told me that when the grief feels us letting go, it digs in its claws.”

“Yeah.” I stop rowing to rub an itch on my face with my sleeve. “I guess so.” I’m ready to drop the subject.

“He also said something about God giving us the worst sadness when he knows we’re strong enough to handle it. Sounds like a rationalization to me, but whatever. You might find it comforting.”

“Thanks.” I don’t feel particularly strong right now, and even if I did, I’d need that strength for the days to come. I have to fight for our future, not wallow in the past.

Near noon we stop again to rest, eat, and purify a canteen of drinking water. The midday sun is relentless, and even with my shades, my eyes hurt from squinting at the glint of rays off the water. But by two o’clock, it’s dipped below the blue-gray mountains that tower above us on both sides.

As we near the last bend in the lake before our destination, Mara stops reading and keeps an alert watch ahead. I envy her position in the stern, where she can see where we’re going.

Suddenly she points past me. “There it is!”

I turn to look. Sure enough, a dock and a large wooden building appear in the distance. “I hope Wendell warned them we might be coming, in case they have a shoot-intruders-on-sight policy.”

“Row faster,” she says. “The sooner they can see who we are, the better.”

I do my best, my shoulders and legs begging for mercy.

The first sounds we hear are the shouts of children. Incoherent at first, then I can make out words like “Boat!” and “Coming!”

“Geez, we were the only offspring left behind?” Mara wonders. “It’s like a Nickelodeon theme park up there.” She brings out the photo Ezra gave us. “Wow, the place has expanded since this picture was taken.”

I keep rowing, watching Mara smile and wave to the laughing, hollering kids. “Tell me you see our parents. Tell me we’re not entering some Lord of the Flies land with no adults.”

“I don’t see them yet.” She cranes her neck. “Oh—there’s Sophia.”

“Does she look upset?”

“She’s not smiling. Steer a little to your left or you’re gonna—” The boat bumps the dock hard. “Do that.”

“Thanks.” I use one of the oars to bring us to the long edge of the short dock. It’s the hardest parallel parking job ever.

The crowd of children parts for Sophia. “Welcome to Almost Heaven!” She crouches down and extends her hand to Mara. “Better late than never, right?”

My sister looks tempted to yank Sophia down into the lake. I climb out of the boat and let her decide.

Then my mother calls my name. I spin in the direction of her voice, the dock seeming to sway as I regain my land legs, then rush toward her. All I see is a blur of T-shirt and jeans before she hurls herself into my arms. “My baby!”

“It’s okay, we’re here.” I don’t know if my words are to soothe her or me, or which of us is holding on to the other harder. “Are you all right?”

A spasm of embrace is her only answer. She snakes out an arm and draws Mara in. “You’re both safe, you’re safe. Ohhh, I’ve been worried to death.” Mom rocks back and forth, then holds us at arm’s length for examination.

I barely recognize her. It’s not the casual clothes or her hair in a messy ponytail and her face with no makeup. It’s her utter desperation. Her eyes look like they did in the months after John died, so swollen from crying, she could barely open them.

“We didn’t mean to leave you,” she whispers close to Mara’s face. “They said you’d be meeting us here. They lied.”

“We got your message.” Mara throws a quick glance over her shoulder. I can see Sophia from the corner of my eye, emerging from the crowd of friendly but unfamiliar faces.

Mom’s words rush out in whisper. “They were taking away our phones at that general store before we got onboard. I sent the text and dropped my phone in the lake so they wouldn’t know.”

“Where’s Dad?” I ask her.

“He’s in the shop.” She’s no longer whispering, and her tone is bright instead of conspiratorial. “Probably couldn’t hear the ruckus of your arrival over the noise of the power saws.”

I look past her up the hill, where a dozen or so wooden buildings of all sizes are nestled against the forested mountainside. The lodge looms biggest and closest, about a hundred yards away, with a woodburnt sign reading A LMOST HEAV EN. Next to the words is a picture of a cross with a dove in descending flight.

“I’ll send someone to get your father.” Sophia lays a hand on my arm. “Let’s go into the lodge, just the four of us, to give thanks to God for your safe journey!”

“First I want to see Dad, alone.” I try to move forward, but she tightens her grip.

“He’ll meet us in the lodge.” Sophia’s smile is strained now, and two burly, decidedly less friendly guys loom behind her. I recognize one as her bodyguard Carter from her house. The goons don’t seem to be carrying, but there’s no way this group would be so far out in the wilderness without weapons.

“You probably have many questions,” she continues, “and answers are best absorbed on full stomachs.” Sophia lets go of me and pulls herself up to her five-and-a-half-feet height, intimidating even in jeans and a lumberjack shirt. “Then we’ll find a place for you to stay.”

That last word sounds all too permanent.

Sophia takes us to a cozy lounge adjacent to the lodge’s great room and offers me and Mara a seat on a cloth-covered couch with a wooden frame. I wonder if my father built it. Mom takes the chair farthest from Sophia and closest to the door. Sulfuric hostility sparks between them.

A blond lady in a denim apron sets a platter of sandwiches on the coffee table before us. Mara and I each take one, set it on a pottery-style saucer, then wait. We want to see Sophia eat hers first—and not because we feel polite.

On the way here, my sister and I decided to feign ignorance as much as possible, partly to protect Ezra, but also in case we have useful information that Sophia preferred we didn’t.

After we say a quick grace, I ask Sophia a question I already know the answer to, to test her honesty: “How long have you been building this village?”

“For years. It was a dream of my husband Gideon and me ever since we first married. See, we spent our honeymoon at a retreat center in Washington State called Holden Village. Many visitors stay for weeks or months, working as volunteers. Like here, there are no phones, TV, or Internet except for emergencies, and no roads that lead to cities.” Sophia’s gaze goes distant. “It was so peaceful, so godly. When we left, Gideon and I vowed that one day we would open our own refuge for the world-weary.”

Her words give me hope. “So this is just a retreat center? People can come and go whenever they want?”

“Not exactly. Almost Heaven is open only to families of those who helped build it.” Sophia takes a bite of sandwich (finally—I’m starving!) before continuing. “Your father, for example, has aided us immensely over the last several months.”

I glance at Mom for her reaction. Her eyes narrow at the way Sophia talks about Dad.

Mara speaks up. “So he knew the whole time that there was no Rush, that we were supposed to come here instead of heaven?”

“Come here to prepare for heaven.” Sophia spreads her arms. “Only away from the world can we be truly pure and free from sin, so that we’ll be ready when the Lord comes for us. And of course, as Scripture says, we know not the hour.”

Mara looks at Mom. “You knew about this too?”

Our mother rubs her face, looking exhausted and defeated, yet more like her old self than I’ve seen in a long time. “I am so very, very sorry we had to hide the full truth from you.”

“In other words, you lied.” Mara’s voice is hard as steel.

“It was part of our agreement,” Sophia answers. “No one under the age of eighteen could be trusted to know the truth. Children tend to talk.”

“We’re not children,” I snap at her. “Stop treating us like we are.”

Sophia doesn’t flinch. “If you’d known, would you have agreed to come? Would you have given up your future and your friends?”

“Of course not.”

“That proves my point. You couldn’t be trusted with the truth.”

My fist clenches, and I set down my sandwich before the ham and cheese can ooze between my fingers. “So instead, you tell kids that the world is ending? That’s supposed to make us feel better?”

“That the Lord loves you and wants to call you home? Yes, that should comfort believers of all ages. And those who don’t believe or who believe insufficiently”—she looks at Mara—“are welcome to scoff at the notion. Either way, it kept us safe and secure. The world never learned of our true plans. As far as they’re concerned, we were caught up unto heaven.”

In other words, no one can ever know that we weren’t.

I take another bite of sandwich to give myself time to think. The bread slices are cut thick and rough from a homemade loaf. It reminds me of the day Bailey made me bread. I gave up the girl I love, I broke her heart—both our hearts—all for a lie. Now I might never see her again.

“So now what?” I ask Sophia. “We hole up here in the mountains? What good are we doing the world by running away? Didn’t Jesus say not to hide your lamp under a bucket?”

“Under a basket. You are one hundred percent right, David. But our taking refuge is not a selfish act. Here we can spend hours each day praying for all sinners to be saved.”

“Such a noble sacrifice,” Mara deadpans, then turns to Mom. “When are we leaving?”

Sophia’s laugh cuts off our mother’s response. “That’s up to the Lord. We stay until He comes for us, in days, weeks, months. Decades, if that’s what it takes. Meanwhile, we live in grace and fellowship, for His glory.”

The silence thickens. At the door, Carter widens his stance. I wonder if we have to be supervised for bathroom trips.

I clear my throat. “So, what you’re saying is, we can’t leave.”

“What she’s saying is,” a familiar speaks from the doorway, “why would we ever want to leave?”

My father is dressed in work overalls, his cheeks ruddy and dark hair mussed from the wind, looking . . .

Looking really good, actually. And speaking like a sane person.

I wait for him to say more, to speak in his own words for the first time in over a year.

Dad opens his arms as I stand up. “You found us.”

My feet want to rush forward, but instead I take only a few steps, turning sideways like a soldier presenting a smaller target. “We came to take you home.”

He drops his arms. “I don’t understand.”

“We tracked you. I left my phone in the minivan one time while you were”—I inch closer—“Obviously coming here to build this place.”

Mara makes no move to get up. “We followed David’s phone using the same app you guys use to follow him. Ironic, huh?”

“Well.” He smiles and clasps his hands in front of himself. “I have the world’s most clever kids.”

“And the world’s most pissed-off kids.” Mara grips the sofa’s arm, looking ready to tear it off. “How could you do this to us? How could you just disappear?”

“We never meant to leave you,” he tells her.

“We never meant to leave, period! But you wanted us to sacrifice everything, just like that.” Mara snaps her fingers.

“Not just like that, don’t you see?” My father goes to stand behind Sophia’s chair. “That’s why we asked you to give up so much at the Abandoning. Sophia thought a gradual withdrawal would hurt you less than a sudden change.”

My hope dims further. Just because Dad’s speaking a sane person’s words doesn’t mean he’s turned into one.

Mara looks anything but pacified. “You said you thought we’d be here, but why didn’t you ask for proof of that before you left?”

“Everything had to go just so,” Mom tells her. “Our escape was planned down to the minute. When you weren’t home at two thirty, we were beside ourselves with panic. We wondered, do we stay and try to find you, or do we leave when the vans come to pick us up at three?”

Sophia breaks in, speaking slowly and soothingly. “It was my understanding, David and Mara, that you’d been found by one of my associates. I passed on that incorrect information to your parents. I’m truly sorry.”

She couldn’t look less sorry if she’d won the lottery.

“We thought it was the answer to our prayers.” Dad shakes his head sadly.

“We were so furious at you and your sister,” Mom says to me, “we figured it was best we didn’t see you right away. Give us a chance to cool down.” She glances at my father, who folds his arms, as if to hide the hands he’d wanted to strike us with.

“When did you know we weren’t coming?” I ask Dad. “When did you realize that they’d made you leave us?”

“We suspected when we got to the general store and you weren’t waiting for one of the boats.”

“No.” Mom glares at him. “That’s when I knew, not suspected. I stood on that dock, feeling it in my heart that my children were left behind.”

“Our children,” he corrects her.

“My children. By that point, you’d already abandoned them.”

Whoa. I’ve never seen Mom lash out at him like this.

She stands and advances on Dad. “Remember? You said, ‘Get in the boat, we have to go now.’ What was I supposed to do? Run off into the wilderness?”

“Honey, it’s all worked out for the best. The kids are here now.”

“And if they hadn’t arrived,” Sophia adds, “we would have fetched them for you. I’d planned a second round of pickups for the stragglers next Sunday. A sort of gathering of lost sheep.”

I wonder what my sister and I would’ve done if her people had shown up at the house to take us away. Would we have used Mara’s machete to fend them off? Or Dad’s gun? Hot fury sweeps up my neck at the thought.

I can’t look at them anymore. I spin on my heel and stalk toward the corner of the room, where a cast-iron wood stove sits, unused right now due to the warm weather. What would they do, I wonder, if I kicked in its glass door? Or put my fist through the window over there? Could I hurt myself badly enough to win us all a fast boat trip to a hospital at the other end of the lake? Even if not, the destruction would feel good.

“Sophia,” my father says with quiet urgency, “I need to speak with my son alone. Now.”

Before the wood shop door has even swung closed behind us, I turn on my dad. “How could you leave us? How could you lie to us?”

“You left us first, David. When we woke up and found your bed empty—”

“My bed was empty for three hours!” I hurl at him. “Yours was empty forever! I went to a party one street over. You went to the Adirondacks, where we couldn’t even call you to make sure you weren’t dead.” I want to turn him upside down and shake out the truth. “Were you going to come back when you found out we weren’t here? Were you even going to send a ‘we’re still alive’ note? And why do this in the first place without asking us if we wanted to move?” I stop yelling, only because I’m out of breath.

“I’m sorry.” Dad goes to a worktable and pulls out a metal stool, its feet squeaking against the floor. “I had to get out of that house. This seemed like the answer.”

“We could’ve left that house years ago. You should’ve left.” As much as it hurts to say that, it’s true. We all would’ve been better off with him gone. “What about our deal? I gave up everything I cared about to get ready for the Rush, and in exchange you were supposed to get help if it didn’t happen. You were supposed to change.”

“I did change. I did get help.” He raises his arms. “What do you think this place is, if not the ultimate spiritual therapy? And listen to me: I’m speaking like myself again. You know why? Because here I experience the fullness of God’s creation through all his works, not just his word.”

My head is spinning enough from hearing him speak original thoughts. I don’t need this extra layer of theology. “I’m glad you can talk normally, but you need more than fresh air and freedom from cell phones. You need treatment.” I force out the word he doesn’t want to hear. “You have depression.”

“I wasn’t depressed. I was unhappy.”

I don’t grasp the difference, but his use of the past tense is what crushes the breath out of me. “And now you’re happy? Because you’re away from us?”

“No. I’m happy because I’m away from there.”

“I know it’s hard living in that house. I miss John too, all the time.”

“It’s not about missing. That’s normal.” He presses his palms together, then puts his steepled fingers to his face. “It’s about there being something drastically, fundamentally wrong with the world since he died. I thought nothing and no one could fix it. Then one day I found out the Lord not only can fix it but will. He’ll end all the pain and suffering.”

“Maybe someday, but until then, we have to go on and make the best of it.”

“No, we don’t.” He rests his hands on his worktable with an air of finality. “We have a choice.”

“This is your choice? Escaping the world because you don’t like what it’s done to you?” I pick up a stray table leg from the bench next to me. “Sitting around praying and building furniture? You think Mara and I would’ve been happy here?”

“Yes. I do. You’ll see over the next few days. Life here isn’t easy, but it is rich in spirit.”

“But it’s not for me. I have school, baseball, my friends, Bailey. I gave all of that up for you once. I won’t do it again.”

“This time you wouldn’t be doing it for me. You’d be doing it for yourself.” He moves to the wide bay window, beckoning me to join him. “Come see this.”

I go to stand beside him. From here I can see the lake through a gap in the trees.

The water has turned to gold.

“There’s no direct view of the sunset from here,” he says, “because of the mountains. But this time of year we get the perfect reflection in the lake. And over there, can you see what I made for you? In that beech tree up the hill to your right.”

I scan the edge of the forest until I find the tree he’s pointing to, along a trail leading out of the village. Peeking out through the beech’s widespread branches is a replica of the tree house in our backyard. This one has stairs instead of a ladder, but otherwise it looks the same. Even from here I can see that kids are playing in it.

I bite my lip hard to keep from crying.

“Just think about it, okay?” He lays a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll make this a home for all of us. You’ll see.”

Through the screen I hear nothing but the singing of birds and the whoosh of wind through boughs of leaves and needles, a fiddle tuning amid not-so-distant laughter. I smell nothing but pine sap and wood chips and, when the breeze shifts a little, baking bread. I see nothing but beauty.

But it’s not for me.

“Dad, I can’t stay. If you won’t come, at least let us take Mom home. She’s miserable.”

“Only because she missed you and your sister. Now she’ll be happy.”

“Living under Sophia, who tricked her into abandoning her kids? Even Mom’s not that forgiving.” I shift my feet, working up the courage to look him in the eye for the next question. “Speaking of Sophia—I don’t know how to ask this, but—”

“Yes, I’ve been faithful to your mother. Always.”

I stare out the window, letting my shoulders drop with relief. “I believe you. Whatever else you are, you’re not . . .”

“A player? Is that what they call it these days?”

It’s been so long since Dad has spoken in regular English, much less used slang, it takes me a moment to interpret. I shrug, very much wanting to change the subject.

“So where were you Saturday night?” he asks.

I guess it’s my turn to apologize. “At a prom after-party. Mara was there too. Not that that’s an excuse.”

“You went just for fun, or to see your girlfriend?”

“Bailey. Yes. I’m sorry. Sorry I worried you, not sorry I went.”

“I understand. You missed her.”

I think of how she and Kane helped us search for clues this last week, and how they stayed calm through the weirdest moments. It reminds me of something I need to mention. “Finding your empty pajamas in bed really freaked us out.” I study his face, but not too closely. I want him to think I believe he and Mom left their clothes themselves.

Dad’s serene smile fades. “My what?”

“Your pajamas and Mom’s nightgown. We found them in your bed, all laid out like you’d been asleep when Jesus came and Raptured you. What was that all about?”

Now I look him straight in the eye, and what I see chills my spine. The wheels in his mind are spinning, maybe careening off the track. Something inside him is disintegrating.

“Why would she do that?” he whispers to himself.

“Who, Mom?”

Dad turns away, rubbing his chin, then his hair, gripping the thick, dark strands at the back of his head. “If she was sending someone back for you, why would—” He stops, then spins to face me. “Have you mentioned the pajamas to Sophia?”

“No, why?”

“Good. Don’t.” My father comes back to the window and stares out, his jaw shifting from side to side. “I need to think. Something is very, very wrong.”