Donut Days (2 page)

No way
, I thought. I didn’t want to walk through the church all by my lonesome after my mom had given such a controversial sermon. I looked up at the stage to see if my mom was still there, but she was gone. Probably she’d fled back to her office to pray.

“Dad—” I started, but he cut me off.

“Listen to me. I’ll get your mom. You get your sister. We need to reconvene as a family as soon as possible. So go.
Now
.” The dark look on his face told me this was a) serious and b) not a good time to argue.

I tramped up the sanctuary aisle, trying to ignore the stares being leveled at me. I smoothed my T-shirt with the 1980s band INXS on the front and suddenly wished I’d worn something else. This was a bad time to remind the congregation that I didn’t listen to Christian music very much. In fact, some of the members of Living Word had actually complained to my dad about my choice in music-slash-fashion. As if the old band shirts that I bought at resale shops were satanic or something.

Eventually, my dad had told me to stop wearing the shirts to church. I hadn’t out-and-out disagreed with him when he’d said that, because that would have been disciplinary suicide, but I did stomp around the house and fume for days. Finally my mom, tired of both of us, suggested a compromise, which was that I didn’t wear the shirts to church on Sunday, but Friday would be okay. It was a deal.

Wiping thoughts about the shirts out of my mind, I tried to refocus on the reason the church was in turmoil, which had started the day Nat and I had been baptized. It was the same day Mr. O’Connor had waded into the Minnetonka River and had changed everything—and not in a good way either.

I ran my hand along the edges of the pews as I thought back to that day. The whole church had gathered at the end of a woodsy trail, just a stone’s throw from the Minnetonka River. We always had an outdoor service for the spring baptisms, and that day we’d gotten lucky with the weather: the sun was out and all the snow was melted. Buds were starting to sprout on branches. The praise and worship band was playing under a large oak tree, their instruments and faces dappled by sun and shadow. Their music was carried to the tops of the trees on a mild breeze.

Next to me my mom raised her hands and started dancing. “God’s been good to me, oh, God’s always been gooood to meeee,” she sang, her voice just a little off-key. She stuck one foot out, then the other.

A few feet away, a handful of the congregants started dancing too. Chunks of new grass flew as they kicked and twirled. Some of them jerked like they’d been electrocuted, and a few even fell down. No one went to help them, though, because they weren’t hurt or anything; that’s just how the power of God is manifested at Living Word Redeemer.

Nat, who was standing on the other side of me, elbowed me and leaned over. “Carson said he was going to try and be here,” she said in a low, excited voice.

“Huh,” I replied, thinking how Carson was probably coming just so he could see Nat emerge from the river dripping wet.

Nat raised her eyebrows at me like she could read my thoughts. Which probably she could, since we’d known each other for so long. We’d been best friends ever since my parents had invited her parents over for brunch after Sunday service, back when Nat and I were little and her parents were new to Living Word Redeemer. My mom said that after Nat and I had finished fighting over who could color in my brand-new Scooby-Doo coloring book, we were inseparable.

I tried smiling at Nat, hoping it would disguise my distaste for Carson. Not that he was a bad guy—he wasn’t. It’s just that I always figured Nat would pick someone a little less . . . stupid. I mean, Nat could tell you the Greek and Latin roots of almost every word in the English language. Carson, on the other hand, seemed like he could barely spell his own name. His best attribute was that he was hot. Smoking hot, in fact, with sea-blue eyes and an Abercrombie model’s body. Nat and Carson were waiting to be together—officially—until early September, when Nat turned seventeen and her parents lifted her dating moratorium. But still. Hot or not, I thought Nat could do better.

“Hey, there’s Molly,” I said, changing the subject. Molly was near the praise and worship band, standing with her parents—but without Jake, her older brother, who was away at the University of Minnesota. Molly ’s hands were stuffed into her pants pockets and she was frowning. I figured she was mad because my dad had baptized her two years ago, when Mr. O’Connor had made the entire O’Connor family go in for a dunk together. Normally my dad likes to wait until people are at least sixteen to baptize them, but since this was a family affair, my dad made an exception. Molly was still pissed about it and always said she wanted to be baptized with Nat and me.

Nat and I turned suddenly as a woman nearby started shouting,
“Lo lo kama bee shaka boora lo lo.”
It would have sounded like gibberish to anyone who wasn’t an evangelical church member. But I knew it was her way of speaking in tongues.

“Today,” my mom said from the other side of me, “maybe that will be you.” I nodded. Maybe.

Most everyone at Living Word spoke in tongues—except me. In fact, I’d never really experienced
anything
extra-spiritual—ever. I mean, sure, I’d felt at peace in church, and one time when I saw a homeless man walk through our front doors and the whole church took up an offering just for him, I believed God must be really close by. But I just never
experienced
God the way other people in the church did, with tongues and falling down and visions and whatnot.

I knew some people expected the pastor’s daughter to be more spiritually connected, and I knew my parents worried about the fact that I read the newspaper more than my Bible. I honestly wasn’t trying to be difficult—it’s just that the Bible didn’t always seem as relevant to me as, say, the headlines of the day. Still, I didn’t want to be a disappointment to anyone, and of course I wanted to feel the power of God personally. With any luck, God would show up today while I was submerged in the water and splice in the religious gene I seemed to be missing.

Nat grabbed my hand and squeezed as the last praise and worship song ended. I squeezed back. “Let us make our way to the water,” my dad said. The crowd spread out as we headed down a small trail toward the banks of the river. As Nat and I walked together, I thought about how most people get baptized when they’re infants—when they’re too little to really know what’s happening and they just get a few sprinkles of holy water on their head. But at Living Word, baptisms have to be a choice, which is why you can’t get baptized until you’re at least sixteen. You have to
believe
in the renewal and rebirth of your soul, so much so that you’re willing to submerge your whole self in the Minnetonka River in the springtime. And trust me, if you’re going to go into a body of water in April in Minnesota, you darn well better believe in something.

“Okay,” my dad said. “Let’s do this.” He barged into the cold water with a tiny copy of the New Testament tucked into his breast pocket. The entire congregation watched as he waded in up to his waist, Nat and I trailing behind. The cold hurt like jellyfish stings and our teeth were chattering before the baptism even started.

My dad opened his little Bible, turned to Matthew Chapter 3, and started reading. “And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”

As my dad spoke, the water swirled around me and I felt small rocks tumbling over my toes. I glanced over at Natalie and noticed how her eyes matched the mossy river bottom. She held her hands out from her sides, palms down, as if resting them on top of the current.

“Emma, you first,” my dad said, tucking the Word back into his shirt. I nodded and took two unsteady steps toward him.
Please, God,
I prayed silently,
please let something really spiritual happen to me in this water.
My dad reached out and put one hand on my back and one over my clavicle bones on my chest. “Hold your nose,” he said. I did. With one hand he pushed me toward the water, at the same time using his other hand to lift up my back and help get my feet out from underneath me.

With my face toward heaven, I was submerged into the icy water. I tried keeping my eyes open but couldn’t—the current was too strong. The cold took my breath away and I suddenly felt winded and panicked. I tried breathing and got river water up my nose instead. As my dad lifted me out of the water, I sputtered and gagged, spitting up lungfuls of the Minnetonka River.

“You okay?” my dad asked.

Nearly convulsing with cold, I just stared at him.
Was
I okay? I looked down at my hands, which were a sickly white. I couldn’t feel anything. I wanted to reach out to him, to have him dunk me under again, because not one thing had happened when I was baptized. Not tongues, a vision, or even a warm-fuzzy close-to-God feeling. I wanted a do-over, but I couldn’t move. I was numb—in my limbs and in my heart.

“You’re all set,” my dad said, turning away from me and toward Nat. “You can head back to shore. Mom has a towel for you.”

I nodded and forced my body to start making its way back toward the beach. I could feel the eyes of the congregation burning into me. I knew they could all see it: that I was exactly the same as I’d been before the baptism. I hadn’t experienced anything in the water except cold and fear.

What was wrong with me? Would I
ever
feel what everyone else at Living Word seemed to?

My mom handed me a towel when I got close enough. She smiled, but the motion didn’t go past her mouth. She could barely meet my eyes. She knew, without having to ask, that I hadn’t started speaking in tongues. I could practically feel the disappointment radiating off her.

Next to her, Lizzie was jumping up and down, asking me if I’d seen any fish. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

My mom turned her back to me, and I could feel her mood lighten as she focused on Lizzie. One of the seven deadly sins—envy—stabbed at my heart. Was I really that hard to be around? And was Lizzie really so preferable?

I wrapped the towel around me more tightly and watched Natalie go down in the water. Instead of coming back up like me, flailing and retching, she came out of the water smoothly, renewed and ready for a life committed to God. Her face glowed as she stood in the currents, her cheeks pink like she had an eternal fire inside of her, even as the cold water dripped off of her. The congregants all gave a collective “oooh” at the inspiring sight.

Nat trekked back toward shore, smiling, despite the way her jaw was trembling with cold. My dad followed in her delicate wake. Then, just as Nat started climbing out of the water, Mr. O’Connor suddenly started climbing
in
. He started splashing around and crying, “Forgive us, Lord! Forgive us, Lord!”

My dad made sure Nat was out of the river safely, then started making his way back toward Mr. O’Connor. “Gary,” he said, twisting his torso and fighting the water. “Gary, is the Lord speaking to you? Tell us what’s going on.”

Mr. O’Connor stopped splashing for a second. His suit—which probably cost more than my dad’s annual salary—was soaked and ruined. His body had quieted, but his eyes stayed wide and wild. “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man!” Mr. O’Connor shouted. I’d heard that scripture before and I knew that Mr. O’Connor was quoting the Bible, though I couldn’t remember exactly where in the Bible that phrase was located. I’d find out later it was First Timothy in the New Testament.

I looked over at my mom, who was clutching Lizzie and looked like she couldn’t quite get her mind around what was happening.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

“Shhh. Not now.”

Everyone always got quiet in the church when someone “had a prophecy,” which is what you called outbursts like this. Usually they were pretty vanilla and people said things like “the Lord wants to bless you” or “you have put other things in your life before the Lord.” And usually they happened
at
the church. I’d certainly never seen one at a baptism before, and I’m not sure anyone else had either.

“Women are the weaker vessel!” Mr. O’Connor shouted from the cold water.

Another Bible scripture—this time from First Peter.

My dad finally reached Mr. O’Connor, and before Mr. O’Connor could say anything else, my dad leaned in and whispered something in Mr. O’Connor’s ear. None of us standing on the riverbank ever heard what was said, but all of us got a great view of the reaction.

Mr. O’Connor started writhing and thrashing in the water, and my dad had to actually step back from him. “Your women are out of balance!” cried Mr. O’Connor in a deep voice, like he was suddenly the mouthpiece for God. “Your women are too empowered! Repent and bring balance back into the church! I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man! I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man!”

“Gary!” shouted my dad, trying to get Mr. O’Connor to stop. “Enough!”

They wrestled in the water a little bit as my dad tried bringing Mr. O’Connor back to shore, but by that time I was probably the only person left in the congregation who was still looking at them. Everyone else was pretty much staring at the one person Mr. O’Connor was talking about—the one woman who, apart from a handful of Sunday school ladies, did the lion’s share of teaching and preaching at Living Word Redeemer.

My mom.

I
tried to find a clear path to get to Little Saints, but it wasn’t easy. Even the foyer was crowded with people talking about my mom’s sermon, their eyes wide and their mouths moving furiously.

A hand like a claw reached out and grabbed my elbow. I found myself face-to-face with Mrs. Knickerbacher, who was raising her overplucked eyebrows at me.