Once Was Lost Read Online Free PDF Page A

guess one was enough. Or too much.
    Nick reaches to rub his shin and catches me staring. “It does kind of hurt,” he says, sheepish. “Don’t let Jody make you think I’m not nice to her. It’s her. Ever since she turned thirteen it’s like the sister I knew has been taken over by an alien. A very emotional alien.” Then he smiles.
    It’s hard to explain how it feels when Nick Shaw smiles at you. Not butterflies or blushing. It just feels good. “I won’t,” I say. “Anyway, it’s common knowledge that thirteen kind of sucks.”
    We hear the pre-service music starting upstairs.
    Erin comes over and gathers her stuff. “That’s our cue.” Then she turns around and gives us a goofy grin. “And remember, this is the day the Lord has made.” She holds out her hand, palm up, as if to say, “Well?” It’s one of our little youth group rituals that’s corny and embarrassing, but Erin always makes us, no matter what.
    Nick and I complete the quote together: “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
    Nick pumps a fist on “glad” and Erin laughs, but while she does she looks at me with an expression I can only describe as worried.
    I try to finish with an exclamation point.
    The day the Lord has made is stinking hot. Throughout the service, people fan themselves with bulletins and offering envelopes and I can tell my dad cuts the sermon short so that everyone can go home and get on with life. Jody’s solo was beautiful, though, her pure, sweet voice floating out of the choir loft and almost visibly rising in the warm air. But I couldn’t focus on what she was singing, or on the rest of the music, or on the Old Testament reading, and I can’t do it now as my dad is wrapping up the sermon. Because I’m waiting, waiting for him to say it.
    After three Sundays with her gone, people have to be wondering what happened to my mom, and making up their own stories about it. Dad must know that the gossip could wind up worse than the truth if he doesn’t tell them. And for a moment his mouth opens and his shoulders tense up and I know he’s about to confess. That we’re not perfect, that he’s not perfect, that our family has problems, too, and we’ve covered it up for too long and that’s not right when the church is supposed to be your second family.
    The moment passes and he’s lifting his hands to give the benediction.
    I stand with him by the open main doors, in the path of a hot breeze and the blinding white of noon sun. Normally my mother would be standing here with us for this part of the Sunday ritual, when the visitors and regular attenders shake my dad’s hand, hug him, tell him they liked the sermon, tell me I’m getting so tall, tell me I’m getting too thin, ask me what grade I’m in, and, now and most of all, ask us where Mom is.
    “Oh, she’s just been under the weather,” Dad says over and over. “I’ll tell her you said hello.” He manages warm smiles when he says this, his straight teeth assuring everyone that everything is a-okay with the Taylor family. Nothing to see here, move along and God bless.
    I can’t stand to hear him anymore, so I step out of the glare of the sun and look into the sanctuary, where the light is coming through the small stained glass windows along the side that show different scenes from the life of Jesus. I can see the one of him turning water into wine, and half of the one of his baptism—just the corner of his shoulder with the dove about to alight. My favorite is out of view but I know it by heart: Jesus in a white robe standing next to a squinty-eyed Lazarus, who’s fresh from the tomb after being dead for a few days. Dead dead. As a doornail. If you believe the story. Mary and Martha, his sisters, stand nearby, watching the whole thing, their arms held out in a kind of scared joy at the sight of their resurrected brother, like they’re not sure if they should hug him or run.
    I used to be able to picture myself there. Not just there with Lazarus but