The Vanishings Read Online Free PDF

forgiveness.”
    â€œWell, I can’t deny my family has done that. But the truth is, I’ve never been a true believer, a real Christian, and I really believe it’s too late for me.”
    Lionel sat shaking his head. This was sad, but it was also scary.
    â€œSo, Lionel, tell me I’m wrong.”
    â€œThat’s the trouble,” Lionel said. “I don’t know, because I think I agree with you.”
    â€œThat’s not what I wanted to hear,” André said. “I was kind of hopin’ you were still young enough to believe.”
    â€œWell, Mama says you’re never too young or too old, and you’re never too good or too bad to become a Christian.”
    â€œI know she does. Remember, I grew upwith her. But what’d you mean by sayin’ you agree with me?”
    Lionel wasn’t sure how to say it without coming right out with it. “I’ve never really become a Christian either.”
    André squinted at him and smiled. “So we’re the two secret heathens in the Washington family?”
    Lionel did not find it funny. “It’s a secret all right. Everybody thinks you’re a Christian who has bad spells once in a while. They think I might become a preacher or a missionary someday.”
    André pulled away from the curb. “You ought to talk with your mother about this,” he said. “I’d rather see you grow up like her than like me.”
    â€œI can’t talk to her,” Lionel said. “It’d kill her. She thinks I’m one of the best young Christians she knows. You won’t say anything to her, will you?”
    â€œNot if you don’t want me to. You could spill the beans about me too, so we’ll just keep each other’s secrets, OK?”
    Lionel nodded, but he didn’t feel good about it. He wondered if André was as worried about Lionel’s not being a Christian as Lionel was about Andre. “Aren’t you afraid it might all be true?” Lionel said. “And that we might end up in hell?”
    André parked in the alley behind his parents’ home. He threw back his head and cackled that crazy laugh of his. “Now that,” he said, “I do not believe. I may have once, but I’ve outgrown that. Some of these stories and legends about what’s goin’ to happen at the end of the world, I don’t know where the preachers get them. I can’t imagine they’re in the Bible.”
    â€œMy mom says they are.”
    â€œWell, maybe someday she can show me, and then I’ll think about it. Meantime, I’m not goin’ to worry about fairy tales, and you shouldn’t either.”
    But Lionel did worry. When they got back to the rest of the family, everyone was gathered around the piano and singing old hymns. Lionel liked that. He sang well and enjoyed blending harmonies. Uncle André sang right along with the rest of them, but once he winked at Lionel. Then he worked his way near him and whispered, “This stuff makes for good singing, but remember, half of it’s a good way to live and the other is just fairy tales.”
    Lionel wondered if Uncle André really believed that. He was a cool guy and older and seemed wise in the ways of the world. If anybody should worry about what happened to him when he died or when the end of theworld came, it should be André. But he didn’t seem worried. He had a plan, a scheme. He had convinced himself he could play the game well enough to keep his loving family around him.
    Lionel would rather have been like his mother than like his uncle, but he knew he and André were pretty much the same. André did a lot worse things, but if what Lionel’s mother and the rest of the family believed was true, Lionel knew that he and André were in the same boat.
    André began dancing to the music, and his relatives clapped and urged him on. Lionel couldn’t help but smile, seeing his