“Oh!” Anna said, practically jumping out of her seat. I wondered again why she was acting so strangely. “Uh, Mom, this is my friend Amanda. Amanda, that’s my mom—”
“Call me Lorraine,” she bubbled, her smile still statue-perfect.
“And that’s my dad.”
A brick of a man grunted and gave me a brief, grudging glance in the rearview mirror.
“This is my sister Judith,” Anna said. Her sister turned and flashed me that same adorable smile and chirped, “I’m in fifth grade!” I stifled a laugh and agreed that that was very impressive. Lorraine’s smile faltered a little as she snapped to get Judith’s attention.
“Sit down and cross your legs!” Lorraine said. Judith immediately did as she was told. There was a moment of awkward silence before Anna continued. I wondered if they could see their sons’ postures in the backseat.
“And, uh, these are my brothers Simon and Matthew,” Anna continued. One was a little taller than the other, and the shorter one had braces and slightly darker hair, but otherwise they could have been twins. The shorter one grunted like his dad when Anna said their names but kept his gaze locked on the window. The other just played with his phone and acted like he hadn’t heard.
“Hi,” I said, making myself smile pleasantly at the one who had at least bothered to grunt. He turned and made brief eye contact before dropping his eyes to my chest.
“Nice dress,” he said. I started to thank him, but then he followed with, “It makes you look like a grandma.”
“Don’t be a jerk to my friend, Simon!” Anna said, turning to glare at her brother.
“Watch that tone, young lady!” Lorraine said. Anna’s cheeks burned red. She gave me an apologetic look and turned back around. Simon sniffed once and turned back to his phone.
“You girls have a nice time last night?” their dad said. Anna inhaled sharply and her shoulders tightened up. I looked from her back to the rearview mirror and found her dad staring pointedly at me between glances to the road.
“Yeah,” I said. “We had a lot of fun.”
“Not too much, I hope.”
“Why would you hope that?” I said slowly, my eyes once again darting from a paralyzed Anna to her dad’s unchanged stare.
“The word of the Lord is serious business,” he said. “At least in our house.”
“Um,” I said, blinking, “of course. Yeah. My house too.”
“Which verses did y’all study last night?” Lorraine said.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, confused. Anna seemed to shrink, and her dad’s eyes narrowed. Then it hit me—Anna had told them we were at Bible study. “Sorry, I haven’t had my coffee yet. We mostly focused on the Gospel of John.”
“Ah,” her dad said, nodding. “‘For the wages of sin is death.’”
I couldn’t help smiling; I might not have been to church in years, but I’d paid attention when I was there. “It’s definitely powerful, but that’s from Romans,” I said. “My favorite passage from John is, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish.’ It’s so life-focused, you know? So hopeful.”
“Can’t disagree,” her dad said, a note of grudging respect in his voice.
“Anna, dear, you did it!” Lorraine said, clapping happily.
Anna looked up, confused. “Did what?”
“You made friends with a good influence for once.”
I cleared my throat and looked out at the trees.
* * *
“Thanks,” Anna whispered twenty minutes later as we sidled into a red-upholstered pew near the front. The inside of the church was small and painted stark-white, but the red carpeting and upholstery and the light pouring in through the abstract stained-glass windows made it much more beautiful than it seemed from outside. “Sorry I didn’t warn you,” she continued as we sat. “They were listening when I called.”
“Of course,” I whispered in reply, touching her wrist and smiling. “Don’t worry about it.”
The adults milled about in the pews, smiling and slapping each other on the back while Anna and I sat quietly with our hands in our laps. After a few minutes, an ancient man with skin like wrinkled marble and owl eyes strode up to the pulpit, an old leather Bible tucked under his arm, and everyone grew quiet. Despite his age he moved with military grace as he silently dropped the Good Book on the lectern and flipped to the appropriate page.
“Therefore, seeing we have this ministry,” the pastor said, in a huge, youthful voice that filled the church without the aid of speakers, “as we have received mercy, we faint not; But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” He removed his reading glasses and looked up to survey the congregation.
“That’s 2 Corinthians 4:1 and 4:2, if y’all’s interested.” He cleared his throat and closed his Bible, the thump resounding in the silence of the sanctuary. “Lotta good lines in Corinthians, I’ve always found. ‘Through a glass darkly’ and ‘childish things’ and so on, but that line I just read’s got as much meat as any of the others.”
My eyes drifted up to the window behind him, and the rippling grass on the hillside. Lots of the girls in the support group back home had called transitioning “living our truth,” and maybe that was true. My eyes turned up just a little more and there, hanging above the window and the green grass, was a small wooden cross.