She feels like a fish in a glass bowl. She is the preacher's wife, dedicated to service, leading the congregation in song every Sunday—including that Sunday. August 28th. The Sunday Caleb's parents sat with Missy all night and into the morning, Missy disoriented and delusional in the UCLA children's ward, only brief moments of awareness, crying for the cat, Caleb's parents there between 10 and 11 that morning, Hope leading songs, Missy talking to Jesus, and Caleb's parents there.
Hope notices a potpourri satchel on the organ beside Missy's picture—a Sunday school craft from last Mother's Day. She leans forward to inhale the scent, but smells nothing, blows dust off the picture while her fingers caress the edge of the frame as if it were a cheek.
When she reaches the bedroom she closes and locks the door. She kicks a path through dirty clothes. Socks and towels shift out of her way. She stands secluded in the sweltering room, unaffected by the stench of mildew. She's grown to dread this once cherished haven—the pleasures of the marriage bed—ever since she realized what an unprotected moment could mean to her, to another child.
She switches on the window air conditioner, and the chilly blast fluffs her hair, cooling her sweaty scalp. She leans into the cold stream, wishing it would ease the too frequent flashes of hot rage.
The doorknob rattles. There is a soft tapping.
“Will you let me in?” Caleb asks.
She flinches. Irritation slips in behind the rage. “Do I have to?” she snaps.
The tapping stops. “Yes,” he says.
Hope stands by the air conditioner, picturing Caleb frowning, impatiently tapping his foot and cracking his knuckles, a clear indication that another sermon is looming. She forces herself to unlock the door and sits on the edge of the bed facing the hallway. She feels as though she is in the principal's office, waiting to be chastised. The door swings open, and Caleb is there, holding the cat.
“Let's go out,” he suggests.
“Excuse me?” Hope says.
“You and me. Out.”
“What do you mean? A date?”
“Just dinner and a movie.”
Hope hesitates before responding, “I don't want to.”
“Low key,” Caleb coaxes. He strokes the cat. She hears its purring. “No pressure.”
Hope wonders why that animal always sounds happy. “I have plans,” she says. “Besides there's nothing I want to see.”
“Plans?”
“Yes.”
Caleb is a silhouette cut into the brightness filtering through the bedroom door. Light sits like a yoke around his head. In the unfilled frame he looks like a dwarf emerging from a fiery cave come to wreak havoc in her world.
“You said you were working late,” Hope says.
Caleb says nothing, sets the cat down.
4