Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

“My pastor,” I say. “Clive Lincoln.”

I am nervous, but Liddy and Reid stand on either side of me with smiles so wide on their faces that you’d think I’d cured cancer, or figured out world peace, instead of just coming to the Eternal Glory Church to give my testimony about finding Jesus.

It couldn’t have been more transparent for me if the answers had been tattooed on my face: the lowest of lows for me was that crash. Zoe’s apparition had been Jesus’s way of coming into my life. If I hadn’t seen her there, I’d be dead now. But instead I swerved. I swerved right into His open arms.

When Clive had come to me at the hospital, I was drugged with painkillers and had a brand-new cast on my left leg and stitches in my scalp and my shoulder. I hadn’t stopped crying since they’d loaded me into that ambulance. The pastor sat down on the edge of my bed and reached for my hand. “Let the Devil out, son,” Clive said. “Make room for Christ.”

I don’t think I can explain what happened after that. It was simply as if someone flipped a switch in me, and there wasn’t any hurt anymore. I felt like I was floating off the bed, and would have, if that cotton blanket hadn’t been holding me down. When I looked at my body-at the spaces between my fingers and the edges of my fingernails, I swear I could see light shining out.

For anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus into his heart, this is what it feels like: as if you’ve resisted the fact that your vision’s gone blurry, and you need glasses. But eventually you can’t see a foot in front of you without knocking things over and bumping into dead ends, so you go to the optometrist. You walk out of that office with a new pair of glasses, and the world looks sharper, brighter, more colorful. Crisp. You can’t understand why you waited so long to make the appointment.

When Jesus is with you, nothing seems particularly scary. Not the thought of never having another drink; not the moment you sit in court during your DUI charge. And not right now, when I will be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

After leaving the hospital, I started attending the Eternal Glory Church. I met with Pastor Clive, who sent out a prayer chain letter so that all these people I didn’t even know were praying for me. It’s a feeling I’ve never had before-strangers who didn’t judge me for the mistakes I’d made but just seemed happy I’d showed up. I didn’t have to be embarrassed about dropping out of college or getting divorced or drinking myself into a ditch. I didn’t have to measure up at all, actually. The fact that Jesus had placed me in their lives meant I was already worthy.

The Eternal Glory Church hasn’t got its own building, so it rents out the auditorium from a local school. We are standing in the back, waiting for Pastor Clive to give us the signal. Clive’s wife is playing the piano, and his three little daughters are singing. “They sound like angels,” I murmur.

“Yeah,” Reid agrees. “There’s a fourth kid, too, who doesn’t perform.”

“Like the Bonus Jonas,” I say.

The hymn ends, and Pastor Clive stands on the stage, his hands clasped. “Today,” he bellows, “is all about Jesus.”

There is a chorus of agreement from the congregation.

“Which is why, today, our newest brother in Christ is going to tell us his story. Max, can you come on up here?”

With Reid’s and Liddy’s help, I make my way down the aisle on crutches. I don’t like being the center of attention, usually, but this is different. Today, I’ll tell them the story of how I came to Christ. I will publicly announce my faith, so that all these people can hold me accountable.

Welcome, I hear.

Hello, Brother Max.

Clive leads me to a chair on the stage. It must come from a classroom; there are tennis balls on the feet of the chair to keep it from scratching up the linoleum. Beside it is what looks like a meat freezer, filled with water, with a set of steps leading up to it. I sit down on the chair, and Clive steps between Liddy and Reid, holding their hands. “Jesus, help Max grow closer to You. Let Max know God, love God, and spend quality time with His word.”

As he prays over me, I close my eyes. The lights from the stage are warm on my face; it makes me think of when I was little, and would ride my bike with my face turned up to the sun and my eyes closed, knowing that I was invincible and couldn’t crash, couldn’t get hurt.

Voices join Pastor Clive’s. It feels like a thousand kisses, like being filled to bursting with all the good in the world, so that there isn’t any room for the bad. It’s love, and it is unconditional acceptance, and not only haven’t I failed Jesus but He says I never will. His love pours into me, until I can’t keep it inside anymore. It spills out of my open throat-syllables that aren’t really any language, but still, I get the message. It’s crystal clear, to me.

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Refugee (3:06)

Ihaven’t given much thought to Zoe Baxter until I find her drowning at the bottom of the YMCA pool.

I don’t know who it is, at first. I am swimming my laps at 6:30 A.M.-just about the only exercise I can drag myself out of bed for-and am midstroke doing the crawl when I see a woman slowly floating down to the bottom, with her hair fanning out around her head. Her arms are outstretched, and she doesn’t look like she is sinking as much as just letting go.

I jackknife and dive, grab her hand, and yank her through the water. She starts fighting me as we approach the surface, but by then the adrenaline has kicked in and I haul her out of the pool and kneel over her, dripping on her face as she coughs and rolls to her side. “What the hell,” she gasps, “are you doing ?”

“What the hell were you doing?” I reply, and as she sits up, I realize whom I’ve saved. “Zoe?”

It is quiet at the Y. Pre-Christmas, the lap lane occupants have dwindled down to me, a few elderly swimmers, and the occasional physical therapy/rehab patient. Zoe and I are playing out this little scene on the tile edge of the pool without anyone really paying attention.

“I was staring up at the lights,” Zoe says.

“Here’s a news flash: you don’t have to drown to do that.” Now that we’re both out of the water, I’m shivering. I grab my towel and wrap it around my shoulders.

I heard, of course, about the baby. It was horrible, to say the least, to have the guest of honor at a baby shower rushed to the hospital to deliver a stillborn. I wasn’t even planning on going to the shower, but I’d felt bad for her-what kind of woman has so few friends that she has to invite people who’ve contracted her music therapy services? Afterward, naturally, I felt even worse for her. I’d helped her bookkeeper clean up the restaurant, after the ambulance screamed away. There had been little baby-bottle bubble wands at each place setting; and I’d collected them on the way out, figuring that I’d give them back to Zoe at some point in the future. They were still somewhere in my trunk.

I don’t know what to say to her. How are you? seems superfluous. I’m sorry seems even worse.

“You should try it,” Zoe says.

“Suicide?”

“Once a school counselor always a school counselor,” she answers. “I told you, I wasn’t trying to kill myself. Just the opposite, actually. You can feel your heart beat, all the way to your fingers, when you’re down there.”

She slips back into the pool like an otter and looks up at me. Waiting. With a sigh, I throw down my towel and dive back in. I open my eyes underwater and see Zoe sinking to the bottom again, so I mimic her. Twisting onto my back, I look up at the quivery Morse code dashes of the fluorescent lights, and exhale through my nose so that I sink.