Hannah Gersen - Home Field

“Where are Megan and Jenny?”

“Jenny’s watching Brady Bunch on Nickelodeon. Megan went for a jog. Dad told her to.”

“Right, there’s some big race tomorrow.”

“We were supposed to go.”

“Maybe you still will.”

“Maybe.” Bryan leaned against Stephanie. “I wish you lived here.”

“Oh, buddy.” Stephanie held her brother close. His legs looked long stretched out next to hers. He had on a pair of hand-me-down corduroys that she clearly remembered Robbie wearing.

“It’s okay, I know you have to go to college.”

Stephanie heard someone pull into the driveway, and her first thought was that somehow it was Robbie. Someone had found him and was bringing him back. She went to the window.

“It’s Pastor Owen!” Bryan said happily. “He’s from Aunt Joelle’s church.”

“Oh.” Stephanie doubted her father had approved of or was even aware of this visit.

Stephanie reluctantly followed Bryan downstairs to the kitchen, where Aunt Joelle was welcoming Pastor Owen inside. He was younger than Stephanie had expected, probably in his late twenties. He had a broad face, large ears, ruddy skin, and short reddish-brown hair. His large, dark eyes radiated emotion. She couldn’t help liking him. He reminded her of a big friendly farm dog.

He gave Aunt Joelle and Bryan long hugs and shook Stephanie’s hand, holding it between his own two hands like it was a precious thing. His sincerity was almost overbearing.

“Jenny!” Aunt Joelle called. “Megan’s out for a jog,” she added apologetically. “I told her to be back by now. .”

“I’m not in any rush,” Pastor Owen said. “Is Mr. Renner around too?”

“He’s on the phone,” Stephanie said quickly. “Let me go get him.”

Stephanie went up to her father’s study, an alcove off the dining room, but he wasn’t there. Then she checked his bedroom, but that was empty, too. The room had a slightly harder, cleaner look; it was missing all the fussy niceties her mother attended to: the runners on the dresser, the liners in the trash can, the flowers in the bud vase. Soon only the particular arrangement of the furniture would bear her mother’s fingerprints.

Stephanie heard loud voices downstairs. Tension filled her body as she remembered what it had been like to live here when her mother was lost to herself. At the beginning of high school Stephanie would sometimes sit on the back stairs and listen in, monitoring the emotional weather, but eventually she grew to dislike the role of spy. It made her complicit, somehow. She learned to put on headphones and ignore.

She felt dread hardening in her chest as she descended the stairs. She heard her father saying, “What gives you the right?” And then Joelle saying, “I thought it would help!” A quieter voice intervened. Pastor Owen. Stephanie felt sorry for him. He was still talking when she entered the living room. Everyone was staring at him. Megan sat next to her mother and sister on the sofa, her bare legs mottled from running in the cold. Stephanie’s father was in his chair, a worn-out lounger, while Pastor Owen sat in what was unofficially the guest seat, a semicomfortable velvet wing chair. Stephanie knelt on the floor next to Bryan, feeling helpless, like a little kid. But she couldn’t interrupt a minister.

“. . and I don’t want to intrude, Mr. Renner,” Pastor Owen was saying. “I’m happy to lead a prayer for your family or simply to sit with you, or to go. I won’t be offended, whatever you choose.”

“The issue is not with you,” Stephanie’s father said. “I’m not opposed to prayer. But you’ve walked into a situation with some history to it. To put it simply, my sister-in-law has been pressuring my family to worship in a certain way and it’s led to a lot of conflict. And as you may know, my wife passed away earlier this year.”

“You make it sound like the two things are related!” Aunt Joelle said.

“That’s just your guilty conscience.”

“So you admit it.”

“What am I admitting? That you try to control everything? That you put your nose in everyone’s business? Who invited you to come here today? Who told you to come into my house and invite strangers?”

“Pastor Owen is an important person to my family, he’s an important person to your son.”

“Don’t tell me what’s important to my son. I entrusted him to you and what do you do? You indoctrinate him in your pushy Christianity.”

“You’re rude and you’re a bully, Dean. You always have been. Talk about trust. I gave my daughter to you!”

“Megan is fourteen years old. Like it or not, she’s on her way to becoming an adult. She came to me, I did nothing to recruit her.”

“Oh, you did nothing, of course, you’re perfect, nothing touches you. Everyone loves you, everyone thinks you’re so good. You walk on water because you’re Coach and you change lives . But I know how selfish you are, I know how miserable you make people. I gave my sister to you. And now she’s gone and you’re letting her kids go. I’m trying to find a safe place for them. Pastor Owen is a good person, he has God with him, he could help you. But you don’t want help. You want to do everything on your own.”

“Mom, Mom.” Megan put her arms around her mother and stroked her hair.

“I did the best I could with Nicky.” Aunt Joelle was crying now. “I miss her so much, oh God in heaven, I miss her. I just want her to come back.”

Pastor Owen looked stunned, his youth shining through. He reached out his hands, offering one to Stephanie’s father and the other to Bryan, who was sitting closest to him.

“Let us bow our heads in prayer,” he said. “But let it be a silent prayer.”

Stephanie closed her eyes and listened to her aunt cry. She said a prayer not to God, but to her mother.

ROBBIE HADN’T ACCOUNTED for the wait at the bus station. He sat on a bench with molded plastic seats that were like the chairs at school. His seat was missing an armrest, as were many of the seats nearby. He was bored. At first it had been a relief to sit and rest his legs after so many hours of walking but now he was getting restless. He still had a half hour until his bus arrived.

He got up and did another lap around the station. He knew everyone who was waiting, or at least he felt as if he knew them, because he’d been staring at them for so long. Sometimes people would return his gaze, but most ignored or just plain didn’t notice him. Periodically a group of three or four people would get up and go outside to meet their bus. Robbie was surprised at the variety of Pennsylvanian destinations on offer. There was a large group gathering for a Philadelphia departure, and it crossed Robbie’s mind that he could change his ticket and meet Stephanie instead. But he couldn’t give up his original plan.

There was time, he decided, to go outside. And it was late enough in the day that no one would ask why he wasn’t in school. He left the station and walked down the street to a toy store that he used to go to with his mother whenever they made trips into Hagerstown. It was a very small toy store, not part of a chain, and his mother liked it because they carried old-fashioned chapter books, like the ones she’d read as a girl. Sometimes Robbie would ask her to buy him one, not because he really wanted one but because he knew she liked it when he asked for them. He always read them and usually enjoyed them, but they weren’t the kind of books he preferred. They were too formal, with their hard covers and thick pages, the ends of the pages left raw so that they seemed to be torn from a large, grand sheet of paper. Sometimes the top and bottom edges of the pages were dusted with gold powder and it would get on Robbie’s fingers when he first started reading them. Robbie preferred books that were small and portable — paperbacks that he could carry in his jacket pocket or in the back pocket of his jeans. He liked reading to feel a little bit secret.