Amy Gustine - You Should Pity Us Instead

Molly shrugs. “Life is confusing.” She remembers Emma, age one, falling through a banister down a flight of stairs. That night in ICU Molly caught herself praying to Jesus as if he were an old friend who’d moved to Bangladesh — these days, he could be reached only in case of emergency.

“One visit,” she assures Simon. “Kate will be bored to tears and never go back.”

But church neither bores nor comforts Kate. Rather it seems to strike a flame of curiosity edged with suspicion. Molly finds her reading Simon’s book.

“Why does Daddy get to write a book about God if he doesn’t believe in him?”

“That’s what the book’s about. Why he doesn’t believe.”

“Does anybody besides you agree with Daddy?”

“Sure, lots of people do.”

Kate looks unconvinced. Molly takes the book away. “This isn’t really appropriate for you.”

“Why? Does it have bad words?’

“No, it’s just complicated.”

“Yeah,” Kate conceded. “There were a lot of words I didn’t know. Some of them had fifteen letters!”

The following week she announces she’s going to church with Sarah again.

“Why?” Molly asks.

“It was interesting.” She tells Molly about Adoo. “Sometimes he stays outside during church and Mrs. Randolph stays with him, or sends one of the big kids. And he doesn’t like music. He covers his ears when they play that gong piano thing.”

“Organ,” Molly interrupts.

“Yeah, organ. People started singing, and he crawled under the bench thing and wouldn’t get out.”

“What happened?”

“Mrs. Randolph laid down with him.”

“In the middle of church? On the floor?”

Emma appears dressed in her only skirt, a black and white hounds-tooth wool. She’s wearing a white blouse Molly doesn’t recognize with an orange stain on the sleeve.

“I’m going too. Sarah said I could.”

Simon gives Molly a told-you-so look. “Nobody’s going,” he says. “We don’t go to church.”

Both girls demand a better reason.

Molly takes Simon aside. “I told you encouraging them to think for themselves wasn’t a good idea,” she jokes.

“Yes, and now seems like a good time to stop that.”

“Come on, they’ll lose interest eventually.”

“You said she wouldn’t go more than once.”

“Adoo makes it interesting.”

“Sounds to me like they’re torturing that poor kid.”

The Randolphs arrive to pick up Kate, but there aren’t enough seats for Emma. Molly is about to offer to drive her and Simon is suggesting neither girl go when Adoo comes out of the van and signs something to Elizabeth. They talk in gestures and a few broken words of English and his native tongue. Molly gathers he is offering his seat to Emma.

“Adoo can stay here.” Simon shrugs, Mister Innocent.

Adoo seems to have understood and nods his head. “Stay, yes.”

Elizabeth hesitates.

“It’s fine,” Simon says. “It’ll be interesting.”

Within half an hour Simon has exhausted what he can learn without a translator, so Adoo goes out to wander the yard and Simon goes inside to clean the fridge. From the porch, Molly watches Adoo examine plants and rocks, then climb up into the crotch of the willow tree and begin chewing on a leaf. When the Randolphs pull in the driveway, Molly goes outside to call him down. He hands her a long, shallow basket he’s made from the willow switches and mimes for her to collect flowers or pick up sticks. After he leaves, Molly looks up willow trees and finds out the salicylic acid their leaves and bark contain is the precursor to aspirin. She wonders if Adoo is in pain.

The girls delight in the basket and next time Sarah comes to play Kate invites Adoo as well.

Elizabeth thanks Molly. “He doesn’t have any friends yet. I really appreciate Kate being so nice.” She pauses. “Not everyone feels comfortable with Adoo.”

He shows the girls how to make the baskets. It’s harder than it looks and the twigs leave narrow welts on their hands. To weave the bottom, crosspieces have to be inserted through slits in a thicker branch. Adoo demonstrates how to make the slit with your front teeth, holding the wood like corn on the cob, but the girls recoil from its taste, so he does it for them.

The following week Elizabeth calls to say they can’t take Emma and Kate to church. “Adoo and Sarah don’t want to go, and I think I might have better luck with them if it’s just family.”

“I hope the girls were behaving.”

Elizabeth assures her they were, but Molly can tell there’s something more to it. A week goes by and Sarah isn’t free to play. Kate leaves four messages, none returned. After the fifth message, Elizabeth calls.

“I enrolled Adoo and Sarah in Bible camp, so they won’t be around as much.”

Molly stews for days, then calls back. “If you aren’t going to let Sarah be friends with Kate, I would prefer you tell me that straight out. I don’t want her to think Sarah is mad at her.”

Elizabeth insists she adores Kate and that Sarah’s just been busy.

Another week passes with no Sarah before Kate tells Molly she wants to attend Bible study too.

“You can’t. You have to be a member of that church.”

“I can go with Sarah. Please!”

Molly puts her off with excuses about Simon not liking it and Emma wanting to tag along, but Kate continues nagging until Molly snaps, “No, we aren’t religious. We don’t belong to that church and you can’t go to Bible study. You can’t go to yeshiva or join a sangha or hang around the mosque either. We stay home Sundays. We do yard work and go swimming.”

“You just read,” Kate says. “You don’t even like to swim.”

Kate mopes around for nearly two weeks before Molly calls the Randolphs. Simon is lecturing out of town, so she won’t have to argue with him about it.

On the phone Elizabeth sounds different, her tone less cheerful, more intimate. “Sarah would love to play, I’m sure.”

“Kate would like Adoo to come too, if it’s okay. They have baskets to finish.”

On Saturday Elizabeth drops them off. The kids, including Emma, go into the backyard.

“How’s it going?” Molly asks.

“Well,” Elizabeth shrugs. “It’s harder than I thought.”

“Harder?”

“Adoo. I knew he’d need a lot of love and patience and extra work to socialize…” She stumbles, correcting herself. “Acclimate himself.”

“I admire you,” Molly says. “What you’re doing for him.”

Elizabeth looks embarrassed. “I’m not so sure anymore I did the right thing. For him, I mean.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

She glances at the van. The one-year-old is asleep in her car seat and the three-year-old is watching a movie on the van’s video system. “I think we’ll be moving to a new church.”

“Why?”

“The pastor and I disagree about Adoo.”

“How so?” Molly makes her voice gentle to invite confidence.

Elizabeth sighs. “He’s not sure Adoo can be saved.”

“Maybe he should move in with us. He’d fit right in.”

Elizabeth smiles, scuffing her sandal on the pavement. “You’ll be fine. God isn’t interested in what you think. He’s interested in what you do.”

Emboldened, Molly asks, “How come you’ve been so nice to me? No one else is talking to me since Simon’s book came out.”

Elizabeth shrugs. “Being offended is a sin of pride.”

Molly bristles. “So I’m your good deed for the day?”

“No, no. I admire you guys. Most people are afraid to be honest. What’s the point in having a friend if they aren’t who you think they are?”

Simon has made a similar point about God.

“I’m going to say goodbye to the kids.” Elizabeth nods toward the backyard. “Give me a call when you want to get rid of them.”