Four O’Ring

“We can stop for burgers on the way home, if you like,” Joanna says.

We never stop for burgers.

“Um... sure,” I say back.

I text Stella on the way there.

Just left church. Joanna’s taking me for burgers.

Stella shoots back: Not sure which sentence is more confusing. Don’t take your eyes off your food tho.

I send her an all-teeth emoji and she writes back: If I don’t hear from you in two hours, I’m calling Dateline.

I snort as I key in: And that’s why you’re my ride-or-die.

Stella may be onto something, though.

I tell myself the weird feeling in my stomach isn’t all edge.

I tell myself it’s because I’m actually starving.

I tell myself lots of people go out to eat after church.

I tell myself sometimes a hamburger is just a hamburger.

At the same time, I’ve learned that Joanna isn’t always consistent. Like I can never fully know which version of my mother is coming through the door at a given moment. When you break it open, I think that’s what’s making me so nervous about the whole stopping-for-burgers thing right now.

Our booth inside O’Ring overlooks the parking lot out front. Inside the restaurant, seats are packed with after-church crowds. Families with little kids. Teens in their school jackets or T-shirts repping their house of worship. Laughing. Chatting. This is what they mean when they talk about “fellowship” at church. It’s like the endorphin high that got whipped up inside people during the service has followed them all the way into this restaurant.

I text Stella again after we order, when my mom ducks into the ladies’ room.

9-1-1.Our universal code for Help!

Sorry, boo. I got Sunday plans that don’t involve Jesus.

I put my phone away as my mom slides back into the booth, and the server comes in right behind her to bring our food. Cheeseburger basket for me. Grilled chicken for Joanna. I move in for a fry, but she takes both my hands in hers and drops her head.

“Lord, we thank You for this food, God, that it may bless and nourish our bodies.”

Oh shit, we’re doing this again. I look around to see if anyone’s watching as Joanna goes on, but of course no one here would think anything of her saying grace before the meal.

“May all that we do be to the glory of You, Lord. We thank You for Your steadfast love. Amen.”

I mumble a quick amen and pull my hands away.

We reach for the ketchup bottle at the same time, and she motions for me to take it.

“Looks like there’s a youth group that meets on Wednesdays,” she says, like she’s been thinking about it ever since we left Greenville. “That could be fun.”

I don’t say anything as I hand the ketchup to her. My annoying cousin probably goes to that youth group thing on Wednesdays. If so, hard pass. If not, it’s still a pass, just without the required anti-Gabby sentiment.

“You know, Daya... I think... it’s been just the two of us for so long. You and me against the world. And it just seems like it’s not... enough. Community is such a big part of our spiritual path, and—”

“It’s part of your spiritual path,” I correct her. The words feel tight in my throat, but I can’t not say them. “I don’t mean to be a jerk about it, I just don’t want you assigning that to me.”

“But our spiritual path—”

“My spiritual path is different from yours, so. I’m not really sure why all of a sudden—”

“It’s my job to protect you spiritually,” she cuts in. “Can you understand that?”

There’s a shift in her tone. Like how she sounded the day before she asked my dad Are you in love with that woman? versus the day after.

I lean back, try to figure out where to go next. I had a bad feeling something like this was going to happen. And maybe it wouldn’t hit such a nerve if it didn’t sound like something my aunt Suzanne told her to say.

Joanna leans forward. “I need you to hear me, Daya. Our connection to God is so important.” She clasps her hands together on the word connection to help her make her point. “But our reconnection after going astray is... it’s a matter of life and death.”

I watch her eyes shift back and forth, waiting for the light of recognition, of agreement, to flicker in mine.

“I didn’t go astray,” I tell her. “You did.”

There it is. The line I’m not supposed to cross. I can see it all over her.

She clears her throat, recalibrates.

“We go astray when we don’t seek God out,” she says, her eyes just barely fluttering, like she’s fighting back tears. “And we can’t seek God out without help from the church.”

“But it was fine when you didn’t need church all those years.”

She waits before speaking again, probably so she can count to ten, take deep breaths. Use the tools her therapist gave her to help her function again after her life imploded nine years ago. But she doesn’t take her eyes off my face, even as her expressions shift between anger and sadness and something else. Hurt, maybe? I swear, I’m not trying to hurt her.

But I have my own relationship with God, and I don’t have to go to Grace Redeemer to experience it.

It feels like an eternity before she half turns and signals the server to come over. Then she turns back to me.

“It wasn’t fine. I wasn’t fine.”

The server steps up to our table.

“Two boxes, please,” Joanna says. “And the check.”

I’m as stunned by this as I was when she bowed to pray before our meal. If she wants to leave so we can really throw down over this, I’m not doing it. I don’t want to fight with my mother about God.

“One box,” I say, looking back at Joanna. “I’m going to stay for a while.”

I hold my breath, wondering if she’s going to give in or just take the gloves off right here. But that’s not my mother’s style. She wouldn’t do anything that would open the door for people to talk about her again. To say she’s a bad mother this time instead of a bad wife. She’ll never let that happen. And I don’t want that either.

But if I thought she’d let me have the last word, I’d be wrong.

“The first step your father took in destroying this family,” she says, lowering her voice to just above a whisper, “was breaking away from God. That was the beginning of the end.”

She swipes her plate off the table, walks it to the front counter, and packs up her untouched food while the cashier runs her payment. She swings out the door without looking back at me even once.

I watch her get in the car and drive off, blinking away the hot sting of tears as I follow her taillights out of the parking lot. I keep staring long after she turns at the signal and is gone.

I reach for my phone, thinking I’m going to text Stella. But instead, I open Instagram and go to the Grace Redeemer page. Scroll through their youth group photos. All those hands lifted in prayer. The tear-streamed faces. The laughter. The joy. I can almost hear the band playing their church version of Ed Sheeran as I scroll. That’s the magic sauce, I think. That music, pulling you in, giving you such a rush of emotion, you want to keep chasing that feeling long after it’s over.

I swipe a few more times, stop on a photo, zoom in close. It’s a prayer tunnel, and Beckett’s the one going through it. Eyes closed. Mouth pulled into a not-quite smile. Kids on both sides of her, reaching out, laying their hands on her shoulders and head as they pray.

I click out of Insta, grab my earbuds, jam them into my ears. Find “Nowhere, Girl” on my playlist and crank up the volume.

Why don’t we head out to nowhere, girl....

I was only seven or so when I asked Joanna why we’d stopped going to St. John’s. Too young to understand when she said, “Church is for broken people.” But I knew on some level that she was broken. That we were broken. And I didn’t know why we couldn’t go back to the one place where we were always told we could be fixed.

Just hitch a ride to you-know-where, girl.

The only thing to hate is hate.

The only thing to love is love.

I put “Nowhere, Girl” on repeat and hum softly along with Cassie Ryan as I pick at my burger. It’s not enough. C.Ry isn’t working this time.

A knock on the other side of the glass window pulls me out of my headspace. With my earbuds in, I don’t hear the knock so much as see it in my periphery, and for one ridiculous second, I think it might be Joanna.

It’s B’Rad.

He swings his finger back and forth between my half-empty booth and him, like he’s asking if he can join me.

I nod, popping my earbuds out.

“What are you doing here?” I ask as he slides into the other side of the booth.

“I was just meeting up with someone real quick.”

He looks down at my plate.

“You know, Daya, in some contexts, sitting alone in a restaurant with nothing but a cheeseburger and fries between you and the great dark void, looking the way you do? It could be construed as a red flag.”

I push the plate to the middle of the table. “I’m not alone, though. Am I?”

He smiles, takes a fry, eats it.

“So how do I look?” I ask, and without a beat, he goes, “Hella fly, in that button-up shirt. That’s a good vibe on you.”

I laugh. “No, I mean... you said looking the way you do, so... what way is that?”

“Like someone ate all your Fruity Pebbles.”

I nod, thinking that’s a pretty accurate description. We each drag a fry through the ketchup and eat it, and then another one, and then he goes, “So... who was the bastard that ate all your Fruity Pebbles?”

“Yeah, that would be my mom. Joanna.”

B’Rad leans back, takes another quick assessment of my button-up shirt, leans over to peep under the table, sees that I’m wearing slacks, not jeans. He comes back up with an all-knowing nod and goes, “Ahhh, okay. It’s Sunday. You’re wearing clothes.”

“I always wear clothes on Sunday.”

“You know what I mean.”

I stare out the window until the traffic light on the corner cycles red-to-green twice.

“I didn’t even hate it, really, it’s just—”

“You didn’t hate it?”

“I mean... okay, it was Grace Redeemer, so the music was great, and that was most of the service. It’s like going to see your favorite band in concert every weekend, right? But like... then they got into the whole, Don’t be gay or trans, or God will force us to remind you who you really are kind of thing, and I just...”

“Ouch.”

“And you know... if they could just hold the message at Love thy neighbor, I’d be totally down. That’s a great message. So why do they have to get into the other stuff? You start out feeling like you’re at a Green Day concert and end up in don’t-say-gay Florida.”

“Gotcha.”

“And it feels like Joanna’s going to start pushing me to do all the church things now.”

“Is this a new thing? Is there Kool-Aid in your fridge all of a sudden?”

I smile, shake my head. “Yeah, no. My aunt got her to start going to this church about six months ago, and since then, it’s like... like my mom’s turning into a clone of her older sister. And she wants to turn me into her clone. Like, if I don’t think how she thinks and act how she acts, there must be something inherently wrong with me.”

“Great word.”

“Thank you. I just...” I pick up the saltshaker, spin it across the table. “She’s suddenly worried about my spiritual path without ever asking me if I even have one, and... I don’t know.”

“You do know.”

“What?” I put the saltshaker back. “What do I know?”

“You know it’s not going to be like this everywhere. Once you leave Escondido—”

I lower my eyes to skeptical-half-mast and say, “Dude. Where am I gonna go that isn’t at least as messed up as it is here? Half the states in this country still don’t have rights protecting people like me. More than half are banning books if they even think there’squeer content. Or Black history. Because we can’t teach teenagers about actual history or the world might end. And Florida? They’re so anti-gay in Florida, they’re ready to throw teachers and librarians in jail for shelving books with queer characters. You can’t spit and not hit a state that isn’t writing—and passing—anti-queer legislation, so. That’s what I know.”

His mouth bends into an empathetic smile.

“No... seriously. Where am I gonna go that’s different?”

“Okay, but.” B’Rad pushes his glasses back into place. “It won’t be like that forever, right?”

“I don’t know, man. It just feels like we’re going backward. And then you go somewhere like Grace Redeemer, with their message of love and acceptance. And you have this really powerful emotional experience, right? And as soon as you’re all open and vulnerable, pow. Now the message is, God commands you to talk gay and trans people out of their identities. And they make it all sound so... acceptable.”

“And your mom’s right there, in the middle of the sausage.”

I almost want to laugh at the visual, but I can’t. Not now. Instead, I start picking off little bits of hamburger bun into the shape of a flower.

“And now I get to go home and start up where we left off,” I say.

“At least let me drive you,” he offers.

I let him.

On the way home, I fire off another text to Stella.

What r u doing?

She says, What do u think I’m doing?

Perv.I put a wink emoji after it.

She sends back the kissy-lips emoji, then types:

So... church... pick up any cute girls?

Damn—that question hits too close for comfort.

Let’s just say, it’s been a weird day.

Dude, you better spill ALL the tea tomorrow!

On the way to school – I pinkie swear.

Meet me early, she writes. I have to make up a quiz for Moore’s class.

Yer killin’ me, you know that?

Stella’s so anti-establishment, she still uses emojis. She sends me rock-star hands, followed by a middle finger, followed by laughing with tears.

When we pull up to the house, my mom’s car isn’t parked out front, goddess bless.

“Thanks again,” I tell B’Rad. “See you tomorrow.”

He flashes me a peace sign back and pulls away.

I jiggle the back door open, where the first thing I notice is a note on the fridge from Joanna.

Out with the gals from SHIMMER.

I pull the note off and throw it away. Just because I’m relieved she’s not home doesn’t mean anything has blown over. She’s meeting with her women’s group from church, right after we had a fight about church, so. That feels like logs on a fire, honestly.

I keep all the lights off in my room except the string lights across the ceiling. Put my earbuds in, fire up the whole C.Ry album with the songs on shuffle. And because I can’t stop myself, I go back to Grace Redeemer’s Insta page. To the picture of Beckett.

Eyes closed, walking through the prayer tunnel.

I wish I could read her face in that moment. Was she peaceful? Elated? Uncomfortable?

I could message her and ask. Not like sliding into her DMs but just... just a question. From a friend. At school. A church friend. No, a school friend.

I go to her Insta. Look at her newest pics before I message her. She posted after church, it looks like. Her and a bunch of other kids in someone’s backyard. A beautiful swimming pool behind them. Her boyfriend Cason’s there. So is Lucy.

Cason’s clowning for the camera.

Lucy has her arm around Beckett’s shoulder.

I go to the message window on Beckett’s feed. Type something. Delete it.

C.Ry wails on track 7: “Blackened Red Flesh.”

I swipe back over to her profile. To the picture of Cason and Lucy and Beckett. Take a swing at a new message. Looks like fun. Except I’m in her DMs. She won’t even know what I’m talking about. Delete.

Track 4 comes on. “When You Called Me Baby.” Its slow, haunting vibe calms me, so I put it on repeat and close my eyes. Try to regulate my breathing.

I guess it works, because I wake up to the sound of Joanna pushing the sticky front door shut. For a couple of disoriented clicks, I look around my room. Listen to see if Joanna knocks on my door so we can talk. She doesn’t.

I should be grateful.

But time has taught me that silence doesn’t always equal safety.

Too often, silence is the sound life makes just before the other shoe drops.