the Lord. The implication of these tales had always been abundantly clear: these deserters were not like us, and we were better off without them.
We all knew this, but my mother had never been the sort of parent to let a lesson—or anything, really—go unsaid. Still standing over the stove, she was only quiet for a moment after she read through the letter. All four little boys were clustered around her, hushed now, waiting to be told what was going on, where Josh’s stuff had gone. Her tone was sober, and there was finality and resignation in it: “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” She was quoting the Bible, I could tell, but this wasn’t a verse we’d focused on before—not in my memory—and I was as mystified as the boys.
I couldn’t pay attention anymore, though. My thoughts were racing. My nineteen-year-old brother had gone apostate. We’d been together since my birth precisely seventeen months after his, but I’d never see him again. I’d never speak to him again. He hadn’t said goodbye. Why did he leave? Where did he go? What was our family without him? I tried to imagine our house without his near-constant recitation of esoteric movie quotes, and failed. I tried to imagine our family “Sock War” game without him pelting me with pairs of striped kneesocks, and failed. I tried to imagine never again standing on the picket line discussing the philosophical questions raised by Stephen King novels, and failed. I knew that none of this was important, that his departure was the only thing that mattered. That he was just like Mark and Nate now, and that I should feel about Josh what Mom felt about her departed siblings. I didn’t, though. I couldn’t conjure an image of Josh that made him like our degenerate uncles, couldn’t exchange this new picture of him with the one I’d had just the day before, just that morning: my big brother, the one who taught me the cheats and secrets to Super Mario Brothers 3 on Nintendo, my verbal sparring partner and fellow bibliophile, lover of mashed potatoes and abuser of ketchup. It was impossible to reconcile these two narratives.
“Can I…?”
I reached for the letter, and Mom passed it over. I read through it once, and then again, hoping repetition would reveal why he’d done this drastic thing. He had a wide array of complaints—rejections of everything from the church’s picketing ministry to the way our parents ran our household—but at first, none of his grievances made any sense at all. I paused briefly and reconsidered: I could appreciate some of his grumblings, but none of them was a reason to leave the only known place in the world where God meets with His people. So what if babysitting our little brothers could be a miserable, thankless job? So what if he hadn’t been allowed to get an apartment? I’d been appalled that he’d even asked, frankly. He was only nineteen! We were supposed to be at home, taking care of things there.
There was one part, though, that I simply couldn’t fathom.
“We picket these people and they hate us for it and I have had enough of it.”
I shook my head as my eyes traced that line again and again. I knew there were some difficult parts of the life we’d been living, but being reviled wasn’t one of them. The fact that people hated us was cause for great happiness. Jesus Himself said so: Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Gramps always said from the pulpit that “rejoice” meant “leap for joy.”
Dismayed, I set the letter down on the counter. Maybe Josh really was a coward.
Mom made an announcement on the intercom, and speakers built into walls all over the house rang with her voice calling the family to the living room. I made my way there, and stared at Josh’s vacant seat while we waited for the stragglers. Since I had been a child, this was the place where we’d convened as a family at least once a day to read the Bible, talk through family matters, and discuss the church’s interpretation of current events. This was how my parents kept our household of twelve—eleven, I mentally corrected myself (Sam