The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,67
of us to pray for this woman to be set at liberty from her headaches. I pray as hard as I can, holding on to Eileen’s hand. You are supposed to close your eyes, but I open mine long enough to see that my mother’s are still open. If this doesn’t work, if the lady still gets headaches, it will be her fault.
“Do you feel this?” he asks, still squishing the lady’s head. “Do you feel this coming from my hands, this heat?”
She waits, her eyes closed, face tensed, as if she is listening for a sound from far away. Then she opens her eyes. “I do,” she says. “I feel it!”
Eileen jumps a little in her chair, both hands cupped over her mouth.
“I feel better!” the lady says, to us now. “I feel better! I really do.”
Pastor Dave starts playing the accordion again, and the lady dances down the aisle, her arms raised high in the air.
The next man who goes up won’t say exactly what his problem is; he will only say he is suffering from wicked thoughts in his mind and heart, but Harry Hopewell nods quickly, as if he knew what the man would say before he even opened his mouth.
“You know,” Harry Hopewell says, taking off his glasses, rubbing the lenses with his red tie, “Jesus, while on Earth, stilled a storm. He had the power to calm both the land and sea. Does he not have the power to purge this man of the thoughts that torment him, to bring him back into the light?” When we don’t answer, he looks up at us. “Well, does he?”
“Yes!” we say, all of us together, except for my mother, who says nothing.
He places his hands on the man’s head and tells him he won’t suffer from wicked thoughts anymore if he is in fact a true believer. The man says, “Okay,” and goes back to his chair. A woman with arthritis goes up next, and then even Sharon and Pastor Dave take a turn. Sharon starts crying, up there in front of everyone, and it’s so strange to see her like this, mascara tears running down her pink cheeks. She’s crying so hard that you can’t really understand her as she explains what the problem is, but then Pastor Dave says that they haven’t been able to have a baby, and that they want one, more than anything else in the world. They’ll give up anything to have a baby, he says. Harry Hopewell says if this is true, then they’ll be able to have one.
My mother leans over me to poke Eileen on the knee. “This is stupid,” she whispers. “That’s mean, for him to tell them that.”
I look at her, unbelieving. It’s pretty bad, what she said, even for her. You can’t call a reverend stupid, especially when you’re in church. The walls could fall down, tumbling down just on her head, leaving everyone else alone. And then, maybe because we’re in church, she gets what she deserves.
“In the back there?” Harry Hopewell asks. “Ma’am? With the baby?”
The accordion stops playing. My mother shakes her head quickly, sitting up straight. “No. Nothing. I’m okay.”
But Eileen waves at Pastor Dave, motioning him over. “Go on up,” she says, pushing on my mother’s arm. “Go, Tina. It’s free, anyway.”
My mother brings Samuel closer to her chest, his empty eyes staring off past her shoulder. She shakes her head. “No, Mom. No. Stop it.”
“Come on. What would it hurt to try?”
Pastor Dave is moving toward us, smiling and squeezing the accordion in and out as he walks. He stops when he gets to where we are and puts his hand on my mother’s shoulder.
“I’m okay,” my mother says. She keeps her head still, but she moves her eyes so she’s looking at his hand on her shoulder. “Really.”
“Tina,” he says, still holding the accordion in his other hand, his fingers pressing lightly on the keys. “You said your baby was sick. Don’t you want to help him? We’re coming to you with love. Just love, Tina. Nobody’s judging you for what you may have done wrong in the past. We only want to help you and your baby come to Christ.”
“Come on, Tina,” Eileen says, her hand on my mother’s knee. “Just give it a try.”
My mother is still looking at Pastor Dave’s hand on her shoulder, her eyes wide. “No thanks.” She pulls the edges of Sam’s blanket over his face. “Go away, okay?”