their jam finely. Now we wanted life to be as gold as God glitter.
It seemed there would be no mention of my mother during the sermon, or me, and I relaxed a bit. I let my eyes blur over the cherub in the stained glass, wondered where my mother was at this moment. She was in new places with people I had never met. I liked to imagine she had begged the Turquoise Cowboy to wait for me, but they were too reckless. My mother could be that way but usually she would remember I existed at some point. Maybe as they’d driven away she imagined she was taking a vacation.
I started to think of all the exotic places she might be, the things she was wearing, but Cherry nudged me out of my fantasy. Lyle was standing before me, hand out. “Be baptized again,” he said. I took his hand and let him lead me to the stage. Baptism was always a relief to me. A way to start over. In the past when there was water it was a way to pretend I was swimming, but there was no bathtub filled with water now. Not even soda today. There was nothing but Lyle and me.
He produced a small lighter from his robe and held it up so the Body could see. It was the same kind Sapphire Earrings bought every time he went to the Wine Baron to get his cigarettes. Because of him our apartment had one in every drawer, fallen from the pockets of his jeans left on the floor. I saw Lyle’s hand shake.
He brought the lighter to the bottom of my mother’s organza dress and made a flame. Nothing happened. I gathered the hem up in my arms.
“What are you doing?” I said to him.
“Trust me,” he said.
I looked to Vern, who was sitting cross-legged on his dog bed at the far side of the stage. He wanted Lyle to perform a wonder. I thought of the time Vern had brought in a rattlesnake to handle and when he opened the cage it slithered away down the aisle and disappeared, never to be seen again. I could still hear the sound the rattler made.
“Lacey,” Vern said, reprimanding me with just my name.
I wanted to do the right thing. I looked to Cherry, who would surely call it, come to the stage to get me. Perhaps this was a test of her devotion to me as her granddaughter. All possibilities swam in my head other than what was suddenly happening, a flame licking my leg and the organza blooming with fire.
The flame crawled up the dress bodice and I screamed. I threw myself on the ground and beat the fire with my hands. The Body cheered. Am I hurt? I wondered. My panic had numbed me. Then I was wet. Brown liquid came from above.
I patted the dress, its once-floaty skirt a brown mush now, ruined. The Bible study girls gathered around, hugging me and praising God. I felt rays of joy and heaven being sent toward me, and my face contorted of its own volition into what felt like a crazed smile. It sent the Body into spirit song and my skin tingled with their light. “Home,” Vern said, standing over me. Home. The Body wanted me, I could see. I was so highly prized. I had never been called to the stage before for such a demonstration. I had always been in the crowd, watching on as people transformed in loud dramatic displays. At one time my mother would have been proud of me up here like this, but now I imagined her embarrassed by me, above us all, a luxurious movie star, probably in at least one commercial at this point. I wished both things could be true, our faith and my mother’s wandering, but they could not. I pushed my mother away.
“Go ahead and heal her burn,” Vern said to Lyle.
I looked down at my exposed thigh where there was a red mark, but it was a scrape that had already been there and no longer hurt. Lyle covered it with his hand and said a low garbled prayer. Vern announced me healed.
“Do you feel foolish for your doubt?” Vern asked, reaching down to help me up. I nodded, looking into his eyes. We all knew he could read us so clearly, he could pull truth from any of us with a glance. I looked away. I did feel foolish. But