In the Wilderness - Kim Barnes [26]
They seemed always happy, singing separately or as a family, teasing with affection, catching us up in their enthusiasm for God. We often gathered at the parsonage for long hours of music: Brother Lang on his banjo, my father strumming along on the guitar my mother had bought him for Christmas—a Gibson arch-top f-hole—playing the simple chords he had learned as a boy. Brother Lang was originally from Texas and knew many of the bluegrass songs my parents loved, and when not playing gospel they filled the small room with the loud and vibrant twang of country.
Perhaps my father saw in Brother Lang the man he might become—a preacher, a husband whose family followed the path he laid out without question. My mother found in Sister Lang something her own life had never offered: a role model of Christian womanhood. And I found the same in Sarah, nearly a woman herself but willing to treat me with kindness, teaching me the art of modest behavior: keep your legs together, your skirt pulled over the caps of your knees; don’t chew gum; run the water when you use the bathroom to mask the noise. Her long blond hair and virtuous demeanor brought her the attention of an eighteen-year-old boy from downriver, a trapper and wilderness guide, red-headed and easily embarrassed. At sixteen her parents believed her more than ready to marry, and before the year was out she and her new husband, Terry, had taken up matrimonial residence in her upstairs bedroom.
But there was one stipulation to their union: Terry could marry their daughter, but he must agree to never take her away from the family. Brother and Sister Lang believed that Sarah and Matthew had a singing ministry to fulfill, a calling that might bring them recognition and success in the process of spreading the Gospel. At some point during each service, Matthew and Sarah would take the stage. Matthew strummed his twelve-string and sang with his eyes closed while Sarah crossed her hands in front of her and focused on something just above the heads of the congregation. If Terry were to separate the family, their dreams would die.
At fifteen Matthew was impish and quiet. He loved hunting nearly as much as Bible study, and his mature approach to both impressed everyone. He delivered the Sunday sermon when his father was away, unmoving behind the podium, attempting only occasional and solemn glances at his attentive audience. His brother, Luke, a year younger, had high cheekbones touched by his fathers coloring, full lips, startling blue eyes, a James Dean swagger. Cocky and intelligent, less serious than Matthew, he sometimes gave me the gift of his gaze, and I found myself shuffling the awkward corners of my elbows into a more presentable picture.
Along with my desire for his attention came an awareness of the failings of my eleven-year-old body—the skinny legs and ridiculously large feet, the heavy glasses that constantly slid down my nose. In his presence I jumbled my words and tripped for no reason. His smug grin humiliated me, and I came to realize that my best self lay in stillness. When around him, I moved only when I had to and spoke only when addressed, answering in clipped phrases, but no matter how I held myself in, wrapping my arms about my waist, double-crossing my legs, something escaped to betray me: I stuttered out the wrong chapter and verse when asked to recite Scripture; my stomach growled in the quiet between prayers; sweat pooled in my palms and beneath my arms. Surely he and everyone else could see how imperfect I was.
Sometimes, after church, after the foyer had emptied and the adults had gone to the parsonage to drink coffee, he’d teach me the chords of a forbidden song—“Hey Jude” or “House of the Rising Sun”—and I’d plunk along on the old upright, filling the sanctuary with wanton rhythms. When he lowered his eyes and sang, I felt dizzy with a feeling I could no more identify than the taste of sugarcane. It was a tingling in my belly, a lightness in my bones. It felt like sin and I knew it.
What I did not know, could not foresee, none of us