In the Wilderness - Kim Barnes [29]
We planted them in the muddy creek bottom, three frogs hanging above the water, arranged to mimic the painting we had seen of the crosses on Golgotha: Christ, the largest frog, in the middle, the two thieves on either side. Something about the symmetry of the martyred frogs seemed targetlike and the boys ran to the house and came back with their BB guns. Bulls-eye was the belly, and we all took turns until the frogs sagged on their crosses and we lost interest in the game.
That night, after evening service, Sister Baxter slipped into bed beside her already sleeping husband. When she woke the next morning her pillow was sticky with pus. The fever was gone. Whether it would have been so had I not touched her, I don’t know. I can explain the progress of illness and infection but not that moment when her pain took hold of me as though it were my own affliction.
She testified at church that a miracle had been wrought, and only then did I feel the weight of expectation fall upon me, heavy as the missionary’s hands. My parents allowed me to walk in front of them. The other children began to resent the way the adults nodded whenever I spoke. The attention made me aware of how seriously everyone looked upon my gift, yet I wasn’t sure I could do it again. If I failed to discern an illness, or if I prayed for someone to be healed and nothing happened, would it mean I had sinned, that I was unworthy?
And then there was Luke. How did he fit into the maze my life was becoming? Somewhere between a child’s innocent cruelty and her coming initiation into the world. When I thought of Luke’s hands, how they touched me accidentally or on purpose but always in a way I remembered for days, I was filled with more emotion than I had ever experienced crucifying frogs or healing the sick.
Many Sunday afternoons my family spent at the parsonage. While the women made stew or fried venison dusted with flour, Matthew, Luke and I hunched together on the narrow stairway leading upstairs, sharing the dirty jokes we had heard at school, guessing what went on in the bed of their sister.
It was always dark there, and we spoke in whispers. The closeness of our bodies took my breath away. When Luke’s leg rested against mine I could no longer hear what was being said. When he put his hand on my knee, the sweet shock traveled to the bone and began a fire that spread its warmth to my crotch, a feeling so pleasurable I shuddered with the sure sin of it.
When we returned to the company of our parents, I could still feel the heat of his hand. Even if I could not articulate what I was feeling, I understood that what we were doing fell into the category of sin called “petting”—touching between young men and women that brought on our elders’ direst warnings. I burned with shame to have given myself so easily to his caress. I prayed for forgiveness, for strength, for whatever temptation this was to leave me. But even in sleep I remembered his palm pressed against bare skin beneath the hem of my skirt.
The more I tried to forget the pleasure of being close to Luke, the more I longed for it. This was a symptom of Satan’s influence I recognized: the greatest sin was desire for anything other than God. Desire for money, whiskey, the touch of another without the marriage blessing—any possession or wordly place—was lust and must be controlled, purged and destroyed.
I saw that something had begun its slow possession. How could I be both healer and sinner? How could I close my eyes in prayer when all I could see was the face of the preacher’s son? I