In the Wilderness - Kim Barnes [34]
“She knows, Lord, that if she has enough faith, if she will only believe, she will be healed!”
Others were shouting now. Their feet stomped the wooden floor as they called on the Spirit, Jesus. Sweet Jesus.
Then the hands pulled away, the voices quieted, and I opened my eyes.
“Sister Kim, how many fingers am I holding up?”
I blinked, my vision still dark with the print of his thumbs. His hand floated so close I could see the half-circle of his wedding band.
“Three,” I answered. Somewhere behind me, Sister Johnson called out, “Praise the Lord!”
“Can you see your parents?” The hand was at my arm, turning me once again to the room. I looked to where I left my family. Browns and blues washed together as though I were looking through water. I peered harder. Sister Johnson twirled in the aisle—I recognized her high-pitched voice, the characteristic trilling of her glossolalia. But I could not see my mother and father, only the arms raised to heaven, undulating like meadow grass. I shook my head. No one seemed to notice. The room vibrated with the loud praise of men and women given over to the Spirit. Sister Lang pounded out a hymn on the upright, and I knew the meeting would last long into the night.
“You must believe and you will be healed. Go home tonight and pray for faith to accept this truth.” Brother Lang released me, and I felt my way up the aisle until my father caught my wrist.
Three days passed before I regained my sight. Three days of not seeing the blackboard, of being unable to find the swings at recess. I told my teachers and friends my glasses were broken and let them lead me like a pet dog. I clutched my mother’s sleeve when we walked to and from the car, and even though I had never needed it before, I began to leave a light on at bedtime: If I woke, I could not see beyond the lamp’s dim silhouette. I was no longer a child secure in my parents’ bed, their closeness giving boundaries to my nighttime world.
Did my mother feel her own faith waiver, watching from the window as I stumbled up the driveway to catch the bus, holding to my brother’s coattail, clutching the books I could not read? Did she long to take from that preacher the glasses he had pocketed and lay them beside my bed as I slept? I’d wake and find them there, my prayers answered, the prayers of a child wandering scared, lost in the waters, waiting for a hand to reach from the bank and pull her to safety.
I imagine my mother kissing my eyes when she believed I was deep into dreams, as I now kiss the fluttering and delicate lids of my own children. I hear her whispering, believe. I open my eyes and see her disappear into a rectangle of light.
At the next Wednesday night prayer meeting, Brother Lang slipped the glasses into my hand, as though he himself were embarrassed by my failure. I waited until the singing began before I put them on and reached for the hymnal, thrilled to see the black letters distinct against white pages. It seemed miracle enough. With the book held straight out before me, I began to sing.
Later, in the stairway, air damp with close breathing, Luke reached to slide the glasses from my face. I caught his hand.
“You’re so much prettier,” he whispered.
I folded the hard frames in my palm and clasped them tightly. I closed my eyes and waited in darkness for his kiss.
CHAPTER FIVE
The company town of Headquarters, just over the hill from the hollow at Dogpatch, consisted of two groups of houses separated by the railroad tracks and large shop buildings belonging to Potlatch. The small dwellings south of the tracks housed company workers—those who felled, hauled, scaled and processed the timber. North of the tracks, behind the Headquarters store, a wooden stairway led up to the Circle, where the road threaded between the shop buildings and store before looping back on itself at the top of the hill.
The Circle was where the supervisors lived—men who, by skill or inheritance, held positions above the other workers. The homes facing one another across the Circle were larger and better