Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [65]
“In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen,” Sister Myra said.
They all rustled and jostled and pushed each other, glad to be moving again.
It was Agatha’s turn to sit in front, but Ian said they should all three sit in back because he was picking up Cicely on the way home. “She’s coming for supper,” he told them. “It’s a state occasion: Aunt Claudia’s birthday. Remember?”
No, they hadn’t remembered, even though they’d spent last evening making a birthday card. Daphne said, “Oh, goody,” because that meant all the cousins would be there. Thomas and Agatha were glad, too—especially on account of Cicely. They both thought Cicely was as pretty as a movie star.
Ian asked Daphne what the day’s Bible verse had been. Daphne said, “Um …” and looked down into her lap. She was sitting in the middle, with her legs sticking straight out in front of her and the lawn mower resting across her knees.
“Agatha?” Ian called back, turning onto Charles Street.
Agatha sighed. “As the hart panteth after the water brooks,” she said flatly, “so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.”
She mumbled the word “God,” so she almost didn’t say it at all, but Ian appeared not to notice. “Good for you,” he said. “And what did Reverend Emmett talk about?”
Agatha didn’t answer, so Thomas spoke up instead. “Juice,” he said.
“Juice?”
“How we get juice for the soul and juice for the body, both at once, in Bible camp.”
“Well, that’s very true,” Ian said.
“It’s very dumb,” Agatha said.
“Pardon?”
“Besides,” she said, “isn’t ‘juice’ a bad word?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It just has that sound to it, somehow, like maybe it could be.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ian said. They had reached a red light, and he was able to glance over his shoulder at her. “Juice? What?”
“And that pool is full of germs; I think everybody pees in it,” Agatha said. “And Sister Audrey makes the sandwiches so far ahead they’re all dried out before we get to eat them. And anyhow, what’s she doing in a children’s camp? A person who’d put a baby in a Dempster Dumpster!”
By now, those words were like some secret joke. Thomas giggled. Ian looked at him in the rearview mirror.
“You’re laughing?” he asked.
Thomas got serious.
“You think Sister Audrey is funny?”
A driver behind them honked his horn; the light had turned green. Ian didn’t seem to hear. “She’s just a kid,” he told Thomas. “She’s not much older than you are, and had none of your advantages. I can’t believe you would find her situation comical.”
“Ian, cars are getting mad at us,” Agatha said.
Ian sighed and started driving again.
I’m just a kid too, Thomas wanted to tell him. How would I know what her situation is?
They took a left turn. Daphne sucked her thumb and slid her curled index finger back and forth across her upper lip, the way she liked to do when she was tired. Thomas kept his eyes wide open so no one would see the tears. He wished he had his grandma. Ian was his favorite person in the world, but when you were sad or sick to your stomach who did you want? Not Ian. Ian had no soft nooks to him. Thomas tipped his head back against the seat and felt his eyes growing cool in the breeze from the window.
On Lang Avenue, with its low white houses and the sprinklers spinning under the trees, Ian parked and got out. He