Gloria glanced at her son, who sat with his legs crossed under him the way he always sat, Indian style. He was telling his grandmother about the upcoming trip to Disneyland with wide eyes, stumbling over his words. She smiled. They had finalized the plans last evening at Antonio's while dining on steak and lobster. Kent would leave for Miami Friday morning and return Saturday in time to catch a 6 P.M. flight to Paris. The short-notice tickets had cost the world, but the fact had only put a broader smile on her husband's face. They would arrive in France on Monday, check into some classy hotel called the Lapier, catch their breath while feasting on impossibly expensive foods, and rest for the next day's adventure. Kent was finally about to live his childhood dream, and he was setting about it with a vengeance.
Of course, Kent's success did not come without its price. It required focus, and something was bound to give in favor of that focus. In Kent's case it was his faith in God, which had never been his strong suit anyway. Within three years of their marriage, Kent's faith left him. Entirely. There was no longer room in his heart for a faith in the unseen. He was too busy chasing things he
could
see. It wasn't just an apathyâKent did not do apathy. He either did or he did not do. It was either all out or not at all. And God became not at all.
Four years ago, just after Spencer had turned six, Helen had come to Gloria, nearly frantic. “We need to begin,” she'd said.
“Begin what?” Gloria had asked.
“Begin the knocking.”
“Knocking?”
“Yes, knockingâon heaven's door. For Kent's soul.”
For Helen it was always either knocking or hounding.
So they had begun their Thursday morning knocking sessions then. The door to Kent's heart had not opened yet, but through it all Gloria and Spencer had peeked into heaven with Helen. What they saw had them scrambling out of bed every Thursday morning, without fail, to go to Grandma's.
And now here they were again.
“Delightful!” Helen said, flashing a smile at Gloria. “That sounds positively wonderful. I had no idea there was more than one Disneyland.”
“Heavens, Mother,” Gloria said. “There's been more than one Disney park for years now. You really need to get out more.”
“No, thank you. No, no. I get out quite enough, thank you.” She said it with a grin, but her tone rang with sincerity. “My being a stranger in that world out there is just fine by me.”
“I'm sure it is. But you don't have to sequester yourself.”
“Who said I was sequestering myself ? I don't even know what sequestering means, for goodness' sake. And what does this have to do with my not knowing about a Disneyland in Paris, anyway?”
“Nothing. You were the one who brought up being a stranger. I'm just balancing things out a bit, that's all.” God knew Helen could use a little balance in her life.
Her mother's eyes sparkled. She grinned softly, taking up the challenge. “Balance? Things are already out of balance, Honey. Upside down out of balance. You take one hundred pounds of Christian meat, and I guarantee you that ninety-eight of those pounds are sucking up to the world. It's tipping the scale right over, love.” She reached up and pulled at the wrinkly skin on her neck. Nasty habit.
“Maybe, but you really don't have to use words like
sucking
to describe it. That's what I'm talking about. And how many times have I told you not to pull on your neck like that?”
Dramatics aside, Helen was right, of course, and Gloria took no offense. If anything, she warmed to her mother's indictments of society.
“It's just flesh, Gloria. See?” Helen pinched the loose skin on her arms and pulled, sampling several patches. “See, just skin. Flesh for the fire. It's what's tipping the scales the wrong way.”
“Yes, but as long as you live in this world, there's no need to walk around pulling your skin in public. People don't like it.” If she didn't know better, she would guess her mother senile at times.
“Well, this isn't public, for one thing, dear.” Helen turned to Spencer, who sat watching the discussion with an amused smile. “It's family. Isn't that right, Spencer?”
She turned back to Gloria. “And for another thing, maybe if Christians went around pulling their skin or some such thing, people would actually know they were Christians. God knows you can't tell now. Maybe we should change our name to the Skinpullers and walk around yanking on our skin in public. That would set us apart.”
Silence settled around the preposterous suggestion.
Spencer was the first to laugh, as if a dam had broken in his chest. Then Gloria, shaking her head at the ridiculous image, and finally Mother, after glancing back and forth, obviously trying to understand what was so funny. Gloria could not tell if Helen's laughter was motivated by her own skin-pulling or by their infectious cackling. Either way, the three of them had a good, long hoot.
Helen brought them back to a semblance of control, still smiling. “Well, there's more to my suggestion than what you might guess, Gloria. We laugh now, but in the end it will not seem so strange. It's this ridiculous walking around pretending not to be different that will seem crazy. I suspect a lot of heads will be banging the walls of hell in regret someday.”
Gloria nodded and wiped her eyes. “Yes, you're probably right, Mother. But you do have a way with images.”
Helen turned to Spencer. “Yes, now where were we when your mother so delicately diverted our discussion, Spencer?”
“Disneyland. We're going to Euro Disney in Paris,” Spencer answered with a smile and a sideways glance at Gloria.
“Of course. Disneyland. Now Spencer, what do you suppose would be more fun for a day, Euro Disney or heaven?”
The sincerity descended like a heavy wool blanket.
It was perhaps the way Helen said
heaven.
As if it were a cake you could eat. That's how it was with Helen. A few words, and the hush would fall. Gloria could feel her heart tighten with anticipation. Sometimes it would begin with just a look, or a lifted finger, as if to say, Okay, let us begin. Well, now it had begun again, and Gloria sighed.
Spencer's mouth drifted into a smile. “Heaven!”
Helen lifted an eyebrow. “Why heaven?”
Most children would stutter at such a question, maybe answer with repeated words learned from their parents or Sunday school teachers. Basically meaningless words for a child, like, “To worship God.” Or, “'Cause Jesus died on the cross.”
But not Spencer.
“In heaven . . . I think we'll be able to do . . . anything,” he said.
“I think we will too,” Helen said, perfectly serious. She sighed. “Well, we'll see soon enough. Today it will have to be Paris and Disneyland. Tomorrow maybe heaven. If we're so fortunate.”
The room fell silent, and Helen closed her eyes slowly. Another sign.
The sound of her own breathing rose and fell in Gloria's ears. She closed her eyes and saw pinpricks in a sea of black. Her mind climbed to another consciousness.
Oh, God. Hear my son's cry. Open our eyes. Draw our hearts. Bring us into your presence.
For a few minutes Gloria sat in the silence, displacing small thoughts and drawing her mind to the unseen. A tear gently ripped opened in heaven for her then, like a thin fracture in a wall, allowing shafts of light to filter through. In her mind's eye, she stepped into the light and let it wash warm over her chest.
The knocking started with a prayer from Helen. Gloria opened her eyes and saw that her mother had lifted her hands toward the ceiling. Her chin was raised, and her lips moved around a smile. She was asking God for Kent's soul.
For thirty minutes they prayed like that, taking turns calling on God to hear their cry, show his mercy, send word.
Near the end, Helen rose and fetched herself a glass of lemonade. She got hot, praying to heaven, she said. Being up there with all those creatures of light made her warm all over. So she invariably broke for the lemonade or ice tea at some point.
Sometimes Gloria joined her, but today she did not want to break. Today the presence was very strong, as if that crack had frozen open and continued to pour light into her chest. Which was rather unusual, because usually the tear opened and closed, allowing only bursts of light through. A thoughtful consideration by the gatekeepers, she had once decided. So as not to overwhelm the mortals with too much at once.
Thoughts of Paris had long fled, and now Gloria basked in thoughts of the unseen. Thoughts of floating, like Spencer had said. Like the pinpricks of light in the dark of her eyes. Or maybe like a bird, but in outer space, streaking through a red nebula, wide mouthed and laughing. She would give her life for it, in a heartbeat. Thinking of it now, her pulse thickened. Sweat began to bead on her forehead. Raw desire began to well up within her, as it often did. To touch
him
, to see the Creator. Watch him create. Be loved with that same power.
Helen once told her that touching God might be like touching a thick shaft of lightning, but one filled with pleasure. It might very well kill you, she said, but at least you'd die with a smile on your face. She'd chuckled and shook her head. Her mother seated herself, slurped the lemonade for a few seconds, and set the clinking glass beside her chair. Helen sighed, and Gloria closed her eyes, thinking,
Now, where was I?
It was then, in that moment of regularity, that the tear in heaven gaped wide, opening as it never had. They had prayed together every Thursday, every week, every month, every year for five years, and never before had Gloria even come close to feeling and seeing and hearing what she did then.
She would later think that it is when contemplating inexplicable times such as these that men say,
He is sovereign. He will do as he wills. He will come through a virgin; he will speak from a bush; he will wrestle with a man. He is God. Who can know the mind of the Lord? Amen.
And it is the end of the matter.
But it is not the end of the matter if
you
are the virgin Mary, or if
you
hear him from a bush like Moses, or if
you
wrestle with God as did Jacob. Then it is only the beginning.
It happened suddenly, without the slightest warning. As if a dam holding the light back had broken, sending volumes of the stuff cascading down in torrents. One second trickles of power, feathering just so, like lapping waves, and the next a flood that seemed to pound into the small living room and blow away the walls.
Gloria gasped and jerked upright. Two other audible heaves filled the room, and she knew that Spencer and Helen saw it as well.
The buzzing started in her feet and ran through her bones, as if her heels had been plugged into a socket and the juice cranked up. It swept up her spine, right into her skull, and hummed. She gripped the chair's padded arms to keep her hands still from their trembling.
Oh, God!
she cried, only she didn't actually cry it, because her mouth had frozen wide. Her throat had seized. A soft moan came out. “Uhhhh . . .” And in that moment, with the light pouring into her skull, rattling her bones, she knew that nothingâabsolutely nothingâcould ever compare to this feeling.
Her heart slammed in her chest, thumping loudly in the silence, threatening to tear itself free. Tears spilled from her eyes in small rivulets before she even had time to cry. It was that kind of power.
Then Gloria began to sob. She didn't know why exactlyâonly that she was weeping and shaking. Terrified, yet desperate for more at once. As if her body craved more but could not contain this much pleasure in one shot. Undone.
Far away, laughter echoed. Gloria caught her breath, drawn to the sound. It came from the light, and it grewâthe sound of a child's laughter. Long strings of giggles, relentlessly robbing the breath from the child. Suddenly Gloria ached to be with the child, laughing. Because there in the light, captured in a singular union of raw power and a child's unrestrained giggles, lay eternal bliss. Ecstasy. Maybe the very fabric from which energy was first conceived.
Heaven.
She knew it all in a flash.
The light vanished suddenly. Like a tractor beam pulled back into itself.
Gloria sat arched for a brief moment and then collapsed into the chair's soft cushions, her mind spinning through a lingering buzz.
Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, I love you! Please.
She could not say the appropriate words. Perhaps there were no appropriate words. She moaned softly and went limp.
No one spoke for several long minutes. It was not until then that Gloria even remembered Helen and Spencer. When she did, it took another minute to reorient herself and begin seeing things again.
Helen sat with her face tilted to the ceiling, her hands pressed to her temples.
Gloria turned to her son. Spencer was shaking. His eyes were still closed, his hands lay on his lap, palms up, and he shook like a leaf. Giggling. With his mouth spread wide and his cheeks bunched and his face red. Giggling like that child in the light. The sight was perhaps the most perfect image she had ever witnessed.
“Jesus,” her mother's soft voice groaned. “Oh, dear Jesus!”
Gloria squeezed the chair just to make sure she was not floating, because for a moment she wondered if she'd actually been taken from the chair and set on a cloud.
She looked at her mother again. Helen had clenched shut her eyes and lifted her chin so that the skin on her neck stretched taught. Her face rose ashen to the ceiling and Gloria saw then that her mother was crying. Not crying and smiling like Spencer. But crying with a face painted in horror.
“Mom?” she asked, suddenly worried.
“Oh, God! Oh, God, please. Please, no!” Helen's fingers dug deep into the chair arms. Her face grimaced as though she were enduring the extracting of a bullet without an anesthetic.
“Mother! What's wrong?” Gloria sat straight, memories of the incredible laughter dimmed by this sight before her. “Stop it, Mother!”