Not counting my father, my mother and me, The Light Holy Church of Absolution consists of nine other families, husbands, wives and children, who’ve followed my father to a foreclosed farmstead in rural Missouri to live a communal life and establish a new order. He’s relieved them of their money and possessions so they can walk, unburdened, into the life he’s created for them.

Mother and I prepare our living room for the evening service. We vacuum, dust, pick up magazines and adjust out of place items, rearrange the couch, recliner and kitchen chairs in straight rows facing the fireplace where he’ll stand to deliver his sermon.

My father complains about not having a proper lectern to speak from, but money’s a scarcity, so he makes do with a collapsible music stand found at a garage sale. My mother has encouraged me to build him one out of salvaged lumber found stacked in the barn out back. “It’d make him so happy,” she says, but I’m only fifteen, and what do I know about building a lectern? We pour wine into tiny glasses, break unleavened bread into scraps and place them in a basket within arm’s reach on the mantel.

I find the whole process annoying, twice daily, four times a week. “How much longer are we going to have to do this? What kind of a minister preaches out of his own house anyway?”

My mother shoots me a cautionary look. She glances toward the back bedroom, lowering her voice as she speaks. “It’s not where you learn, it’s what you learn that’s important. Besides, you don’t mean that. No son of mine could be so selfish.”

I know his passion and his history, in and out of jobs, forced from churches, sects, religions, positions, boards and committees, ostracized and crucified, all because he insists on teaching his interpretation instead of theirs. And each time I experience the same range of emotions, anger, sadness, guilt and sadness again. A man who communes with God, receives his voice from God, is of God, is subject to ridicule you and I can’t imagine.

“You’re right,” I say. “I don’t mean that.”

* * *

Our doorbell rings late one evening, and my mother opens it to find a father, mother and two daughters waiting anxiously. They introduce themselves as the Schulmans, and Mr. Schulman, a paunchy, balding, clerical looking man with glasses, immediately tells her why they’re here. They’ve heard amazing things about The Light Holy Church of Absolution and the man who leads the brethren there, a messiah who interprets the bible in a way uniquely his own. Word has it he possesses the ability to peer into a person’s soul and read his pain, what he wants, what he truly needs. If these things are true, not just gossip or wishful thinking, they may be interested in joining.

My mother invites them in, tells them to make themselves comfortable on the couch, then exits the room, leaving the five of us to stare at one another in awkward silence. Minutes later, my father emerges from the back bedroom, ruffled and listless. The Schulmans stand respectfully, and he waves off this courtesy, pointing for them to be seated. The floor creaks as he plods across the living room and lowers his bulk into the large, oversized recliner by the fireplace.

He asks them why they’ve come, studying Mr. Schulman gravely as he responds. I’ve seen meetings like this before, my father’s deft handling of new prospects. His eyes are dark and penetrating, like obsidian pitted with light. He doesn’t blink, shows no sign of emotion, projects only a steely gaze.

Mr. Schulman delivers an impassioned speech, rambling on, stuttering and stammering, until it becomes clear he’s unsure of why they’re really here, or that he has any sense of what my father wants to hear. His voice trails off, and his eyes drop to the floor. The room is silent.

When my father speaks, his voice is stern, reproachful. “This isn’t a game,” he tells the Schulmans. “The Light Holy Church of Absolution isn’t here to make you feel good about yourself. It exists to illuminate your deficiencies.”

The Schulmans look back and forth at one another. “Okay.”

“Are you willing to forsake your current lives to become a part of something greater than yourselves?”

“That’s why we’re here.”

“Will you sever all ties, leave your friends and family behind to become one with the body of the church?”

“If it means living closer to God, yes.”

“Will you open your hearts and minds to a new truth, a new order?”

They nod.

“Are you willing to do it tonight? Do you have the strength, the conviction, to take pen in hand right now, this moment, and sign over your worldly possessions to The Light Holy Church of Absolution?”

Mr. Schulman looks at his wife questioningly, and they nod. “Yes,” they whisper.

My father motions for Mr. Schulman to approach, and he stands and walks nervously to him.

When he’s standing before him, my father crooks his finger, and Mr. Schulman bends down.

My father suddenly reaches out, cups his hand around his head and pulls him close, their foreheads touching. Mr. Schulman struggles, but my father’s grasp is strong. He can’t pull away. It’s a shocking moment. Mr. Schulman resists until my father begins to murmur in his ear, then he grows calm. Minutes later, when my father releases him, his face is wet with tears, a miracle for all to see. He turns and beams at his family.

My father looks at my mother. “Go get the paperwork.”

It’s moments like this that make feel as though I’m seeing my father for the first time. A surge of pride sweeps through me, and I’m filled with awe. Suddenly, I’m fully conscious of the magnitude of his presence, of how terribly selfish and inadequate I am, we all are, beside him.

I look around the room to see everyone smiling. Love radiates. The Schulmans oldest daughter is smiling also. Her face blooms with excitement.

* * *

Michelle Schulman is two years older than me. During that first summer my father insists the two of us work side by side, not only so I can demonstrate how we grow and care for the crops and livestock maintained by The Light Holy Church of Absolution, but to secure our bond. Large plots of fruits and vegetables, chickens, rabbits, goats and several head of cattle are necessary for our existence, lack of money is always a concern.

Late one afternoon we stand in a cornfield picking ears for supper. Shade creeps over the field, cool rises from the soil beneath our feet. I’m explaining the future my father has envisioned for us, our eventual union and how, one day, The Light Holy Church of Absolution will be ours to nurture and grow and expand.

She shakes her head. “No, no, no,” she says, softly.

I smile. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. We’ll be ready when it’s time. My father will see to that.”

“It’s not that. It’s this.” She spreads her arms, gesturing to everything around us. “This isn’t me. It’s not what I want.”

I speak to her gently, as I’ve often seen my father speaking to those having difficulty understanding the core concepts of our religion. “But it’s not up to you, Michelle. Don’t you understand? We’re just vessels waiting to be filled by him.”

She appears scared and vulnerable, her brown eyes haunted in the shade of the cornfield. It appeals to me in ways I can’t explain. I lean forward to kiss her, but she extends her arm, stopping me.

“Don’t,” she says. “Just don’t.”

* * *

The Light Holy Church of Absolution requires every cent God allows. Despite his reluctance, my father permits some members to work outside the commune if the salary warrants it. Michelle’s father is an educated man who holds a degree in accounting. He’s allowed to drive into town each morning to work for a pump manufacturer. Her mother stays behind, homeschooling the children using the lessons my father has prepared.

Early one morning, I oversee Michelle while she performs her assigned chores. She lures the goats into the stanchion with a mix of oats and grain, locks the yoke around their necks and positions the milk pail beneath their udders. Taking a seat beside the first animal, she sighs.

“Remember what I told you about going too fast,” I tell her. Let your fingers roll down their teats. It relaxes them and helps them release their milk.”

She nods.

In the months since her family arrived, her skin has turned from a rich, creamy pink to a pinched and leathery brown. Where she was once soft, she’s now hard with sinewy ridges on her hands and forearms. She squints perpetually, or maybe it’s a frown. I don’t comment on these things. She’s learning, as all must, the lord’s work is not easy. Hard labor and difficult times bring about self-reflection and humility, what we all strive for. My father occasionally asks me to report on her progress, which I’m happy to do.

She suddenly stops, drops her hands into her lap and stares at them.

“Go on.” I nudge her with my knee. “You’re doing fine.”

She looks up with tears in her eyes. “I’m leaving.”

I smile at her kindly, as I’ve often seen my father smile at members who’ve become overwhelmed with all that’s expected from them at The Light Holy Church of Absolution. “You know better than that,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “I’m not happy here.”

“You can’t leave. He has plans for us.”

“My father went to Washington University. That’s where I’m going too.”

I shake my head, still smiling. “That’s not going to happen.”

“He’s been giving me part of his paychecks. I’ll be leaving in spring.”

“He shouldn’t have done that. Everything’s supposed to go to him for the common good. It’s in the contract.” Again, I’m overwhelmed with her sense of helplessness, the inner conflict she’s experiencing, the pull between what’s right and what she wants. Wasn’t there a time when I felt the same way? “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “We’ll get through this together.”

I bend down, and she erupts from the stanchion, her face inches from mine. “Damn it, would you quit doing that? I’m not that kind of a girl. Don’t you get it?”

It’s nearly three days before I understand what she means. Then I go to my father.

* * *

My father decides to take the men on a retreat. It’s an opportunity for them to reaffirm their commitment to the church, to pause and reflect on their contributions and make reparations for past and recent sins.

Mr. Schulman is asked to stay behind with the women and children in case something unexpected arises. I ask my father if I can go, but he refuses, saying there’s nothing happening at the retreat that would interest me, an odd statement since I’ve always been taught reaffirmation to the ideas and beliefs of The Light Holy Church of Absolution is essential to keep it strong. Instead, I’m asked to haul tents, sleeping bags, food items and necessities to a grove about mile away from the commune where the men will stay during the weekend. “And cut some firewood while you’re down there,” my father says. “We’ll need that to stay warm.”

Autumn is fast approaching.

* * *

Michelle corners me in the barn after I return from the grove. “Are you still mad at me?”

I try to act distracted, putting the chainsaw and gas can back on the shelf, arranging items on the tool bench. “Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because of the other day. What I told you about leaving.”

She doesn’t have a clue what she and her father have done. The Light Holy Church of Absolution expects members to adhere to the contract if we’re to receive God’s blessing. Her indifference is troubling to say the least. “Have you talked to my father about that yet?”

“No, and I don’t intend to. Will you miss me?”

I snort. “You’re a dyke. What do I care?”

Her shoulders droop. “I just thought we-“

I regret my words immediately. “I probably will. If I have time to think about it.”

She smiles weakly. “In that case I’m going to come back and bug you every chance I get. You’re going to get so sick of me you can’t stand it.”

I hear that, feel a slight charge inside me and shrug. “Suit yourself.”

At one time my father and I’d thought she’d make a good mate for me, a partner to help run and manage The Light Holy Church of Absolution once I take over. Now I’m so disappointed I can hardly look at her. The Schulmans lied. They broke the contract. It’s hard to watch those you care for stray from the truth, painful to see so much selfishness consume one family. All we can do now is pray, pray for answers.

* * *

My father towers over me, red-faced and blustery, his voice crashing like a wave. “Are you going to be able to handle it, or do I need to get someone else?”

“I can handle it,” I say, my voice trembling. My nervousness has more to do with his current demeanor than whether I’m capable of accomplishing what he’s asked me to do. He can be unpredictable when he’s like this, even volatile. As for the task at hand, I’ve run it through my head so many times I’m nearly certain I’ll be successful. Why wouldn’t I be? I have to be.

He reaches out and cuffs me alongside my head with his bearish hand, his preferred way of ‘getting my attention.’ “You sure?”

“I’m sure,” I bark back, demonstrating an exorbitant amount of confidence, a coach asking me to carry the ball in the final seconds of a tied game, a soldier being prepped for battle.

He steps back squinting, looking me up and down for good effect. It’s obvious he wants me to know he doubts I’ve got what it takes, or that I’ll ever be the man he is.

Behind us, my mother is washing the supper dishes. She scrubs the plates, silverware and glasses in a sink full of soapy water, rinsing them beneath the faucet before placing them in the dishrack to dry. She’s been doing this for the past half hour, ever since supper ended and my father and I began discussing the issue at hand. When she’s finished, she removes them from the rack and places them back in the soapy water again.

My father frowns. “How many times are you going to wash those dishes, Bev?”

“They have to be clean,” my mother says firmly. “The last thing we want is to eat off dirty dishes.”

* * *

“I don’t care about the width,” my father tells us. “Just make sure it’s deep. We don’t want them coming back up.”

The barn is ancient, maybe a century old. The deeper we dig the sludgier and oilier the soil becomes, reeking of petrol and gas and diesel and kerosene and antifreeze and oil, every fluid ever drained, leaked or dumped from the belly of a tractor, combine, mower or anything else cast from iron that burned fuel.

In the end we settle for a hole eight feet deep and five feet wide. The following morning we return to the barn with my father so he can inspect our work. There’s a foot of greenish brown fluid risen at the bottom of the pit, a thick, stagnate pool of rancid petroleum decay.

“Whatever you do, don’t be lighting up in here,” my father tells us. “It’ll blow us all to kingdom come.”

* * *

Mrs. Schulman won’t stop talking. She’s seated at the kitchen table in her nightgown, and she won’t stop talking. It’s driving me crazy. Some of the men have taken Mr. Schulman out to the barn, and she keeps on talking. Her daughters stand beside her in their underwear, one on each side. She holds them close against her, her face pale, and she rambles on without pausing to breathe, her speech a blather of staccato syllables and run together sentences.

We encircle the three of them, listening, waiting. Each time I glance up Michelle is watching me, her eyes pleading, until I look down, focusing on the intricate patterns within the yellowed linoleum floor. There’s nothing I can do except listen to Mrs. Shulman carrying on.

“…and I tried to tell him it probably wasn’t a good idea, but he was so caught up with the idea of Michelle going to his alma mater he didn’t stop to think it may affect other people. It was only a little bit out of each paycheck, but I suppose that still doesn’t make it right, does it? Is that what this is all about? Because if it is we can sure pay it back. We love this church, and we love all of you, and we want to do right by everyone, not just us. Isn’t that right, girls? Is it just me, or does it seem like it’s taking them a long time out there? Good land, how long does it take to look at a project anyway? Does anyone else think so? Maybe one of us should go out there and see what’s going on. I truly am starting to get worried.”

Then we hear the chainsaw start up, and Mrs. Schulman finally grows quiet.

* * *

I once saw my father cry tears of blood. Shortly after being fired from the church in Kansas, he summoned all his followers and asked them to join him in Missouri where he’d located a farmstead a bank had foreclosed on. The property included forty acres plus a house and outbuildings. It was a miracle my father said, everything necessary for him to continue his ministry based on his interpretations and without interference from anyone. He called it his ‘land of milk and honey,’ and so it seemed, at least where he and his flock was concerned.

However, one couple refused to go. They were newlyweds, young and shiny and optimistic and dreamy the way newlyweds are, and despite my father’s pleadings they would not leave their home in Kansas to move all the way to Missouri and sign over their possessions to the The Light Holy Church of Absolution. It was the woman who was the problem. While her husband was committed to the church and tried to persuade her to go, she remained defiant.

She’d become pregnant and wanted to stay in Kansas, close to where her mother and father and brothers and sister lived, to allow her baby a childhood like the one she’d had. My father became more and more upset until he was obsessing over her refusal to go with us. He considered her behavior sinful because, as the Bible makes clear, a woman should be subservient to her husband, not the other way around.

In the weeks before our departure, he began paying visits to the couple’s home nearly every evening, instructing the husband to leave so he could minister to his wife in private. This continued until the day before we left. When that day came and he still hadn’t convinced her, he returned home, locked himself in my mother’s and his bedroom and didn’t come out until the following evening. When he finally emerged his face was flecked with dried blood.

You see, during that time it was revealed to him the girl would stay selfish and unrelenting despite his and God’s will. As punishment, God had determined the baby would die inside her, and my father had engaged Him in a fierce spiritual battle in hopes of saving the child’s life. In the end God refused to relent, and when my father realized all hope was lost, that he wouldn’t be able to save the child or the woman from her sins, he cried tears of blood, such was the agony he felt.

This was running through my mind when he took me aside, swatted my face and told me because I’d refused to assist with the initial reparations mandated by The Light Holy Church of Absolution, I’d be required to fill the hole in by myself. This would help atone for my disobedience. I was grateful he granted me that small mercy.

* * *

The bodies lie slick and wet, splayed and sprawled across each other, partially submerged in the thick, liquid at the bottom of the pit. A fire popped and sputtered on its surface, exposed body parts charred in the heat, an overpowering stench caused me to gag. I took a shop rag from the workbench and tied it across my nose and mouth. Better to smell grease than the odor rising from that pit.

I began shoveling dirt on top of the bodies, and the fire puffed and went out. I looked for her beneath the surface of the sludge, once, twice, three times, and realized she wasn’t there. Closer inspection revealed trickles of petroleum edging up one side of the pit, across the dirt floor and out the back of the barn.

I walked over and looked into the darkness. I was sure I saw a vague form a hundred yards or so away stumbling across the plowed field, could hear the faint gasps of her labored, choked breathing.

I pulled the door shut, went back and finished filling in the pit. I never told my father.

* * *

The trial was short, barely two weeks. The evidence was incriminating, her testimony irrefutable. Everyone was found guilty except the children. Some members tried to defend their actions by saying they were brainwashed, that they were only doing as my father instructed. Others seemed confused, wondering out loud how service performed in the name of God could ever be wrong. Was it a mistake to strive for a better life, a better relationship with God, a better world? We’d acted on my father’s interpretations. Were we to blame? Are God’s laws greater than man’s? If so, why don’t we follow them? Wasn’t punishment for sins committed a just outcome? It was all very confusing to them, or at least they pretended it was.

In the years since, leaders of The Light Holy Church of Absolution ran out their appeals and were executed, my father included. Some like my mother were given life, others have already died in prison. I was tried as an adult, convicted and sent to Varner. Some kid serving six for possession with intent to sell told me the house and barn burned to the ground a decade ago, suspected vandalism, but I never found anything to corroborate his story. If so, I guess structures and buildings can evoke hate and bad memories the way some people can. I wish forgiveness worked the same way.

* * *

I wrote to her as part of a ‘restorative justice’ program offered by Varner, but didn’t expect to hear anything back. She reciprocated a year later, communicating she would visit me on her terms. Her letter arrived the day before Easter. I cried.

* * *

There’s a high, narrow window encased in concrete on the far wall. If I stand on the rim of my toilet, I can look out and see an olive grove in the distance, acres of trees growing on the side of a hill at the edge of the city. I know they’re olive trees because we drove past them when they brought me here years ago. It reminds me of that story in the bible, the one about the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed and suffered before the temple guards came and arrested him. Each afternoon as the sun drops, the hill takes on a hazy, ethereal look, as if you could walk up there and find yourself cloaked in warm, surreal peace. When I’m sleeping, I often dream of walking in that grove.

There’s a rapping on my door, metal on metal, and I step down, walk over and open the food slot.

“She’s here,” the guard says.

“Okay.”

“You know,” he says, “you don’t have to keep doing this. There’s no law says you have to accept visitors.”

“I know.”

He unlocks the door and applies the handcuffs, then leads me through Varner’s narrow corridors, the constant garble of voices, shrieks and moans, down to the first tier to a steel door with the words ‘Visitation’ painted in red block letters across it. He presses a button on a raised panel, the door unlatches, and a second guard steps out and escorts me inside. He points to a woman seated at a table in the center of the room, but I refuse to make eye contact with her, at least not yet anyway. Instead, I focus on the tile floor as I cross the room in my prison issued foam slippers. The guard closes the door, and the three of us are locked inside together. He takes a position by the wall several yards from us.

I’ve grown accustomed to the stench of urine, body odors and feces throughout my cell block, so the scent of her lotion is always welcome, kind of a sweet, flowery smell. I pull out the metal chair opposite her, staring at the center of the table. It’s a game I play with myself, waiting until the last moment before exposing myself to the horror. It leaves more of an impact that way, cuts deeper. I can feel her watching. The minutes pass.

“Look at me,” she finally rasps. “Look at what you did.”

Slowly, I force my eyes off the table, up onto her face. It’s almost more than I can bear, but I won’t let myself look away, won’t allow anything to separate me from this pain.

What the chemicals at the bottom of the pit didn’t distort, the fire did. She’s a mess of motley, shriveled skin and misshapen features, her nose and one ear reduced to fleshy nodules, her scalp a patchwork of scars and scraggly hair. Her lungs rattle when she breathes, and she carries a battery powered air pump wherever she goes. Hanging from a strap around her shoulder, its clear vinyl tubes run from tiny nozzles on its side to her nostrils.

There’s something we both get from our brief visits together, something nothing else satisfies. It allows our lives to become manageable, puts things in their proper place. More than anything, it allows us to endure.

“Do you see?”

I nod.

“Do you remember?”

Again, I nod.

She reaches down a gnarled hand, scoops the pump off the floor and leaves.