Chapter One
The Move
“Choose you this day whom ye will serve.”
My father paused after reading from Joshua 24:15 and looked out over the congregation.
He gripped the sides of the pulpit, his thick black-rimmed glasses catching the sanctuary lights above his freshly clipped buzz cut.
“Every day, each of us chooses which side we’re on. There is no middle ground. No fence to sit on. No safe place between God’s will and the Devil’s.”
A chorus of amens rolled through the sanctuary.
My father believed that with all his heart.
Good on one side. Evil on the other.
I knew evil was real. It was easy enough to spot.
The hard part was figuring out how to stop it.
That lesson would take years to learn.
At eight years old, I had other things on my mind.
The card clipped to my bike’s front spokes made a loud flap flap flap as I rode one last time through the neighborhood. The faster I pedaled, the louder it got, until I couldn’t hear anything else.
That was the point.
Back at the parsonage, voices echoed through empty rooms while strangers carried our lives into a Mayflower truck.
My mother kept shutting things hard, drawers, cabinets, doors, like she was mad at the house. She frantically packed boxes, then reopened them, moving the same things around again and again. Nothing stayed finished for long.
My bike was always my escape from the chaos of our house. I’d ride the neighborhood for hours, circling the same streets until they felt like they were mine.
One day I found a playing card lying face down in the dirt. I flipped it over and wiped it clean with the sleeve of my shirt.
It was the Queen of Hearts.
Her face was round and serious, dressed up in fancy clothes, but her eyes went right past me, like I wasn’t there. A little worn, but sturdy enough to do the job. I stole a clothespin from the laundry line, where Mom air-dried our clothes, and clipped the card to the front wheel.
When I started pedaling, her paper face began to blur.
Red, white.
Red, white.
Faster and faster, until I couldn’t tell if she was grinning or scowling.
As I picked up speed, the sound rose with it, the quick slap slap slap of paper against metal, turning into a steady roar as I pedaled harder. It matched my breathing.
In. Out.
In. Out.
The faster I went, the louder it grew, until it swallowed everything.
My older brother Saul’s stinging words.
Mom’s sharp voice.
Dad’s stern warnings.
For a few glorious minutes, my old rusty Huffy, with tears in the banana seat, wasn’t a bike at all. It was a cherry-red Ferrari, flying down the highway, nothing ahead of it, nothing trying to slow it down.
The wind stung my eyes as I leaned into it, long, skinny legs pumping, convinced that if I pedaled hard enough, I could outrun every voice that ever told me to sit still, be quiet, you don’t matter.
Finally, as the last piece of furniture was loaded, I rode up to the massive truck.
“Hello young man,” one of the movers said. “That’s a nice Huffy you have.”
“Thanks,” I said. “One of dad’s parishioners gave it to me. Their son died so I guess he didn't need it anymore.”
“Well that's the last thing to pack, so push it up here and we will be sure it's the first thing that comes off so you can explore your new neighborhood," he said.
As I pushed it up the ramp the mover pulled it from me and wrapped a blanket around it. I walked back down the ramp.
“Hey kid, you forgot something,” the mover said.
I spun around and he was holding the card.
“You don’t want to leave your Queen behind, do ya?,” he said, flicking me the card.
I snatched the card out of midair with two hands, almost dropping it, but secured it and held it up.
"Nice catch," he said. “But be careful kid. She’s a heartbreaker.”
The next morning I woke up in a house that no longer belonged to us.
I looked around the bedroom I shared with my older brother, Saul. The furniture was gone. The shelves were empty. Only the curtains were still hanging at the window. Saul lay on the floor in his sleeping bag, fast asleep.
I stood and stretched my sore back, then crossed the room and pulled the curtain aside.
Outside, the world was wrapped in fog, thick and unmoving. The sun sat behind it as a pale white circle, like it hadn’t decided whether to shine. The neighborhood looked soft and unreal, as if I were still dreaming.
I could barely make out the house across the street. I was going to miss those neighbors. They had a big, bright television.
We weren’t allowed to watch TV. Mom said the devil’s words and ideas poured straight out of that “sin tube.”
At night, after lights-out, I used to sneak into my sister Mara’s room, when the house had settled into silence and our parents were deep in prayer or sleep. Mara’s window faced the neighbors’ living room across the street, and if their curtains were open, the television flickered against the glass like a distant lighthouse.
We’d crouch low at the window, peeking just enough to see the screen.
“That’s Bonanza,” Mara would whisper. “Little Joe’s about to get in a fistfight.”
I didn’t really know the stories, just bits and pieces.
“I dweam of Jeannie,” I’d say with my lisp on full display, wagging my finger and grinning. “But Dad says Jeannie’s a demon in a bottle.”
Mara would giggle and elbow me to be quiet.
We watched Bewitched that way too, wrinkling our noses like Samantha, pretending to cast spells on each other. On Sunday nights, we tried to lip-read The Ed Sullivan Show, guessing whether it was going to be a band, a juggler, or puppets.
It felt like slipping briefly into another life, one with lights and laughter and music, just close enough to see, never close enough to touch. When a floorboard creaked in the hallway, Mara would hiss, “Hide,” and I’d dive under her bed, my heart pounding as I tried not to laugh.
We never told anyone.
It was one of the few things that felt like ours.
“Silas, are you up?” my dad called from the other room.
“Yeth, Dad. But Thaul ithn’t awake.”
“Don’t worry about your brother. Get ready. We’re leaving in an hour.”
I gathered the clothes I was going to wear and took them into the bathroom to change.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Get out of there, twerp,” Saul said. “I need the bathroom.”
I finished dressing as fast as I could and opened the door, but Saul was standing there, blocking the doorway.
“Move, Thaul,” I said, trying to slip past him.
“It’s Saul, you retard. Learn to say it right.”
He leaned in close. “Go on. Knock me out of the way. You don’t have the guts.”
“Saul,” my dad said sharply from down the hall. “Get out of his way and get ready.”
Saul lifted his arm just enough to let me pass. As I squeezed between him and the doorframe, he hip-checked me.
“Do something about it,” he said quietly.
I ran down the hall and took the stairs two at a time into the kitchen.
As usual, there was nothing ready for breakfast. I grabbed an apple from the counter and bit into it.
I walked into the backyard one last time, to where my guinea pig was buried beneath a large oak tree along the property line.
His name was Patches. I’d named him for the different colors in his fur. He loved lettuce. Mom said it was a waste to feed him good lettuce, so I used to sneak pieces when she put us down for naps. She would take her pill and fall asleep for hours. That gave me time alone, and Patches became my best friend. He knew every secret a young boy could have.
I knelt by his grave and cried as I prayed. I felt bad leaving him behind.
Dear Lord,
Thank You for the joy You gave me through Patches.
You created all life, and I know You care for even the smallest creatures.
Your Word says not even a sparrow falls without You knowing, so I know You saw when Patches died.
Please watch over him now.
Help me not be afraid or sad. You are always with me.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
“Hey, crybaby,” Saul yelled from the back door. “Stop bawling over your stupid pig. He probably died of ugliness. It’s time to go. Don’t make me come get you.”
I stood and turned around. My brother was in the doorway, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes, pretending to cry. I went around the side of the house instead so I wouldn’t have to pass him.
My dad’s green Pontiac Bonneville station wagon was backed into the driveway with its doors open. The garage stood empty.
There was no more escaping it. The five of us were about to spend eight hours in the car on the drive north to Manistique, in the Upper Peninsula.
My dad was strapping the last suitcases to the roof rack when he said, “Does anyone know where your mother is? We need to get going.”
He looked at me. “Silas, go see if she needs help.”
I stepped back into the house. Mom was coming down the stairs. She wasn’t ready. Her robe was twisted, and her hair looked like it had lost a fight with a pillow.
“Mom,” I said carefully. “Can I help you?”
She didn’t look at me.
“Did you brush your teeth?”
I stared at my shoes.
“No.”
“What?”
“I only had an apple,” I said, as if that might count for something.
She exhaled sharply. “It doesn’t matter. Go to the bathroom. I ’m watching you brush.”
I headed toward the small bathroom off the kitchen, already wishing I’d lied.
“The toothbrush is packed,” I said.
She stopped.
“You’ll use any excuse not to practice basic hygiene,” she said. “You won’t have a single tooth left in your head. Stay here.”
She disappeared down the hall and came back holding a box of baking soda.
“Lucky for you there was still some in the fridge,” she said. “Wet your hand. Hold out your finger.”
I ran my hand under the faucet. Before I could shake it dry, she grabbed my wrist and poured the powder onto my finger. It clumped into a thick paste.
“Thirty seconds per quadrant,” she said, lifting her wrist to check her watch. “Top left. Go.”
I rubbed the gritty paste onto my teeth. It tasted like chalk and salt and metal. She tapped her foot as the seconds passed.
“Switch. Bottom left.”
I gagged. The paste slid down my throat.
“It burns,” I said.
“Your backside will burn worse if you don’t finish,” she said.
She dipped her own hand into the water, packed her finger with baking soda, and turned to me.
“Open your mouth.”
I didn’t move.
Her hand struck my backside.
“Open it.”
I did.
She shoved her finger into my mouth and scrubbed. I gagged again. The paste burned as it slid down my throat.
Don’t throw up, I told myself. Just let it end.
When she finished, she flicked the remaining paste into the sink and dropped the box into the trash.
“Rinse and get to the car,” she said. “Your father’s waiting.”
She left the room.
I leaned over the sink and spit. Pink foam spiraled down the drain.
I couldn’t help but wonder why she was so obsessed with our teeth. Every night, she lined us up, me, Mara, Saul, and stood there like a drill sergeant with a stopwatch.
“Too much toothpaste!
You’ll poison yourself!
Pea-size! Pea-size!”
Then came the flossing. Only she could do it. She’d yank out a long piece and go at our teeth like she was angrily sawing wood.
She always said it was about keeping us clean.
But it didn’t feel clean.
I walked from the bathroom through the house one last time, my steps echoing.
"Goodbye, house," I whispered.
House... house... house...
I walked to the car where my dad was tightening the straps on the roof rack. My brother and sister were already arguing over the middle seat.
“I’m not staring at Dad’s bald head,” Saul said. “Move over. And keep your junk on your side.”
I climbed into the back of the station wagon, where the small rear-facing seat flipped up from the floor. As the youngest, that’s where I was sent, but I didn’t mind. Most kids my age would have hated it. For me, it was perfect, cozy and quiet, facing away from the tension in the front seat, and most importantly, out of reach of my brother’s punches.
My mother finally came out of the house, dressed now. Her hair was brushed, her blouse tucked in too tightly. She stepped onto the porch and stood there, rigid, unmoving, her eyes looking somewhere far away.
My father finished loading the car and looked up at my mother. She stood with her arms folded, a copy of Ms. magazine tucked under her arm, her vivid red lipstick too bright against her pale face.
“You could have said no,” she said.
My father didn’t respond. He opened the driver’s door, lifted his Bible from the seat, and pulled out a folded letter tucked inside and held it up so she could see it.
“I didn’t take a vow to say no,” he said.
“You took a vow to me, to this family,” she said, louder now. “I don’t want to go.”
He finally looked at her. His face was tight, his voice low, the same one he used from the pulpit.
“The bishop has spoken,” he said.
“You pack up my life and call it obedience,” she said.
“Obedience isn’t a curse,” he said. “It’s our calling.”
She stared at him, her eyes filling, her mouth caught between anger and grief.
“You use Scripture like a weapon,” she said.
“Truth cuts when there’s rebellion,” he replied.
The yard went quiet. A sparrow landed on the porch rail, then flew off again.
My father folded the letter, slid it back into the Bible, and got into the car. He shut the door, turned the key, and the engine started and idled.
My mother didn’t move. She stood there, staring into the fog.
Then, slowly, she stepped down from the porch. One step. Then another.
She opened the passenger door and sat. She didn’t speak.
My father shifted into drive. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as we pulled away.
I watched the house disappear behind us.
From the back seat, it felt like riding in a hearse.