Godforsaken Idaho by Vestal Shawn

Author:Vestal, Shawn [Vestal, Shawn]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Publisher: Little A / New Harvest
Published: 2013-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

Coming home from work four days later, Bradshaw swung his car into the driveway, and the headlights washed over two spectral shapes in the grainy dusk. The missionaries. Pope had his hand wrapped around a rake shaft, talking to Warren, who was looking up and nodding. The snow had melted, and gluey brown leaves had been raked into a pile.

The open garage door spread a fan of warm light, but the house was dark. Cheryl and Riley were at her sister’s. Bradshaw slammed his car door and only then did Pope look up, lifting his arm in an exaggerated wave, as though he were on a dock greeting a steamer.

“Brother Bradshaw!” he said. “Good evening.”

Warren raised a hand briefly. He wore his embarrassment like a shawl.

Bradshaw stepped off the driveway onto the wet lawn, cold air like metal in his sinuses. The rake had been in the garage. They had gone into the garage.

“I bet you never thought we’d take you up on it,” Pope said, smiling even as Bradshaw grabbed the rake handle and jerked. Pope held firm for a second, smile widening—in surprise or malevolence, Bradshaw couldn’t tell—then let go, sending Bradshaw backward one step. Pope shrugged sheepishly.

“Sorry,” he said.

Warren laughed, snuffling behind his hand. Did he say something? Something to Pope? Bradshaw stared, seething. Breath crowded his lungs, and his vision tightened and blurred. Pope smiled patiently at Bradshaw, lips pressed hammily together. It was the smile of every man he had met in church, the bishops and first counselors and stake presidents, the benevolent mask, the put-on solemnity, the utter falseness. It was the smile of the men who brought boxes of food when Bradshaw was a teenager and his father wasn’t working, the canned meat and bricks of cheese. The men who prayed for his family. Bradshaw’s father would disappear, leaving him and his mother to kneel with the men.

Setting the rake against his shoulder, Bradshaw ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. When he opened them, red spots expanded and danced across his vision. The missionaries faded, then clarified.

“Brother Bradshaw?” Pope said.

Bradshaw wanted to swing the rake at Pope’s head. To watch his smug eyes pop as the tines sunk in. Why could he not just do it? He never could. Finally, he simply pointed toward the road, eyes averted, finger trembling. As they left, Pope said without looking back, “We’ll be praying for you, Brother Bradshaw.”

Bradshaw threw down the rake.

“Don’t pray for me!” he shouted. “Don’t you dare pray for me!”

He stopped when he saw his neighbor, Bud Swenson, standing at his mailbox, a handful of envelopes.

Later, after Cheryl returned, he sat on the floor with Riley, trying to get him interested in stacking wooden blocks. It was Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, and Cheryl was making pie crusts. She came in and watched them a moment, and when Bradshaw looked up, wooden block in hand, he was startled to find her on the verge of happy tears. It reminded him of the way his mother would get in church, swept up in the spirit.

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