Leaving Fishers by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Author:Margaret Peterson Haddix [Haddix, Margaret Peterson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2011-08-30T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Thirteen

DORRY’S MOTHER CAME HOME ON SUNDAY, looking pale and thinner and declaring, “I don’t want to eat hospital food ever again the rest of my life.” And Dorry, helpfully carrying her mother’s suitcase in the door, thought grimly, I hope the rest of your life is a long time. Dorry’s father only frowned and snorted. Both of them forgot to tell Dorry’s mother about the flowers Angela had sent for her homecoming. When Dorry’s mother saw them on the kitchen counter—a grand bouquet of exotic flowers Dorry didn’t recognize but knew had to be unbelievably expensive—she flushed and practically went speechless.

“Gene, how could you—” she began. “That must have cost a week’s salary, and with me not working. . . .”

“Ain’t from me,” Dorry’s dad said tightly.

Dorry’s mom gaped at Dorry. “That babysitting job was supposed to be money for you—”

“Relax, Mom,” Dorry said. “My friend Angela sent them. From my church. Wasn’t that nice?”

Dorry saw her parents exchange a glance. “Yes. Very nice,” her mother said.

But the way she said it made Dorry feel weird about the flowers. They were all wrong in the Stevenses’ apartment, crowded on the counter by dirty pots and pans and their old black rotary phone, brought from Bryden. She tried to recapture the thrill she’d felt when the flowers had arrived—the sudden, excited disbelief, the amazement that Angela cared so much about her and her family. But it was gone, replaced by a squeamish discomfort.

“Some people from that church visited me in the hospital this morning, too,” Dorry’s mother said, sinking onto the couch.

“Really? Some of my friends?” Dorry was surprised.

“It was an older couple. They’d just been sent out to, uh, witness.” Dorry’s mother said “witness” the way she might mention unpleasant bodily functions.

“But didn’t you like them?” Dorry persisted.

“Sure,” her mother said, but Dorry could tell that she really didn’t. “Gene, can you hand me that remote?”

The TV came on. Dorry knew better than to try to carry on a religious discussion in the face of a McDonald’s commercial.

“I’ll do the dishes,” she volunteered. If nothing else, she could report it to Angela for her “Virtuous Acts” list. It would be worth double because she had done it for unbelievers. At the sink, up to her elbows in greasy suds, Dorry reminded herself that she was supposed to be thinking of her parents as unbelievers, however strange it seemed. She shouldn’t worry about what the Fishers who’d visited her mother had thought of her, or what she thought of them. She should be glad other Fishers were trying to convert her parents, because then it wouldn’t be entirely up to her.

“If you don’t want your family to go to hell, you must convert them,” Angela had said repeatedly. “You know what happens to people who aren’t baptized as Fishers. No other church lives the Bible as God commands. Would you be happy in paradise knowing your loved ones were experiencing the worst agonies imaginable for all eternity?”

“No,” Dorry had said. Things sounded so simple the way Angela put them.

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