Faith by Julie Murphy

Author:Julie Murphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

17

Gretchen’s face is everywhere. Footage of the corn maze and the ambulance carrying her speeding down the dirt road leading to the highway dominates the top of every news hour.

I called Grandma Lou on my way home from the corn maze and told her everything. On Sunday morning, she let me sleep in until noon and even then, all she did was open the blinds and bring me toast and orange juice in bed. It all reminds me too much of the weeks following Mom and Dad’s death and how she just let me mope for a while and sit in my feelings before nudging me out of my room and back to normal. Most people want you to get over things too fast. It’s like your sadness makes them uncomfortable. It’s an inconvenience. But not Grandma Lou. Maybe it was losing her husband (my grandfather and my dad’s dad) so early in life or maybe it’s just the way she was built, but Grandma Lou’s never shied away from the hard stuff.

Later that day, Matt and Ches come over and I rehash it all. Instead of asking me a bunch of questions, they pile up in my bed with me and watch reruns of The Grove from my parents’ generation.

Ches doesn’t even bring over homework. She just holds my head in her lap and braids my hair over and over again while Matt and I mouth along to some of the more iconic scenes we know by heart.

That night before they leave, Ches digs in her bag and comes up with a small bundle of twigs and sage. “To smudge your room,” she explains. “It’ll help. Do you mind?”

Matt smirks, forever a nonbeliever.

“Of course not,” I tell her.

Matt and I sit perched on the edge of the bed while Ches lights the edge of the bundle with a lighter and then blows it out, before using the smudge stick to outline the door and then the perimeter of the room. Finally, she takes the empty jewelry dish on my dresser that Miss Ella gave me for my thirteenth birthday and places the smudge stick on top. She lies down on the floor and reaches beneath my bed with the dish and smudge stick.

“For restful sleep,” she calls from beneath the bed frame.

Matt looks to me and we both share a smile. “I love that little witch,” he whispers.

I nod. I do too. I really do. Ches isn’t one for sweeping affectionate gestures or fancy gifts, but this is a specifically Ches way of letting me know she cares, and it means so much. Even if it is just a bundle of twigs and sage beneath my bed.

On Monday morning, as I’m waiting for Matt and Ches, the chilled morning air laces through my hair.

I watch as Miss Ella, her housecoat wrapped tight around her shoulders, shuffles down her walkway to pick up her paper. She beckons me with the rolled-up newspaper, and I step over her flower beds.

“Something’s up with Lou,” she says, not bothering to sugarcoat it.

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