1
Meg
I was four the first time I accepted Jesus into my heart. I say first time because I did it at least twelve times before I turned sixteen. Better to be absolutely sure, you know? Like, what if I wasn’t really feeling it the initial eleven times? Or maybe I was answering the wrong altar call? What if my heart wasn’t prepared and I forgot to forgive someone who’d wronged me earlier in the day? Did those ones count? Who can be sure? We live in such conflicting times.
Better to answer at every opportunity just in case. Don’t want to mess around when your eternal salvation is on the line.
All of this is to say, I’m like super saved. Like, if there is a punch card for gold star Christians, mine’s been well earned and is ready to be cashed in. There’s this billboard on the way to my nana Knudson’s in the middle of nowhere, Indiana, that reads: IF YOU DIED RIGHT NOW, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU’D WAKE UP? And yeah. I know. I made sure of it. I’m nothing if not a planner. Hope for the best, plan for the rest. Salvation? Check. Eternity? Double-check times six.
My best friend, Vada, calls it my neurosis. That by confirming my salvation every ten months, I’m basically negating the whole thing. If I can’t trust it worked the first time, who am I dealing with here? Surely, the Creator of the Universe can keep track of such things.
I told her if she’s not going to accept Jesus, I’ll have to share half of my salvations with her, so she should be grateful.
It’s what I know. Salvation. It’s the only certainty in my life. A week ago, that was okay with me. A week ago, I looked at my blank slate of a future and felt the giddy flip in my stomach that spoke of Possibility and Discovery. I was armed with my relentless faith and the proverbial bucketful of joy, ready to take on the world and answer the call.
Unfortunately, just like my mom and dad, last week was a liar.
So, it’s my final night of youth group. That part was planned. It was always going to be my last time there. Only the circumstances have changed. The theater where we hold our weekly worship gatherings is dark except for the stage lights, warm and glowing around my bandmates and me. I’ll miss this. Singing with them and leading kids in praise music is such an honor. It’s been years since I’ve performed my skating programs, and this isn’t the same, but it’s gratifying in its own way. I’m not a professional singer, but I’m not half-bad when backed up by Jesus and my dear friend Ben’s gorgeous violin.
I move to the mic, my ever-present fairy wings fluttering comfortingly around my shoulders. I chose my simple white-as-snow feather wings today. They were the first pair I ever received, years ago, from my dad. I was little then—still am, I suppose, judging by the way they fit. I was so tiny, he used to call me his sprite, and we would dance around the living room to his old My Chemical Romance albums.
My dad.
I shake off the memory, conjuring a beaming smile to my lips, praying the bright lights conceal the fact that it’s fake.
“We have one more song tonight. I picked it special to share with you because I want you all to take care and take this to heart. And remember, Jesus and Meg Hennessey will always love you.” I blow a quick kiss, spread my arms, and close my eyes, concentrating on the brush of softness at my shoulders. I press the hurt down and suck in a deep breath to soothe the ache. I’m singing “Beautiful, Beautiful” by Francesca Battistelli. It’s joyful and painful at once. A girl crying out to her God, something I’m not sure I’m ready to do. It’s not in me to dwell, so instead, I give the lyrics my best, impressing as much meaning and care into them as possible. In the song’s final moments, I open my eyes, allowing them to adjust. I take the time to reach out with my gaze to the kids in front of me, and I will my love and prayers into them. That they might experience the consuming comfort of God’s grace. May they never feel alone. May they never feel betrayed.
May they never feel like this.
The song ends, and the lights come on. It’s over. Everything is over. I accept hugs and warm wishes for my future with my usual effervescence. (Thank you! I love you! God Bless! PTL!) But for once, it tires me out. Apparently, being ungenuine is exhausting. I don’t bother correcting anyone on the destination of my plans, and I don’t share what’s in my heart. Not even with Ben. I’ll miss him and his ridiculous lumberjack beard the most out of all these kids. Pretending everything is okay around him makes my insides squirm, but I’m allowing this door to close, and I’m walking away. I’m turning over a new leaf, a new life. I really hope it works out for them in there.
But I’m no longer sure it will. Not for any of us.
* * *
The clock on the wall reads seven thirty, and I’m regretting asking Vada to wait until sundown to pick me up. I was all in my feels and wanted to sneak out of my parents’ two-story bungalow in Ann Arbor, Michigan, under the cloak of night. After all, I’ve never snuck out before—I’ve never disobeyed my parents, full stop—and felt I should do the thing properly. I imagined a dark house and my parents asleep in their separate beds. I would crack open my window, lifting it from its well-worn sill, and toss out a bunch of bedsheets tied end to end. I’d shimmy down to where Vada waited, her mom’s car silent from being rolled in neutral down the street toward my window. I’d land with a soft thud in the dewy grass and not bother looking back as we pulled out of town, never to be heard from again, on our way somewhere explicitly not here.
But then my mom messed it all up with her caring.
I’m finishing my packing, holding two pairs of fairy wings in my hands and trying to decide which to bring, when she taps on my door.
“I told you,” I say, petulant. “I’m running away.” Because of course I couldn’t leave without telling them first. Always the good girl. Always courteous.
“I know,” she says, sitting on my bed, her hands folded over a stack of something in her lap. “I know,” she repeats. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t forget anything.”
I straighten, tapping my chin with one finger. “I wonder what that must be like? To forget something. Something so super life-altering and important for, I don’t know, nearly two decades…” I nail my mom with a look, daring her. Her expression narrows. She wants to say something—chastise my back talk, maybe—but she can’t. She doesn’t have a leg to stand on here. Instead, she swallows, her hands dancing along the object in her lap.
“Do you hate me?” she asks softly before shaking her head and refusing to meet my eyes. “Of course you do. I hate me a little bit. I have for years.”
I consider this, dropping both sets of wings and flipping the lid of my suitcase over, zipping it closed. “No. I don’t hate you. But”—I hold up a hand in warning—“I don’t know how to feel right now. It’s very jumbled.” I gesture around my head. “And I don’t feel like I can properly sort it out here. I was leaving next week anyway,” I remind her.
Until yesterday morning, I was heading west to work at a Bible camp. I’ve sent my regrets via email and am trying not to feel guilty and especially irresponsible about it. I just can’t imagine sitting around a fire, singing about Jesus’s unerring love at a time like this. He’s still who he is, but I’m … not sure who I am.
“Your father is moving out,” she says.
I sink down beside her. “What you meant to say is he’s leaving us,” I insist. “And he’s not my father, so…” I shrug.
That’s one of the things that hasn’t sunk in yet. My dad is not my dad. Not really. My real dad? Is dead. His name was Andrew McArthur, and he died at twenty years old. I can say it. In my head, out loud, in a text to Vada … but none of it feels real yet. It’s not sticking. I don’t think it’s possible to reconfigure a lifetime of definites in two days. I wonder, idly, if it will take as long to undo the knowing as it took to know in the first place.
“He’s been your father for nearly eighteen years.”
“He’s been your husband for that long, too,” I say, shaking myself free of my thoughts. “If he can walk away from you, there’s no reason for him to stick around for me.”
“He feels terrible. He’s…” She pauses, and I wait. She changes direction. “Declan is a good man, Meg. He’s sacrificed a lot over the years, for both of us. But I need to set him free now. He deserves that much.”
I don’t believe that. He took off right after my mom’s confession yesterday afternoon and hasn’t been back. It’s clear they planned to tell me together—their secret was only a secret to me, after all—but he’s letting her face the fallout on her own. I don’t say anything. I doubt she’s fooled by my silence, but it doesn’t hurt to not confirm it.
“When were you going to tell me, Mom? If the camp hadn’t needed my medical records, what would you have done? Let me go my entire life believing a lie? What about you and … D-Dad…” I trip over the title. “Were you just going to carry on married to someone you don’t love until you die?” My throat grows thick, choking off anything else I could say. My mom’s face crumples.
“Oh, Meg.” She puts down whatever is in her hand and reaches for mine. But that’s all she says. No explanation or reassurances that, of course, of course, she was going to tell me the truth all along. That she was only waiting for the right moment. That she hadn’t planned to lie for so long. I let her hands drop and stand, moving to my closet so I don’t have to look at my mom’s red-rimmed eyes for one more second.
She sniffs and dries her face with the backs of her hands before standing. “I wanted you to have these.” She points to the stack she was carrying. A pile of differently sized envelopes addressed in slanting cursive. “I’ve been collecting them over the years. One for every Christmas, including the last. They’re from your great-grandmother.”
“I don’t have a— Oh,” I say, my heart thudding painfully. “They know about me?”
“Only she does, as far as I know. Andrew’s parents have been gone for decades … even before I met him. He has a brother, but I’ve only ever heard from Elizabeth. After the … after Andrew’s funeral, and after you were born, I sent a card … a copy of the birth announcement. Every year, we exchange Christmas cards.”
I stare at her, stunned. “You exchange Christmas cards.”
She slowly nods, her brown eyes, so different from my blue ones, searching.
“Dear Andrew’s family, Meg’s doing great. Still clueless! Happy holidays. Love, the baby momma.”
My mom winces, and I feel bad about my crassness. But I don’t apologize because it’s not untrue.
“And they didn’t want to know me?”
My mom presses her lips together, shaking her head. “She did. She’s been asking for years. Since the very first letter, even. You’re all they have of Andrew, but I just couldn’t…” She cuts off, dragging a deep breath in through her nose and out past her trembling lips. “I’m sorry, Meg. I needed to compartmentalize. Here. Read them. They’re yours.”
I reach for the envelope on top and trace my fingers along the fine handwriting. The name on the return address is Elizabeth McArthur. “Marquette, Michigan? Is that where you and, um, Andrew, you know…” I trail off, feeling awkward.
My mom pauses at the door. “No, we met at a youth group conference, actually. In Grand Rapids. His band played one of the smaller stages.”
My mouth drops open, awkwardness replaced by indignation. “I was conceived at a youth group conference?”
She shrugs, and finally, it hits me how young my mom is. We’re barely eighteen years apart. There’s a lot more to unpack in this revelation, but first—
I whistle low. “My dad played in a Christian band.”
“Just a local one. More of a church worship band, really.”
“But he died in a drunk-driving accident, and he was the driver?”
“He was. I have the article somewhere in my things.”
I wave her off, impatient. “My unmarried, teenage parents had sex at a youth group conference, and before you could tell my dad you were pregnant, he killed himself drunk driving?”
She frowns. “That about sums it up.”
The choking feeling is returning, so I sit back down on my bed, dropping my head into my hands.
“Do you hate me now?” Her voice is barely a whisper.
I can’t bring myself to say the words or even look at her. My head is too heavy for my body. Instead, I shake it, hot tears dripping into my lap until I hear the door close behind her.
* * *
A few hours later, I walk out the front door. My mom stands haloed in the porch light, moths circling her gleaming blue-black hair as I struggle down the steps, feeling crushed under the weight of recent revelations and my oversize suitcase. Vada pops the trunk, and I drop in my luggage, raising a hand in farewell before ducking into the car.
“I thought this was supposed to be covert,” Vada mutters, reversing out of the drive.
“It was when I was running off to California. But now…” I trail off.
“No wings?” she asks, one red eyebrow perked. Vada and I’ve been best friends for almost fifteen years, and she’s probably never seen me without my fairy wings. But I couldn’t do it today.
“No wings,” I say, facing my reflection in the darkened window. “I left them behind.”
“Well,” she says, tapping on the radio. “At least this makes things easier. I won’t have to avoid your mom around town.”
This makes me roll my eyes. “Oh, please, college girl. In a few days, you’ll be off to Cali with Luke, and Ann Arbor will be nothing but a green blur in your rearview mirror.”
Vada beams in a deliriously happy way that’s evident even in the dark. She glows. Has since the night her boyfriend, Luke Greenly, announced his undying devotion to her by way of a very public, very lucrative live performance of the viral hit song he just so happened to write about her, which in turn saved the dive bar they both work at from extinction.
No biggie. It’s not like it’s messed with my expectations of romance at all.
Catching my smirk, she clears her throat. “So, Marquette.”
“Marquette,” I agree. After reading and rereading the Christmas cards from my great-grandma “Betty” over and over, I sent Vada a message, changing my destination for the third time in as many days and asking if she wouldn’t mind postponing her trip to take me north. To her credit, she replied only with, “Thank God for Google Maps.”
“The UP.” She stretches it out like Youuuuu Peeeeee.
My lips twitch. “The Upper Peninsula.”
“To meet your real dad’s family.”
“Yup.”
“That’s weird.”
“You have no idea.”
“Does his family know you’re coming?”
“Nope.”
“Should we call them or something?”
“And say what? ‘Hey, you don’t know me, but my mom boinked your dead relative eighteen years ago and surprise! It’s a girl!’”
Copyright © 2021 by Erin Hahn
