Stranded by J. T. Dutton Read Free Book Online

fry us to ashes, because, let’s face it, that would be embarrassing. I hoped he might give us a chance to prove we were who Nana hoped we would be when she opted for the white rug in the living room, instead of a more practical color for soda-and-gin drinkers like bright orange.
    The Sorensons had such a bad track record, maybe we should be a little more humble in our decorating choices.
    A click and a buzz signaled that the organist had plugged in and the processional was about to start. I sometimes asked God to get me through longish or particularly dullish classes at school. He seemed like he was paying attention and maybe he had made time move faster. A short man with a receding hairline climbed to the pulpit and read from a piece of white paper those announcements that were also printed on my airplane: The flowers were a gift from the Allen John Deere Dealership in honor of Baby Grace. Youth group should assemble on Friday afternoon. What if—I thought a little more loudly—I did what Mom asked and pretended the incident hadn’t happened? Do baby abandoners get do-overs?
    I offered my soul to encourage God to say yes. I wasn’t doing anything with it.
    God, as usual, said nothing.
    No matter how far she fell, Natalie would always understand more about what he wanted than I did. To me, he was an even bigger mystery than why people watch Medium .
    While I debated whether I wasn’t being too greedyin asking him so many favors, and that’s why he was distant, a woman and her three children, latecomers, shifted Nana over so they could share our pew. Ushers unfolded chairs at the back to accommodate the numbers still arriving. Nana moved her hand to her wrist and hid her watch from me. (I was trying to peek to see if the secondhand had done anything interesting or miraculous). It seemed wrong that I should have a place near the front that would have been better filled by someone who knew the territory. I wondered if I could convince Nana to let me go home before Pastor Jim took the stage.
    I unfolded the paper airplane and clasped my hands so I actually looked like I was praying.
    How about it, God? I asked.
    The two little boys on the other side of Nana giggled at the way I flashed my hands open and shut, at first to entertain myself but, when I saw how happy it made them, for their benefit. Their mother tried to settle them and encourage them to stop wiggling. The boys’ sister—a toddler in a frilled dress, white tights, and shiny black leather shoes—rolled onto the floor after a crayon. Nana pulled the hymnal from its slot and paged ahead for the recitation.
    I mumbled along to the call and response, and a fewminutes later Pastor Jim thundered onto the stage. He approached the pulpit a different man than the one who greeted me and Nana in front of the church. Instead of friendly, he seemed stern, and the difference made me sit straighter and pay close attention. He took three long steps to the center of the riser, the sound of his footfalls strengthened by the microphone clipped to his lapel.
    Here it comes, I thought, thinking of the billboards on the way into town.
    Pastor Jim didn’t have a beard, and he was wearing laced black shoes instead of Birkenstocks, but he channeled a pretty believable inner prophet. He raised his voice over the coughs and shuffling paper. I could imagine him grappling in a ring with a caped and horned opponent, fat men cheering him and smoking cigars. You could believe there was a phone booth that Pastor Jim had jumped into just before the sermon started. The entire congregation hushed into silence. The coughing stopped.
    “We have been shamed.” Pastor Jim leaned toward the first row.
    He didn’t choose a comforting note to begin on, like the joys of the pre-Yuletide season or being kind to Mother Earth, and his words rolled into a descriptionof how a young girl’s fall was like a domino tipping into another domino. He explained that one sin led to another until the threads of