What I Want Read online

  Jesus said that if you lust after a woman, you’ve already committed adultery with her in your heart.

  I thought about Josette all the time.

  I missed her touch and her scent and her laugh and her smile and her company and her warmth and her kisses and her hugs and her voice and everything about her. I missed her with an ache that wouldn’t go away.

  Every night I stole into Josette’s old room and curled up on the futon, closing my eyes in the darkness and trying to pretend that she wasn’t gone. I went to the department store and bought a bottle of the same perfume that I’d given her on our one-week anniversary, and I set it on my nightstand or the kitchen windowsill or the bathroom counter – wherever I was going to be – and I opened it to inhale memories of her and to make myself miss her even more.

  I thought about Stuart constantly too, and I hated him. I hated him for every heartache he had ever caused her and I hated him for taking her away from me and I hated him for being her husband and for sleeping next to her and for making love to her every night.

  Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer . . .

  So I was that too.

  I came home one evening and found that Josette had been there during the day while I was gone. She’d left four items on the little table in the kitchen: her copy of the key to my house, the umbrella, the perfume, and the copy of Persuasion that I’d given her for Christmas.

  That night I curled up on the futon and began reading. Jane Austen wasn’t any easier to understand now than she’d been when I was in high school, but I forced myself to plow forward every night until I finished the book that Josette loved so much. It was the story of Anne and Wentworth – two people who loved each other desperately but spent years apart before they were finally able to be together. When I was finally finished, I fantasized that Josette had left it on the table for me as a message: We’re apart right now, but one day we’ll find our way back to each other . . .

  I’d been to the main library only one time since Josette had left, going there to talk to Brenda (and finding out that all she knew was that Josette had quit her work-study job and moved back in with her husband). But after I read Persuasion, I went back again and again, perusing the shelves and desperately searching for other novels that Josette had told me about. I racked my brain, trying to recall titles of the different ones she had mentioned to me and reading each one after I found it.

  I read books by George Eliot, Compton Mackenzie, Tom Wolfe, C.S. Lewis, and Harper Lee. I imagined what Josette’s thoughts had been as she’d read the very same words I was reading, and I searched for the escape that Josette’s mother had once told her about.

  But I never found it.

  That didn’t stop me from trying though. I went back to the library week after week, and I devoured book after book.

  I may have been an adulterer and a murderer . . .

  But at least I was well-read.

  ~ ~ ~

  I WAS LOSING my dad, too.

  For my entire life, Dad had been fixing things for me whenever something went wrong.

  Right after Josette had closed the door in my face, I’d called him, knowing that he would somehow be able to make everything better again. But the man who answered his phone was a complete stranger to me, and apparently I was a stranger to him, too.

  “He’s getting a bit worse,” Mom had admitted quietly after she’d taken the phone from Dad.

  She promised to have him call me when he was more himself (it comes and goes, she’d said), but I knew that my days of turning to him for help were over.

  I went home for Christmas and was glad to find that Dad was indeed still having good moments, but I didn’t dare burden him or Mom with my troubles. Instead, I mentioned to Mom that maybe I should think about moving in with them after I finished my degree the following summer. It was obvious that she was going to be needing help soon, and – even though the company our program partnered with had already offered to turn my internship into a full-time position – I really couldn’t see myself staying in Australia. Mom said that we could think about it and that she would pray about it. She told me that I should pray about it too . . . that I should see what God wanted me to do.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I couldn’t even begin to pray. Did God really want to hear me begging Him to send a married woman back into my arms?

  I didn’t think so.

  I kept quiet.

  ~ ~ ~

  I WAS DEPRESSED.

  After I got back to Australia I went to a doctor and told him I was depressed. He wanted to know if I was suicidal.

  Well, duh.

  Why did he think I was there if it wasn’t because I was scared about the way things were headed? He sent me on my way with a prescription for a medication that didn’t help and an appointment with a counselor that didn’t help either.

  That was when I realized that even the science I loved so much couldn’t save me . . .

  And I grew even more scared.

  ~ ~ ~

  EVEN THOUGH MY faith was shot, I was smart enough to know that I had no hope if I didn’t do something to fix my relationship with God.

  I had no idea how to do that though . . . no idea how to reach Him. I tried to pray, but I just couldn’t.

  I did manage, however, to send a text to my sister Lily.

  Will you please pray for me?

  She texted me back immediately: Do you want to talk?

  No.

  Okay, she answered. I’m praying.

  Of all my siblings, Lily was the one who was the most like me. I wasn’t closest to her by any means, but I had the most in common with her. Dorito and Lily and I were all Latino and had been raised by white parents, but only Lily and I had been abandoned at birth because there was something wrong with us. We were also the only two who didn’t know our birth moms. More than that, though, was the fact that Lily was so much like me personality-wise. We were both quiet and reserved. Introverted and serious.

  I knew that I could trust Lily.

  I knew that I could send her a text asking for prayer and that she wouldn’t freak out. I knew that she wasn’t going to get on the phone and babble to everyone in the family that something was going on. I knew that she wasn’t going to pepper me with questions, bugging me to let her know what was wrong. Of course she might ask me if I wanted to talk, but I knew that she would butt out when I told her that I didn’t.

  Apparently I knew nothing.

  Lily called two days after my text and told me she was coming to visit.

  “No.”

  “Marco,” she insisted, “Mom said you’re thinking about moving home this summer? This is my last chance to come to Australia and have a free place to stay.”

  (Another thing we had in common was that she was just about as bad of a liar as I was.)

  “No, Lily,” I said firmly. “I do not want you over here hounding me with questions and trying to get me to talk. I thought you were the one person in my life I could ask to pray for me without worrying that you were going to start prying.”

  “Who’s prying?” she asked innocently. “I want to see a koala bear.”

  “No.”

  “Marco,” she said gently. “I won’t pry. I want to come see you, but we don’t have to talk. I promise.”

  “No,” I said again, my resolve much weaker this time. “I don’t want you to come.”

  “Well, I’m coming anyway,” she said adamantly. “I already bought my ticket and it’s nonrefundable. I fly into Tullamarine Saturday morning at ten-thirteen. If you’re not there to pick me up I guess I’ll just have to get a taxi and find a hotel and show myself around.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Gate eleven,” she said quietly.

  I still didn’t answer her.

  “Goodbye, Marco.”

  I did not want to talk to Lily about what was going on. I didn’t want to talk to anybody about what was going on (which, incidentally, was why counseling hadn
’t gone too great), but as soon as I saw Lily on Saturday morning, I knew that I was going to do nothing but talk . . . and as soon as I hugged her, I started crying.

  “It’s okay,” Lily whispered in my ear, hugging me back.

  “No, it’s not,” I answered, wiping my eyes before taking her hand and leading her away to baggage claim.

  I started talking on the ride back to my house, and I kept it up for the next three days. I talked at the wildlife sanctuary and at St. Kilda Beach and at Fitzroy Gardens. I talked at restaurants. I talked in the living room and in the kitchen and on the front porch, and some nights I knocked on Josette’s old door and sat down on the edge of the futon where Lily was now sleeping and I talked some more.

  I talked and I talked and I talked, and sometimes I cried.

  And Lily listened.

  One day Lily and I were both crying because we were talking about Dad. Lily mentioned that – during the times when he was still himself – he had been busy planning his funeral.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You know,” she explained, “like he’s been working with me and Meredith on this photo montage he wants and making sure we know what song he wants played and stuff like that.”

  “What song does he want?”

  “‘Revelation Song’,” she answered.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. Then she lowered her voice to imitate Dad and shook a finger at me sternly. “But it needs to be the one by Phillips, Craig and Dean.”

  I looked at her questioningly.

  “It’s very important that we get the Phillips, Craig and Dean version,” she said with a tearful smile. “Don’t let me forget, okay? It’s very important that I don’t forget.”

  “I gather he’s mentioned it a few times?”

  “A few dozen,” she nodded, and we both smiled through our tears.

  That night I lay in bed, wondering why Dad wanted “Revelation Song” played at his funeral. I knew he liked it – I remembered him turning up the radio whenever it came on and singing along at the top of his lungs, not worrying for one second about how his voice sounded or how much he might be embarrassing us kids. But he had done that with a lot of songs, so that didn’t really explain why it was the one he wanted played at his funeral.

  I tried to remember the words to “Revelation Song,” but I couldn’t. I looked them up online and after I’d read them, I puzzled over his choice even more. I pulled out my Bible and turned to the book of Revelation, flipping pages until my eyes found the verse that was used as the opening line in the song: Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain.

  I continued scanning and found the passage that was used in the chorus: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come . . .

  Reading on, I found verses about rainbows and lightning and thunder, and before long I realized that most of the words in the song had come directly from the book of Revelation (which I guess kind of made sense since it was called “Revelation Song”).

  But that still didn’t explain why Dad wanted it played at his funeral.

  I had actually been to a lot of funerals for someone my age. My sister Meredith had lost a friend in a car accident. My grandmothers had both died and so had my brother-in-law’s mother. A teacher from my school had passed away from a heart attack. A classmate of mine and Grace’s had died from cancer.

  I thought now about some of the songs I remembered from those funerals and from things I’d seen on TV or whatever.

  Go Rest High on that Mountain . . . I Can Only Imagine . . . I’ll Fly Away . . . Amazing Grace . . . Beulah Land . . . I Will Rise . . .

  Those were common funeral songs. They were about leaving the sorrows of this life behind and going to a wonderful new life. They were songs about meeting Jesus.

  But “Revelation Song”?

  I got up and knocked on Lily’s door. When she didn’t answer, I knew that she was already in bed and had taken her cochlear implants off. I cracked the door and when I still didn’t hear anything from her, I reached my hand into the room and flashed the light on and off.

  She sat up.

  “Sorry,” I mouthed.

  “Hey, Muñeco,” she said softly, reaching for one of the receivers that was charging on the nightstand. She secured it in place while I sat down on the edge of the futon. Once she could hear me, she asked, “What’s up?”

  “I think I figured out why Dad wants ‘Revelation Song’ played at his funeral.”

  “Why?”

  “All the songs you usually hear at funerals are about people going to heaven, right?”

  “Yeah . . . so?”

  “But ‘Revelation Song’ is about Jesus. It’s all about worshiping Him and how He’s holy and worthy and everything . . .”

  “Okay . . .”

  She looked at me blankly.

  “Dad doesn’t want the focus to be on him,” I explained. “He wants the focus to be on Jesus.”

  She thought about that for a moment and then nodded.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “I can see that.”

  I scooted across the futon until my back was against the wall and I sighed. Lily waited.

  “I thought I was like that,” I finally said quietly. “I thought I was right where I needed to be, you know?”

  Lily gave me a little nod and put her hand on my knee.

  “I mean, I went to church every Sunday and I was reading my Bible every day and I listened to only Christian music and . . .”

  My voice trailed off.

  “I thought my faith was strong,” I said.

  Lily continued to listen.

  I shrugged. “When Bizzy broke up with me, I did fine. I mean, I just figured that God had someone else in mind for me, you know?”

  I glanced at her and she nodded.

  “I thought the reason I handled everything so well was because of my faith,” I said, “but it was really just because – deep down – I knew that Bizzy wasn’t the right one for me.”

  I looked away and shook my head.

  “I mean, for our entire relationship I was always worried that I wasn’t good enough for Bizzy,” I continued, “or I was nervous that she was going to break up with me, or I was scared that she didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about her . . .”

  I glanced at Lily again.

  “It didn’t have anything to do with my faith,” I said miserably. “My faith was a sham.”

  “No,” Lily said, shaking her head. “It wasn’t a sham.”

  “Then where is it now?” I challenged. “I don’t have faith that things are going to get better now.”

  I shook my own head and turned away from her, trying to blink back the tears that were coming once more.

  I was so far away from God . . .

  I started to cry.

  I was far away from God and I had no idea how to get back to Him. He was as out of reach for me as Josette was.

  Lily scooted so that she was next to me and she wrapped her arms around me.

  She prayed for me.

  And she held me while I cried.

  ~ ~ ~

  UP UNTIL THAT point, Lily had mostly been listening. She hadn’t given me a lot of advice or judged me or told me what I needed to do.

  That changed the next day, however, the day before she was scheduled to leave.

  “I want to talk to you,” she said as soon as I walked into the living room that morning. She was sitting on the couch, waiting for me.

  “Okay,” I said slowly, stepping into the kitchen and heading for the coffeepot. She waited until I got my coffee and joined her on the couch.

  “What do you want to talk about?” I asked, looking at her expectantly.

  “I have something for you,” she said, reaching beside her and picking up a book. She handed it to me.

  “John,” I said, reading the cover out loud. “The Beloved Disciple.”

  I looked at the author.

  “Beth Moore?
” I frowned.

  “I know you think she just writes for women,” Lily said quickly, holding a hand out as if to stop me from handing the book back, “but I think this is exactly what you need right now.”

  I looked at her doubtfully.

  “She only calls her readers ‘girlfriend’, like, maybe one time,” Lily promised, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I think a huge part of your problem,” she went on, undeterred, “is that all you’re letting yourself think about is Josette.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “She’s married, Marco,” Lily said gently. “It’s not good for you to be thinking about her all the time.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Yes, you can,” she argued. “You know what Mom always says . . .”

  You can’t keep birds from flying over your head, but that doesn’t mean you need to let them make nests in your hair.

  I rolled my eyes again.

  “I don’t think Mom has any idea what it’s like to be in love with someone that you shouldn’t be in love with,” I said dryly.

  “Maybe not,” Lily admitted, “but the fact of the matter is that you’re in control of where your mind goes. I’m not saying that you’re never going to think about Josette, but that doesn’t mean you need to let your thoughts dwell on her. You need to stay focused on something else.”

  “Like this?” I asked sarcastically, holding up the book.

  “It’s really good,” she insisted, “and I think it’ll help you get your mind back where it needs to be.”

  Somehow I doubted that, but I gave her a polite little nod.

  “Focus on this, Marco,” she said, tapping the book. “YOU are in control of what you do and where your mind goes. Make yourself read it, every day. Okay?”