THREE WEEKS AFTER he’d seen Nadia last, Luke squatted over his back steps, striking a match against the railing. Dave’s suggestion. Light a candle, he’d told Luke, the last time he called the helpline. Dave hadn’t said what type of candle. A scented candle like the ones in Luke’s mother’s bathroom, a tiny tea candle placed on restaurant tables, a thick red candle emblazoned with the Virgin Mary you found in the Mexican food aisle. A birthday candle, rainbow-striped and slender. Any type of candle would do, Dave had said, so Luke bought a pack of slender white candles. He sat on the back steps of the house, cupping his hands against the flame. It was supposed to bring closure, Dave had said. Peace. But as soon as he’d lit the candle, Luke only felt stressed. A light evening breeze rustled through the trees, and he hunched behind a shrub, trying to shelter the flame, suddenly responsible for guarding the fragile thing.
Dave was a counselor at the Family Life Center in downtown San Diego. Luke had found their flyer stuck in his windshield outside a bar a few weeks ago. Looking for real options? the yellow flyer asked, above a picture of a pregnant woman holding her head and a man next to her, staring off into the distance. It was the first pregnancy center flyer Luke had ever seen with a picture of a man on it. The others only held sad, alone women. On pregnancy center flyers, men were as absent in the midst of a surprise pregnancy as they were in real life. As absent as he’d been. He called the number, just to see what it was about. He told himself he’d hang up. But the on-duty counselor, Dave, started talking to him about the myth that only women suffer after abortions.
“Men suffer a unique type of loss,” Dave said. “Men struggle after losing their child to abortion because they’ve failed to perform the primary function of a father: protecting his family.”
Luke had never thought of it like that. He and Nadia hadn’t been a family—they were just two scared kids. But what if they had been? What if for a brief moment, they had been family, stitched together by the life they’d created? What did that make them now? Now Luke called the center every other evening. He hung up if anyone other than Dave answered. He’d told Dave about the boy at the baseball game, years ago. Dave didn’t judge him. It was normal, he’d said, for post-abortive fathers to feel grief. Once you had created a life, you would always be a father, no matter what happened to the child.
Luke fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed, careful to keep the candle lit.
“This you, Luke?” Dave asked.
“Yeah.”
“How’re you, buddy?”
“Fine.”
“Just ‘fine’?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Dave cleared his throat. “Thought any more about coming into the center?”
“I can’t,” Luke said.
“It’ll help you, trust me, talking to someone face-to-face—it’s a lot better than over the phone. Sometimes you just need to see someone, know what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t bite. Promise.” Dave laughed. “And I got some books I can give you, if you come down. This one—” His voice strained, like he was reaching for something. “Great one, called A Father’s Heart. It’s by this guy named—”
“I gotta go,” Luke said.
“Hold on, pal. Don’t run off. I’ll just hold these for you when you’re ready, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So what’s on your mind?”
“I bought the candles,” Luke said.
“Great!” Dave said. “Light a candle. And close your eyes. Picture your child playing on a field at the feet of Jesus.”
Luke closed his eyes, the candle’s warmth flickering across his face. He tried to envision the scene Dave described, but he only saw Nadia, her smile, her hazel eyes—then he felt the burn. A glob of hot wax dripped onto his hand. He cringed, scraping the wax off against the step. Gravel and dirt clung to his skin. He should’ve put the candle inside something. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Behind him, the back door swung open and his wife leaned against the doorway, frowning.
“What’re you doing?” Aubrey said.
“Nothing.”
“What’s with the candle, then? You’re dripping wax all over the place.”
She toed the white blob on the steps. Luke leaned forward, blowing out the flame. He was only making a bigger mess.
—
“WHEN YOU GONNA settle down, girl?” Mother Betty asked Nadia one morning. “You always flittin’ around, here and there. You think life is for wandering about, lookin’ for what makes you happy? Those just white girl dreams and fantasies. You need to settle down, find a good man. Look at Aubrey Evans! When you gonna do the same?”
Luke no longer came by to visit her father, but she passed him in Upper Room sometimes. He always looked shy of speaking, but he never even mumbled a hello, his eyes tracing the worn carpet. That sliver of space between them when they passed in a narrow hallway felt electric. She told herself she could not think about him. She needed to be good. She began to meet Aubrey on her lunch break, when they sat at a table by the window and shared coffee. She thought about confessing, but every time, the words clung to the roof of her mouth. What good would come of telling the truth? She had ended things with Luke. What good would come of Aubrey knowing all the ways they had betrayed her?
She never went to Aubrey’s house, but once a week, she met Aubrey for dinner at Monique and Kasey’s. Returning to the little white house made her feel like a teenager again—she wanted to stay up late eating ice cream or lounge in the backyard until the light grew dim, her future awaiting her, unblemished and free. She and Aubrey walked to the corner store for snacks or sat in her old bedroom, painting their nails. She always propped Aubrey’s feet into her lap and painted her toenails. It seemed like a small thing she could give.
By Halloween, Nadia had become such a fixture around Upper Room that the pastor had asked her to help chaperone the children’s Halloween party. She said yes. She said yes to nearly everything anyone at Upper Room asked of her. At first, she’d only offered the Mothers rides, but now, while her father continued to heal, she began to loan his truck. She and Second John lifted dozens of folding chairs into the truck bed for the Men’s Fellowship; she drove across town to pick up a new drum kit for the choir; she carried the food baskets from the homeless ministry to the shelter. She had grown up and found God, people thought, but she hadn’t found anything. She was searching for her mother. She hadn’t found her in any of the old places, but maybe she could find her at Upper Room, a place she’d loved, a place she’d visited right before dying. If she could not find her mother in the last place she’d been breathing, she would never find her at all.
The Halloween party did not require much hauling, besides the decorations, but she still agreed to help. Each year, the church handed out candy, the least offensive way to commemorate a holiday whose demonic origins worried them but whose popularity was too great to ignore. Costumes were allowed, but only positive characters. Superheroes but no villains and nobody dead. Bible figures were preferred, but no one knew whether Bible characters skirted the death rule; each year, a smart aleck dressed in a mummy costume and called himself Lazarus. That evening, she barely recognized the children’s church room. The lights were out, but the ceiling was covered in plastic glowing stars. If darkness was required for Halloween events, that didn’t mean it couldn’t be combatted by celestial light. The children crammed into the room and darted down the hallways with plastic sacks filled with candy. Bearded Noahs dragged stuffed animals behind them; Adams juggled half-bitten apples; Moseses carried paper tablets under their arms, and Marys rocked baby dolls.
In the doorway, Nadia perched on a chair with a bucket of candy between her legs. These were the moments when adulthood was formed, not a birthday but the realization that she was now the one pouring a handful of candy into children’s bags, that she was now the one expected to give, not receive. Aubrey and Luke arrived later. When they’d texted, Aubrey hadn’t mentioned that she would bring Luke, but why would she? He was her husband—wasn’t it expected that he would always be with her? He wore a long brown bathrobe and whenever a kid asked who he was, he flexed and said that he was Samson. But his hair was short, so all evening the children beat him up and he had to take it.
“Who are you supposed to be?” Aubrey asked. She carried a pair of scissors. Delilah.