Sure enough, neither hand reaches for his phone as he walks to the car. I trail behind him because yelling seems too loud, too brash. This is a sadness for whispers.
I’m about to call out when he throws open the driver’s door. Where is he going? He wouldn’t leave me here. I stand on an island of mulch and saplings in the parking lot, staring from a distance. Something anchors me here, an inner voice insisting that I stay where I am.
And I watch as my father beats his hands against the steering wheel. He hits the roof of the car, slaps his palms at the windows—mouth open in wails I cannot hear.
I watch his teeth press fiercely against his lower lip and pull open into a swearword I can make out from here. He screams it, using all his air until his face turns red. His balled fists hit the dash again and then he leans over the wheel, shoulders heaving.
But I back away one step, then two. I won’t go comfort him. Because I know my dad, and he would never forgive himself for letting me see this. But I do see him. My dad—the pastor—is only a man. Staring down loss, and blinking.
Inside the car, he props his head against his hand. One last time, I see his mouth spit out the word—lips against teeth for the “f,” the guttural uhh of the vowel, the crisp “k.”
If I’m going to believe, it has to be in a God who would forgive my father for this word.
I have to believe in a God who knows how much my father loves my mother.
I have to believe in a God who would sit beside my father in that car, place His hand on my father’s back.
And maybe it took me until now—until this horrible moment—to realize, but I do.
I believe in nature, in science, in jazz, in dancing.
And I believe in people. In their resilience, in their goodness.
This is my credo; this is my hymn. Maybe it’s not enough for heaven, and maybe I’m even wrong. But if I can walk through the fire and, with blistered skin, still have faith in better days? I have to believe that’s good enough.
So I turn back inside, shoulders squared. Not because I’m Saint Lucy or Queen Lucy the Valiant or even particularly tough. Because I’m me, and I’m trying, and I have a family of friends who wrap around me like clouds. Because there are surely other names for grace, and mine are Mom, Dad. Rachel. Henry. Anna. Keely. Mohan. Rhea. Bryan. Lukas. Our congregation and my swim team and, somewhere, a half sister who might someday become a whole one.
In them, my sense of holiness only grows.
It’s not the Bible or the light bending through the church’s stained glass or the rafters filled with glorias. Although it is still those things.
It’s the white light that fills you, wide and glowing, expanding your seams. And maybe you find it in the smooth lake water or piano chords, so lost in them that you sway back and forth. In brassy hits of trumpet, playing until you pant, breathless. Maybe you find it somewhere beneath the tall pines, during a summer that changes everything. Or in an Airstream trailer on an open road that you earned. In every dance move that sets you free. In the hands that mend your split-open knuckles. In the people who teach you, who forgive you.
I found it on Adirondack chairs, in cups of tea, as my mother was laughing and telling the truth and dying. I found it at a camp where love falls like leaves.
And under the dreaming tree, I see a girl who can be okay and not okay all at once. So, I guess I’m just grateful to be here for all of it, for the mess and the ache and the unknowing.
After all, once there was a girl named Lucy who loved her family, old and new.
It is not the type of love that ends.
Acknowledgments
I’m ever grateful for Bethany Robison, Taylor Martindale, and Mary Kate Castellani—the three wise, thoughtful women who help me shape my stories. Never wiser or more thoughtful than with this one.
To Erica Barmash, Beth Eller, ???Jessie Gang, Cristina Gilbert, Courtney Griffin, Melissa Kavonic, Linette Kim, Cindy Loh, Donna Mark, Lizzy Mason, Linda Minton, Sally Morgridge, Emily Ritter, Claire Stetzer, Katharine Wiencke, Brett Wright, and the entire sales team: you are unparalleled. Thank you for shepherding my work into the world.
This book was an extremely collaborative process at every stage. I’m indebted to a motley crew of saints, for everything from quick questions to existential conversations, from early reads to micro-level final edits. You are appreciated beyond measure.
My sanity, too, is an extremely collaborative effort, and for that I owe my family and friends. Thank you for keeping the faith.
I’m grateful to the community of readers, to the librarians and booksellers and educators who do hard and worthy work, to the teachers who are my friends and the friends who are my teachers.
And to J, who makes it easy to believe.