We Are the Light(9)

“But maybe I should have worked quicker?” I asked Jill. “What do you think? Is that why Eli’s in our backyard right now? What does this mean? What should we do? How do I fix this?”

I admit I was rambling and pacing and probably acting a little out of character, which is most likely why Jill called Isaiah, who arrived with Bess.

I was surprised when Jill got into the car with Bess and they drove away, leaving me alone with my best man friend, who put his hand on my shoulder like he always does and said, “That boy out there is hurting real bad,” before explaining that Eli—who was at one point academically ranked among the top-ten students of his class—hadn’t been doing any of his assignments since the tragedy and had recently stopped attending school altogether, which made me feel guilty about abandoning him and all of the students who relied on me the way I relied on you, Karl. The irony is not lost on me.

“I can go out there and talk to him,” Isaiah said. “We could tell him that he has to go back to school and graduate. We can say he has a bright future ahead of him and all of that. But something tells me he didn’t set up that tent because he wanted to be lectured.”

“So what do you think he wants?” I asked.

“What do you think?” Isaiah replied. “What’s your gut say?”

I closed my eyes like we’d do on Friday nights in your consulting room. I quieted my thoughts, dropped down deep inside, and asked psyche what it wanted to do about Eli. When I opened my eyes, Isaiah said he was glad to see me praying and—when I didn’t correct him—added that he was going to make a man of faith out of me yet. Then he said if there was anyone who could help Eli it was me. “Even considering all that’s happened,” he added. Isaiah’s words made me feel a little sick to my stomach here. “That boy’s in your backyard for a reason,” he added. “How you going to answer God’s call, Lucas? How are you going to serve the Almighty? You have spiritual gifts. I’ve seen them. You simply cannot hide that kind of light.”

Isaiah grabbed my head and pulled me so close that my forehead was pushing into his collarbone. He held me in his strong arms as he began to ask his God to help me with the task that had been set in front of me. Even in his prayer he said I was a good man who had helped many teenagers and compared me to Samson when he was chained up by the Philistines after they had cut his hair and blinded him. Then he said, “Lord, give my friend and colleague Lucas here the strength to knock down the pillars he’s been asked to push against and to restore order and harmony in an effort to save that boy out there. You know I pray for all of them daily, Father, but that one out there needs extra. And Lucas here is just the man to give what he needs, as we both know. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.”

When Isaiah released me, he squeezed my shoulder harder than he ever had before—so hard that I winced—and then he pulled me in for another big man hug. Next he slapped each one of my cheeks twice before he filled me in on what was going on at the high school and the fact that his daughter, Aliza, had just announced that she was expecting a baby. Except he laughed because Aliza said she and her husband were pregnant, which prompted Isaiah to say he and I were getting to be old men and soon we wouldn’t understand anything the younger people said to us.

When Aliza was a senior at Majestic High, many years ago, she started coming to my office a lot because she was having what she called a crisis of faith, meaning she wasn’t sure she believed in the religion that she had inherited from Bess and Isaiah. She felt conflicted about this to the point that she wasn’t eating. I mostly listened to her, but I remember saying that it was her job as a young woman to decide what was best for her as she made her way out into the world. I remember how tortured she looked, because her parents wanted her to keep singing in the choir and teaching Sunday school to little kids, but the energy to do those things wasn’t in her heart. And I remember wondering how Bess and Isaiah could be such caring people and still produce a daughter who was scared to tell her parents what she really felt. It made me sad but I never talked to Isaiah about it. I kept Aliza’s secrets.

After her high school graduation ceremony, she found me on the football field and kissed me on the cheek and hugged me and held on for what felt like an inappropriately long time while she whispered, “Thank you,” into my ear. Later that summer, she flew across the country to UCLA. And I hardly ever see her these days, as she’s made California her home and seldom visits Pennsylvania.

Sitting post-prayer with my friend in my living room, I was happy for Isaiah and pregnant Aliza and Robert, her husband—and I said so—but deep inside I was mostly worried about Eli being in my backyard.

What did he want?

What did he need?

Why was he choosing me?

And what if he had come to punish me because he thought I had done something wrong? It would be easy to see how his young mind might have gotten the story mixed up after sorting through the various reported details from the Majestic Theater that night and the erroneous news stories and misinformation that’s still on the internet, not to mention how the rumors have been tainted by the disorienting effects of post-traumatic stress.

I was surprised when Isaiah showed me his overnight bag and told me that Jill was going to stay with Bess until the morning—so they could “talk like women do”—and Isaiah was going to sleep on my couch just in case anything got weird with Eli.