Resist the Devil, continued

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basement as a “fallout shelter”. I wasn’t expecting a nuclear blast, but I hoped the designation meant that the church was built to withstand some shaking. And I prayed the door wasn’t locked.

It wasn’t, and I found the basement quickly and without difficulty. The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing Tysie looking back at me, with those blue eyes full of love and compassion.

They told me that running into that basement had saved my life—that I never would have survived above-ground, and it was a wonder I survived at all. They told me that St. Stephens fell on top of the bank, and that no one would be looking for my car because everyone was too busy looking for victims.

The blast did not reach my neighborhood, though. Tysie and the children were all safe in bed when it happened, and only heard about it afterwards. Tysie, of course, had joined the search crews, but it had been a fireman from Minnesota who had found me.

“Honey,” I said to Tysie, “got your Bible?” Tysie reached for my bedside table and picked up her familiar, tattered black Bible with its margins full of her neat, feminine cursive.

“Read me Psalm 91, Honey, through verse ten, please.”

And she read, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I will trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at they side and ten thousand at they right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come near thy dwelling.”

There were tears in her eyes and a catch in her voice by the time she finished. She took my hand and we just stayed there, holding hands, for about five minutes. Then I said,

“It’s happened, you know,” and she nodded. I said, “The government will investigate. I feel it’s my civic duty to provide them with my research, and help them as best I can.”

It had been a whole decade ago and more that I first began warning people that this attack was to come. It wasn’t long after the September eleven attacks, in early October if I’m not mistaken. It was a Sunday morning and I was preaching a sermon on the godly marriage.

Terry Caulfield, Manchester, New Hampshire, Sunday, October 7, 2001

I just love the smell of autumn. They tell me it’s the scent of leaves that have lost their greenness and fallen off the trees, getting crushed underfoot and giving up of their essence that we might enjoy it. Maybe I’ll use that as a sermon illustration sometime.

I don’t believe I used that illustration on that particular Sunday, but maybe I could have. It was one of those days when the sky is so blue you almost can’t believe it, the sun is shining bright and the air smells so good you can’t imagine how heaven could be any better. They don’t have days like that in Springfield, Ohio, where I come from.

At that time I drove a Buick Park Avenue, model year 1995, and it had so many miles on it that I used to say it was held together with bailing twine and prayer. We had only three children then: Terrence and Tamara, and Thomas was a baby. So the Park Avenue was just about the right size for the family.

Tysie and I always drove separately on Sunday morning, though, giving her the option whether to take the children and follow me to the rest home or go home for some rest herself.

Tysie had a station wagon she used for grocery shopping and to take Terrence to T-ball practice, and she and the children were right behind me in the station wagon.

As I pulled into the church parking lot I was surprised to see that Sister Cote the custodian wasn’t the only one there.

“Pastor Terry!” I heard myself called. I knew who it was. I looked up and there was young Cherise Elton rounding the corner from the side of the church. She had a sweet spirit, but received no godly direction and guidance from her parents, who were divorced and backslidden. Her father had brought her. I wondered if he’d stay for the service.

She repeated that disrespectful address. “Pastor Terry, I’m supposed to sing the special today and I was wondering if I’d disturb anyone if I went over the song once before anyone else gets here.”

“You go right ahead, Cherise.” I smiled. “I’m sure Mrs. Caulfield would be happy to play for you. I’ll mention it to her.”

Cherise went inside with me and I didn’t see her after that until she sang her special. The young girl sang like an angel.

Made me sad to think about her home life, though.

I was up next. “Cherise,” I said sincerely, “that was truly of the Lord. Don’t you ever trade that sweet Christian spirit for anything, d’you hear?”

I read First Peter chapter three, verses one through eight.

Then as I always do, I prayed that the Lord would bless my delivery of His Word, that I would be His mouthpiece in spite of all my weaknesses and shortcomings, and say only what he would have me to say and not my own ideas. I prayed as I always do that He would open the ears of all who heard it that it should enter into their hearts and take root and grow. Then

I opened my eyes, consulted my notes and began:

“This week we’re going to talk about the godly marriage.

Let’s look at the first word together: “Likewise”. Now when I see the word “likewise” I have to ask, “Like what?” And if we go back to the verses before that, we see the question answered. Like Christ. And before that the Apostle Peter is talking to slaves. Now chapter two is not our focus this morning, so I’ll briefly sum up this passage. What Peter is essentially saying to the believers of Asia Minor, or modern Turkey, is that whether you’re a lowly slave or the Lord of the Universe, it makes no difference. Everyone is placed under the authority of God the Father, and it’s incumbent upon all of us to submit to God, and to submit to various earthly authorities as well. ’Likewise...’

‘Likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands…’ Well, there we have it, men! Straight from the mouth of Almighty God. Women are created to be our servants. Helpmeets. Subjects, and we are the monarchs. A man is king of his castle.” My voice filled the sanctuary and echoed back from the far wall. Tysie’s eyes were twinkling from behind the organ. Brother Gelasi in the third row shook his finger playfully at his wife.

I lowered my voice and leaned close to the microphone.

“Sorry, fellas. Lording it over the ladies is against the rules. This is talking about everyone submitting first to God, and second, as a result of that submission to God, submitting to or serving one another in love. ‘How do I know?’ you may ask. I know because I know that no Scripture is of private interpretation. Scripture has to be interpreted by Scripture. Look with me if you will at Ephesians five, verse 21. Ephesians five, twenty-one.” I paused until the rustling of pages subsided, then read, “’Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.’ We’ll pause there for a moment. Men, did you notice what I noticed? ‘Submitting yourselves one to another...’ Unless I’m much mistaken, seems to me that I’m a ‘one’, and my wife is ‘another’. Now I barely passed my English classes when I was a boy, but I think that’s what those words mean. What do you think, guys?” I paused for effect.

I paused for longer than that. I took off my reading glasses and laid them on top of my Bible. I bowed my head in silent prayer. I don’t know how long I stayed that way. Afterwards I lifted my head and looked around at my audience.

It was difficult to speak. I took a sip of water. “The Lord has laid a burden on my heart,” I said. “The godly marriage will have to wait.

“There’s a great gaping pit in the belly of the earth, and smoke rises to heaven continually from that pit. Into that pit countless men, women and even children have gone and will never return. It is a pit of unspeakable anguish to innumerable souls made in the image of God Himself. I’m not talking about hell, folks. I’m talking about a place in New York City which less than a month ago was teeming with life and activity and financial, if not spiritual, prosperity. A place where once stood one of the greatest, most beautiful buildings ever built by man.

“It’s all gone now. The Twin Towers are gone. All those people are gone. All that’s left is a giant smoking wound in the earth, and a giant bleeding wound in each of our hearts. “Why?” I paused and took another sip of water, for I felt my eyes becoming misty and I was afraid I might lose control of my voice. The sanctuary was so silent it almost could have been empty.

“Why? Why would anyone want to pilot a plane full of innocent people made in the image of God, into a building full of many more innocent people, also made in the image of God? And more importantly, is it going to happen again? And even more importantly, is there anything we as the children of God can do?

“Now most of you know this, what I’m going to say next, because I’ve told you before from this pulpit. All the false religions of the world, whether it be Hinduism, Hare Krishna, Mormonism, Bahai or Islam, or anything else, are the Devil’s religions. The Devil would like it best if everyone on earth would worship him directly, knowingly. But, see, he can’t force anyone to do that. He can tempt. But he can’t force. Almighty God hasn’t given him permission. So what he does is deceive people. In fact, that’s why the Bible calls him the Great Deceiver. And what he has done, and very successfully I might add, is deceive a whole heap of people into thinking they got religion, when in fact the only religion they got is Satanism. Revelation nine, verse 20: ‘And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:’ And Second Corinthians eleven, twelve says, ‘And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.’

“Folks, don’t believe it when the secular media mentions the ‘Muslim faith’. It’s not a faith, it’s Devil-worship. Don’t believe it when they say Muslims worship the same God as we do. The Bible gives a definition in the first Epistle of John, and the Muslim religion doesn’t pass that definition for being the worship of the one true God. Look at it with me, folks. First John chapter four, beginning with the first verse. ‘Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.’

“It’s not going surprise you when I say that the spirit of the Muslim religion doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. Now here’s where it can get tricky if you’re not paying attention. You can ask a Muslim, “Do you believe in Jesus?” and without hesitation you’ll get a yes answer. Like it says in James, chapter two, verse nineteen, ‘The devils also believe, and tremble.’ A Muslim will also believe that Jesus was here in the flesh. But the Spirit of Islam does not confess that Jesus is the Christ, or Messiah, the anointed Son of God, who was made flesh for us.

“The real reason behind the attacks on September eleven had nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with cultures, nothing to do with the things of man. The real reason we were attacked is because there’s a war going on between the Children of God and the children of Satan. First Peter five, verse eight and the beginning of verse nine: ‘Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith…’ Ephesians six, twelve: ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’

“Be sober! Be vigilant!” I had found my voice and it echoed from the back wall again. Then I leaned in and said in a low voice, “Folks, God in His mercy is warning us about things which must shortly come to pass.”

I took another sip and continued: “Satan’s primary goal is to keep as many people as possible from being saved. One of the ways he does that is by leading them astray with false religions—religions which talk about God, and include just enough truth so that when their adherents hear the Gospel, they think they are hearing a lie. Paul talks about that in his epistle to the church at Ephesus. Chapter four, verse two, for those of you who are taking notes: ‘Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.’

“Another way that Satan tries to keep people from being saved is by deceiving true Christians into thinking that witnessing isn’t necessary. Many Christians have been mollified into inaction because of the nice-sounding words of the followers of false religions. Now we must have compassion on these people who are caught in Satan’s web of deception. We still have a duty to witness to them, but we must do so with the utmost caution. Look with me at the book of Jude, verses twenty-one through twenty-three. Almost the end of your Bible, Jude verses twenty-one through twenty-three.” I waited for the congregation to catch up.

“’Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.’

“We wouldn’t think of playing with Ouija boards, or having our palms read, or whatever else…those cards, I think they’re cards, that the madams read with their crystal balls. We wouldn’t think of getting anywhere near those things, because we know that Satanism is dangerous. Well, folks, shouldn’t we be just as careful to have nothing to do with Satanic false religions? Ephesians five, verses six through sixteen. Turn with me, if you would. Your Bibles are getting a workout today. I’m sorry folks. But this is a long one; read it with me if you would. Ephesians five, verses six through sixteen: ‘Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.’

“We must be wise, but there is no reason to fear. If we live a life of submission to God, then the power of Almighty God is on our side. Flip back a page in Ephesians to chapter four, verse seven. If you don’t remember anything else I said today, remember this: Submit to God, resist the Devil. Satan will try to deceive you with a false religion of anguish and destruction and call it truth and love. Submit to God, resist the Devil. Satan will try to lure you away from the true God. Submit to God, resist the Devil. Satan will try to trick you into turning your back on the Great Commission by the deceiving words of this world. Words like ‘tolerance’ and ‘respect’ and ‘pluralism’. Submit to God, resist the Devil. Satan will inspire his children to attack again, up until either the church of God has depleted his armies by leading them to Christ, or Christ returns. Submit to God, resist the Devil. And what does God guarantee is going happen if we submit to God, and resist the Devil? The Devil’s going to flee from us. He’s going turn tail and run. Submit to God. Resist the Devil.”

Gina Gelasi, Bedford, New Hampshire, Monday, October 8, 2001

“We’re almost there, Honey,” I said as I turned onto my mom’s street, even though I figured my daughter was asleep and couldn’t hear me.

“A’mosh dare!” Ramona squealed. “A’mosh dare!”

She usually spoke pretty clearly. I pulled into Mom’s driveway, shut off the engine and turned around. I couldn’t see her face. What I saw was something that looked like pancake batter in her hair, on her shirt and everywhere in between.

“Ramona Patrice,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, “what is on your face?”

“I dunno.”

“Are you eating something?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What is it? What are you eating?”

“Ammal cackers,” she answered without hesitation, holding up a small, cheerful, red and yellow box for me to see. I groaned and turned back the right way in my seat again. Then I got out of the car, walked around to Ramona’s door, and opened it. I said, “You have to ask, Ramona, before you take anything out of my bag, and before you eat anything. Do you understand?”

“Uh-huh.” Her big hazel eyes gazed at me with feigned innocence from between chunks of half-eaten animal cracker that clung to her butterscotch curls.

“Uh-huh?”

“Yesh, Mom.” Half a lion fell from its perch in her hair and made a new lair in the folds of her blue-and-brown skirt.

“That’s better. Now let’s get you out of the car. I think Grammie’s going to say to put you straight in the tub.”

“But I want joosh!” Ramona objected.

I had been trying to reach the buckle of her seatbelt without getting animal cracker goo on my starched white shirt-cuff. I stopped, remembering to withdraw my arm carefully. “Open your mouth, honey,” I said. “Open wide. No wonder you want juice. Your mouth is full of that stuff, and too dry to swallow it.” I managed to get her unbuckled without compromising my cuffs. She climbed out of her carseat by herself and walked ahead of me along the brick-paved walk to Mom’s concrete stoop. “Don’t ring the doorbell, Ramona. I’ll ring it. And don’t touch anything,” I instructed. I was starting to sound like one of those harping moms I couldn’t stand.

I didn’t need to ring the doorbell because Mom had heard us coming and opened the door as we came up to it. “Heavens to Betsy, Ramella-Ramona! Is this the new fashion the kids are wearing these days? What is it, cake batter?”

Ramona shook her head, sending a flax-colored zebra on a collision course with my eggplant-colored pants. Fortunately the zebra was dry by now and bounced off my leg and fell in the grass. “Ammal cackers,” Ramona explained.

“Let’s get you in the tub, young lady,” Mom said, grasping Ramona under the arms and raising her three inches off the ground. “Get the door, Honey. Good thing I had my apron handy.”

“I want joosh,” Ramona half-whined.

“You can have juice,” I said, “juice in the tub. I’m going to get the bag with the juice in it.”

“I have juice, Gina,” Mom objected.

“Okay. I’ll get her bag, though.”

When I returned, Ramona was standing in the tub guzzling from a juice box.

“Gina.” Mom’s voice behind me sounded serious, almost grave.

I turned around and led the way to the kitchen, but Mom was silent, putting her apron in the washing machine, adding the dishtowel and washing her hands. I waited.

She dried her hands, tossed the paper towel in the trash and asked, “Has she had breakfast yet?”

“Oatmeal.”

“Oatmeal?”

“Yeah, she likes it now.”

“Or at least she did when you gave it to her.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

Mom shook her head. “Did I tell you I wanted to talk about something? I’m getting old, Honey. Maybe I’m losing my marbles.”

“Not exactly. Just the way you said my name in the bathroom.”

“Oh, that. I just thought maybe you had to get going to work. What time is your meeting?”

“It’s not till ten,” I answered, “but I need to get on the internet and do some research for my Somalia presentation.”

When I walked back into the bathroom to say goodbye to Ramona, I found the white tile floor covered with soil and broken pottery. A spider plant lay atop a crumpled sky-blue Peter Pan collar, its roots exposed. Ramona herself was standing naked and immobile beside the bathtub, staring silently at the whole mess. The zoo seemed to have moved out of her ringlets. Her juice box stood neatly on the clean vanity top eight inches away.

“Don’t move,” I instructed, and quickly placed her back in the tub. “Okay, now you can move, but stay in the tub until I get this cleaned up.”

Mom was behind me. “Gina, I don’t want you to be late for work,” she said from behind the linen closet door. “I’ll take care of it. Here, give her this.” She handed me a hooded towel.

I helped Ramona wrap herself in the towel. “It’s alright. I’ll still have time to find a couple of good sources.” In five minutes the bathroom was clean again and mom’s houseplants had taken up temporary residence in one of Dad’s spare windowboxes. Ramona was safely in the tub with her box of juice and her hooded towel.

“Alright, I’m going to run now, Mom. Nick will give you a call when practice is over. I’ll try to be here by seven if I can.” I leaned over the side of the tub and gave the hooded towel a bear-hug. “Grammie will help you take a bath, and everything will be fine. Be good and don’t forget to have fun.” I put my hand on her crusty ringlets and kissed her face, which was no longer caked, just dirty. She kissed back and I felt that wonderful surge of warmth.

Suddenly she squealed in my ear, “I so sorry, Mommy!” and I jumped. The juice box had been hidden under the towel, and I had crushed it when I’d hugged her. The light-green towel and my immaculate white blouse now wore matching bright red splotches.

“No, I’m sorry,” I said in a very flat tone. “You didn’t do that. I did that.” I kissed her again, then went back to the kitchen.

I didn’t say anything, and neither did Mom. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw the edges of her mouth twitch. It made me angry, but thankfully I had the presence of mind to hide it.

Mom went to her bedroom, opened her closet, removed four tops and laid them out on her bed. I chose one, said a simple “thank you”, hurried into her bathroom and shut the door.

As usual, I was surprised at how the girl in the mirror looked like she had all the answers. Mom had taught me well the time-tested makeup techniques that accentuated my large eyes, made my thin lips look fuller, and drew attention away from the lines beginning to form near my mouth. My thick, dark hair was pinned up today, leaving my ears bare except for the French hooks bearing two tiny amethysts that danced and sparkled when I moved.

Once I had removed my purple cuff-links, my stained blouse came off quickly. But it took a little doing to put on Mom’s black sleeveless pullover without smearing my makeup. It was a little baggy, especially in the arm-holes, but if I kept my black leather jacket on it would do.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said with more feeling when I came out.

“Anytime, Honey, that’s what I’m here for. You know that. Now give me your blouse and don’t worry about the kids. They’ll be fine. Have a good day at work.”

When I got to the car I didn’t leave right away. I took the hand vac out of the cargo area and attacked the smears of dried goo. Ramona’s carseat was going to take more than vacuuming, so I stowed it and went to work on the charcoal-grey velour upholstery of the car itself. I was a little embarrassed to admit, even just to myself, how relieved I was when the mess cleaned right up. Sure, this was my brand-new car, and a very cute one, too. But it seemed shallow of me to be this emotionally invested in an inanimate object that wouldn’t last even ten years.

Gina Gelasi, Amherst, New Hampshire, Monday, October 8, 2001

When I pulled into the little black parking lot, a big old sugar maple had begun sprinkling it with red leaves. I guided my vacuumed yellow Focus in carefully, keeping an eye out for any wandering geese.

The Ramoth-Gilead Society occupied the third floor of a two-and-a-half-storey white clapboard house built around 1900. I parked the car, followed the narrow asphalt walk, and slipped quickly through the clashingly-modern aluminum-and-glass commercial-style door into the tiny, quaint foyer. I passed the elevator in favor of the stairs, taking them quickly as usual. My husband says I do it to stay in shape. The real reason is that, like push-ups, climbing stairs is easier when you do it faster.

I glanced at my watch, saw that it was almost ten o’clock, and went straight to the conference room. I was the first one there. I opened my plum-colored vinyl-clad padfolio and placed it on the table. An unstarted lavender legal pad lay beside a solar-powered calculator with a transparent purple plastic case, a purple pen and a couple of purple mechanical pencils with little translucent caps protecting their erasers. It seemed to me that all the purple things were staring intently at the ceiling. I looked up, too. The water-damage stain was exactly the same as it had been since last year when the roof had leaked. Of course. My favorite spot claimed, I started for the breakroom and a cup of coffee.

I hadn’t even gotten to the conference room door when the others arrived. There were five of them. I made the sixth, and we were all women. I went back to where my purple collection contemplated the water stain, and took my seat. The others filed in and sat down also, chatting. “…black mountain. And Montserrat is in the Caribbean… Is that a clown, Jennifer? Oh, I love clowns… Are those patches removable?...My brother gave it to me for my birthday last year…No, I have another dress like this for Valentine’s.”

Ernestine, who sat across from me at the far end of the rectangular black-and-walnut conference table, stopped telling Helene about her collection of denim dresses and looked at me. “This is for you if you want it,” she said, indicating a paper cup of steaming coffee.

“Thanks,” I grinned. Ernestine passed it to Lucy, who passed it to Jennifer, who passed it to me. Cream cups and sugar packets followed.

“Are you ready?” Ernestine asked, rubbing her knobby hands and looking around at us, her strong blue eyes framed by developing crows’ feet and thin blonde bangs. Her hair was cropped in a no-nonsense style that gave her sort of a Dutch-boy look. Or maybe the look I’m thinking of is Danish. Today she wore a nubbly wheat-colored cardigan over a blue denim jumper and a navy turtleneck. Satisfied that we were all listening, she continued, “We’re on! We’ve cleared the last hurdle. Everything is in place to move the Somalian family to the Pinardville house. I heard last night at ten-o’clock and I’ve been bursting to tell you. Great job, everyone! Great job!” She paused, then continued, “More about that later. Jennifer?”

Jennifer, who sat to my right today, wore her usual classic skirt-suit, her usual polyester blouse and her usual chestnut perm. On the left lapel of her slate-gray jacket was a brightly dressed clown hanging by one hand from a rainbow cluster of helium balloons. Jennifer opened the manila folder she had brought with her. “I’ve got eleven this time,” she said apologetically. “No particular order. Number one, an ethnic Albanian family. Father was allegedly killed by Serbian soldiers. Six children. Number two, a farmer family from Zimbabwe: husband, wife and two children. Number three…” She ran through all eleven families on her list. It would be our job as a group to come to a consensus regarding which one we would try to help next. If we couldn’t come to a consensus, the decision would be up to Ernestine. But so far in five years, we had always come to a consensus. Ernestine liked to say that was because we were a terrific group. I thought she deserved some credit for her leadership.

Lucy’s turn was next. She sat between Ernestine and Jennifer like an interruption. Her dark hair was buzzed over most of her head, with an inch-long fringe around the edges. The fringe was a little longer at the temples, blending into bangs that reached past her eyebrows. The fringes and the bangs were always kept generously gelled. Her outfit today was identical to Thursday’s, and Wednesday’s, and almost every day’s for the past two years: a black Adidas sport pullover and gray cargo pants. I had to admire the courage it took to defy convention like that. A fitness buff, she wore her clothing tight. Even the cargo pants she chose in a smaller size than she might have, so that the typical comfortable looseness of the style took over only in the legs. She wore, as always, small diamond stud earrings and no apparent makeup except mascara and lip gloss. I suspected that she did wear more makeup than that really, because day after day her face looked maybe a little too perfect. I hadn’t gotten a chance to see her feet before she sat down. I was curious to see what she was wearing on them today.

“As of a few minutes ago online donations were up to one thousand eight hundred forty dollars and sixty-two cents. Friday we had just over five hundred registrations. That’s names and addresses of people who are interested in what we are doing and want us to stay in touch with them.“

“And you’re sending them literature?” Ernestine asked. Ernestine wrote and designed all our print literature, and if I was embarrassed by its formulaic layout and tired clip art, I could only begin to imagine how it would make a talented web-designer feel.

But Lucy was prepared. “Yes. Every time you come out with a new piece of literature, it takes me about two days to convert it to web format, and the registered users get it electronically as soon as I’m finished.”

I hoped my sigh of relief wasn’t loud enough to reach the other end of the table. Even a non-professional like me could convert a file like Ernestine’s literature pieces into RTF and post them to a website in a matter of minutes. If it took Lucy two days, then clearly she was cleaning them up and making good marketing pieces out of them. Apparently to those who met us on the Internet, we appeared as competent as we really were.

Satisfied, Ernestine turned to her right. “Mandy?” Mandy’s official title was “Government Liaison” and she wore it self-consciously. Her duties included obtaining permissions and permits and making sure we stayed in regulatory compliance. She also generally saved the rest of us from having to do our full share of the paperwork. She was the youngest of us, fresh out of grad school and lacking confidence.

She lacked no confidence about her hair, though. Long, thick, black and silky, today she had left it down simply, except for a band of narrow braids around her crown. One day last week she had braided it all into two braids wrapped in leather string, and Helene had called her nothing but Pocahontas all day. She typically wore mini-dresses and clunky heels.

Mandy was silent, her tanned face turned toward Ernestine questioningly.

“Just tell us how things are going, and if there’s anything you want us to know about,” Ernestine explained gently.

“Um, no, nothing right now. Everything’s okay.”

“Helene?”

Helene sat to my left. I had been trying not to look at the peeling finish on the otherwise-plain clip that held her mouse-brown hair at the back of her neck. Now I could indulge my impulse to stare without being impolite. It was hair that desperately wanted conditioning, giving her a tired look that was accentuated by the heavy gray streaks near her face. Today she wore a cardigan sweater the color of coffee beans over a faded red tee-shirt with something written across the front. From where I sat, and due to the contour of her plump figure, I could make out the words “For All Your Party Needs” in an arc under the ribbed neck.

She may not have looked like much, but her intelligence and skill had me in awe. Helene was our contact person for the refugees before they came here, for foreign governments, agencies, refugee camp administrators, etc. Fluent only in English, she had basic communication skills in five other languages. But what amazed us all is that somehow she was able to translate written text to and from almost any language in the world. I had been present when Lucy had asked her how this was possible. Apparently her secret was this: grammar that would take the average person at least a year to begin to grasp, she could sufficiently master in one long day. Once she had a rudimentary understanding of the grammar, a dictionary provided the vocabulary. She was quick to point out that her translations were broken and probably full of errors. But they were often the only way a small organization like ours could hope to have the communication we needed to help the oppressed and the displaced find homes again.

Helene flipped a handful of dog-eared pages in her looseleaf notebook. She had been studying some foreign characters up until now, and when Ernestine called on her she turned to a section full of English. Her hands moved with a feminine delicacy that would have earned her high marks at a finishing school. “Not much to tell,” she said matter-of-factly, but her voice was pleasant and peaceful.

“Mostly this week I just did some translating for Jennifer to help her with her list.”

“Yeah, worked with me all week,” Jennifer said. “It was great.”

Helene seemed uncomfortable with this praise and said hastily, “Oh, and before I forget, Gina, let me give you what I’ve gathered on Yusuf and Hessa.” She passed me a manila folder from under the back of her notebook. Yusuf and Hessa and their children were the Somalian refugees Ernestine had mentioned at the start of the meeting. It would now be my job to help them adjust to their new community, and vice versa. Helene nodded to Ernestine, who nodded to me.

“Ibtihaj and Imran in Rindge are doing great,” I reported.

“I’m not going out there to see them anymore, but they know that if anything comes up they can give me a call. Arub and I meet pretty much every week. We go over questions. The good news is that there are a lot of services for kids like Jibril, and Arub is warming up to the idea of using them. She asked me for some literature on Riverbend, and she’s been reading that carefully. And I can’t wait to meet Yusuf and Hessa.”

“Anyone have anything more?” Ernestine asked as soon as I was through.

Nobody did.

“I want to see that new car, Gina!”

So, apparently did everyone. So we all rode the elevator and walked out to the parking lot.

“Bu araba sari,” Helene mumbled. I had learned not to ask.

The comments of the other four were in English, and appropriately full of praise. I tried not to laugh: I liked this car very much, but it wasn’t likely that any of them did. I got to Mom’s house at seven-thirty, ate a quick supper, and took the kids home. Now my first task was to get Ramona in the bathtub.

“’Night, Mom.” I broke my concentration on the tiny multicolored pale plastic animals fighting to keep Ramona’s baby blue dress buttoned. Nicholas’ messy brown bangs leaned into the bathroom doorway while the rest of his body remained on the other side of the wall.

“You feel okay?” I said. It seemed much too early for a fifteen-year-old to go to bed.

“Yeah. I’m going to study in my room.”

“Goodnight, Nick.”

Eventually I got Ramona’s dress off, gave her a bath, dried her off and put her pajamas on. You would think I was torturing her. No matter what I did, she seemed to take it as a token of malice, and cried and cried and cried. I felt sorry for her: she was too tired to do anything but sleep, but she was fighting sleep with everything she had. I won’t pretend that my own nerves were not wearing thin.

I had just managed to get her little white elephant pajamas on when she pulled them off. “I don’t want it!” she screamed.

“Why, Honey?” I asked. I didn’t suppose she knew why, or could tell me if she did, but asking her helped me keep a lid on my own temper.

“’Cause,” she answered, “I don’t want elephinks. I want to have my…” I felt her body go limp in my arms, mid-sentence. I put her in her bed, still naked, pulled up her blankets and added an extra one. Smiling, I kissed her sleeping forehead.

A few hours later, it was time for round two. I knocked on Nicholas’ door. “Just a friendly reminder: five minutes till lights-out.”

“Mom, I have a geometry test. I have to study.”

“Why don’t you open the door, Nick?” I suggested.

He opened it, with a frustrated flourish.

“When’s the test?” I asked.

“Thursday.”

“How long do you feel you need to study for it, total?”

“A couple of days should be enough. But I should start tonight. Tomorrow and Wednesday, I don’t think will be enough.”

“I thought you’d been studying, since we got home from Grammie’s.”

“No that was football.”

“You study football?”

“Yeah, this thing Coach Mason gave us. We have to study it.”

“Alright. Study geometry for half an hour, then, and then get some sleep. You want help?”

“No, I’ll be fine. I have a thing I do.”

“Okay. You’re welcome.”

Nick said nothing.

I dusted and vacuumed the living room, then watched the eleven o’clock news. I was getting sleepy on the sofa when Ray came home.

Ray dropped a dozen long-stemmed red roses beside me on the sofa, kissed me on the forehead and began to tap-dance. Then it started to rain, a peaceful, warm summer rain that soaked our clothes and watered the roses. The stereo was on. It had been on, and now it started to play a waltz. I got up from the sofa and we danced together in the rain. And Ray began to sing.

I opened my eyes. I was still on the sofa, the stereo was off, and I was still dry. But Ray was really there, kneeling beside me on the carpet.

“I fell asleep,” I said.

“No shit!”

I hated it when he used vulgarity, but we had compromised on that a long time ago: he never used it around the children, and that seemed to be as far as I could get with him. I pressed my lips together to keep my thoughts from escaping, and forced myself on to new thoughts. “I had a dream,” I told him. “We were dancing right here, and it was raining. We were soaking wet. I knew it must be a dream when you started singing like that “Singin’ in the Rain” guy.

Ray tossed his head back and laughed that irresistible laugh that had made me fall in love with him. “You didn’t know you were dreaming when it started raining in the living room, but when I could sing as good as Gene Kelly, then you knew it couldn’t be real.”

“That’s not quite what I said,” I objected weakly.

“Who worries about what they think in their dreams?” He asked, hugging me. “You smell a lot better than airplane guts. And I smell like airplane guts. I’m gonna take a shower.”

Raymond Nicholas Gelasi was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and raised in Salem, New Hampshire. I had met him at a state-wide Christian youth conference when he was fourteen and I was thirteen.

That laugh. That grin. That babyface. That aw-shucks shrug. Most people seem to think that nothing ever worries him, but I have seen him deeply concerned a few times in the seventeen years I’ve known him.

Nicholas really took after him, in looks more than in personality, even though Nick didn’t get his dark coloring. Didn’t get mine, either.

When Ray came back he smelled like cologne. His black hair was still wet and he looked relaxed in long flannel boxer-style pants and a cotton bathrobe. He also looked very sexy. He sat beside me and I snuggled close. My left hand I curled around his right bicep and placed my right on his bare chest. He put his right hand on top of mine, pressing it against him but stopping the movement of my fingers. He yawned and made a sort of attempt with his left hand to cover it. “I’m tired,” he said through the yawn.

I took his gentle cue and kept my hand still. In a minute I removed it and let it lay in my own lap. “I let Nicholas stay up late half an hour to study for his geometry test.”

“Oh,” Ray replied politely.

“Ramona had an awful time getting to sleep tonight.”

“How come? Too early, maybe? Not tired yet?”

“Uh-uh! She was screaming bloody murder. Way past fussy.”

“Poor thing. Think she could be coming down with something?”

“Hope not.”

Ray touched my face affectionately. “She’ll get over it, if she is. Sorry you had to go through that.”

I smiled. “Well, I guess I’m the grown-up. I can handle it.”

Ray said nothing, but picked up my right hand, brought it to his mouth, and began to nibble on my fingers. So I had misunderstood him. I slid my legs over his and scooted onto his lap, just as the baby monitor on the end table began to wail.

We both ran up the stairs, but Ray wasn’t built for speed. I wrapped Ramona in my arms and pressed her close to me, shushing softly. She stopped screaming and snuffled sadly.

Ray joined us.

“Why you got no clothes on, Kid?” he said playfully. She began to wail again.

I shook my head at Ray, reassuring him that it wasn’t his fault, and directed my words to Ramona. “It’s okay, Honey. It’s okay. It’s okay. Mommy and Daddy are here now.”

Again she stopped crying, but she was clearly still upset. I handed her to Ray, who had picked up a blanket, and he carried her downstairs.

It took her a long time to settle. We talked, helped her get into her pajamas again, massaged her back and talked some more. Still, she was afraid the nightmare would return if she went back to her bed. Finally, we brought her to our own bed and she fell asleep between us.

Gina Gelasi, Bedford, New Hampshire, Sunday, October 21, 2001

The voluminous heaps of cream-colored taffeta seemed almost too much for such a small dress. But I had to admit it was beautiful, with its sparkling brocade bodice and green velvet trim. Mom had given it to me two weeks ago tomorrow, when I picked up the kids after work, and I had put aside Ramona’s last pair of off-white tights as soon as I’d gotten home. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I had found the right shade of dark-green velvet hair ribbons, so today she could finally wear the dress.

Lovingly, I took the dress out of her closet and laid it, still in its protective clear plastic bag, on the back of a child-size cream-and-rose striped wing chair. From a shoe box in the corner of her high closet shelf, I took her tights, her ribbons and her off-white patent leather Mary Janes. Then I woke her.

After she had given me about fifteen hugs and kisses and used the bathroom, I pulled the fluffy dress over her head and threaded her wiggly arms through the little puffed sleeves.

“You’re going to be so beautiful,” I told her.

Ramona, apparently, had something else in mind. She waited until I had turned around to pick up her tights, and dashed under the wing chair.

I dove to the floor to reach under, but she was gone. I stood up, took a mascara brush from my bathrobe pocket and started applying it, stooping to use her low mirror. I felt her hug my leg, but instead of looking down I finished my mascara.

“What are you wearing that for?” came Ray’s voice from the hallway. I didn’t hear Nicholas’ answer.

When I was finished with my mascara I looked down at Ramona.

Her big eyes were very nervous. “Time out for you,” I said quietly. “Two minutes.” She ran to the little chair in the hallway, wailing. I put on my off-white panty hose and got back into my slippers.

I heard Ray’s voice again. “Nick, I thought I asked you to put on something appropriate for church.”

After Ramona’s time-out I called her back to her room and helped her with her tights and shoes.

“Mom,” said Nicholas, poking his head around the corner in his usual way, “I got a hole in my shirt.”

“You’ll have to wear another shirt, then,” I answered, spraying Ramona’s hair with water. “Sorry. There’s not enough time to mend it now. Remind me after church. I’ll see if I can fix it.” I glanced at the doorway and realized he had already left.

A spritz of water to stimulate the curls. A little of that stuff one of my clients gave me to calm the frizz. Apply it with the hands but don’t handle it so much you break down the curls. And somehow pull the hands back out without pulling the hair too much on that delicate little head. Getting Ramona’s curls presentable took all my concentration, but when it was done it was worth it.

I left Ramona admiring herself in the same mirror I had used for my mascara, and hurried to my own bedroom to get dressed. I didn’t get there. Nick apprehended me in the hallway. “Mom, is there time to do any laundry?”

“After church, we can do laundry. You need someth—“

“No before church. Is there time?”

“No, Nick. It takes an hour to wash and dry. Why do you ask?”

“I need something clean to wear to church.”

“Did you forget to put your clothes in the laundry again?” I asked, heading toward Nick’s room.

“No, Mom. I just don’t have that much clothes anymore.”

“That many clothes. What happened to them?”

“Well, I was going to wear this, but the sleeves won’t even button.”

“Sleeves look a little short for you.”

“Yeah, so they come too high on my arm and they won’t button.

So I had to put on regular clothes, but Dad got all mad and stuff.”

“What are regular clothes?”

“Just clothes. Like these.”

“School clothes.”

“Yeah. Regular clothes.”

“After church we’ll buy you some clothes then. Did you tell Dad—“

“Do I have to go?”

“What?”

“Do I have to go, when you buy me clothes after church?”

“We’ll talk about that. Did you tell Dad that your clothes don’t fit?”

“Can’t you tell him?”

“I really think you should tell him yourself.”

Nicholas shrugged and started off to talk to his dad, and I t ried once more to get dressed.

We both found Ray together: he was in our bedroom tying his tie.

“Dad,” said Nick, “I’m just going to wear this to church. I’m not changing.”

“You’re WHAT?” Ray looked like a rooster that had just caught another rooster chasing his hens.

I shook my head. “Nicholas,” I suggested, “why don’t you tell Dad what you told me?”

Ray looked at me curiously and I met his eyes and looked back at Nick.

“Well, I just said that I—“

“All I want to hear is an apology.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Nick replied without hesitation. “It’s just—I don’t know how to say it. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“What way?” asked Ray, still hurt.

“Like…like I didn’t want to wear church clothes…or like I wanted to argue.” He paused, and Ray waited. “I just don’t have that much clothes that fit anymore. The blue shirt has a hole and the white shirt smells, and I was going to wear the yellow one but the sleeves won’t button.”

“Well, that’s different,” said Ray.

“Where’s the hole in the blue one?” I asked, heading toward Nick’s room. The others followed.

“On my bed.”

“The hole is on your bed?” asked Ray, who was cheerful again.

“Oh,” said Nicholas. “In the armpit.”

We found him a nice pullover from his school clothes, and I hurried back to my room to get dressed.

I put on a tea-length peach rayon shirtdress and a pair of off-white, inch-and-a-half-heel strappy pumps with goldtone buckles. I pulled my curly almost-black hair to the left side and fastened it with a hefty clip whose hardware was entirely hidden by a silk alstromeria.

An hour later I was standing in the third row on the left side at Faith Community Christian Center, holding my songbook and singing “Take My Life and Let It Be”. Ray was to my left, with Ramona on his shoulder. Nick was with some friends on the other side of the aisle.

“Take my heart, it is thine own;
It shall be thy royal throne.
It shall be thy royal throne.
”Take my love; my Lord, I pour
At thy feet its treasure store;
Take my self, and I will be
Ever, only, all for thee,
Ever, only, all for thee.”

“Amen!” said the pastor, rising and walking to the pulpit. “That was beautiful! Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Thank you, Tysie. Thank you, Brother Jim. You can sit down now, folks.”

After the closing hymn, I turned and started a conversation with Abby Rondeau behind me. That was easier than trying to work my way through the crowd before it started to thin.

As we often did on Sunday afternoons, Ray and Nick and I agreed to join the Rondeaus and some other families at a steakhouse for lunch. When I picked up Ramona at Sunday School and told her, she was excited because Epifani Rondeau would be there. I knew that Nick was excited because her sisters Stefani and Tifani would be there. But he was guarding his dignity by pretending not to care.

There were fourteen of us at the steakhouse, and the staff pushed tables together until we could all sit together. My friend Evan Beaudry ended up to my left, with his wife Anna next to him, with Ray on the other side of me, Ramona next to him and Epifani Rondeau next to her. Beyond Epifani was her mom, Abby, and then her dad, Lou. The four teen-agers sat together: Nicholas, the twins Tifani and Stefani, and Gail Gamache who at only seventeen was already a sophomore in college. Gail’s parents, John and Alma, completed the circle.

“How’s the asparagus here?” Anna Beadry asked no one in particular.

Nobody seemed to have an answer. A few of us shrugged.

“Never tried it,” said John Gamache.

“Do they have a kids’ menu?” asked Evan, looking past me at the little girls.

“Ramona’s not ready for kids’ menus yet,” Ray answered. “We just give her some of our food.”

“Same here,” said Abby, gently loosening Epifani’s grip on Ramona’s hair. “Most of the meal would just end up being wasted.”

“I’m thinking of trying that spinach thing,” said Anna.

“Anybody tried that?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Ray answered. “It’s real good.” Then to Ramona he said, “No hitting. Okay, that’s better.”

“You know,” said Abby, grabbing Epifani’s hand before it could get a grip on Ramona’s curls again, “I’ve never heard your story. Here we are, we’ve both got—“

She stopped speaking when she realized there was waiter standing behind her.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Oh, that’s no problem,” the waiter replied superficially. “Do you guys need more time?”

It took us a minute to decide we didn’t. I ordered fish and chips because it was easy to share the fries with Ramona. Then I realized she could end up eating half the fish, too, so I asked for a bowl of clam chowder to make sure I didn’t go hungry. Ray ordered a steak and baked potato, and asked Ramona if she would help him eat the vegetables. She said no.

“Story?” I reminded Abby when the waiter was gone.

She brightened, and used her arm to shield Epifani’s head, as Ramona had started hitting it again.

“No hitting, Ramona,” I said, Ray looked sheepish that he hadn’t been the first to catch her.

“We know you’re just playing,” he explained to her. “But Epifani doesn’t like getting hit. Getting hit hurts.”

“Yeah,” said Abby as soon as she had a chance, “I’m dying to hear your story.”

“Whose story?” Ray asked.

“Your story,” Abby replied. “Or we can go first if you want.”

“Yeah,” said Ray, sounding as clueless as I felt. “You go first.”

“Well,” Abby began, “Lou and I were almost divorced when we both came back to the Lord. Both of us made a commitment to stay together and rebuild our marriage.”

“We went to one of those marriage seminars,” Lou put in. “Retreats, and it worked.”

Abby said, “And Epifani was our surprise blessing.” I smiled.

“What about you?” she asked. “What’s your story?”

“My story is I wish the food would get here,” grumbled Ray.

I didn’t say anything. I was trying to figure out what kind of a story she wanted. A story about why Ray and I were still together? Ray was sitting there looking at her, over the girls’ heads.

“There’s thirteen years between your kids,” Abby explained, “just like there’s thirteen years between our kids. There’s got to be a story behind that.”

It was a story, alright! It had felt like the end of the world. I was sixteen and pregnant.

Ray was beaming. “You’re kidding!” he breathed, shocked.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Wow, Baby!” he grinned. “Do you know what this means?”

“Quiet down!” I snapped. “You’re yelling.”

“Oh, Honey.” He began to rub my shoulders, where I was hunched on a chair in his parents’ living room. “It’s gonna be—you’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna be a family.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m just—it was really hard to tell you. I’m so embarrassed. I wish it would all just go away and we could go back to normal.”

“But this is great,” Ray countered gently. “This is our baby, Gina…our baby!”

“But, Ray...We’re Christian kids. We’re not supposed to do this.”

Ray kept rubbing my shoulders. It felt good. “Your parents will probably let us live together,” he said.

“Great!” I answered. “One sin isn’t enough, and telling the whole world that we had sex without getting married isn’t enough. Now we’re going to give up and live together, too?”

He shrugged. “Then we’ll get married.” He paused for a few seconds, then said, “But one thing: we have to be careful after this. No more babies until after you’re through college.”

“That could be a long time,” I said, beginning to cheer up. “I want to get an LSW, and that means a Master’s degree.”

Ray nodded. “And it’ll all take longer with the baby, too. But you’ll do it, and then we can have another one.”

I laughed. Just a few minutes ago I had felt devastated over one baby, and now Ray was talking about another one. “We have to tell our parents,” I said.

“We’ll tell them together,” he offered, then added, “if you want.”

I nodded.

We went to Ray’s parents first. His dad laughed, and said

“Woops,” and “Congratulations!” His mom said, “When are you due?” and “You’ll need a good doctor. A good doctor makes all the difference,” and “I have some things for you. I’ll get them freshened up. They’ve been in the attic.”

With my parents it was different. They were both active in church and in local Republican politics. Ray broke the news, while I sat silent and nauseous, staring at my lap and trying to remember to breathe. Dad yelled and lectured, and Mom just said, three times, “This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen.”

In the end Dad said, “You two need to get married, then, if you’re not going to consider adoption.”

“Okay,” Ray agreed quickly, with a shrug.

“What did you mean by that?” I asked Ray the second we were alone.

His right hand stopped on its way to putting the key in the ignition. He turned to me and said, “Mean by what?”

“You don’t really want to marry me, do you?”

Ray shrugged, just like he had in front of my parents. “We can have a wedding, sure.” He started the car.

“You don’t care!” I yelled, fighting tears. Maybe they were pregnancy tears, from the change in hormones.

He turned the car off. “Look, Honey,” he said. He took both my hands and tried to look me in the eyes, but I kept my head down. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re already my wife. If your dad wants us to have a wedding, we’ll have a wedding. Either way, I love you, and I’m always gonna love you—and the baby, too.”

“I suppose,” I conceded. “I mean, I love you, too.”

But right now, Abby Rondeau was asking for our story. Ray, thankfully, wasn’t saying a word. I put on a smile. “It was hard enough getting through college with one child. We waited until I finished my education, then we had Ramona.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” she replied, clearly disappointed. She started fussing over Epifani.

“…very sobering,” Evan was saying, “What do you think, Gina?”

“Sorry.” I turned toward him. “I wasn’t listening.” Evan’s blue eyes looked at me intensely from their place in his round, innocent, playful face. “The sermons lately,” he explained, “very sobering, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” I agreed. “Of course. I mean getting attacked like that…I still can’t believe it.”

“The question is,” Evan continued, “what do we do about it?”

“Pray,” I answered, because several pairs of eyes were on me, and I felt I had to say something.

“Witness,” Lou Rondeau put in. “Things like this are going to happen in the end times. This is just the latest reminder that the end times are near. Don’t forget that the only reason we as Christians are left on this earth when we get saved, and not snatched up to heaven right away, is to help bring more souls into the kingdom.”

“Look at Ephesians Six,” said Anna thoughtfully. “The shoes are important, yes. But so are the breastplate, the shield and the sword.”

Gail Gamache spoke up, across the table from me. “I don’t know,” she said. “Something doesn’t seem right here.”

“What do you mean?” Evan asked her.

“I don’t know. All this talk about armor and weapons. What would people think if they heard it?”

“It’s an analogy,” Abby explained with another smile. “We’re not using real swords. We’re fighting spiritual warfare with the helmet of salvation and the preparation of the gospel of peace and the word of God.”

“It’s a real battle, though,” Anna added quickly. “Just because it’s spiritual doesn’t make it any less real.” Lou was nodding while she spoke, and when she was done he said, “Makes it more real. Souls are really going to hell. You can’t get any more real than that.”

Gina Gelasi, Goffstown, New Hampshire, Monday, May 27, 2002

One of my duties at work was to organize social events in the neighborhood of a newly-placed client family, to introduce them to their community and vice versa. This time it was a Memorial Day picnic at Roy Park in the Pinardville section of Goffstown.

I had made it a point to personally invite my friend Evan Beaudry and his wife Anna, since they lived nearby. Anna had said she was scheduled to work at the hospital that day, but Evan said he would try to come. Two hours into the picnic when I still hadn’t seen him, I was beginning to conclude that he wasn’t coming. I was carrying a cooler of soda through a gratifyingly-thick crowd when it suddenly became weightless. Evan’s familiar round, grinning face stared at me from the other side of the cooler.

We walked together to the drinks table, Evan carrying the cooler and me empty-handed. Yusuf stood by the table looking thoughtful.

“Yusuf,” I said to him, I want you to meet Evan. He lives just a few blocks from you on Larch Street.” I was never sure if I was actually supposed to talk to Yusuf. I thought I had heard that in some northern African countries, men spoke strictly with men and women strictly with women, with exception made only for immediate family members. But maybe that was Iran? At any rate, I wanted Yusuf to feel included, and I hoped that if I had made him uncomfortable he would forgive me. Surely I wouldn’t be the last American to stretch his cultural horizons. Anyway, didn’t Jennifer say that this family had been in the States for some time already before coming to us? Maybe Evan wasn’t sure what to do either. He wasn’t normally shy, but now he just nodded politely.

I sighed and transferred the ice from the empty cooler to the full one. If I didn’t know how to politely interact with my client, then how could I expect the rest of the neighborhood to know? These people dressed differently and spoke differently. My job was to help people look beyond those surface differences and see their new neighbors the same way they saw each other: as people whose commonalities and individualities both contributed to the enrichment of society. But if none of us Americans were really sure how to say a simple hello without causing offense, my task wasn’t likely going to be accomplished. I decided to find a good source for some much-needed training.

After that I didn’t see Evan until most of the people had gone home and I was packing up. I spotted him this time when he was still on the other side of the open grassy area. I kept working, and eventually he joined me.

“We’re having a little get-together Saturday at my house,” he said, “You’re invited.”

“Oh, thanks. What’s the occasion?” It wasn’t his birthday. Was it Anna’s?

“Just having a few friends over,” he answered cryptically.

“Okay. I think I can make it. What time?”

“I don’t know,” he faltered, “’round noonish?”

“Sure,” I said, “Give me a call if the time changes.”

He grinned at that, but the grin faded quickly, as though something was troubling him. “Gina,” he added, “can you leave Ramona at home?”

“Saturday?”

“Yeah. When you come to my house.”

“I’ll see,” I said, “It depends on what—well, I guess I could get a sitter, come to think of it, if Ray and Nick are busy.”

“Good,” Evan replied. “Because Saturday is…well, it’s adults only.”

“You having a lingerie party?” I teased.

He blushed. “No,” he answered quickly. I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

Gina Gelasi, Goffstown, New Hampshire, Saturday, June 1, 2002

I hadn’t been to Evan’s house in several months, and when I got there I almost didn’t recognize the place. Anna let me in and led me to the bright, newly-renovated dining room, which was set for lunch for two. “Evan won’t be home for a while,” she explained, “so it’s just the two of us for lunch.”

“Oh, no,” I winced, “I came too early.”

“No, you didn’t,” Anna smiled. “Evan forgot the time, told you twelve. When he told me I decided it would be nice to have lunch with a friend before the meeting.”

“So it’s a meeting,” I said, sitting down across from her at the wooden table.

Sunlight poured in through the French doors behind her. She saw me squinting and got up and closed the vertical blinds halfway. “Oh, yes, you didn’t know that?” The resistance group meets on Saturdays.

“Resistance group,” I repeated. “Sorry, doesn’t sound familiar. Thanks for closing the blinds, it was a little bright over here.”

“Yeah, the sun does come in,” she replied. “It’s not even really direct sunlight, either, just reflected. It’s a project: there’s all that lumber out there, and the sun bounces right off it.” She was sitting again. “Resistance group. Yeah, remember that sermon Terry preached last fall about resisting the devil?”

“Um…jog my memory?” He preached so many sermons, and resisting the devil seemed like such a general topic. I took a spoonful of soup, and was surprised to find it cold. I couldn’t begin to guess what was in it, but it tasted good.

“It was just after the attacks,” she explained. “September eleventh.” She spoke in phrases and short sentences, pausing often and watching my face for signs of recognition. “It was about false religions…how Satan uses them to enslave the lost…keep them away from the Lord…and then he uses them to attack God’s people.”

I nodded. “And that’s, spiritually speaking, what happened on September eleventh: the terrorists were deceived by Satan into thinking they were serving God by killing all those people.” I’d been steadily eating soup, and hadn’t touched the little quarter-sandwich next to it. Now I picked it up. It seemed to be made of homemade whole-grain bread with some sort of orangey-colored filling I didn’t recognize. It chewed with a crisp crunch. I still had no clue what it was, but like the soup, it tasted good.

“A small group of us started meeting to talk about what our response should be,” Anna continued.

“Good idea,” I said. “You feel so—I mean, I don’t know about you, but I feel so frustrated, sometimes. You want to help, but you don’t know what to do. I gave blood, but that just doesn’t seem like enough.”

“Resist the devil,” said Anna. “Have another sandwich.”

“Thanks,” I replied, and took one. They had a crunchy-cool quality like salad, but somehow they also seemed hearty and satisfying, like meat. “Oh, yes,” I said, “didn’t he use James four? ‘Submit to God, resist the devil?’”

“That’s it!” Anna seemed maybe a little too pleased. “But the question is, how exactly?”

“Yeah,” I answered thoughtfully, “I’ve been thinking, maybe I should take a class. But there are a lot of different types of things, I guess, depending on your skills, and your interests.”

“What do you mean?” Anna asked, holding up the plate of little sandwiches. I took another one.

“Well, for example, you’re a nurse.” Didn’t you go to New York to help out, right after?”

“Yes.”

“And me, I’m leaning more toward public education, you know, to fight backlash hate crime and so forth.”

“Backlash hate crime,” Anna repeated. “There’s a complicated subject.”

“Why is it complicated?”

“Well, you have the people who did it, and hate crime against them maybe wouldn’t be crime, but they’re dead, so they’re out of the picture. Then you have the people who agree with them, they’re another category. And you’ve got the people who planned and organized the whole thing, but they’re not that accessible. And then you’ve got people who just happen to be there, and maybe they had brown skin and somebody thought they were Muslim, and that is really a crime, and a shame, when something happens like that.”

“True,” I replied. Anna had said it all: I had nothing to add.

“You didn’t eat your lily,” she said.

“My lily?” The only things left on my plate were my empty soup bowl, my spoon and a speckled orange flower that had given the whole ensemble the look of exotic gourmet.

“It’s a daylily,” she explained. “They’re edible. Very good for you, and yummy, too, although some people do prefer salad dressing.” She pushed a condiment-dish toward me, full of something creamy.

I picked up the flower, dipped it in the condiment dish and took a bite. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. The Thousand Island dressing was good. I double-dipped, since her flower was already gone, and finished mine. I smiled. “Thank you,” I said, “I had no idea you could eat those things.”

“Full of vitamins,” she replied, smiling. “They’ve just opened. Those were the first two from our garden this year.”

“Oh, nice,” I said sincerely. “And did you make the bread, too?”

“I did. And most of the soup came from the garden, too. The peanuts and carrots I did have to buy, though, and the mayonnaise.”

It was starting to feel like a game, guessing what we had eaten for lunch. I stood and began gathering dishes. “Carrots, in the soup,” I said, “and mayonnaise in the sandwiches. But there were peanuts?”

Anna laughed. “Fooled you, didn’t I?” she said playfully. “The sandwiches were ground peanuts and carrots, mixed with mayonnaise.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Not kidding.”

“I never would have guessed.”

“I know. It doesn’t taste like peanuts, and it doesn’t taste like carrots.”

“I think it’s the mayonnaise,” I theorized. “We’re not used to eating peanuts with mayonnaise. It throws you off.”

Anna and Evan’s house had been renovated since I’d been there, but it hadn’t been expanded. In fact, I was beginning to think, as I helped Anna clean up, that it had used to be bigger. I went to the vertical blinds and squinted into the yard: there was a lot more yard, now.

“You shrunk your house,” I said.

Anna smiled. “That’s one way to put it. We grew the yard. We wanted a bigger garden.”

“And lower taxes,” I suggested.

“We don’t mind that part,” she agreed. “Here, I’ll show you how to convert the room.”

“Convert the room?” I repeated stupidly.

“Help me turn the table over.”

I stood at the table with her and tried to help, but I didn’t know what I was doing and she ended up doing it all. She flipped the table top upside-down and folded it in half. Then she showed me how to release a latch on the chair where I had sat. I found the latch on her chair and released it. We turned the chairs over, too, slid the folded tabletop in place and added three cushions to make a sofa.

“Evan made most of the furniture,” Anna said.

“Wow,” I replied, “Quite impressive.”

“It allows us to live and work in five hundred square feet,” she stated proudly.

I wondered why she said, “and work.” She was head pediatric nurse at Manchester’s Eliot Hospital, and Evan worked for a civil engineering firm in Hooksett.

“With the expanded garden and simpler lifestyle,” Anna was going on, “we’ve been able to cut our expenses so we can spend our money on more important things.”

“That’s always nice,” I agreed, feeling vaguely like I was missing something.

When Evan came home, he had a bunch of strangers with him. He remembered his manners and introduced them all, but of course I didn’t remember their names. We all sat down. A man with a very big gray beard and navy blue suspenders hesitated before taking the last remaining seat, which was beside me. Looking at him, I guessed he wore the suspenders because a belt wouldn’t have been very effective with such a round stomach. I wondered whether he powdered his beard in December and played Santa Claus. “I didn’t catch your name,” I said.

“Lloyd,” he answered.

I offered my hand and he shook it. “Nice to meet you, Lloyd. I’m Gina.”

“You got a family?”

I nodded. “My husband and I have a son and a daughter.”

“One-point-eight kids,” Lloyd remarked. “I got a wife, too, but she doesn’t come to these things.”

Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw Evan stand up. “Excuse me, pardon me,” he said, “If I could just have everyone’s attention.”

The crowded little room became quiet.

“Thank you,” said Evan, “Lloyd, if you would do the honors?”

I turned back to Lloyd, on my right. He bowed his bearded head and squinted his eyes shut. “Lord,” he prayed, “we come before you this afternoon, in need, Lord, in a very trying time, Lord. And we ask your hand of protection on us and on our families, according to your promise, Lord. And we ask that you would open up our ears, Lord, and give us a discerning spirit, and we pray that we may have ears to hear, Lord. In your precious Son Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Several murmured amens echoed Lloyd’s.

Anna opened a drawer in a side table and took out her Bible.

As if on cue, the rest of the people in the room produced Bibles as well. I was embarrassed because I hadn’t brought mine.

The lady on my left moved her Bible closer to me and smiled. I smiled back and looked on with her.

“James one, twenty-two,” Anna announced, and waited for us to find it. “’But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.’” She looked up. “We’re all here because we’re hearers of the word. We’re all hearers of the word of the Lord through Terry Caulfield concerning these end times, and the spiritual warfare between Satan’s forces and the Lord’s army, and we’re all here because we want to be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving our own selves.”

I looked around the room. Evan and Gina were the only ones I’d ever seen before. How could all these people have been hearing Terry Caulfield’s sermons? It didn’t seem possible that they’d been coming to our church and I simply hadn’t seen them.

“They saw the services on the interfaith station, Gina,” Evan explained.

The ‘interfaith station’, of course! I’d forgotten our church services were telecast. I wouldn’t have called the religious channel the ‘interfaith station’, but that was alright. Anna continued, “Having heard the word, we must be doers of it. So we have come together to seek the Lord’s guidance on what to do.”

“Just quickly going over what we came up with last week,” said a sandy-haired man with freckles, “Emphasis on evangelism, keeping in mind Jude twenty-three. Pastor Caulfield’s sermons are, at this point, still being broadcast on the airwaves and the weekly visitation is of course going on as well. Emphasis on preparation: the gardens are doing well, such as they are, but they’ll need to get a lot bigger. Construction’s on schedule at my house. Evan, this place looks good. Emphasis on protection: we just about figured out what we’d need, but not how to get it. Is that about right?”

There were a few grunts of assent. I had no idea what any of that meant, but I said nothing. Evan seemed to read my mind. “I think we’ve lost Gina,” he said.

I hid my face in my hand. Through my fingers, I could see faces smiling, chuckling kindly at the gesture.

“Basically,” the lady on my left said, “we decided the Christian response to September eleventh should have three parts: evangelism, preparation and protection. Evangelism is being done pretty well already with the televised church services and the weekly visitation programs. Preparation has to do with trying to be ready if there’s ever a terrorist attack in our own area, because that could wreak havoc with transportation, distribution, food and water supply, the electric grid, and so forth. So we’re looking at simplifying our lives, growing our own food and storing food and water and supplies, and maybe for those who can, getting off the grid or at least having a backup energy source.”

“Yeah, electricity was out in New York for how long?” a male voice put in. I didn’t see who it was, because I couldn’t see him past Lloyd’s beard.

“Forever,” said Evan.

“Weeks or months,” the sandy-haired man supplied.

“Protection,” Lloyd reminded, to get us back on topic.

“Oh, yes, protection,” agreed the lady on my left. “Some of the guys are looking into, you know, protecting ourselves, if things should fall apart to the point of anarchy. You know, there wasn’t looting in New York, but you never know. It could happen. Things could get dangerous, and then we’ll wish we had something to keep the bad guys out.”

“Especially,” added the sandy-haired man, “if it came to the point where the Muslims actually got the upper hand, or began to get the upper hand. You can’t rely on the military in a case like that: sometimes they can’t get to you.”

I nodded. “Thanks for bringing me up to speed,” I said. I thought Evan’s friends seemed more than a little paranoid. But then, who was I to say that the scenarios they were describing couldn’t come true? I wouldn’t have predicted the attacks of September eleven, either, but they had happened. I decided to listen carefully and share these people’s ideas with Ray. And after that, who knew? Maybe the Lord would lead us to a major change in our lives. Maybe we, too, would be led to shrink our house and grow our yard. At any rate, it really might make good sense to put up some solar panels.

A female voice on the other side of Lloyd spoke up next. “I really feel like the Lord is speaking to us,” she said, “in this day and age, specifically speaking to us in Matthew, chapter twenty-four.”

The group opened their Bibles again, and I looked on with my neighbor.

“Starting with verse thirty-seven,” the voice continued. “’But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.’”

“That’s talking about the Second Coming, though,” Evan remarked mildly.

“It’s about the Second Coming, yes,” agreed the voice. “But it’s really about being ready. It’s also about the time of Noah, and about when the thief comes. I think the Lord is really speaking to us that are in this room at this time. We’re in a time, very much like when the thief is coming, but we don’t know when, exactly, so we need to be ready.”

“Amen,” said Evan, and the sandy-haired man said, “If the Feds had known when Al Qaeda was going to attack, they never would have let those planes get off the ground.”

“Time’s getting on,” said Anna, “and we really need to get into specifics.”

Lloyd stood and walked in the direction of the French doors with the vertical blinds, which were still half-closed. I didn’t watch him.

“Did you end up planting carrots, after all, Anna?” asked a plump woman with tired-looking hair.

“Yes,” she answered, “and tomatoes. But we’ll have to see how they do, come harvest-time.”

“All we can do,” said the sandy-haired man. “Sow and water and wait on the Lord.”

“And weed,” Anna added, “and fertilize, and fence, and spray for bugs.”

“Did you plant onions?” asked a young man who hadn’t spoken yet. “Onions and marigolds—natural insect repellent. Plant them interspersed with your veggies and it really helps with the bugs.”

“Oh,” said Anna, “I wish I’d known that.” “It may not be too late,” Evan suggested. “Onions and marigolds? I could pick them up tomorrow. This afternoon, even.”

“I don’t think it’s too late,” said the young man, as Lloyd took his seat again, “if you’ve got space between your plants to put them.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Anna replied. “You want to get them, Honey, and we’ll see how many we can get in, in the morning?” In the morning. So we wouldn’t be seeing them in church this week.

Evan nodded to Anna, then asked, “Did someone check the yard?”

“Check,” Lloyd answered gravely. “Both doors are locked. All the blinds are closed.”

“I’ve started collecting medical supplies,” said Anna in the same tone. “But we’re going to need a place to store these things.”

“I know of a warehouse that’s available,” said the sandy-haired man, “downtown. I think I can get it.”

“Give me a call right away as soon as we have it,” said Lloyd.

“I’ve been holding off on this for want of a secure place to put them, but I think I can get machine guns, and maybe some other weapons, too.”

“I can arrange for a Red Cross class,” Anna volunteered. “First aid, CPR. Would you all go to that? Yes? Okay, I’ll do that, then.”

“My wife can be in charge of collecting nonperishable foods,” said Lloyd. “But everyone would need to pitch in. She can’t collect all the food.”

There were mumbles of “no” and “of course not.”

“We’ve got to secure a water supply,” said Evan. “We can’t count on city water, in a crisis.”

“Did they have city water in New York?” asked the woman on my left.

Evan shook his head.

“We don’t know that it will happen exactly as it happened in New York,” Lloyd pointed out, and the lady grunted.

“Are you thinking rain barrels?” asked the sandy-haired man.

“That does seem to make the most sense,” Evan replied.

“Somebody got a paper and pen?” Lloyd asked.

Anna got him a yellow legal pad, and a blue plastic pen promoting an anti-anxiety medication.

“First, just the men,” said Lloyd, writing the word “MEN” in big letters at the top of the page. “Me first,” he continued, laughing, and wrote down “Lloyd”. His precise handwriting surprised me, given his appearance. He went on to write down Evan’s name and several more. Soon there were more names on Lloyd’s list than there were men in the room. Ray and Nick were on it. When he was done with the men, he turned the page and started with the women, and when that was done he made a list of children. Sometimes there was discussion about which list a particular teenager should be on: the children’s list or one of the adult ones. I learned that Lloyd and his wife had ten children. Seven of them went on the children’s list, one was classified as a man and two as women.

“Just out of curiosity,” asked the woman on my left, “what is the list of women and children for?”

“If one mother is killed, then the rest of the community will take over the care of her children until the father returns.”

Returns from where? I wondered, but I said nothing.

“Speaking of how many kids we have,” asked Evan, “how much technology are we talking about living with—or without? What about birth control? Modern conveniences?”

Nobody seemed to have an answer. There were a few significant grunts, as though Evan had made a very good point.

“School, too,” said Anna. “We have to think about school for the kids. Jenna, do you think you could start putting some books together? We might have to run our own school.”

“Like a cooperative home-school sort of thing,” answered the lady who’d read from Matthew. “Yes, I’ll work on that. Can I have a copy of the kids list, Lloyd?”

“Check,” said Lloyd again.

“Bethany Harrelssen,” said the lady on my left, “and Ephraim.”

“Bethany’s sixteen,” Anna put in.

“Wow, already?” the lady answered. “I guess she goes in the women, then.”

Lloyd turned to the second page and wrote down Bethany Harrelssen as a woman. “What about Ephraim?” he asked the group, “Should I put him down in the army?”

“The army?” I heard myself say.

“Yes,” replied the sandy-haired man. “Lloyd needs to know how many weapons we’ll need. We need to know the size of our army.”

“If it comes to that,” Evan shrugged. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

“I hate to say I think it will come to that,” said Lloyd, looking intensely from Evan to me. “It can only get worse.”

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