Prologue
I didn't know him.
I think that's what stuck out to me the most, more than the mane of dark hair that fell around his shoulders, more than the tall boots, or the careworn jacket of black leather, or the chains that criss-crossed its lapel. These things certainly stood out to most people who passed him, surely, so prominent against the muted background of the church pew. But the fact that I had no name for this person, this stranger, stuck out so much to me; in the tiny town of Lewitt, New Jersey, everyone knew everyone.
No one, not among my family or among the congregation, gave him a second glance. He was a stain on the wall. He caused no trouble thusfar, and perhaps they thought if they went on ignoring him, he would just decide we weren't entertaining him, we with our perfect, devout ways, and he would leave on his own. So far, this hadn't happened. I had noticed him now for three weeks, in the very back pew, and he seemed to have no intention of breaking his new habit.
I got a good look at him every week as I passed, as he always seemed to be the first to arrive and the last to leave. And though I'm sure I expected him to sneer, to gawk at the pristine churchgoers and mock them with his eyes, I never saw such an expression cross his face. The first time I met his eyes, the deep, mossy hazel of his eyes, I felt a jolt within my belly that did not belong there.
Just as we believed that he did not belong in our world.
And I did not belong in his.
Chapter 1 - Eucharist
Though the contents of my life were in constant, slow metamorphosis, the shell they occupied remained relatively the same. My childhood home had undergone very few renovations beyond basic maintenance. The bedroom I awoke in had the same gray carpet and robin's-egg blue walls that it had always had, though they bore more wear and scratches than when the room was my nursery. The routine and ritual that formed the structure of my family was forever unchanged. On Sunday mornings, I was woken for church by a voice and an unmistakable breakfast aroma.
"Ash! Come eat!"
Pancakes. I could smell the perfume of butter tinged with burn before I even opened my eyes, before my mom's voice floated through the door. She didn't need to knock or call twice. A heavy sleeper I might have been, but quick to wake, acclimated to early mornings by twenty-some odd years of church services, K-through-12 schooling, and college classes. I inhaled slowly, reinvigorating my lungs, and swung my legs out from under the blankets. My sheets snagged on my pajama pants and pulled the cuffs several inches above my ankles, exposing my skin to the slight chill in my room. I welcomed the gentle twinges of awareness, the crush of the carpet under my toes, the light stretch in the base of my spine as I sat upright and rolled the sleep from my bones.
Getting ready in the morning was a quick affair. I took care to lay out my clothes on my desk chair the night before so I didn't spend too much time trying to match shirts and pants. I took a secondary glance at my outfit for the day - dark blue, short-sleeved shirt with pearl buttons and a single pocket, paired with light khaki slacks - and proceeded to dress myself. While straightening wrinkles in the mirror, my reflection pointed out the matting in my hair - I beat the worst out of it with a wide-tooth comb only because I knew my mom would comment on it otherwise. Truthfully, my light brown, thick, chin-length curls were picky. Too long and the tangles were unmanageable. Too short and it would become a mess of Shirley Temple ringlets. I liked my hair the way it was.
Satisfied that my hair would at least survive scrutiny, I added one last thing to my outfit. When I graduated from high school, my parents had bought me a beautiful silver cross pendant on a chain, and hardly a day went by that I didn't wear it. It was simple and plain, similar to one my dad wore. I clasped it around my neck and folded my collar down over it so that it would sit neatly over my clothes.
My parents were both in the kitchen, my dad at the stove flipping pancakes and my mother at the sink trying to clean up after him, a checked blue apron protecting her neat skirt and blouse from soap suds. Sunday was the only day my dad regularly cooked, aside from summer barbecues and the odd spaghetti night. He had gone the opposite direction of my mom in his attempt to protect his Sunday clothes from pancake batter - he was only wearing his undershirt and khakis. He looked over at me, gave me a nod, and said, "Hey, kid. Go wake up your brother, will ya?"
Kid, my dad said, despite the fact that his oldest son was now twenty-three. "He's still in bed?" I asked.
"I called him," Mom said over her shoulder. "But you know how long he takes. And please comb your hair, Asher."
"All right, all right. Got it."
Knew it
, I thought. I ran my fingers through my hair roughly as I walked back to the hallway between my brother's bedroom and mine, and knocked on the door. "Dan, get up."
No answer.
I pounded the door. "Daniel!"
A mumble that could have been an expletive.
Well, that was as much of an invitation as I needed. I turned the knob and went in, taking care not to trip on the heap of last night's jeans Dan had left on the floor. My kid brother was sixteen, and it showed in his wall hangings, his cleanliness, and his attitude. But hey, I was sixteen once. I knew what it was like. Still, that empathy didn't exactly factor in when I unceremoniously threw the sheets off the lump in Dan's bed. "Get up."
Daniel unfurled and thrust himself upright in bed, his hair hanging in his glaring eyes - hair that was straight like our dad's, but the same color as we all had. His face was flushed slightly red - I'd forgotten he slept in his cartoon-pattern boxers. "Fuck
off!
" he griped, throwing a pillow at me.
"Woah, dude," I said, weaving to avoid the pillow. "Cut the cussing. Better not let Mom hear that."
"Like you don't say it."
"Yeah, yeah. Get up and get dressed or I'm gonna eat your pancakes." I left him with that and shut the door behind me.
Back in the kitchen, I sat myself down at the table where a platter of pancakes was steadily growing as my dad tipped each one from the pan. I took a plate from the stack my mom had provided and helped myself to a couple. "Dan's up," I told them, scraping a pat of butter from the floral-patterned dish between plates.
Mom turned from the sink and wiped her hands off on her apron, then shot me a look. "Would you like to wait for the rest of us before you eat?"
"He's fine, he's fine," Dad said, flipping the last of the pancakes onto the stack and sliding the frying pan into the sink. "Let him eat. With how much he puts down, he'll be a minute anyway."
