I had a grant to study that summer in Paris. Drew came with me. Our flat was
in the sixth arrondissement, near the Luxembourg Gardens. My life there was
entirely new, and as near to a cliché as I could make it. I was drawn to those
parts of the city where one could find the most tourists so I could throw
myself into their center. It was a hectic form of forgetting, and I spent the
summer in pursuit of it: of losing myself in swarms of travelers, allowing
myself to be wiped clean of all personality and character, of all history. The
more crass the attraction, the more I was drawn to it.
I had been in Paris for several weeks when, one afternoon, returning from a
French lesson, I stopped at a café to check my email. There was a message
from my sister.
My father had visited her—this I understood immediately—but I had to
read the message several times before I understood what exactly had taken
place. Our father had testified to her that Shawn had been cleansed by the
Atonement of Christ, that he was a new man. Dad had warned Audrey that if
she ever again brought up the past, it would destroy our entire family. It was
God’s will that Audrey and I forgive Shawn, Dad said. If we did not, ours
would be the greater sin.
I could easily imagine this meeting, the gravity of my father as he sat
across from my sister, the reverence and power in his words.
Audrey told Dad that she had accepted the power of the Atonement long
ago, and had forgiven her brother. She said that I had provoked her, had
stirred up anger in her. That I had betrayed her because I’d given myself over
to fear, the realm of Satan, rather than walking in faith with God. I was
dangerous, she said, because I was controlled by that fear, and by the Father
of Fear, Lucifer.
That is how my sister ended her letter, by telling me I was not welcome in
her home, or even to call her unless someone else was on the line to
supervise, to keep her from succumbing to my influence. When I read this, I
laughed out loud. The situation was perverse but not without irony: a few
months before, Audrey had said that Shawn should be supervised around
children. Now, after our efforts, the one who would be supervised was me.
When I lost my sister, I lost my family.
I knew my father would pay my brothers the same visit he’d paid her.
Would they believe him? I thought they would. After all, Audrey would
confirm it. My denials would be meaningless, the rantings of a stranger. I’d