Educated

what I had said, that had made me unwelcome in my own family. All I had to
do was yield, and in five minutes it would be over.
I heard myself say no.
Dad gaped at me in disbelief, then he began to testify—not about God, but
about Mother. The herbs, he said, were a divine calling from the Lord.
Everything that happened to our family, every injury, every near death, was
because we had been chosen, we were special. God had orchestrated all of it
so we could denounce the Medical Establishment and testify of His power.
“Remember when Luke burned his leg?” Dad said, as if I could forget.
“That was the Lord’s plan. It was a curriculum. For your mother. So she
would be ready for what would happen to me.”
The explosion, the burn. It was the highest of spiritual honors, he said, to
be made a living testament of God’s power. Dad held my hands in his
mangled fingers and told me that his disfiguration had been foreordained.
That it was a tender mercy, that it had brought souls to God.
Mother added her testimony in low, reverent whispers. She said she could
stop a stroke by adjusting a chakra; that she could halt heart attacks using
only energy; that she could cure cancer if people had faith. She herself had
had breast cancer, she said, and she had cured it.
My head snapped up. “You have cancer?” I said. “You’re sure? You had it
tested?”
“I didn’t need to have it tested,” she said. “I muscle-tested it. It was cancer.
I cured it.”
“We could have cured Grandma, too,” Dad said. “But she turned away
from Christ. She lacked faith and that’s why she’s dead. God won’t heal the
faithless.”
Mother nodded but never looked up.
“Grandma’s sin was serious,” Dad said. “But your sins are more serious
still, because you were given the truth and have turned from it.”
The room was quiet except for the dull hum of traffic on Oxford Street.
Dad’s eyes were fixed on me. It was the gaze of a seer, of a holy oracle
whose power and authority were drawn from the very universe. I wanted to
meet it head-on, to prove I could withstand its weight, but after a few seconds
something in me buckled, some inner force gave way, and my eyes dropped
to the floor.
“I am called of God to testify that disaster lies ahead of you,” Dad said. “It
is coming soon, very soon, and it will break you, break you utterly. It will