“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 knock you down into the depths of humility. And when
you are there, when you are lying broken, you will call on the Divine
Father for mercy.” Dad’s voice, which had risen to fever pitch, now fell
to a murmur. “And He will not hear you.”
I met his gaze. He was burning with conviction; I could almost feel
the heat rolling off him. He leaned forward so that his face was nearly
touching mine and said, “But I will.”
The silence settled, undisturbed, oppressive.
“I will offer, one final time, to give you a blessing,” he said.
The blessing was a mercy. He was offering me the same terms of
surrender he had offered my sister. I imagined what a relief it must
have been for her, to realize she could trade her reality—the one she
shared with me—for his. How grateful she must have felt to pay such a
modest price. I could not judge her for her choice, but in that moment
I knew I could not choose it for myself. Everything I had worked for, all
my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege:
to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father,
and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to