When Haven had decided after a week of gnawing anxiety to attend the funeral, admittedly she was planning on dipping as soon as the will was read. She had no interest in the memorial or actual burying of her grandfather. But that was before knowing he never cut her out of the will.
Or at least legally didn’t. He probably did. He had to have. Then just…didn’t consult the lawyer or something. He was old and old people were forgetful. But the slim, smallest, tiniest chance he hadn’t completely forsaken her kept Haven from finding somewhere else to pass a couple hours while the gravesite service went on.
She didn’t need to say goodbye. Not to a man who considered his backwards views more important than family. And she’d already made her dramatic exit, it’s not like she could just follow everyone to the next location.
So she sat in her Jeep at the empty gas station across the road and watched them carry the casket out of sight behind the church. She guessed the ‘refreshments’ her mother had mentioned was the memorial lunch because the parking lot soon emptied. But she waited another half hour to make sure her family members were really gone. They weren’t going to give up the church that easily and she wasn’t going to let them take it from her now. Not until she knew what the plan was, why her grandfather at some point wanted her to have it…
She didn’t have to stay. Haven hadn’t made any lodging arrangements. Nothing to cancel or reschedule. No definite return date to her one friend back home waiting for her. She was already in her car, all she had to do was put her apartment’s address back in Beardstown and start on the day’s journey.
Coin flip theory. Marty had taught it to her. When she was trying to make a decision, he’d flip a coin and tell her the disappointment or relief she felt would tell her what she really wanted. What she had hoped for the coin to tell her.
After digging through the sunglasses compartment, a penny dropped and landed on the passenger seat. She didn’t even have to check what was facing up at her.
Thirty excruciating minutes later, the parking lot of Harvest Christian Church was empty. She wanted to wait an extra 10 minutes to be sure none of her family was waiting to ambush but caved under the anxiety after 5.
Parking as close to the front doors as she could, Haven gripped the steering wheel until the pads of her fingers burned against the leather before stepping out and examining her family church. Hers of 18 years.
The parking lot itself wasn’t big though still more than enough for the 30 churchgoers on a weekly basis. A grassy hill ran about 30 yards from the left side down to the road; the actual church faced a field directly opposite to the gas station that didn’t sell gas. On the right was acres of forest she’d never seen the end of.
Spread along the front was Aunt Reen’s pride and joy. Shrubbery bigger than most adults lined the tall windows and various wildflowers littered the God-graced green grass. A bird fountain was situated near her and she daintily stepped on the stepping stones leading from the walkway up to the front doors. Each stone had a name in shaky cursive underneath two hand prints and a painted heart. There was one every two inches.
Or at least they had been before. Haven moved off and studied the line for a few moments before realizing what was wrong: one had been removed and then the rest spread out to make up for it. She didn’t bother to check who was missing.
Harvest was looming over her; she could feel it. An oppressive shadow bearing down on her back like the Holy Spirit watching over her shoulder. Inside, that was it. Quick look around to appease the curiosity and compare it to her last memory. She managed to avoid doing that her entire drive and why she planned on only staying for the whole one hour the service took. Nostalgia was a trap and the longer she spent staring at the bait, the easier it’d be for her family to set it off.
Deep breath. Deep breath. Step back. Deep breath. More steps back until she was off the grass and on the walkway. A small head tilt and the entirety of the church was looking down on her.
It was always nondenominational, but it was a modern style, long building of white limewash brick. Structured like two buildings pushed together with the entrance on the left side ahead of her. Above it all, the dual steeples held up the afternoon sun in their crevice. She tried to visualize the rest of it, but static rained and her eyes unfocused with every painful forced blink. Worry about it tomorrow, Haven.
The walkway led up to a concrete patio with two pillars holding up an overhang. Solid wood, light from the years of sun exposure, made up the double doors. The left was always locked, she wasn’t sure why. She took out the keys from Arthur but even though the key turned loose and the push bar moved easily, the door remained stuck.
Unlocking the right door, she pushed it open and stepped inside the foyer.
A medium sized room with two levels. The lower level where she stood held a wide table with pamphlets and a Bible. Two vases on each side of fake peonies and white lilies. At one point all the flowers in the church were fresh, replaced every week, but at some point they became stiff with falsehoods and no one acknowledged it.
Two short staircases were on both sides of her, 10 steps up to the upper level wrapping around the table and leading off to a wide entryway on the right. To the rest of the church. A railing kept kids from jumping from above Haven onto the table, breaking the glass center and their legs.
White painted walls with minimal decor except motivational Bible verses in terrible font. Crimson red carpet that shuffled under her boots like hay. Like it’d been shampooed recently without the mildew after smell. The door clanged behind her -
A cold draft ran through her. No, more stepped through her like it was taking in the room just like her. Hand to her chest, she coughed on nothing but chilled lungs as it burned through. Damn it, she couldn’t remember where the thermostat was.
As she walked around the foyer flipping on the lights, multiple worries hit her at once. Did she have the hotspot to do her work here? Did the kitchen even still work? There were no beds, what was the best way to sleep?
She realized with a jolt as she flicked the last switch that she’d already committed to staying at the church. It made sense. She didn’t have to pay a motel for the same amenities she could get here besides the bed, but the church was less likely to have bedbugs than the motels she knew around Lula.
The main corridor lit up, wide enough for a forklift to fit and long enough for children to run up and down after service and still feel like they were running a marathon. Immediately to her right were equally as wide stairs leading down to the fellowship hall. To her left was the first door to the sanctuary. It was closed like the rest and she didn’t want to touch it just yet.
Further down was the main double doors to it across from an apse connected to their little coffee area. Separated from the rest of the hallway by a bar, it held a coffee maker, a small canister of sugar, and tiny bottles of half-and-half on a folding table.
Haven could still see Connie emptying at least 10 of them in her coffee without even glancing at the sugar. Melanie Waters lecturing her while doing the exact same and adding her own caramel flavoring that she kept a travel size bottle of in her purse. Samuel Waters and Jeanie arguing at the bar on opposite sides on whose job it was that week to set up the communion before Kerry assured them both she’d already taken care of it.
She, Mason, and Brooke were already picking their way through the two dozen chocolate glazed donuts with sprinkles Ricky had a recurring pickup at the grocery store for. Marty would scold them for eating more before the congregation had a chance, but take one himself before going to check the sound equipment.
Ricky never cared how many they took. That’s why he got two dozen for a church of only 15 he’d say with a laugh. Church didn’t start until 9am, but everyone was there by 8:30 to just talk. It was the one day that she and her siblings actually willingly got up early. Haven just wanted to hang out with her family.
Her family who always said she could tell them anything. Then she did and they didn’t like it.
The last side door for the sanctuary was right next to another and Haven wasn’t surprised when she pushed it open to find the room behind it unchanged. It had the same dimensions as a walk-in closet, a kitchen counter alongside the right wall with a sink and mini-mini fridge. Muscle memory pushed her forward and she opened one drawer and pulled out the fake golden circular trays with fraying red felt. A ziplock bag of communion wafers was nearly empty so she took out one and placed it on the tray.
The communion cups and their filler were in the next drawer down and she carefully slipped one of the tiny plastic cups out of the paper sleeve. The only thing in the fridge was a half-filled container of grape juice. She was moving on autopilot, like someone was guiding her hand filling the singular communion cup with juice.
Her mother was the one who showed her how to set up communion when she was seven and demanded to help out. It was one of her favorite parts of Sunday church: pressing the pump on the filler and pretending she was on an assembly line filling up all the little cups.
The wafer and grape juice in the blood red tray stared up at her. Her fingers itched to pick them up. Her mouth watered for the familiar taste of the Lord’s flesh and blood followed by a prayer for love and acceptance.
Her brain screamed for her to walk out of the room and close the door. Leave the communion where it was. So she did.
There were three other doors in the main corridor: a bathroom on the left and two classrooms on either side. One was abnormally big, made for the younger kids who couldn’t pay attention to Bible stories that were longer than three paragraphs. Half filled with little kid toys, a worn down pastel play kitchen, a cardboard box of mega blocks, and discarded dolls. A makeshift nursery filled up the other half of the room with another counter, sink, and mini fridge. A few cabinets above held dusty bottles, cloths, and roll up mats.
The other only had a fancy corporate meeting room type table, a podium, and a projector mounted to the ceiling. Haven found the remote exactly where she remembered it’d be in the podium and pressed the power button. A whirring sound filled the room and the heart palpitations started but nothing happened. It died down and she pressed random buttons on the remote but still nothing. She shouldn’t be surprised, it barely worked when she had Sunday school in here 5 years ago.
Haven hovered in the center of the corridor, spinning like a broken top stuck in slow motion. She should check downstairs. The fellowship hall had the kitchen and probably more space to spread out her stuff without having to worry about moving it before Sunday if she was still here.
But any adrenaline she had from the high of walking away from her family at the funeral was draining out her feet and taking coherence with it. Weight pooled in her knees and she hasn’t slept or eaten since she stopped at the Tennessee state line.
Her bags were where she left them in the back seat of her Jeep. A duffle stuffed with what random clothes she grabbed 20 hours prior, her backpack with her laptop and books, and a cardboard box with her provisions. Her friend back in Illinois, Shelby, was a part-time doomsday prepper and as soon as she mentioned the trip, Shelby offloaded a bunch of MREs and a solar lamp. Ze wouldn’t take ‘I promise I’ll be fine’ as an excuse so now she had a month’s worth of military food.
Inside, she briefly considered all her options. One of the classrooms was the at first glance obvious choice, but the older kids’ room didn’t have much floor space and the younger kids’ had too much going on.
The apse was open to the whole corridor, but she could keep watch and be motivated to keep her stuff contained. They’d never had a problem with people breaking in so that wasn’t an issue.
She stacked the cardboard on the coffee table, tossed her duffle along the wall, and gently set her backpack down underneath the stained glass. It spanned the entire wall of the apse: six feet wide and at least 15 tall. A vibrant multishaded green hill took up half the window. White plump fluffy sheep ran amok, trotting wherever their heart wished while a white depiction of Jesus waited at the top of the hill. Unmoving, just staring at the sheep and Haven wandering aimlessly through life without doing a damn thing to guide-
Haven ripped her way through the various storage bins in the nursery side of the classroom until she grunged up two blankets and a stiff maternity body pillow. Threw it all into a pile on the red carpet that was short, a little scratchy, and hard on her back. Used the coffee maker to heat up water for her MRE early dinner. Unplugged it after it was useful to her to charge her phone.
Today was Tuesday and she knew Wednesday night bible study had been cancelled due to Ricky’s death. So she didn’t have to worry about services for four days. Plenty of time to figure out a plan, if she was even still here.