Teresia knows sleeping with the pastor's son is a terrible idea.
In 1984, eighteen-year-old Teresia is stuck at The Well Fellowship with her mother and stepfather, surrounded by people who mistake obedience for virtue and gossip for concern. She kno...
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(Glenwood)
I waited until the next morning.
Rick left to visit someone in the hospital before work. The apartment was quiet except for the faint drip of the bathroom faucet and the sound of Mother stirring her instant coffee at the sink.
Light from the window highlighted the dark crescents under her eyes. Her light brown hair was still damp from the shower and clipped back loosely at her neck, and her blouse looked uncharacteristically wrinkled. I think I loved her the most during moments like this—unfinished. Before she turned into the woman who quoted scripture at me and reminded me to be grateful.
I didn't plan it. I just said it.
"He was in my room the other morning."
She didn't look up. "Who?"
"Rick."
She stiffened. Her spoon clinked against the ceramic edge of her mug.
"I think he was going through my things without my permission."
She blinked. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because..." I hesitated. "He's weird with me. Always has been. You know that."
She closed her eyes for half a second.
"Teresia," she said carefully, "you can be dramatic when you want to be."
"Mamma, I'm not being dramatic."
She took a sip of her coffee. "He's never laid a hand on you—not once."
"I didn't say he did."
She sighed. "Then what are you saying?"
"That he lingers. That he watches me. That he... says things."
"Like what?"
"He told me last night that he doesn't keep secrets for free."
Her jaw tightened, but her voice stayed flat. "What secret would you be asking him to keep?"
I blinked.
"I'm not—"
"Because if you've been sneaking out, doing things behind my back..."
My stomach dropped.
She looked at me now, but not with worry, with suspicion.
"Because if you've been doing that, I've raised you better," she said. "You're not some lost girl. You don't get to make bad choices and blame them on the man who feeds you."
"He doesn't feed me."
"He keeps the roof over our heads."
"He looks at me like—"
"You're beautiful, Teresia. Men look."
That stopped me cold.
She said it like it was the weather. Like it was my fault.
