I had just mowed my lawn and was dragging a plastic trash can half-filled with grass clippings to the curb when I saw her. She was walking breezily on the sidewalk, approaching my yard, and looking every which way. I stood there and stared at her without really meaning to. I think it was just unusual to see a young woman dressed like she was in the middle of a weekday afternoon. I, on the other hand, was wearing an old pair of shorts and a torn sleeveless shirt.
I had taken the day off from work just to work on some things around the house. I wanted it to look nice in the event my estranged wife, Margaret, returned home to me. We had separated two months earlier and she was apparently now living with a new boyfriend, a guy she knew from work. I was not bitter about it, because I knew the whole mess had been my fault. I was working on my problems, but that didn't change what I had done, the way I had been treating her and our marriage for many years.
The girl was wearing a cream-colored blouse, a plaid skirt that almost reached her knees, and tall black socks that almost reached her knees from the other direction. She had reddish brown hair that fell to her shoulders. I could not remember ever seeing her before, but I guessed that she probably lived somewhere in the neighborhood, maybe the next street over. She was carrying a stack of papers and looking to her left and right. Suddenly she dropped the papers. I watched her bend over and pick them up. It was a pervy thing to do, I suppose, but I had made a decision earlier that summer to stop pretending to be someone I'm not.
When she stood up and resumed her walk towards my house, I finished dragging the grass clippings to the curb and began to walk back towards the house. Out of the corner of my eye I could tell she had just taken notice of me, and she began to walk faster towards me.
"Excuse me," she said, and started jogging in my direction. This was the time of year where the door-to-door salespeople (mostly magazine subscriptions and replacement windows) made the rounds, and I had no interest in someone trying to pressure me into buying something today, so I in turn began to walk faster as well. By the time she reached my property line, I had rounded the corner of my house and was out of her line of sight.
I began packing up my yard equipment into the shed out back and brought out the garden hose, which I then carried to the front yard, having forgotten about the girl. When I reached my front yard, she was sitting on the curb with her back to me. But apparently she heard me, because she turned around and then quickly stood up.
"Excuse me, sir," she said. I sighed and we walked to each other, meeting in the middle of my front yard.
"I can't really buy anything right now," I said, hoping that would put an end to any sales pitch before it happened.
"That's not why I'm here," she said. She was looking nervously to her left and right, and was squeezing the stack of papers, which she was now holding with both hands.
"Oh?"
"My church is handing out flyers for our Fall Concert. Our choir is performing, and we have a string band. If you're interested, here is the information." She held out a flyer. I reached out and grabbed it reluctantly.
"Oh, okay," I said, and I began to turn away from her.
"Also, we're talking to people in the neighborhood in case they have any questions about our church, or our beliefs. May I ask if you currently attend a church, and, if so, what kind?" All of this she spat out quickly, as if afraid of the reaction her words would get.
"I, uh, I don't really like to talk about that," I said. "What church is this?"
"Faith Fellowship, on Main Street," she said, pointing to where the information was on the flyer she had just handed to me.
"Oh, okay. I'll think about it. Thank you."
"May I ask, why don't you like to talk about it?" She sounded really nervous when she said this.
I sighed. "Young lady, my path through life has been a complicated and messy one, and my church life has been much the same. I don't think you want to go down that rabbit hole."
"If you want to, we can talk about it. Actually, I wouldn't mind a drink of water, if you have any," she said.
"Well, everybody has water. At least around here. Is tap okay?"
She nodded.
When I came back outside with a cup of water, she was sitting on my front steps. I felt nervous having a young girl here, and I wasn't sure why I hadn't just turned her away. I think I was lonely, most of all. It had been a long time any woman had paid much attention to me, even if she was just trying to convert me. Also, she was nice to look at. I always had a weakness for a girl in a skirt.
"Thank you," she said as I handed her the cup. She sipped from the cup and I leaned against the railing, sometimes glancing at her, sometimes glancing away at nothing in particular.
"Why are you walking by yourself?" I said. "Don't you people usually travel in pairs, at least?"
"I am out with my brothers and sisters. They each paired up, a brother and sister in a group. I was the odd one out, so I decided to go on my own. I'm more comfortable on my own, anyway."
"How many brothers and sisters do you have?"
"Three of each," she said, and I whistled.
"Big family," I said.
"All of my family is like that. They always have a lot of kids. I'll probably have a lot someday, too. That's the Sullivan way."
"Sullivan?"
"Oh, sorry, that's my name. Lydia Sullivan. We live over on Bryce. The big white house."
"Oh," I said. I didn't know what house she was talking about.
"My two older sisters are courting already, so it probably won't be too long before they're married and having kids of their own. Two of my brothers are courting as well."
"Courting, huh?"
"Yeah, it's sort of like dating," she said, and her face turned red.
"Heh, I know what it means. I've been around families like that," I said, then felt kind of bad for saying it.
"I guess it probably seems weird," Lydia said.
"I don't know. Who's to say anymore? I'm not in any position to judge," I said, and sat down on the steps, leaving about a foot of space between us.
"Is your wife here?"
"No, she's not," I said. "She and I are, well, I guess we're on our way to divorce."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Lydia said. I glanced up at her and she had a sympathetic expression on her face.
"It's life," I said. "It takes some twists and turns, and a lot of times you end up where you never thought you would and never wanted to be." I looked down at my dirty hands.
"So why has your church life been complicated?" Lydia said after some silent moments had passed.
I gave out a long sigh. "I really shouldn't say anything. I don't want to mess up anyone's faith."
"I'm not a child. I think I can take it," Lydia said. "It's up to you."
"Well, I don't want to get too deeply into it, but what I can say is that I used to have a really strong faith, but then I had a lot of doubts and took a lot of different turns in life, and now I'm nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Well, I don't know how to put it. I guess I just don't think about it much anymore," I said. There was more to it, but I didn't want to burden this girl with it. I didn't want to tell her that I found the idea of eternal life, no matter the destination, to be a truly horrible idea. That I preferred the idea of death being the end of my conscious existence. A fade to black, and then nothing.
For a long time, I didn't think that way. When I was in high school, I used to do what she was doing: walking through the neighborhoods around the church, engaging strangers in conversations about God and faith and heaven and all of that. But twenty-five years later, after several online affairs, a few real-life ones, and a sexual harrassment scandal at work, I wasn't sure that heaven, even if it existed, was ever my true destination. I had done bad things and paid for it with my marriage and my sense of pride. I was now broken, lonely, and financially ruined, and I had no one to blame but myself.
Lydia seemed to be trying to find the right words to say. "You know, God can..."
"Stop, please," I cut her off. "I don't mean any offense, I really don't. You seem like a really nice girl and I don't want to bring you down. But you're wasting your time if you think you can help me. I've tried for years to get things right, and I just can't. Nothing and no one can save me."
Lydia put down the cup of water and smoothed out her skirt over her knees. She turned to me and began to stare. I glanced at her and she had a curious look on her face, as if she were trying to figure out a puzzle.
"What?" I said, after I couldn't take any more of her staring.
"May I use your bathroom?" she said, and stood up.
"Uh, okay, sure," I said, trying quickly to remember if the downstairs bathroom was clean or not. I quickly realized that it wasn't.
She opened the front door and walked into the house, and I followed her.
"You should use the upstairs bathroom. It's cleaner," I said, and I pointed her in the right direction and waited downstairs. After a few minutes I heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door open, and I waited at the bottom of the stairs for her but she didn't come down.
"Excuse me, are you okay?" I said, nervously climbing the stairs. I found her in one of the upstairs bedrooms that I used for storing various personal items like my CD collection. She was bent over, with her hands on her knees, looking at the spines of my CD cases.
"Wow, I've never heard of any of these," she said.
"You probably shouldn't be in here. In the house at all," I said. My palms were beginning to sweat. "It's not safe for you to be in a stranger's house anyway. You really need to be more careful."
"Why?" Lydia said, and she stood up and faced me. "Do I have something to fear from you?" The tone of her voice had changed. It was lower, almost sexual.
"N-no, not at all, but you can never tell," I said. She was staring at me again with that curious expression, and I turned away from her eyes.
"You know, my dad hated it when I cut my hair like this," she said. "My mom and my sisters, they all have long hair. I had long hair my whole life. My dad said it was proper for a woman to have long hair. He didn't even let us style it.
"This," she said, lifting her hair off her shoulders, "was an act of rebellion."
"Really," I said, crossing my arms.
"My siblings and I have all been home-schooled, and our social lives are strictly regulated," she said. "My only outlet has been reading. He never pays attention to what I'm reading, so I've been reading things that teach me about how the rest of the world works."
I didn't respond. I just continued to stand there, waiting for her to continue.
