Genesis

"Mom? You aren't ready?" I heard my brother say that August Sunday. My heart flipped over. Mom wasn't going to church with us?

I paused in getting ready and listened to the voices coming through the vents.

"No, Roger." Mom said. "I'm not feeling very well. I think I'll lay back down."

Yes! Oh, yes!

"Oh," Roger said. "Well, Lindsey and I can stay with you."

No! Oh, no!

"No, no." Mom said. "I love that you still walk in the faith even now that you are graduated from college. Lindsey needs that role model. Now more than ever, having graduated high school and starting college."

"I don't know how much of a role model I am," Roger sighed. "You know she never listens to me."

Never listen to him? Never listen to him?! What the hell did that mean, "Never listen to him"?

"I know," Mom said.

I know? I thought. What is this? Eviscerate Lindsey in absentia day?

"I know she doesn't listen very well." Mom laughed. "Stop trying to tell her what to do and just keep showing her what a man should be."

"Um, I don't know what you mean, Mom." Roger sounded confused.

"I know. And so does she." Mom said. "That's what makes it perfect. It's not an act. It's just who you are."

"Is this the whole 'just be yourself' speech, Mom? Because you have given it to me more than a few times over the last twenty-three years."

"Go to church, scamp." Mom laughed. "And don't come home without your sister."

"Have I ever?" Roger asked.

"No, as matter of fact, you haven't. Unlike your father."

I stopped listening. I knew everything I needed to know at that point. I was going to have Roger all to myself for the half hour drive to church and the half hour drive back. I only got to see him on Sundays anymore and rarely got him to myself, just the two of us.

I looked at the dress lying on my bed and shook my head. It would never do. I hung the dress I had picked out back in my closet and quickly flipped through the clothes hanging there. I pulled out another and felt my mouth stretch in a smile. This one would do. Oh, yes. This one would do very nicely.

I was putting on my makeup when there was a knock at the door.

"Come," I said.

"Linds, you about..."

I smiled as I heard him pause, knowing he had just set his eyes on me. I calmly put the finishing touches on my makeup and turned to face him. I wasn't disappointed. The look on his face looked like someone had just hit him between the eyes with a baseball bat.

"Ok, I'm ready." I said.

"Um. You're wearing that?" Roger swallowed and flushed. "To church?"

"Yes. Why?" I pretended to look at myself in the mirror once more. "I'm singing in the services today."

"You are?"

I fought a grin as I watched him search his perfect memory. The thought that he might have forgotten something threw him off the dress.

"You didn't say anything." He finally said.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I'm sure." He nodded firmly. "You didn't say anything to me. Or Mom either."

"Oh." I pretended to think it over. "Well, I must have forgotten to mention it. So, is Mom almost ready?"

"Mom isn't feeling good." Roger said. "She isn't going."

"Oh, no. Maybe we should stay here with her."

"We can't if you are singing."

"Oh, we can call and tell them we aren't coming." I waved one hand. "It'll be fine."

"No," Roger said. "If you said you'll do it, then they are counting on you. We're going."

He turned and walked back through the house. I laughed softly to myself. Roger's firm sense of propriety could be such a pain in the ass. But, it could be useful too.

"Mom, Lindsey forgot to mention she is singing today."

"She what?" Mom asked. "Oh, no. Ok, just give me a few minutes to get ready."

Oh, crap. I thought as I hurried through the house to cut this off. I had just wanted to make sure he would take me. I hadn't meant for Mom to come too.

"Mom?" I asked. "What are you doing? I thought you weren't feeling good."

"I'm getting ready to go hear my baby girl sing," Mom said, reaching for her wig.

Now that I looked at her, she really didn't look good. The latest round of chemo had really taken it out of her.

"Mom, you don't have to do that." I said. "It's not like you haven't heard me sing six times in the last four months." I thought quickly. "Besides, I don't know for sure that it was this Sunday. Roger said I didn't say anything, so I may be not remembering the right Sunday. And you really look like you need to lay back down."

"I'll be fine in a moment." Mom leaned heavily on her makeup table. Her skin was a greenish tint. She was sweating.

Guilt ate at me. I thought seriously about coming clean about my lie. But, then I would have to admit that I was trying to make sure I could be alone with Roger.

"Dad should be here to help you." I said angrily.

Mom and Roger exchanged "the look". The look they always got when I mentioned Dad. I felt another stab of guilt at the misdirection.

"Why do I need him when I have the two best kids in the world?" Mom asked lightly.

"You don't," Roger said firmly. "We don't. The three of us will be just fine."

"Yes, we will." Mom said, as she took her wig off once more.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

"You two better get going, if you are going to make Sunday School" Mom said. "I'm going to lay down and rest just a bit. Call me from church if she is going to sing."

This last was directed at Roger. I almost sighed in relief.

"Lindsey Marie, what do you have on?" Mom said, really looking at me for the first time.

Uh oh.

"Um. My performance dress." I said, looking down at myself as if I didn't know very well what I looked like in it.

"Do you think it's entirely... appropriate to sing at church?" Mom asked.

"I don't understand," I blinked disingenously. "This is the same dress I wore for my recital, when I sang at Graduation, when I sang the Star Spangled Banner at the Rodeo, and when I did it again for the parade on the Fourth of July. What's wrong with it?"

Mom and Roger traded a different look this time. The one that said they were trying to decide which of them was going to explain this time.

"I mean," I continued. "If it's okay to wear the rest of the time, why is it not okay to wear to church? Isn't that what Brother Ronnie is always saying? That we shouldn't act one way the rest of the week and then act different just because it's Sunday?"

"I don't think that's quite right." Mom's eyes crinkled and she pressed her fingers to her lips, trying to hide a smile.

"Yes, it is." I asserted. "He says it all the time."

"He means," Roger sighed, "that we should act the other six days the same way we do in church."

"That's what I said." I waved my hands.

"I give up." Roger groaned.

"Well, we don't have time to worry about it now." Mom said, still trying to keep from laughing. "And you don't have time to change now. Go on."

Yes! Bullet dodged. We were in business.

"What are you doing?" Roger asked as I stood beside the pickup door.

"I'm waiting for you to open the door so I can get in." I said. "Why?"

"Um. Because Mom isn't going with us." Roger said.

"And?"

"And, you don't have to sit in the middle." Roger said. "You can get in on the other side."

"Well, that would be silly of me." I said, thinking quickly once more. "Then you would either have to walk around there and unlock that door and let me in and then walk back around to this door to get in yourself, or you would have to get in and lean all the way across to unlock that door, when instead I could just get in on this side so you only have to unlock one door."

Roger's eyes had that glazed look they always got when I dove into a huge sentence with one breath. Which is why I did it as often as I could, of course. He was my brother, my father figure, and the only man I would ever love. But, a girl has to have some fun, doesn't she?

Roger shook his head and unlocked the door, I climbed in as demurely as I could in that dress. Which wasn't very. Which was exactly the point.

I glanced over at him as I made some final adjustments and smiled as I saw his eyes fixed on my legs. The split on the side bared my leg just short of halfway up my thigh.

"Um, aren't you going to scoot on over?" Roger asked when I stopped in the middle.

"I need to practice." I said. "If I sit all the way over there against the door, then I wouldn't be able to hear the music from both speakers the same as if I sit here in the middle so they both reach my ears at the same time which is very important with this piece as -..."

"Okay!" Roger cut me off. "Okay, sit wherever you want."

I grinned at this evidence that I had him off balance. Roger only ever cut me off when I had managed to really fluster him. Otherwise, he would sit patiently and wait for me to finish. Even if his eyes did glaze over.

I welcomed the pressure of his arm against mine. If he hadn't been wearing his usual suit jacket it would have been even better. I shivered at the thought of his arm being as bare as mine, of our skin contacting each others.

"Are you cold?" Roger asked.

"Are you kidding?" I laughed. "It's August. It's eight thirty in the morning and it's already eighty-nine degrees. How on earth could I be cold?"

"Well, you are kind of scrawny." Roger grinned as he started the truck.

"What?" I blinked and looked down at myself.

"Even Colonel Sanders wouldn't want those legs, sis."

"Oh, ha ha." I scowled. "He'd take mine before he took Amanda's."

Aw, crap. Why'd I have to bring her up?

"Amanda has anorexia." Roger said, stonily. "She's been fighting it since we were fourteen. It's a miracle she's even alive."

"It's a miracle you put up with her crap," I growled quietly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Look, Roger," I sighed. "You've been hung up on Amanda since you were both fourteen. She's been going back and forth between you and John like a ping pong ball for almost ten years now. Ten years, Roger! There's loyalty and love and all of that. And then there is stupid."

"You'll understand one day," Roger sighed. "One day, you'll meet that special guy and you will fall in love. Then you'll understand."

I blinked back tears and had to bite my lip to keep from blurting out that I had eighteen years, four months, and nine days before. To keep from admitting that since his hands first held me, the first in our family to do so, that my heart had belonged to him and only him.

"I thought you needed to practice," Roger said.

I swallowed and blinked a few times.

"I do." I said. "I was just waiting until we get out of town."

"Ok." Roger shrugged.

I could feel his big arm move against mine. God, how I wanted him to put that arm around me and hug me like he used to do so often when we were younger and I was hurt or frightened. I just couldn't think how to manage it.

When we were finally out of town and on a straight stretch of road, I leaned forward and put in the instrumental music for a song I had been practicing.

I poured eighteen years and more of love and heartache into my voice as I sang the words of boundless love for my audience of one in that pickup going down a stretch of country road towards a church that I had never planned to sing it in.

When I finished, Roger cleared his throat.

"That was... ah..." He broke off and was quiet for a moment.

I luxuriated in finally telling this wonderful man who happened to be my brother exactly what I had felt for him for almost two decades. Ok, so he thought it was just a song I was practicing. I knew different.

"Are you sure that's a church song?" Roger asked finally.

" 'Faith, hope and...' What is the greatest of these, Roger?" I asked.

"I don't think that's the kind of love that verse means, Linds" Roger shifted a bit.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, it just seems a bit more 'romantic' than 'agape' is all." Roger said.

"It doesn't say faith in what, hope for what, or what kind of love," I argued. "And where do traditional marriages happen? In a church, that's where. And how do you get more 'romantic love' than a marriage between a man and a woman? And what about the passage that commands them to be fruitful and multiply? And-"

"Okay!" Roger yelled. "Fine. Just don't be too surprised if Brother Ronnie won't let you do that one. Or did you already tell him what it was you were going to sing?"

"Well, no." I shrugged. Of course, I hadn't. I wasn't going to be singing in church today or any other time in the near future that I knew of. "You didn't like it?"

"I didn't say that." Roger answered. "I thought you did it beautifully, as you always do every song you sing. I just don't think it will go over well at church is all."

"Really?" I felt like I should be glowing. "You liked how I sang it?"

"Of course." Roger glanced at me and then back at the road. "You have an amazing voice. You could probably be a professional singer if you wanted to bad enough to get serious about it."

Such a Roger compliment. Praising and slashing the legs out from under you in the same breath.

"I'm serious about my singing." I offered quietly.

"How many hours a day do you sing, Linds?" He asked gently.

"I don't know." I shrugged. Who sings every day?

"Well, if you were serious about it, you would sing eight hours every single day."

"Eight hours?" I gasped.

"That's what it means to be serious about something kiddo." Roger said. "High school is done with for you. You don't make it in the real world without putting some work into it. Whatever you are going to do with your life, you need to pick something you love. Because you will spend eight hours every day doing it until you are old and grey."

"Jesus," I whispered. "The only thing I ever wanted to do that much was sex."

"What?!"

The pickup swerved and Roger overcorrected. Anyone that doesn't believe in angels is flat wrong. Because I am sure there was an angel somewhere then. Perhaps outside the truck, guiding it. Perhaps sitting with his arm against my chest while the other was working the steering wheel. But, when a long bed pick-up truck with a camper shell goes into a spin while you are going sixty-five miles an hour and you don't flip over, there is something intervening. I don't have Roger's head for math and science, but even I know that much physics.

"Are you okay?"

I blinked to find that the world had stopped spinning. Roger's arm was around me. I couldn't seem to catch my breath for a moment. We were in a field. Roger had put us through a fence and into a cotton field.

"Linds, baby, talk to me." Roger's voice said.

Baby? I blinked as I turned to look at him staring at me. Did he just call me "baby"?

"Honey, you are scaring me." Roger's other hand came up to cup my cheek. "Say something if you are all right."

"Something." I whispered. Baby and Honey? I was more than just alright. It was all right in that moment.

"Thank you, Lord." Roger closed his eyes and offered up a quiet prayer. "I don't know why you chose to spare us. But, I will try to live each moment as the gift it is from you."

He was right. God, was he ever right. I realized as I heard him say the words that each moment is a gift and we can't count on having another. It's up to us to seize the moment and live it. To fail to do so is to turn our back on the gift God has given us.

I leaned up and kissed my brother.

For a long moment, I savored the feeling of his lips against mine. Before I could change that kiss into the more passionate version I wanted it to be, he pulled his head back. I opened my eyes to find him staring at me.

"What was that?" He asked.

"I love you." I whispered.

"I love you too, sis." He bent forward and I prepared my lips for the return of his but he pressed them to my forhead instead. "I'm glad you're okay."

Before I could object or clarify, he opened the door and stepped out. I wanted to scream in frustration. I was so dizzy with the whipsawing emotions racing through me, I just wanted to cry. Hell, I was crying, I realized.

I tilted the mirror and checked my eyes. Sure enough, the waterworks were going and my waterproof mascara wasn't. Dammit. I opened my purse and set about damage control.

"Hey! You two okay?"

I looked around and saw a big man walking towards us from the road.

"Yeah, we're fine, Brother Bill." Roger called back. "A little shook up, but not hurt. Are ya'll on your way to church?"

"You betcha."

"Would you mind if my baby sis rode with you? I'm going to need to change this tire and she's, maybe, supposed to sing in the services. She can't remember."

"Well, I'm pretty sure she ain't since my missus is going to do the special. But she's welcome to come along." Bill said. "You sure you don't want me to stay back and help you though? We can send them on if you want."

"I appreciate that, but I'll be fine." Roger laughed. "I may not be there for our class though."

"And I worked hard on that lesson too, boy." Bill chuckled. "You're just about the only one that pays attention."

No, no, no, no, no. I wailed silently. I didn't want to go on ahead. I wanted to stay with the man I loved. We had almost died! I had told him I had loved him. I had kissed him! It couldn't stop here. It just couldn't.

But, I couldn't think how to stop it. Bill and his wife, with a voice like a creaking tree branch, took me on with them. My description of her voice may sound rude, but truly, I would think if God had meant her to raise it in joyful noise, he would have given her a bit let noise and a bit more joy. Her sour pinched face made me wonder how she could ever have ended up with a man as outgoing as Bill.

Considering that I really didn't want to be there, Sunday School was fine. Actually, it was a bit more than fine. We were studying Genesis. After creation. After the garden. After Cain killed Abel and was cast out with a mark upon him. We were studying the line descended through Seth to Noah.

"So, Seth was the father of Enosh." I said to my best friend Missy as we walked down the hall from class to the auditorium for service. "But, who was his mother?"

"You ask that every time since we were twelve," Missy rolled her eyes. "And as I say every time, 'Eeew'."

"No, really." I stopped and turned to face my friend who stopped and turned to look at me with a long suffering expression. "Think about it."

"I'd really, really rather not." Missy said. "I mean, seriously Linds. Maybe you don't see it because you and Roger are adopted, but yuck."

"I don't think that's it," I shook my head. "I mean, he is my brother in every way that matters. We grew up together. But, that wasn't what I was getting at. I mean, if Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, then there wasn't anybody else to have babies. And if God made more women after he made Eve for Adam, why doesn't it say anything about it? Because he didn't. Seth and his sister had a baby. More than one actually."

"Linds, seriously. I am gonna hurl if you don't stop it."

"Fine." I sighed. "But you know I'm right."

I turned away and walked on with Missy doing likewise. When we entered the sanctuary, I looked around but I didn't see Roger anywhere. I turned around and bumped into a solid wall of flesh.

"Careful, Lindsey." Roger said. "You'll hurt yourself."

I was so relieved, I threw my arms around him and hugged him. He laughed and hugged me back while he spoke over my head to Missy.

"Hi, Missy. How are you?"

"Fine, except we studied Chapter 5 of Genesis today."

I let go of my death grip on Roger to glare at Missy. She hadn't told him any year before this. Surely she wouldn't now.

"The eight ancestors of Noah, descending from Adam through Seth." Roger nodded.

"That's the one." Missy returned a grin for my glare.

"We should get out of the doorway and take seats." Roger said. "Oh, are you singing today, Linds?"