Elders Read Online Free

doesn’t work either. The days that have flown by the most for me, the months even, have been the busiest, the months I was working the hardest, really
trying
. Those were the months I grew my testimony the most, too. Knowing through doing, right? You taught me that, McLeod. ‘Experimenting on the word,’ ‘Saint John’s litmus test,’ ‘faith as a principle of action’—I still remember it all because you talked about it so much. You and your ten-dollar ideas, your nerdy enthusiasms. I think
that
McLeod ought to come back and tell the new McLeod a thing or two. If you’re still serious about trying to believe, I mean. And if you’re not, why the hell stay out here?” Sweeney paused, trying to make eye contact with McLeod. McLeod avoided the gaze. “Look, I’m just saying—we’re just saying—that we sort of miss the old McLeod, you know? Mr. Monk? Mr. Ass-in-a-chair-all-night-reading?”
    “Bible,” McLeod said automatically, not looking up. “Keep it Bible.”
    “I thought we decided ‘ass’ was on the approved list,” Kimball said, an attempt at lightness in his voice.
    “Well, anyway,” Sweeney said, “that’s our piece. Take it for what it’s worth.”
    The three of them inched closer to the last of the fires, theflames spreading out over the embers, squirming, all the jagged little spikes of element settled down into a strange, glowing sauce. McLeod felt the warmth of it against his shins. A slow heat in his face, too.
    “Man,” he said, “this senior-companion stuff has really gone to your heads, hasn’t it?”
    Sweeney pushed an envelope of air through his teeth, a sharp, disgusted sound.
    Kimball said, “You’re kidding, right?”
    After a silence Sweeney walked over to the long rectangle of light and leaned his watch into it. Quarter to ten, he said. They’d better get going.
    “You guys keep curfew now too?” McLeod said.
    “We have for a while,” Sweeney said. “The mission makes for a lousy vacation, McLeod. That’s what we’re saying.”
    At the outer door they all shook hands and made tentative plans to meet up on their next P-Day. McLeod watched his friends move away down the street: they passed under a lamppost, bright ghosts in their white dress shirts, and then passed out from under it and disappeared behind the glare.
    Elder McLeod went back into the courtyard and absently pushed at the pile of embers with his shoe. Ashes now. He kept away from the light of the window; his thoughts fit better into the privacy of darkness. He remembered the blessing his father had given him in the car at Logan Airport eighteen months earlier, just an hour before he boarded a plane bound for São Paulo. “I bless you to be strong,” his father said, reaching into the backseat to lay hands on McLeod’s head. “I bless you with the gift of unusual strength, both spiritual and emotional.” McLeod heard the quaverin his father’s voice, felt the warm weight, the tremor, of his blessing hands. “I bless you to finally learn the truth of the things you have been taught since your early youth. I bless you to be protected …” He paused. The pause stretching out into a long silence, the silence rising like a flood. In a moment his father’s voice came up again, but quieter, huskier. “Please, God, protect our boy … your willing servant … May he know how much we love him. May he do wondrous, wondrous things … In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
    “Amen,” McLeod managed to say.
    His mother kept silent in the passenger seat. McLeod glanced into the rearview mirror and noticed her posture: she sat hunched forward, head downcast more than bowed, as dark mascara tears ran the length of her face, the gray liquid streaks reminding McLeod, inappropriately, of snail trails. His father had angled his head away from the both of them, studying the car door handle to his left. McLeod felt suddenly so bereft, so alone, even in the midst of such obvious love (or no: he felt