Chapter 11

Dana slept in longer than she intended—the sun was fully up for her morning run. When she got back, Thea was getting ready for church. “Are you coming, dear?”

It would, given last night, be politic to come—the look on her step-mother’s face certainly suggested it. Even her father was going. But—

“I’m sorry, Thea, I’ve a lot of homework, and got hardly any done yesterday.”

Thea sniffed.

Clara, in her church dress, took one look at Dana and said, “Ew, stinky,” waving away the air from Dana’s sweats.

Dana rolled her eyes and went upstairs, Thea’s soft, sharp rebuke of her sister following her.

After another shower, Dana sat down at her desk. Good stuff first, she decided, to get in the groove; she took out her math book.

Around the time the church party was due back, her phone rang. It was Sandy.

“Oh. Hi, Sandy.” Dana swallowed the disappointment of not hearing Nikki’s voice. “What’s up?”

“Did you really mean that?” Sandy didn’t sound pleased.

“I’m sorry?”

“About the references—you really have them?”

Oh, right—that stupid Bible debate. “Word.”

“Can I borrow them?”

“Any time.”

“Can I come over now?”

“Uh—yeah, I guess.”

“I’ll be right there,” Sandy said, and went silent.

Dana looked at her phone—call ended. “Ooo-kay.” She carefully put it down on her desk.

Dana spent a couple minutes pulling things together: a book on what the Bible says about homosexuality, bookmarks in relevant entries in her grandfather’s Biblical commentary, a couple articles printed from the Web. After a moment’s thought, she double-checked that she had the URLs for the articles. Downstairs, she heard her family come home. Half a minute later, the doorbell rang.

Dana thumped downstairs just as Thea answered the door. It was Sandy, dressed in Sunday best—a white dress, no less. She looked, if not exactly nervous, not at ease. Dana made quick introductions.

“Sandy, my stepmother. She’s here,” she said to Thea, “to borrow some stuff.”

“For school,” Sandy added.

“Pleased to meet you,” Thea murmured.

“Come on up,” Dana said, and led the way to her room.

“What happened to your face?” Sandy asked as they walked upstairs.

“I got into an argument with the briar out back,” Dana said. When Sandy didn’t respond to her straight line, Dana added, “We declared it a draw.” Which she also didn’t respond to. It was unnerving.

In her room, she showed Sandy what she’d collected. “This is just an overview, a start. You can borrow these. Not the commentary, though.”

Sandy looked at the thick black volume. “It’s a little big to carry.”

Dana smiled. “That too. But, it was my grandfather’s. I don’t loan it.”

“The Unitarian minister?”

Dana nodded. She still missed Gramps.

“This,” Sandy hefted the book and the folder of printouts, “should be enough for a start.” It was hard to read Sandy’s eyes through her glasses. After a moment, she seemed to make a decision. “What about that other passage, about those who won’t inherit the kingdom of God?”

Dana blinked at the change of subject. “From Corinthians?”

“I Corinthians 6:9”

Dana reached for her Bible and found the passage. “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sodomites, nor male temple prostitutes, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners.”

“Well then,” Sandy said. “Sodomites seems clear.”

“In that translation,” Dana said. “Let’s find out what those words meant in the original Greek.” She thought she knew what the commentaries said about it, but it was easier to look them up. Besides, Sandy looked like she’d trust that more than her memory.

“There—see? At the time of the Apostles, the word didn’t mean ‘sodomite’—it did later, but at that time, it was more ‘loose’ or ‘profligate.’ Not the gay, just the promiscuous.”

Sandy frowned at the book, but said nothing beyond, “Hmm.”

After two moments had stretched to three, Dana asked, “Why—that is—what—”

“What brought this on?” Sandy smiled—a thin smile. “The sermon this morning was on the Corinthians passage, and about people who twist scripture to their own ends. It—well, I didn’t know what to think about that, after what you’d said. So I decided to take you at your word and look into it. I also have Strong’s from the church library, and a couple translations.”

“That should be a good start.” Strong’s commentary was too fundamentalist for Dana’s taste, but Sandy had to make up her own mind.

Sandy nodded. Then she looked at Dana full on for the first time. “So what do you believe?”

“Love is everything,” Dana said without thinking. “Without that, there is nothing—and nothing is more important.” Off Sandy’s startled look, she closed her eyes and recited, “A certain lawyer stood up and tested Jesus, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?’ The lawyer answered and said, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself”.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have answered rightly; do this and you will live’.” She opened her eyes. “Prologue to the Parable of the Good Samaritan.”

“But what about the ten commandments?”

“If Jesus himself said that love was sufficient,” Dana said carefully, “I’m going to take him at his word.”

Sandy looked closely at her face, as if searching for something. Dana waited, wondering whether she hoped Sandy found it or no. Either way, suddenly Sandy relaxed.

“I’ll have to think about that,” she said, not entirely happily. “And pray.”

“Of course,” Dana said. Which didn’t seem sufficient acknowledgment. As she showed Sandy out, Dana told her, “It took a lot of courage to come over. Thank you.” Most people, Gramps had told her, feared looking at a belief, let alone questioning it.

“Oh, no—I knew you wouldn’t try anything.”

Dana blinked.

“Everyone knows you only want cheerleaders—I knew I was safe.” And with that, Sandy turned and walked away.

Dana watched Sandy till she turned onto the sidewalk, then closed the door slowly. This really was a weird town. Safe from what? She shook her head to clear it.

Only as she walked upstairs did she notice that word was out about her being out—if you could call such half-assed hairsplitting being out.

Dana did homework until an hour before she was to pick up Nikki, when she started worrying about what to wear. And then remembered—she was still scratched up. Slightly frantic, she went to the kitchen for an assist from her stepmother. What she got was a blocked shot.