Her Name In The Sky Part 35

"It's okay," Ms. Carpenter says kindly. "I know she wrote it. She came and talked to me about it, as I'm sure you no doubt heard from Michele."

"What did you say to her?"

Ms. Carpenter's face lifts with a small smile. "That's between us. I'm sure Baker will tell you when she's ready. But you wanted to protect her? Why?"

"Because-well, because I didn't want her to get hurt. Because I could tell how scared she was."

"And you weren't scared?"

"No, I was, but I wasn't really thinking about it. All I could think about was her."

"Why?"

"Because," Hannah says, her heart pounding with the answer, "I love her."

Sunlight illuminates the smile on Ms. Carpenter's face. "It's amazing," she says, folding her tissue over in her palm, "the things we'll do when we love another person."

Hannah swallows. "But I still don't know whether that love is good or bad."

Ms. Carpenter turns her head and squints at the altar. Her sharp, dark eyebrows draw together the way they do when she's unearthing the heart of a novel. "You mentioned Adam and Eve," she says, her eyes narrowing further and further. "Which is pretty perfect for this conversation, since they represent both love and sin."

Hannah follows Ms. Carpenter's line of sight toward the altar, but she finds she can't look steadily at it. "And how do I-how do I know which one I'm playing into?"

"Oh, I think we're always playing into both," Ms. Carpenter says easily. "That's what makes us human, right? Now look-I'm not a Creationist, Hannah. I don't believe the story of Genesis is supposed to be taken literally at all. I think humanity, at the moment-I think we're trapping ourselves in the story of Adam and Eve. That we're getting too caught up in the specifics and forgetting the larger meaning of the story."

"What's the larger meaning?"

"Well, you tell me. What do you think?"

"I don't know. I think about that story in my head and-all I see is a man and a woman and no way to reconcile who I am with who they were."

Ms. Carpenter crumples her face in sadness. "You know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think the most essential thing is that G.o.d didn't want Adam to be alone. G.o.d wanted Adam to be able to love someone. To have a relations.h.i.+p that reflected G.o.d's own love. And so he made Eve so that Adam could love her. So that Adam could be fully human. And when he made Eve, he gave her the miraculous capacity to love Adam back. Do you ever think about how crazy that is?-Our miraculous capacity to love? We don't know why, we don't know how, but our hearts and souls are drawn to others. We weren't made to be alone. We were made to love. And when we love, we automatically know G.o.d without even trying to, because G.o.d is love. If we love as he made us to love-if we love with our hearts instead of our criteria-then we simply are love."

Hannah exhales. "So-you're saying it's okay for me to love Baker?"

"That has to be your call. I can't sit here and pretend to know the mysteries of your heart. That's between you and G.o.d. If you love her, and if you know G.o.d's love by loving her, then it's up to you to decide whether that love is worth seeking."

"Okay."

"But Hannah," Ms. Carpenter says tentatively, "I can tell you that I believe-that the human heart's mysterious ability to love others is never wrong. Your heart will never ask your permission to love. It's going to love whomever it was made to love, and the best thing you can do is follow it."

"It's just-it's scary when other people don't understand that."

"Yeah," Ms. Carpenter says, nodding with sad eyes.

"I've tried to pretend like I don't care," Hannah says. "Like I'm not afraid to break the rules. But deep down...I'm really scared."

"You've been very brave so far."

"No," Hannah says.

"You have. Not just with other people, but with yourself. It takes overwhelming amounts of bravery to call yourself out on who you are."

"It wasn't bravery so much as an inevitability."

"There's nothing inevitable about it, Hannah. Some people go entire lifetimes without facing the truth about who they really are."

"But I'm still working through it," Hannah says. "I think Baker is, too. I think we're both so ashamed of our feelings." She swallows. "It's hard to love someone when loving them makes you feel ashamed of yourself."

Ms. Carpenter dips her head. Hannah releases a shaky breath and twists up the corners of her tissue. When she looks up, Ms. Carpenter is peering at the altar again.

"What are you thinking about?" Hannah asks.

Ms. Carpenter meets her eyes. "Shame," she says.

Hannah nods. "It sucks."

"Do you remember everything from the story of the Fall?" Ms. Carpenter asks. "Not just the part about picking the fruit from the tree, or about Adam and Eve sharing the fruit. Do you remember what happened afterwards?"

"G.o.d was angry with them."

"No, before that. Right after their eyes were opened."

Their eyes were opened, and they saw that they were naked...

"They covered themselves up," Hannah says.

"Exactly," Ms. Carpenter says. "They were ashamed. It's the second part of the sin."

"Their shame? But-they should have felt ashamed. They disobeyed G.o.d."

"Sure, but think about it in a bigger context. What does it mean about humanity?"

Hannah turns her hands in her lap, staring hard at the prints of her fingers. "That we shame ourselves? That we hide from G.o.d?"

"Right. Sometimes I think G.o.d reacted the way he did because he was so, so anguished that Adam and Eve hated something about themselves. They didn't realize how beautiful they were in the Garden. They didn't realize how perfect they were in their love. When their eyes were opened-when they saw that they were naked-they felt as if they had to cover themselves. They thought what G.o.d had made was shameful and embarra.s.sing and wrong. Can you imagine how that made G.o.d feel? How his heart must have ached to see them denying their beauty, their humanity, in front of him like that? It's the most heartrending part of the story."

"I'm like them," Hannah tells her. "I'm hiding from G.o.d because I'm ashamed of how he made me. I hate him for the way he made me."

"Hannah," Ms. Carpenter says softly. "I think we all hide from G.o.d sometimes. We all have things we're ashamed of. The essential thing is that you work through it."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

Ms. Carpenter turns her head from side to side, her eyes glazed over in thought. "You refuse to be imprisoned by that shame. You realize that you are good-you are good because G.o.d made you-and you claim that goodness."

Hannah s.h.i.+fts her body so that she faces the altar just the tiniest bit. The rectangular table is draped in white cloth, with sunlight streaming across its surface. Hannah lets her eyes linger on it until her vision glazes over, and now the white altar looks like a girl's hospital bed, or like a man's tomb.

"Hannah..." Ms. Carpenter says softly. "You know what I love about the story of the Fall?"

"What?"

"I love how beautifully it matches up with the story of Christ. It makes a perfect palindrome. It's what makes the Bible such a magnificent work of literature."

Hannah keeps her eyes on the altar as she listens.

"In the end," Ms. Carpenter says, "Adam and Eve's shame can't imprison us. It doesn't matter that they took the fruit from that tree and clothed themselves in garments of shame, sparking that long story of human suffering and filling the Bible with broken words-because after everything that happened, Christ, the new Word, sacrificed himself on that same tree. And after he died for us-after he showed us his love-he came back to life and shrugged off those garments of shame and death. The story of Genesis cannot trap us anymore. The tree of sin becomes the tree of salvation, those garments of shame become the garments of the Resurrection, and the garden that Eve was banished from becomes the garden Mary Magdalene walks through when she goes to Christ's tomb on the Third Day. That's the garden you go looking for, Hannah-the one that leads to the risen Christ, who saves us with his radical, unconditional love. The same love you have for Baker-the love that prompted you to carry the cross of her shame. The same love she has for you-the love that prompted her to sacrifice herself to that fall and that tree. Love ultimately wins, Hannah. Love ultimately saves."

Hannah is stunned. The air in the chapel is suddenly alight with magic. "Wow," she breathes, her eyes filling with tears as she looks at the altar.

"Hannah," Ms. Carpenter says.

"Yes?"

"You have to forgive yourself. You have to work past that harmful, murderous shame and start to love yourself. Love yourself the way G.o.d loves you. The way Baker loves you."

"I will," Hannah says.

She and Ms. Carpenter both turn to face the altar now, and the sunlight coats everything in the chapel-the altar, the Crucifix, Hannah's own body-in a beautiful, hopeful gold.

Chapter Sixteen: The Third Day.

Hours later, Hannah wakes to a hot, sunny afternoon. Joanie drives her to Zeeland Street for hash browns, and then they drive to Baker's house to take Charlie out so the Hadley's don't have to leave the hospital.

Charlie bounds up to Hannah and licks her face with unrestrained joy. She laughs against his fur and coos into his ear. "She'll be home soon," Hannah promises him, kissing his face. "She'll be home and she'll be so excited to see you."

Hannah's mom helps her try on her graduation gown that afternoon. "It looks like a circus tent," Joanie says, regarding the garment with distaste. "Like a cheap, red circus tent."

"You'll have to wear one next year," Hannah says, "and it'll look even uglier on you."

Joanie smirks before reaching for her phone. "Hold on," she says, spinning away from them, "it's Luke."

She takes the call with pink cheeks and bright eyes. "Yeah," she says into the phone, as breathless as she was when Luke first asked her out two years ago. "Yeah, I'd love to."

Hannah eats dinner with her parents by herself that night, after Joanie leaves to go out with Luke. Her mom cooks her favorite dinner-jambalaya-and surprises her with brownies for dessert. They talk about Emory and what Hannah's major might be and when she wants to start shopping for her new dorm room.

"Hannah," her mom says tentatively when they've all finished eating, "this whole thing-you and girls-it's going to be very new for your dad and me. We won't always know what we're supposed to do or say."

"I know," Hannah says, meeting her mom's eyes.

"But we want you to know," her mom continues, twisting her hands together, "that we're both praying for you to find love. With whomever that may be."

Hannah's dad takes her mom's hand. He smiles at her in his quiet way, and a lump builds in Hannah's throat.

"Thank you," she says, looking hard at them both.

"We love you," her dad says.

"I love you, too," she says, and it's never been truer.

On Sunday morning, Hannah walks into St. Mary's for the last time. The senior hallway bursts with colorful red gowns as everyone lines up for graduation. Hannah slips through the crowd, not talking to anyone, but not ducking her head, either. She takes her place in line directly behind the spot where Michele would have stood.

Her cla.s.smates look curiously at her, but she looks past them for the only people in this line whom she truly cares about. She recognizes Luke's messy curls toward the front of the line; when she turns to search behind her, she finds Clay's tall form and Wally's gla.s.ses. They both stand subdued, neither one of them talking, Clay in the middle of the line and Wally toward the back. Hannah makes eye contact with each of them. Clay nods. Wally raises his palm to say h.e.l.lo.

She doesn't see Baker in the line. She didn't expect to.

The graduation march starts to play from the gym and the seniors in line s.h.i.+ft with excitement. Then they're walking forward, each of them processing toward the end of their high school story, and then the gym doors open and Hannah opens her right hand onto the air at her side, wis.h.i.+ng Baker was there next to her.

Long after graduation has ended-long after the cameras have stopped clicking, after Joanie has stopped mocking her red gown, after her St. Mary's diploma has been flattened underneath a stack of books-Hannah stands naked in front of her bathroom mirror and looks at herself-really looks at herself-for the first time in months.

Her ash blonde hair, with the split ends tickling halfway down her back. She'll have to get a haircut before Emory. Her blue-gray eyes, always narrowed in thought, curtained by brittle eyelashes. Her small, thin lips on a mouth that eats and drinks and speaks and prays. There is so much more for her to taste in this life.

The skin on her body. Skin that has withheld and has given, skin that has absorbed alcohol thrown in violence and tears wept in redemption. Cold skin. Hot skin. Clothed skin. Naked skin.

And this neck-this neck that has leaned forward so she could pray over a chair, that has tilted back so she could see the heavens, that has turned to the side so she could hide from her demons, that has propelled her forward so she could kiss a girl.

The legs that have carried her when she wanted to separate, that have parted when she wanted to unite. The arms that have shaken when she gripped her chair with terror, that have quivered when she touched another with courage. And her hands-the hands that have white-knuckled on railings when she needed to breathe, that have folded together in chapels when she needed to pray, that have entered another when she needed to live. When she needed to love.

She sees herself, and she does not look away.

Early Monday morning, after she drops Joanie off for her last week of school, Hannah drives to Luke's mom's house. Luke sits on the front porch steps, waiting for her, a gla.s.s of water in his hand.

"Hey," he says when she walks up to sit next to him. "Have you eaten breakfast yet?"

He brings out a crate of oranges and places it on the step below their feet. They dig their thumbnails into the oranges and peel off the skin with lazy, early-morning movements, the undersides of their nails turning a yellow-orange color.

"What time do you leave?" Hannah asks.

"Probably around 10. Wally's coming at 9:30 to help me load up the car."

"And Clay?"

Luke frowns as he drops a peel on the porch. "Haven't heard from him."

The air smells like citrus. At this early hour, when it's not yet eight o'clock, the heat is gentle and balmy.

"I owe you so many apologies," Hannah says.