The leader ends her introduction by saying that we will accept exactly where we are. Sometimes thoughts are hard to put away. If they come, we will welcome them. We will acknowledge them, and then we will let them float away. We don’t need to focus on them. We will allow our minds to be as they are, and we will not judge ourselves harshly.

The last part almost makes me laugh. Right, starting this very minute, I will stop judging myself harshly. This seems likely.

I take a deep breath, trying to move past the idea of God and into our harmless little meditation session. Okay, I think. I guess this is fine. I guess it’s cool. I can try this.

Then the silence begins, and my brain is on fire.

Okay, thoughts and visions, I say to myself. I welcome you. Howdy.

Howdy howdy howdy howdy howdy.

Hello hello hello hello.

C’mon. Nothing. Think of nothing.

God! God! God! HELLO THERE, YOUNG CARSON! YOU SHALL KILL YOUR FIRSTBORN SON, OR I SHALL SMITE YOU.

I shake my head, trying to spin the thoughts out. I toss them onto the floor beside me. I open my eyes and look around. The room is very still. Aisha is very still.

A rare Billings memory floats by. Watching cartoons with Dad on Sunday mornings. He’d bundle me up in blankets on the floor in front of the television, and he’d lie on the couch, and we’d watch The Mouse and the Monster and Space Strikers, plus old-school cartoons like Road Runner. I was warm and whole and happy. Dad made me feel that way.

My throat catches. Something unwelcome trembles my body, a wave of cold and static and tingle. I close my eyes tighter, shake my head.

You’re free to go, the voice says.

No. No. No.

No.

Let the thought be?

Okay. Fine. I’ll let the thought be.

You’re free to go, says the voice. A male voice.

We are in the kitchen. They are, anyway. Mom’s head is buried in her hands, and she is making cat noises, it sounds like. Dad is saying words. I am holding a red ball. I stand in the hallway alone. It’s playtime. Dad said he’d come home and we’d play in the backyard, but he’s late. It’s too dark to go out, but I’ve been waiting up. I’ve built a fort in my bedroom out of pillows. I fell asleep under the fort, but then the door slammed and voices shouted and I came out to see, to listen, and Mom is on the kitchen floor and and I am confused.

“You’re free to go,” Dad says, and to my three-year-old brain, she seems to be meowing.

I hold the ball between my hands. I try to crush it. I can’t. The harder I push, the harder it pushes back. Mom’s wailing hurts my ears. It makes my chest feel like it’s going to cave in. I want to make it stop. I need to make it stop. Moms are big people. They are not cats. They are not supposed to wail.

Daddy? Mommy? Did I say those words? I think I did. But no one heard. No one came.

Then the world ripped in half.

Her: “I’m taking Carson. We’ll leave in the morning. Is that what you want?”

Him: “What I want is for you to leave me the fuck alone.”

Her: “You’re a disgrace. You’re a failure of a man.”

Him: “Tell me about it.”

Her: “You’re losing your son.”

Him: “Bound to happen.”

My throat feels so tight. I don’t want to think about this. I never goddammit want to think about this why did you make me think of this stop it stop it stop it!

I jump up and run out of the room. I swing open the church door and sprint to Aisha’s car. This was a big mistake. Aisha will come out soon, and we’ll say we’re sorry but we can’t stay. I tried and I failed.

Minutes go by. A lot of them. I check my cell phone. No messages. Why would I have messages? I never do. I turn and look out into the distance, this mountain range with just a hint of snow on the top, framed by a juicy blue sky that makes me thirsty. Across the street there’s a bar, and I get this crazy idea again. Maybe just one drink? Maybe they’d serve me?

I stare at the bar until my eyes blur and there are two of them, two bars, side-by-side, drifting in and out of each other as I focus and unfocus my eyes. This is how it starts, probably. This is how I become my destiny. My dad. My granddad. A drunk. I make myself turn away.

And then I turn back toward it. I can do this and no one will know. I’ll sit in a bar in Bumfuck, Wyoming, and drink a beer like an adult who is free to do whatever the hell he wants, because my dad is dying, and my mother doesn’t care, and my best friend is better than I am. Why not?

I walk to the bar, and again I’m two people. One is saying, What are you doing, Carson? You know better than this. The other is saying, One, shut the fuck up. I’m living my life.

Inside, the bar is dark and somber. There’s a guy at the far end, nursing a beer. His grizzled, pruned-up face makes him look maybe a hundred and fifty, give or take ten years. A bartender in overalls sits on a stool behind the bar, reading a newspaper.

He looks up as I approach. He doesn’t smile; he doesn’t frown. He is not the kind of person who rubs your shoulders when they find out your dad is dying.

“Can I have a beer?” I mumble.

“Got ID?” he barks.

“C’mon, man,” I say.

He gives me the finger. “Out,” he says.

There’s something really depressing about being given the finger and turned away at the world’s bleakest bar. Like, I’m not even good enough to be a miserable patron there. That’s how it feels as I walk back toward the church.

The meditation is still not over. I sit on the hood of the car. The minutes pass slowly, murderously slowly, and I need Aisha now. I need to make fun of this bullshit. More minutes pass. Then more. An unbearable number of minutes. I count to 336 by fourteens — up and then back down again. It doesn’t help.

By the time Aisha comes traipsing out of the meditation area, I want to tear her apart.

“Was that a lot of fun for you?” I ask, seething in my gut.

She shrugs. “It was interesting, actually.”

I laugh. Right. Sitting in silence in a church classroom, listening to God. Real interesting.

She stretches her arms up. “I liked it. Sorry if you didn’t. It’s okay. It’s not for everyone.”

I laugh harder. “Oh my God. I know you’re not going to get all holier than thou on me, because I will seriously …”

She raises her left eyebrow. “Seriously what?”

I don’t know why Aisha makes me so pissed sometimes. “Come on, Aisha. You’re always making fun of the Jesus.”

“What does meditating have to do with the Jesus?”

“Are you going crazy? Is everyone going crazy? Religion is bullshit. God doesn’t exist. We believe in the Porcupine of Truth.”

“I agree,” she says. “Religion’s the worst. This isn’t religion, Carson.”

“Um. Meditating means ‘listening to God.’ God is religion. You’re out of your mind.”

“You don’t have to be religious to meditate, Carson. I’m not even sure you need to believe in God. I don’t think I do.”

I put my hands over my head. I don’t meditate for the same reason I don’t pray to God. Similarly, I don’t have long, one-sided phone conversations with a dial tone. It’s a waste of time and energy and anyone being honest with themselves knows that.

“That is the dumbest thing I ever heard,” I say. “So you’re communicating with something that you know doesn’t exist?”

“I can’t explain it, but it’s not like that at all,” she says.

I’m disappointed in Aisha. I thought she was this freethinker who came up with her own answers, and now I see that I misjudged her.

“Okay then. If you say so,” I say.

As we drive the Neon back to the Leffs’ place, Thomas and Laurelei ask Aisha about her experience, and I feel more alone than ever.

I flash on an image of young me, at three, sitting on the front stoop of our Billings home. Minutes before Mom and I left.