The Discomfort of Evening

by Lucas Rijneveld

My sister and I wake up with black stripes on our faces and Dad’s Sunday suit all creased. I sit up in bed at once. If Dad catches us, he’ll get the Authorized Version out of the drawer in the dining room table and read to us from Romans: ‘If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.’ With that same mouth we kissed each other last night. Hanna pushed her tongue inside me as she was looking for words she didn’t possess herself. You can refuse the guilt of sin entry to your heart but never to your home. That’s why when he comes to drum us out of bed, Dad will quickly find out that we’ve invited this sin in, the way we once let in a stray cat. We put it in the walnut basket behind the wood stove and fed it milk and crusts until it grew stronger. Neither Hanna nor I is going to be saved now.