He’s as afraid as I am, I realize.
Father Michael sits heavily down at the Formica table, setting the car keys in front of him and resting his hands between his legs. He and Rob exchange a knowing glance.
“You wrote the op-ed,” I say to Rob.
He leans against the sink, closes his eyes briefly.
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t take it anymore,” he says. He swallows. “Because when Jeremy died he was on his way to see me and I knew someone had to say something.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No…”
“I tried … hard to get Jeremy out.” Rob doesn’t look at me. He’s staring at his hands now. “But he was so twisted up about it, he just checked out. That’s how deep The Project gets in you and how much a mind fuck it all is … poor fucking bastard.”
“Nothing got Jeremy. He was sick—”
“He was vulnerable.”
“How did he even know to look for you?”
Father Michael clears his throat. “We assume he heard it from Bea.”
“No way. Jeremy died before Bea left,” I say, and Rob and Father Michael exchange a look; they clearly believe otherwise. “That’s what Lev said…” I trail off weakly, hating the way they look at me when I say it. I turn to Rob. “I have never seen anything happen in The Unity Project like what you wrote for SVO—”
“That’s because Lev hasn’t shown it to you yet.” He turns his head to the window over the sink and I follow his gaze to the gloomy gray sky outside. “And by the time he shows it to you … how long have you been in, Lo?” I don’t answer him. I don’t have to answer him. I cross my arms. “I was the first to leave. It wasn’t easy then. It’s only gotten harder.”
“He asked you to go.”
Rob’s whole face turns to stone.
“Is that what he said?”
“Yes.”
“What else did he tell you about me?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not here to explain myself to you. You tell me what you think you know, and I’ll weigh it against what I do.” I gesture to them both. “How do you two know each other?”
Father Michael speaks: “Rob was part of my church.”
“I was there when Lev came.” Rob runs his hand through his short hair. “And Father Michael was there when I left Lev. Thank God.”
“Was it your idea to send the Bible Tracts?”
“I started sending them after I saw the shape Rob was in when he got out,” Father Michael says, and Rob shifts uncomfortably.
“And I didn’t get kicked out,” Rob says. “I left. I ran.”
“Why did you join?”
Rob clenches his jaw, clenches his fists. There’s some kind of fight happening inside him. I glance at Father Michael, who watches Rob with a tenderness that reminds me of parent and child, though Rob can’t be that much younger than he is.
“Lev has a way of seeing people,” Father Michael finally answers for him.
Rob laughs bitterly. “He sure as hell saw me.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “We had this … my dad beat on me when I was a kid. And when I say he beat on me, I mean bad. I couldn’t—I put it so deep inside me, I couldn’t—”
“You don’t have to say it,” Father Michael says.
“Lev saw it. Nobody else saw it. He told me—” Rob’s voice cracks and he takes a shuddering breath in. “He was the first person in my life to tell me I was worth something. And the moment he did that”—Rob snaps his fingers—“he had me. He had us all.”
“Right,” I say. “I’m just amazed he finds the time to abuse everyone in between running The Unity Centers, the outreach programs, the fundraisers—”
“He doesn’t do that. Casey does all that, but he’s fucking got her too. I need to be clear with you, Lo: when I wrote about the stolen money, confession as collateral, all-night meetings and the—fire—” He closes his eyes. “I’m talking about Lev. The Unity Project was my family and they’re beautiful people. They just wanted to do some good on this fuck of an earth.”
“And if it was as bad as you say it is, why would they stay?”
He goes quiet, still, for such a long time. Finally, he turns from the window and crosses the room as though to leave and then turns back. He exhales.
He lifts his shirt.
Father Michael winces, though this can’t be the first time he’s seeing it. I fumble back against the counter, my hand flying to my mouth. Lev warned me, but I wasn’t prepared. The scars across Rob’s body are a crude imitation of Lev’s, the cigarette burns, lines, the mass of puckered skin on the left side. The skin is so traumatized, so red. It’s not fresh, but it’s like it hasn’t accepted the wounds, still grappling with their violation.
He tried to make himself in my image.
I stare up at Rob, my throat too tight to swallow.
“He cleanses with water. He punishes with fire and the moment you sin or waver, or make any mistake in his eyes, in The Project, you have to be corrected. If he decides you haven’t learned, he makes you walk the path of his faith.” He lowers his shirt, and there’s no relief in it because the image is seared into my mind. “For whom God loves, he corrects.”
“You did that to yourself—”
Before I can finish he’s close to me, in my face, angry.
I flinch.
“Rob,” Father Michael warns.
“No,” Rob says, and it’s all he says, before moving away.
“Nobody would—nobody would just stay there and take that—”
“Oh really?” He whirls around. “Because I did. I did it over and over again and I wasn’t the only one. You come into The Project, this world, and it loves you, and God loves you and He’ll keep loving you, in spite of yourself. And what’s this”—he gestures to his abdomen—“in exchange for that love, Lo? It’s nothing. And every time I’d start to doubt, I’d watch people be held down and burned and when it was over, you know what they’d say?”
“What?” I whisper.
“‘Thank you, Lev.’ And when you see your friends, your family, saying thank you like they mean it—maybe you’re the broken one. Maybe you just weren’t burned enough—”
He starts to cry then, burying his face in his hands. Father Michael stands and makes his way to Rob, grips his shoulder tight, grounding him. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
When Rob finally lowers his hands, his face is damp, flushed.
“And despite all that, you’re changing people’s lives, you’re doing God’s work and you’re making this world a better place and you can see it becoming a better place—how can you argue with those results? And at the end of all of it, you know what he’s promising? He’s promising paradise. That the sinners of this world will burn themselves out and all that will be left is The Unity Project. I didn’t want to be left behind. I’ve been left behind my whole life. And that’s why I stayed. That’s why they all stay.”