Page 117 of Bless This Hot Mess

“Of course she’s technically still alive,” Suwarna saidfaintly, clutching her clipboard like a life raft, though she too looked a little rattled. “I never signed off on her death certificate. You’re welcome.”

“E-L!” Carrington yelled, and then they were all moving at once.

They hit her like a wave. Arms around shoulders, around waist, around neck; somebody’s hair in her mouth, somebody’s perfume in her nostrils, somebody’s cowboy boot on her toe. It didn’t matter. For a moment, she was submerged in the human heart, and it felt like the first breath after being held under too long.

“You’re crushing my bangs,” she managed, face mashed against Suwarna’s shoulder padded blazer.

“Your fringe is indestructible,” Carrington said, voice thick. “Unlike my heart. You disappeared! I almost wrote a country ballad.”

“I thought you were raptured,” Rebekkah sobbed, mascara beginning to water paint her face into a raccoon. “And that I was left behind. Again.”

“I knew she wasn’t raptured,” Ronald said. “No shade, boss, but if anyone was gonna get beamed up first, it’d be Suwarna. She has pre-packed luggage.”

“True,” Suwarna admitted. “Flashlight with extra batteries, passports, three changes of underwear, laminated copy of my performance reviews, a list of questions about the God Particle. But this isn’t about me.”

Emma-Lou laughed, a raw, unexpected sound, and her knees nearly gave out from the relief of it. She pulled back enough to look at them all properly, “I’m so sorry. I am so, so sorry I left. I… I thought if I stayed, I’d make it worse.”

Rebekkah stepped back, hands on hips, tragedy and fury and joy all jostling for space on her face. “You think vanishing into thin air didn’t make it worse? Where were you?”

Emma-Lou flinched, then squared her shoulders. “That’s why I’m here. I have to tell you everything. All of it. No more lies. No more… laundering the truth.”

The last word came out like a cough.

“Are you…” Japheth’s voice wobbled. “Are you really back? You’re not a dream? Because I had a dream last night where Jesus showed up in a rainbow tracksuit and explained gay sex to me, and I’m still trying to work all of that out. Are you real? Is this reality?”

“I’m really back,” she said. “And you deserve the truth.”

Suwarna cleared her throat, eyes narrowing in a way that meant her inner Vice President of Compliance had slid into the driver’s seat. “Then let’s sit. No one should confess standing up. Although it’s better for your blood pressure. But let’s be comfortable in the uncomfortable conclusion.”

They picked their way carefully over the threshold of the ruined station, into the lobby. The smell of smoke still clung to everything; under it, the faint ghost of burnt coffee and old potpourri sachets. The once-shiny, exploded Teletubby white tiles were cracked and soot-streaked, and the potted Ficus in the corner had been reduced to a blackened stick.

The reception desk, scorched but stubbornly upright, became their confessional. Emma-Lou perched on the edge, hands clasped between her knees. The Gregorian hold music, once endlessly looping from the ceiling speakers, was mercifully silent now. In its place, there was only the distant hiss of the wind moving through the skeletal building, like a congregation whispering in wonderment.

“Okay, here goes,” Emma-Lou said, taking off her hat, realizing the time for all distractions was over. “My parents were not just the sweet Christian radio couple everyone thought they were.”

“Well, we figured,” Carrington said gently. “Your mammawore leather pants that one time. No one that hot is completely pure.”

“No,” Emma-Lou said, and a ghost of a smile flickered before it extinguished. “They loved Jesus. They loved this town. They also… laundered money.”

“We guessed that,” Suwarna made a sound that, in any other circumstance, would have been called a bark of impatience, “but for who?”

“For people who were… less concerned with my parents’ reputation or how dangerous it could be and more concerned with moving large quantities of unreported cash,” she said delicately. “It started back in the eighties, before I was really involved at the station or old enough to understand. The station was struggling, even then. There weren’t enough advertisers. Some guys made them an offer–big donations in envelopes, in exchange for receipts that made it look like charitable sponsorships.”

“Like the Ferraris,” Rebekkah said softly.

“Like the Ferraris, eventually,” Emma-Lou admitted. “But it started long before them. And my parents told themselves it was… justified. They said, ‘We’re keeping the Lord’s message on the air. We’re tithing our cut to missions. We’re helping the community get saved.’ They were really good at finding scripture to tape over any cracks in their never-ending rationalization.”

“Praise the Lord and pass the shell corporation,” Carrington nodded knowingly.

“They didn’t see another way,” Emma-Lou said. “Until they did. CSIS started sniffing around…”

“CSIS?” Ronald repeated, eyebrows lifting. “Like Canadian spy spies?”

“Yes,” Emma-Lou nodded, “the Canadian Security IntelligenceService. Not as glamorous as in the movies, but they do have very nice stationery. They approached my parents, offered them a deal. Help track the people using you to move their dirty money, and we’ll protect you. Witness protection. New life. New names. They’d be gone, but alive.”

She stared at her hands. The soot was already starting to make little half-moons under her nails. “They said no at first. Then they had a fight in the kitchen that lasted three days. Then they sat me down and told me they were going on a trip to Bermuda, and if they didn’t come back, I was to make sure WWJD stayed on the air and that I stayed… good.”

“So is the Bermuda Triangle real or not?” Rebekkah wondered aloud.