"Glory, glory, hallelujah!" I fell to my knees. "Glory, glory, hallelujah." I began to holler the feeling of glory, the glory of being alive. My voice cracked on the highs. "Glory, glory, hallelujah."

The music up in the choir continued, but the people in the pews had gone silent. I knelt down three-quarters of the way up the aisle, and hung my head. I stayed that way for a long forever moment, until my Dad came and touched my arm, reached and pulled me to my feet.

The watchfires, through the scratchiness in my eyes, I tried to see him, see Jesus, see the spirit of truth that pulled on my heart. But it was all black, nothingness. I walked with Dad down the aisle, out the door, into the bright shine of Sunday, my thoughts filled with Rani's sister Jael and when she'd gotten her star tattoos on the side of her abdomen, red welts lined with black to hold in the color, and I slipped, "Dad," I said, "do I know you?"

And Dad, he looked at me, curious wrinkles on his fat face, one eye squished more than the other from that small stroke he'd had just two years after the Mountain Dew accident, the semi that had fucking smashed his strength. That one eye teared, and a drop slipped down his red cheek, red from years of Mom's good cooking and his love of sweets. "Son."

We got in the car, left Mom to her revelations, she'd get a ride home, and we drove, drove through the hollow, along Vadir's stream, through the crazy concrete tunnel with the graffiti from the new kids, influenced by the Internet and psychedelic drugs… we drove, got going on those mountain curves, kept driving until Dad pulled onto a dirt road and the trees failed to open to sky and we parked and walked into the forest, deep enough in until we came to the old tree with two trunks and a bench-like seat scooped as if by hand out of the wood. We sat, and Dad hummed that old song of Grandpa's, "It's All Right, it's all right, you'll see, tomorrow's a new day." I cried into his shoulder, I haven't done that since I was seven. Dad held me to him, letting me leak snot on his shirt, his Sunday clothes.