Free Meteors in August by Melanie Rae Thon

suffer, though, dying slowly from a cancer of the stomach. Her three daughters all married young to escape her house, but her only son stayed to the end, enduring her scorn. She fumed when he drank and refused to eat if he came home late with a pocketful of money. She berated him even as he carried her to the toilet.
    In the photograph she is young and gaunt with lank hair and bony, unforgiving shoulders. Alive or dead, it did not matter. My father faced her daily judgment.
    I groped down the hall, eyes half shut. Daddy was already in the bathroom. The door was wide open. He leaned over the sink, his face inches from the mirror while he shaved. He pulled the razor down one side and then the other, his stroke quick and long. He rinsed his face, dabbed at the bloody spots with toilet paper, then went after his head with a pair of scissors. He lifted one clump of hair at a time, snipping close to the scalp. His hair was coarse, the scissors dull: he had to work them hard, and I saw the back of his neck turning redder and redder.
    Nobody looked as if he belonged in church less than my father did. His good suit was worn to a shine at the elbows and the knees, and was too small besides. He kept squirming to find a comfortable way to sit in his pants. Even when he managed to sit still, there was something awkward about the way his big hands fell across his lap and dangled between his knees.
    Reverend Piggott rose in his pulpit. His body was little more than a rack to hang his robes, but he had a face full of fire when he said, “Each time a child of God falls away, we all suffer. The day Freda Graves left this church, I felt as if one of my limbs had been torn from my body, as if my own child had been ripped from my womb. Yes, I tell you truly, that is how deeply I grieved. A great fever raged in her for days. I thought, surely this will show her the folly of her ways, but it did not, and she cursed the good doctor and sent him from her house with foul words and accusations.” I spotted Dr. Ben four rows in front of us; his thin white hair curled over the collar of his black jacket. I imagined his clean, soap-smelling hands on Freda Graves’s burning forehead. He watched her as he had watched me while I tossed in the heat of a fever: his gray eyes watery and strangely opaque, his head shaking in a way that made you wonder if you were doomed to pass from this world to the next before the day was done.
    â€œI prayed for two days and two nights, did not sleep or eat or speak to anyone save God. Our sister is possessed of an evil delusion; I hoped our Lord would show me how to carry this lamb back to the fold.” The idea of Reverend Piggott, that rail in the wind, trying to shoulder the massive weight of Freda Graves made me cover my mouth. “Freda Graves is practicing a dangerous kind of worship right here in this town.”
    The reverend scanned the congregation. We held our breath; a single thought pulsed down the pews: What kind of worship?
    â€œWhat kind of worship, you ask? The most tempting of all evils, an evil that wears a holy mask. Freda Graves believes she is a prophet; she has opened the doors of her own house as a church. Every Tuesday night she commits heresy just a few blocks from this hallowed ground. She has lured away the weakest among us; now she will seduce the strong. Her followers claim to speak in tongues. They lay hands on one another. Oh, my friends, I am afraid, for the devil speaks in his own tongue.”
    Reverend Piggott’s bald scalp glistened. He raised his fists to Heaven, and his fragile body stiffened beneath his heavy robes.
    â€œDo not venture near this woman. Even the blessed are not immune to trickery. She preys on the needy; she snatches tired souls. Oh, we cannot afford to rest. Do not stop by the side of the road though your feet are weary. Do not think that you can save her; she is beyond reason. Professionals must handle this matter.”
    I wondered what he