II.
Next Glee practice, Kurt looks even worse. His eyes are puffy, and there are bags under them, and Kurt's pale and everything, but he looks like a vampire. He's perched up on the highest platform of the music room, wedged practically into a pile of unused chairs, not looking at anybody, not saying anything. How he managed to pull on all those layers and tie his scarf and everything is beyond me. When I'm upset it takes me like five tries to tie my shoelaces.
Mom says Burt's not doing any better.
Kurt is completely and totally unapologetic about helping Coach Sylvester ban spirituality from Glee. He doesn't seem to care when Rachel complains or Santana snaps or Mercedes tries gently to meet his eyes when she speaks. Nothing anyone says seems to penetrate the misery that's wrapped around him like one of his huge scarves, and he's staring someplace nobody's been.
The ban on spirituality songs does throw a wrench in my agreement with Grilled Cheesus, but since Our Savory Lord already granted us the football win, I think it's a done deal. At least, I hope I don't have to worry about it. God can't be that picky.
And then it hits me.
I've got God in my backpack. God is good, right? He won us the first game of the season, and just yesterday He let me touch Rachel's boobs, and they were even better than I thought, all soft and warm and I even got to squeeze them a little while she kissed me and it. Was. Amazing. I'm distracted for a minute, looking over at Rachel, who's all covered up today in a turtleneck. I didn't think her boobs were that great at first, but man, that was before I touched them. They're great. She's great. Football and girl-boobs are two of the best things in the world, no doubt.
But family's definitely up there, too, and I know Kurt keeps saying he doesn't want prayer, but I think this is one prayer even he wouldn't mind. Family means just as much to him as it does to me. As I stare at him along with the rest of Glee, I remember what he said when we were picking out clothes for my dinner with the Fabrays, and man, that was a long time ago, but I remember what he said about his mom, about how he'd open up the cabinets just for the smell of her perfume.
I think about my dad's chair, and how for so long, nobody else sat there — nobody, until Burt did. I wonder if Kurt's dad has a chair, and my fingers flex on my knees when I think about a vase full of ashes where a father used to be.
If God does work like a genie, then I've only got one wish left, and it needs to be the right one. Forget that quarterback stuff. Sam's doing a good enough job, and I'll have time to deliver God's message once I make sure my family's okay.
In the empty locker room after Glee, I bow my head over My Cheesy Lord and press my hands together and pray, and when Puck walks in and asks, I can smile when I tell him, "I prayed for Kurt and his dad, too."
"Yeah?"
I nod with firm enthusiasm, secure in the knowledge that Grilled Cheesus will take care of the Hummels just like he's taking care of me. "I prayed that God'll bring Kurt and his dad together again."
"Cool," Puck says, and I spend practice feeling pretty good about myself.
-o-O-o-
But my mom is sobbing when I get home from school after football. She's just sitting on the kitchen stool, crying her eyes out. Panic washes over me like needles. I practically trip over my huge feet trying to rush over to her. She has her face in her hands, but her arms come back up around me when I wrap my arms around her.
"Mom? Mom!" I try to rub her back the way she does for me when I'm upset. "Mom, what's the matter, what happened?" My words are running together and I feel tears stinging my eyes too, just from seeing her worked up like this. Mom almost never cries in front of me, no matter what, even when our house was almost foreclosed or she lost her job at the gas station or she had to take three part-time jobs to pay our mortgage because no one was hiring full-time.
Mom looks up at me, her face splotchy and red.
"Burt died," she chokes out, and starts sobbing again.
"No! Mom, but that's, that's not—" I raise my hands and stare at her, feeling the taste of something thin and sharp at the back of my mouth. "I made a deal with God. It wasn't, it wasn't gonna— everything was gonna be— that can't be right. That's not right. We were gonna be— so that's not—"
"Oh, honey, sometimes..." Mom can barely get the words out. Her eyes look like broken glass. "Sometimes we can pray all we like, but God does what's in His plan." Her shoulders shake and she spits out, "Damned, stupid plan!"
"What about Kurt?"
Mom shudders, wiping her wet cheeks. "I told him he's welcome to stay with us as long as he likes. I took care of everything at the hospital. He said he wanted to spend one last night at home."
"Mom..."
"It's not fair," she whimpers, her face scrunched up tight as a fistful of paper. "Just when we find a little slice of happiness, just when we..."
"I'm still here. It's okay. It'll be okay," I promise her, wrapping my arms around her again. She's still crying, this horrible sound like her heart's coming apart in her chest. I stare at the faded kitchen wallpaper over the top of her frizzy hair, and the dingy scratches on the design blur into one gray smear. My mouth is open, like any second now, something will fall out that fixes everything.
Nothing does. I don't even know what I'm mumbling as we hold on to each other. I feel like I did when Quinn got kicked off the Cheerios and all I could do was rub her back, cold sweat dripping down my neck as my hand twitched against her shoulder-blades and I promised things I knew I had no way of making come true.
God is supposed to be good, I keep thinking, dazed. God is supposed to be good.