Chapter 1
I’m stuck next to Mason, again.
Jonathan glanced left, down the row of his brothers sharing a pew in Concord Community Church.
At the far end was Wesley, a senior in high school. Next to him sat Tyler, the handsome one. Then came Mason, a mere thirteen months older than Jonathan and one grade ahead at the same middle school. He had the most muscles of any of the brothers.
Mason slapped a hand onto Jonathan’s cheek and pushed his face until he looked forward again.
An unspoken rule dictated that the brothers sit in age order, with the youngest by Mom. They always sat like that.
To his right were the remaining brothers. Owen was two years younger and taller than Jonathan. Then came six-year-old Jonah, everybody’s favorite. But Jonah was in for a shock.
Mom and Dad had given up on a girl and said there would be no more Bosko children. But now there was Bump. That’s the private name Jonathan had given to the next baby that was only a bump on Mom’s stomach. Actually, it had grown from a bump to a basketball-sized mound. The doctor said it was another boy. Jonah was about to be demoted from the position of family darling.
When Bump arrived, there would be seven brothers. Jonathan was smack dab in the middle—three older and three younger. He was invisible, even when he was having one of his asthma attacks. No one paid attention or commented if he self-administered a blast of the medicine he carried.
Mason thumped the back of his head and whispered, “Pay attention, Runt.”
Grabbing the meat at the back of Jonathan’s arm, he pinched and didn’t let go. Mason knew how to hide the bruises he left. Maybe he learned that in his Taekwondo classes.
Jonathan closed his eyes and mouthed the word remember. Pushing beyond the pain, he saw the days inside his mother as if it were yesterday. He recalled the overwhelming peace. God’s perfect love had surrounded him.1
With his eyes closed, Jonathan wore a faint smile. Mason dug in even harder.
“Quit smiling, freak,” Mason said.
Jonathan recalled another time God had visited him, more recently. “Remember this, too, Jonathan,” he said.
By some miracle, he had been taken to see Jesus hanging on the cross, blood dripping.
This wasn’t a scene from a movie he’d watched. He had been there. It was only a minute or two, but he’d smelled the unwashed crowd and heard ravens caw. It was part of his secret life, the part where God warned him. He said Jonathan had to remember it so he could endure what was coming. He had been chosen to know what happened before everything was usually erased.
Now was the time to use that memory. Mason squeezed hard enough to leave a bruise, but Jonathan remembered how much more Jesus had suffered for him. Mason’s petty cruelty faded to a dull ache as his focus sharpened on what he had seen—the hateful crowd insulting innocent Jesus. Jonathan didn’t flinch or fight back. His mouth curved in a slight, knowing smile.2
“Mom, is John from a different family?” Mason said inside the white, twelve-passenger van on the way home from church.
Mom glanced in the rearview mirror. “What?”
“Is he biologically from you and Dad or some other family? Or maybe another planet.”
The brothers laughed. But not Jonathan.
Mason stared at Jonathan as if he were a specimen to be discussed.
“He doesn’t look like you or Dad. He’s so small, and he’s the only one who doesn’t like sports.”
Mom shook her blonde head. “He likes his cello. Not everybody has to… I don’t think you ought to be talking about your brother like that. Didn’t you hear anything the pastor said?”
“I’m just pointing out the obvious.”
Jonathan remained silent and let them talk as if he weren’t there. He knew Mason was partly right. He was different—the only one with the secret. Only Mom and maybe Dad knew about it.
“And what about his name?” Mason said.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Wesley said.
“What’s wrong with his name?” Mom said.
“It’s so plain. All our names are cool—Wesley, Tyler, Mason. Especially Mason. So where did John come from?”
“It’s to honor my father, Grandpa John. We named one of our sons after him.”
“So why did you wait until number four? I mean, if it was such an honor.”
“Shut up, Mason,” Wesley said. “Do everyone a favor and zip it.”
“I don’t know. We just did,” Mom said.
Again, Mason wasn’t far from the mark. John was a boring name. Even though his birth certificate listed him as John, he was trying to go by Jonathan. It was a slight improvement.
Mason has no idea how different I am.
“Why do we have to go to church?” Jonah said. “It’s so boring.”
“I’m sorry, Sweetie, but our house rule is that everyone goes to church until they are at least eighteen. Then you can decide for yourself,” Mom said.
This was another way Jonathan was different. He was the only brother who wanted to go to church.
“Is Dad eighteen, so he doesn’t have to go?” Jonah said.
Mom laughed. “He’s more than eighteen. He doesn’t like our new church.”
“Does he go to another church when we’re at the new one?”
“No, I don’t think so. You can ask him about it when we get home.”
Jonathan knew Mom was avoiding a tricky subject in their family.
“Dad watches soccer and football. He prays to the god of sports,” Mason said.
“Mason, please. I don’t know if Dad prays or to whom he prays. And you shouldn’t make fun of him.” Mom rounded the corner to their long gravel driveway.
“We’re home. Go ask him for yourself.”
Jonathan admired her artful dodging of the religious argument. She wanted Dad to join them at church, but she left it to Jonah and Mason to bring up the subject.
Being a Sunday, Jonathan had time to practice his cello that evening. In their shared bedroom, Tyler was stretched out, listening to music with earbuds. He and Wesley claimed the two bottom bunks, which left Mason and Jonathan in the top bunks. Jonathan pulled his cello case from inside the closet. It fully equaled his height.
“Hey, Runt. You can’t store that in there,” Tyler spoke over the music blaring from his ears.
“Wesley didn’t say that.”
Tyler pulled out one earbud. “What?”
“I said, Wes is okay with it.”
“Well, I’m not. If you want to play a ridiculous instrument, you can keep it on your bed or in the garage or something. We’ve got exactly zero room for things like that.”
Jonathan sighed. “Okay, if you say so.”3 He smiled and hefted his cello into the hallway.
After banging the case down the stairs, he put his head into the garage. Dad and Wesley were working under the hood of the old truck. He would have to resort to his least favorite choice, the screened back porch.
Pulling on a coat, Jonathan inhaled the cool air and listened to frogs croaking. Concord, Massachusetts, was not a place where cellists played outdoors in mid-April, but he had no choice. He poised to stroke the bow across the four eager strings. This was his happy place.
After tuning and practicing scales, Jonathan rubbed his fingers, then set his bow on the D string. He paused to rehearse the notes in his head. This melody reminded him of when he’d floated in the peace of God.
He gently pulled the bow across the strings. Low, sweet notes chattered, then sang into the backyard. The echoing voice was rich in vibrations and had a buttery smoothness. Even the frogs stopped to listen. It was no wonder the cello was Jonathan’s favorite instrument.
The school’s music teacher said instruments came with many squeaks that you had to play out. This old loaner cello still had some in it. He improved his playing of the measures in Bach’s Suite No. 1 with each attempt. But the heavenly remembrance the melody brought was too often interrupted by his rude squeaks.
Jonathan paused and closed his eyes. He remembered the pure, incredible love of God that had surrounded him. It was like floating in a lake of peace where nothing bad could reach him. He never wanted to forget what that was like. He wanted to live in that place.
It didn’t matter that Jonathan was the only one who could remember, or that he couldn’t talk to anyone about it. It had been real, as real as anything he’d experienced in the entire world. Remembering that love, and hopefully getting back to it, meant everything to him.
Still, it would be great if there were someone else with the same kind of memory.
1 Isaiah 26:3
2 1 Peter 2:19-21
3 Proverbs 15:1