Page 4 of The Pact

“I can’t. She’s so delicate, I’m scared I’ll break her.”

My sister smiles. “I learned that babies are way tougher than they look, Ausra. Go a bit harder at it, trust me.”

I do as I’m told and after a few harder pats, the baby burps loudly making us both giggle. “Atta girl,” my sister says and I finally cuddle my niece, inhaling that intoxicating baby scent that I can never have enough of. “Let’s put Skye down for a nap. Me and you can have a snack. Go on.”

I pass her the baby and follow my sister to the kitchenette attached to her living room. As she opens the fridge, I notice that she’s got very little more than the two cans of diet soda she takes out. I’m glad I managed to get here today.

“Hey Mc,” I begin, opening one of the pockets in my backpack and taking out a roll of dollar bills. “I got some new customers and I thought Skye could do with some new clothes. She’s growing fast.”

My sister doesn’t reach out for the money. “I don’t want to take your money, Ausra.”

I’m ready to argue with her. “The money isn’t for you, it’s for Skye. And if I want to buy some stuff for my niece, you can’t prevent me from doing it.”

McKayla sighs, not meeting my eyes. We both know that she needs that money. Food stamps only go so far and a little baby needs so many things.

“Please Mc, take them.”

Her hand shakes when I push the bills into it. “You’ve worked so hard for it, sis. It’s not right,” she objects.

Yes, I’ve been using every spare minute writing essays for the guys on the football team and the cheerleaders. I’d get a part time job but my parents would never let me. I hope that I’ll have more freedom when I’m done with high school, but right now selling homework is the only thing I can get away with without leaving my gilded cage.

“Thank you, baby sis. As soon as I find a daycare for Skye, I’ll look for a job. The money I got from grandma’s presents has run out with rent and all the bajillion medical bills I have to pay after having the baby. I owe you big.”

I hug her tight. “Don’t even mention it, I wish I could do more. But maybe Mom and Dad will come ‘round.” I don’t even believe my own words.

She smiles but there’s no mirth whatsoever on her tired face. “Yeah, right. Do you know something I don’t? Is enlightenment real after all?”

I sigh. She’s totally right. “Dad will never forgive me for bringing shame to his house and ruining his reputation. Especially now that he’s in talks for a segment on that national talk show. You know that me having Skye totally ruined his image as a pastor.”

“I don’t get it, Mc. Why did he become so strict? He and Mom were never easy going but I swear they’re getting worse every day. I hear what people say at school. He isn’t even a Christian pastor, so why is he so obsessed with this new moral code?”

McKayla’s laugh is filled with bitterness. “The only god he recruits new believers for is himself. I wish he never started this obsession with religion. And you know, he might have graduated from an Ivy League university in philosophy thanks to a scholarship but he wasn’t born wealthy. The more money he makes with his ‘motivational speeches’ the more intransigent and callous he becomes. And he doesn’t practice what he preaches. When he went back to Texas after college, he had nothing but the shirt on his back. He seems to have forgotten that, now that he’s becoming a celebrity.”

I know my sister isn’t talking just out of bitterness, she’s right that Dad has changed since we came to California.

“I wish he never set out to be a spiritual leader, he wanted to be a motivational speaker. A life coach of some sort. You’re younger than me and maybe you can’t remember when he began working with some non-profit organizations as a keynote speaker and slowly started to make a name for himself thanks to his inspirational quotes and the way his audiences responded to him. He used to bring us to some of his conferences and back then I didn’t understand much of what he said. But I saw how people were always ready to follow him.”

“Yeah, I can’t remember those times but Mom always talks about his raw charisma and how he draws people in. One of Dad’s favorite new jokes is that if he hadn’t found philosophy, car sales would have been his calling.” I tell her.

“I know. I listened to that podcast he did about three months ago, one lady at the hospital was listening to it when I had Skye. The truth is, Ausra, that it was better when we were in Texas and he was traveling all over the country, holding speeches for corporate events for that company that he used to work for when we were little. He even met Mom during one of his travels.”

“Yeah, I know the story. How they married so quickly and how he started to gain a following around the time you were born and decided to start his own company.”

McKayla sighs. “Yeah, back then he was still ok. I think he began to change when his followers increased and he got his own channel streaming for that famous online platform. When people started paying money to hear him speak.”

I agree with my sister. “You’re right. When he hired Mr. Greggs as a consultant, things changed and so did Dad. Mr. Greggs wanted to make Dad a billionaire, he still encourages him to aim higher and higher. He keeps finding him sponsors and new and more important venues and the ranks of his followers are growing faster than ever.”

“Yeah, right!” McKayla scoffs. “The church thing was supposed to be a tax scam, nothing else. In Texas churches get all sorts of tax relief, so Greggs advised Dad to call himself a minister to save a ton of money in taxes. So I seriously don’t get why now he feels like a religious leader. I still don’t even get which god he worships.”

“That isn’t the point of the Higher Self Church.” I hate the defensiveness in my tone, I know a lot of people think that Dad brainwashes his followers. “You know that it’s not a religion in the traditional sense, nothing like Christianity or the big traditional religions. We’re ‘Non-denominational.’”

McKayla shakes her head, but all I can see in her eyes is concern. “I see you’ve read A Ray of Inner Light.”

That was an instant bestseller that basically made him a spiritual leader. So the traveling resumed, but Dad was no longer a motivational speaker, he was now “a preacher.”

“Does he still make it a compulsory read when people join the church?” she asks.

When I don’t answer, McKayla takes my hand. “Look, I know that he gained more and more notoriety. I saw that some pretty famous politicians and even Hollywood stars started following him. People began looking up to him as a spiritual leader and that’s gone to his head, sis. Please don’t tell me that you chose those clothes.”

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