Owen Peters

What We Refused to Say

Chapter 25: Owen Peters

He saw Owen again because of weather.

Not his mother's surgery this time. A hail claim from the April storm had made its slow way through the company's system until Daniel found himself back on their street on a hot Thursday in June, clipboard in hand, looking at a roof that had survived twenty-three years and then lost a fight to ice the size of golf balls.

Mrs. Peters met him in the yard with a brace still on one knee and a politeness sharpened by pain medication.

"I'm moving slower than usual," she said.

"You're recovering."

"That's the church answer."

Daniel glanced at her.

She smiled without apology.

"Sorry," she said. "I have become impatient with sanctioned phrasing."

"That doesn't sound like a problem."

She nodded toward the ladder at the side of the house.

"Roof's yours. Owen gets home around three if you need somebody to hold anything that feels dangerous."

He didn't need Owen to hold the ladder, but Owen came around the side yard anyway at 3:12 with a backpack hanging off one shoulder and drumsticks protruding from the side pocket like evidence of a different life.

"Hey, Mr. Mercer."

"Hey."

Owen was taller again somehow, or maybe just standing in a way that anticipated not being mistaken for a child.

"Mom said you were up there."

"I was."

"Bad?"

"Bad enough."

Owen nodded and looked toward the street where one of the neighbors was dragging a trash can to the curb.

"Can I ask you something?"

Daniel set the clipboard on the hood of the truck.

"Sure."

Owen shifted the backpack higher on his shoulder.

"Not here."

They ended up in the side yard by the hose reel and the little concrete birdbath Mrs. Peters had painted blue at some point in the 1990s and never regretted. The air smelled like hot grass and asphalt. Somewhere a lawn mower started, stopped, and started again with stubborn optimism.

"What's up," Daniel asked.

Owen looked at the ground first.

"Scott wants me to play Wednesday night."

"Scott."

"Youth pastor."

"Right."

"They're doing this whole thing on trust. Like when adults fail and how God doesn't." Owen's mouth tightened slightly. "He said it would mean a lot if I was up there because people know my family and know I've had reasons to feel weird lately."

Daniel was quiet.

"Do you want to?"

Owen gave him a look that was too old for the face it sat in.

"That's not really it."

"Maybe not. What's the question."

Owen pulled one drumstick halfway from the backpack pocket and pushed it back in.

"If I say no, then suddenly I'm making it about me."

"According to who."

"According to adults whenever a kid notices anything ugly at church."

That one almost would have made Daniel laugh if the accuracy hadn't taken the air with it.

"All right," he said.

Owen looked up fully then, as if checking whether the answer was going to come packaged as reassurance or instruction.

"I don't know if I'm being dramatic," he said. "It just feels gross. Like they're doing this whole healing thing and want kids onstage so everybody can tell themselves the place is fine." He shrugged, embarrassed by his own force. "Maybe that sounds stupid."

"No," Daniel said. "It doesn't."

The mower two houses down finally caught and stayed caught.

"Mom says not everything needs a declaration," Owen said. "She says sometimes you can just say no and let that be a sentence. But then Scott texts stuff like we'd love to see young leaders step up in a season like this, and suddenly if I don't play drums it's like I'm withholding spiritual maturity from the group."

Daniel leaned one shoulder against the fence.

"Do you want me to tell you what to do?"

Owen considered it.

"No," he said. "I think I wanted one adult not to act like I'm crazy for noticing what they're doing."

Daniel nodded.

"You're not crazy."

Owen took that in.

"Okay."

"And noticing isn't disloyalty."

"Feels like it there."

"I remember."

Owen was quiet a moment.

"Did you leave because of the affair?"

Daniel answered carefully.

"Partly because of that. Mostly because of what happened after people knew."

"Meaning."

"Meaning adults in charge kept acting like settling everybody down was the same as telling the truth."

Owen looked toward the house, where his mother was visible through the kitchen window putting ice in a glass.

"So if I don't want to be up there helping them smooth it over."

"Then don't do it because grown people need a kid on a stage so they can feel better."

"Can I say that?"

"Not if you want a peaceful Wednesday."

For the first time Owen smiled.

"Right."

"What can you say?"

Owen thought about it.

"Maybe just that I need a break."

"Is that true?"

"Yes."

"Then it's enough."

Owen rolled one drumstick slowly between his fingers inside the backpack pocket.

"What if he asks whether I'm letting bitterness in?"

Daniel looked at him.

"Are you bitter?"

Owen considered the word with more seriousness than most adults who used it.

"No," he said. "Mostly I'm disappointed. And tired of the kid version of trust. Like if we keep showing up, grown-ups don't have to deal with how weird they've made it."

Daniel let out a breath.

"That's more precise than most board rooms manage."

Owen's smile vanished but the relief stayed.

"I hate that that's accurate."

"That tracks."

The screen door banged and Mrs. Peters called from the back steps, "Owen, if you're interrogating the adjuster, ask him whether gutters count."

"Do gutters count," Owen called back.

"Sometimes," Daniel answered.

"See?" Mrs. Peters shouted. "This is why I let men with clipboards into my yard."

Owen shook his head.

"She gets funnier when she's annoyed."

"I've noticed."

He picked up the clipboard again, but Owen did not move.

"Can I ask one more thing?"

"Sure."

"Do you think church is still true if a bunch of people in it are doing that?"

The question was young and old at once.

Daniel took his time because haste would have insulted it.

"I think God is true," he said. "I think churches are often mixed up enough that people start protecting their version of Him instead. Sometimes for years. Sometimes with very sincere faces." He shifted the clipboard under his arm. "I don't think your job at seventeen is to make that prettier than it is."

Owen nodded slowly.

"Okay."

"And I don't think your options are only fake loyalty or dramatic exit."

"That helps."

"Good."

Owen looked relieved and slightly embarrassed by the relief, which Daniel recognized as one of adolescence's more durable humiliations.

"I should go inside before Mom decides I'm free labor."

"Probably wise."

He turned toward the back door, then looked back once.

"Mr. Mercer."

"Yeah."

"Thanks for not doing the thing."

"What thing?"

Owen gave him a glance that said he was not going to define adulthood for a man old enough to be carrying it.

"The thing," he said, and went inside.

Daniel finished the gutter notes, marked the downspout dents, and took the final elevation photos while the sun lowered into the line of roofs across the street.

When he got back in the truck, he saw through the Peters' front window a flash of Owen's backpack dropped by the chair, drumsticks still visible above the zipper.

He suspected Wednesday night would be quieter without him.