Within a half hour, we had discussed all of the nooks and crannies of the situation and all of the potential repercussions, some of which were already in the early stages.
Ben had been immediately placed on unpaid leave while Mercy Point addressed the accusations. The unpaid part certainly presented some challenges, but it was the leave that was devastating to him. To some extent he understood. While he would have preferred his congregation to immediately defend him, call the claims ridiculous, and throw all of their support behind him—and he was hurt that they didn’t—he also understood that there was a responsibility to Laura, a member of the body. They needed to be sure they knew the truth before a decision was made.
As hurt as he still would have been, I think he would have agreed that the church was proceeding correctly if it hadn’t been for the way Lenore Isaacs had stepped up in the meeting with the leadership committee and valiantly volunteered her husband’s services in the interim, before Ben had even left the room.
It was interesting, as we talked, to see just how much his feelings of friendship for Laura had changed. I suppose that was to be expected, but I was still taken aback by the hostility he was expressing toward her. He was much angrier than I was, actually. Then again, that made perfect sense, I guess. As far as I was concerned, she had just lived up to her potential. In Ben’s mind, she had undone a lifelong friendship and not only destroyed his career and reputation in the process, but also threatened his relationship with me. Yeah, that was pretty bad.
I, however, just couldn’t believe she had acted alone. What was the end game for her? To ruin Ben? To split us up? To ruin me? Perhaps. Those were all things that she most likely believed were well within her grasp. But then what? Why would she do that to Kaitlyn? And did she think Ben would run to her for comfort after all she had done? That seemed a bit unlikely. Tom and Lenore Isaacs, on the other hand, may have had a desired outcome very much in sight.
“How did you end up at Mercy Point?” I asked Ben as we sat on the same couch, resting on each other, taking a breather from our strategy session.
“Well, Christa and I grew up there. It was our home church. So—”
“Hang on,” I interrupted. “You and Christa attended Mercy Point together?” I guess I’d just never thought about it, never considered that for Ben those halls could be full of memories with someone other than me.
He nodded. “Vacation Bible School, youth group, summer camp, everything. Her dad was our pastor until they moved to Indiana, when we were in high school. There were so many people there then that I can almost understand how I went so long without really noticing her.” He walked over to the bookshelf full of photos and carefully selected the one he wanted and brought it over to me.
I took it and studied it, and while I had previously only noticed the man I loved and the beautiful young woman he was marrying, this time I saw all of the details beyond the tux and the white dress. There was the baby grand piano in the background, just to the left of them, and the steps on which they stood. The built-in baptismal area in the back, and the familiar ornate designs on the pulpit. They’d even been married at Mercy Point.
“When we moved to Connecticut, I think we attended every church in New Haven searching for another church home. I accepted a few positions, but they never lasted very long.” He laughed thinking back on it. “My first professional ministry position was as youth pastor at this little church on the outskirts of town—great people, great building, plenty of resources. The only problem was that the median age of the congregation was seventy-six. Well, until Christa and I joined and threw those figures off slightly.” He winked. “They just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get teenagers interested in attending there. That one didn’t last too long, needless to say.”
“I’m sorry.” I laughed. “That’s awful.”
“Oh no. You haven’t heard anything yet. The next church was much younger and much healthier. I got hired on as an associate pastor, and everything was fantastic for about two months, and then it all went up in flames.”
“The church literally went up in flames,” he deadpanned. He raised his hand to cross his heart. “Honest to goodness. But that wasn’t even the bad part. It turned out the lead pastor had lost all of the church’s money at the horse track, so they couldn’t afford to rebuild.”
“That can’t be true!” I protested.
“It is,” he insisted with a chuckle. “I couldn’t make that stuff up! There were other stories like that too. We were like a personification of Murphy’s Law for churches. I started to think my résumé should come with a warning. But we just kept plugging along, convinced it was what we were called to do. And then Christa was diagnosed, and we moved back to Chicago. There was an opening for a youth pastor at Mercy Point, so we could have gone back then, I guess. But I just couldn’t commit that sort of time and dedication. I needed to save that for Christa and Maddie.”
“So what did you do?” I asked, fascinated by this brief period of Ben’s history that we had never discussed. “I mean, for a job?”
He smiled. “Lots of prayer, and lots of help.” He returned the photo to its proper place and stood there staring at all of the memories for a moment. “Gary and Beth—Christa’s parents—insisted I shouldn’t work, and that they would take care of us for a while, financially. They wouldn’t take no for an answer. For about two minutes I considered that a threat to my masculinity and a lack of faith in my ability to be the breadwinning, independent head of the household I needed to be.” He looked back at me, still smiling. “But it didn’t take me long to realize what an unbelievable gift it was. I was able to go with her to chemo and steal her away on little trips when we woke up and realized it was going to be a good day. I’ll never be able to repay them for providing for us so that I didn’t have to miss a moment of those months with her.”
My eyes were misty again, so affected by the capacity of his love, and theirs. “I’m guessing they’d never want you to.”
He shook his head. “All they want, I think, is time with Maddie.” He laughed softly. “I don’t know that they were counting on just how much time they would get with me too. I love being around them, and they spoil Maddie rotten, so obviously she’s a fan.” He smiled. “Gary and Beth understand me in a way I don’t think my own parents ever have. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents—”
“I’ll be honest,” I interrupted, “I expected much worse from your parents.”
“Give them time.” He rolled his eyes. “But no, they’re good people, and I love them a lot. But Gary and Beth . . .”
“They get it.” I smiled, remembering his words when I walked out of the sushi restaurant and found him on the phone with Beth.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “They always have, I think, but the past few years have really driven that home.” He stood up and went to the kitchen to get us both more coffee, and I followed him in. “So after Christa died, I took a little bit of time, and then I needed to get back to work. The lead pastor job was open at Mercy Point, and my mother pushed me to take it. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t do it. From the time we came back to town, we’d been going to church with Gary and Beth. He’s been the pastor of this great little church in Algonquin ever since they moved back from Indiana. And then Christa was gone. I couldn’t walk into Gary and Beth’s church and face those people and those memories. And I sure couldn’t walk back into Mercy Point and face those people and those memories. Christa was everywhere. And then I entered my anger stage of grief, and I stopped going to church anywhere for a while.”
As I listened to him I understood, without him telling me, that this subject—more than Christa’s death or my desire to have children—was actually the one that had never been up for discussion. The things he never discussed and which he had never told anyone were all wrapped up in the conversation we were having. He was telling me about his deepest pain.
“Mercy Point pursued me pretty relentlessly, actually,” he continued. “And a few other churches did too.”
“Why?” I asked with a wicked grin. “Didn’t they know about your track record?”
“I guess everyone thinks they’ll be the exception to the rule,” he said with a laugh.
Though I teased him, I had no trouble at all understanding why he was in such high demand. In addition to being biblically sound and extremely knowledgeable, Ben is an engaging, charismatic speaker. Of course he’s also incredibly sexy, though I highly doubted any of those churches actually put that in their offer letters.
“So you got some pretty good offers?” I asked.
He nodded. “Offers I shouldn’t have been able to refuse. But I was busy wrestling with the Lord, and I just couldn’t let go.”
We returned to the couch, full cups of coffee in hand, and I did a little mental wrestling of my own. I just couldn’t picture Ben falling away from his faith, and I certainly couldn’t imagine him as anything other than a pastor. It just always seemed like it was what he was meant to do.
“What is it?” he asked in response to my expressionless silence.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, really. I guess it just makes me sad to think of how bad things must have been for you to turn away from God.”
He set his coffee cup on the table in front of us and then took my cup from my hands and did the same before wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close.
He took a deep breath. “I don’t think I ever turned from God, actually. It was more that I turned on him. I just wanted answers, and I wasn’t going to budge until I got them. But I knew it was my battle with the Lord, not Maddie’s, so I sent her to church with Gary and Beth every week. And we still read Bible stories and said prayers together. I never lost my love for Christ,” he insisted vehemently. “If anything, it grew stronger. But I don’t think I’d ever realized how much my faith had been wrapped up in Christa’s faith. It was like God, Christa, and I had been on this journey together, and then suddenly it was just God and me. I guess I just had to find out where he and I really stood.”
“So what changed?” I asked.
He’d been very serious and focused for the fifteen minutes or so that he had been telling me the story, but as he pulled away to look at me, his face lit up and the smile returned.
“Isn’t that obvious?”
I thought really hard, but no. It wasn’t. I shook my head.
He sighed and pulled me even closer to him on the couch, and I snuggled into his embrace. “After four years of saying no, the offers pretty much went away. I was teaching some college courses—all thoughts of church work were ancient history—and then I got one last call from Mercy Point. In all that time, they hadn’t been able to find a permanent pastor, and they’d lost a lot of the congregation. They couldn’t afford to pay me anywhere near what they’d offered originally, but they told me they were sure I was the right pastor to help rebuild the church. They begged me to consider it.”
“And you were finally done wrestling?”
“Oh no.” He laughed. “I hadn’t given up on that yet. But I also couldn’t stand the thought of Mercy Point having to close the doors. Especially if I could have done something. So I told them I would think about it. But before I could even give it any serious thought, I knew I had to walk through those doors and see if I could even handle it. So that was the first step. It was a Thursday evening, and no one was there besides the cleaning crew, but I did it. I walked through the doors.”
“And it was okay,” I said softly, believing I finally saw how God had allowed it all to come about.
“No, it wasn’t okay,” he corrected me. “It was a lot of things, but it wasn’t okay. She was everywhere, and I’d only made it down one hallway. I knew I couldn’t do it. I started walking back to the door and pulled out my cell phone right then and there, to call and tell them I couldn’t do it. But I started feeling a little light-headed. As badly as I wanted to get out of there and never look back, I had to sit for a minute. I’d had all of these memories flooding my mind and my heart, threatening to overtake me. I just didn’t know if I could take any more,” he said, still holding me. “I tried to stand up, needing to get out of there, pretty certain I couldn’t survive anything else. I wanted to run away as fast as I could, but I couldn’t get off that bench.”
My tears started falling. “That bench?”
“That bench,” he confirmed. “So I just sat there, tired of wrestling, having nothing left to give. I screamed out for God to finish me off, once and for all. He won. I was done. I couldn’t do it anymore. I made the phone call to refuse the position, but they didn’t have anyone to preach that Sunday. They were ready to give up. They were going to close the doors, and all of those people—the ones who had held on and stayed faithful in spite of it all—were going to have to find another church. So as painful as I knew it would be, I agreed to preach one sermon, one Sunday, but that was it. Just to give them one more week to figure something out. Then I knew I would never step foot in that building ever again.”
I sat up so that I could look at him. I started to speak, but I had no words, so I just stared at him as he continued.
“That Sunday I was determined to go straight from the pastor’s study to the pulpit, and then straight out the door, and yet I found myself walking down that hallway. The music started, you and I went our separate ways, and I wrote a note, accepting the position, and slipped it to them just before I was introduced.”
We sat in silence for quite a while, trying to process all of the ways God had worked in our hearts and lives to bring us together, and feeling quite certain that it was something we would never be able to fully comprehend.
I was startled out of my perfect peace and contentment by the shrill ring of my cell phone. I didn’t even know that I had it back, but I guess Piper had slipped it into my purse while hugging me. I tried to ignore it, but Ben urged me to at least see who it was, in case God had taken to just calling us directly. We laughed as I stood to answer it, not even worrying about what might await me. After all, Ben and I had discussed all possible fallout, hadn’t we?
“Hello?”
“Really, kid? You couldn’t have used your best sex scandal material when we were promoting Stollen Desire?”
I laughed. “Oh, Joe. You don’t even know if this is my best material!”
He wasn’t laughing. “This is bad, Sarah.”
I looked at Ben and rolled my eyes, indicating the call was going to take a little while. He smiled, walked over to me, and kissed me on the cheek, and then picked up our coffee cups and went to the kitchen to tidy up.
“It’s not, really,” I insisted, still feeling perfectly calm. “This is nothing more than an attempt by Ben’s ex-girlfriend to split us up.” I still wasn’t completely sold on that motive, but it was the one I was going with until I could prove otherwise.
“No, you know what this is? This is The Thorn Birds.”
Oh, here we go again. “This is not The Thorn Birds, Joe. I know where you’re going, but the child is not Ben’s. I promise you that. There will be no Thorn Birds–type situation here. We’re not going to have years of Ben mentoring this child like Father Ralph mentored Dane, only to discover with his dying breath that the child was his after all. Besides, Dane was the child conceived in love between Ralph and Meggie, so even if there were other similarities to be drawn—”
Joe cleared his throat. “Well, did it ever occur to you that maybe we had this wrong the whole time? Did it ever occur to you that maybe you’re not the Meggie?”
The thought was staggering for one brief moment. For one second—less than a second—I almost let my crazy, pop-culture-obsessed, insecure mind run away with me. After all, what if he was right? And if he was right, and Laura was actually Meggie, then who did that make me? Luke, Meggie’s ranch hand husband? No, that wouldn’t make any sense. Who was the rival for Ralph’s attention and love? Mary Carson, Ralph’s elderly, spiteful benefactor who, even after her death, used her wealth and power to try to win Ralph’s love away from Meggie? Stop it, Sarah. Stop it.
“This is not The Thorn Birds, Joe. This is my life, messed up though it may be, and if claiming I’m not the Meggie is the most constructive thing you have to say—”
“They don’t want the book, kid.”
“What does that mean? What do you mean, they don’t want the book? Who doesn’t want the book?”
“The publishers.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to remain calm. “But it really doesn’t matter if they want the book, does it? I have a contract.”
There was no chance, none at all, that I wasn’t going to be given an opportunity to publish my Christian romance, I tried to convince myself. After all, hadn’t that been, at least partially, what God had been directing me to do? Wasn’t the Lord giving me an opportunity to put something positive out into the mainstream for a change? Wasn’t I the perfect person to do it? Wasn’t everything that had happened somehow preparation for the day when I would get to deliver good and light to the masses, rather than the dark, soul-crushing crap I was known for?
“That’s right. You have a contract,” he said, but it wasn’t comforting. “The only problem is they were shaky about it all to begin with, and now they’re afraid no booksellers will touch it. And, frankly, they just don’t think readers who are wanting to read a Christian romance will consider you a reliable source.”
“That’s insane, Joe! Because of this? Because of Raine de Bourgh, yeah, you bet. That I get. That one was always going to be tricky. But this?” It didn’t make any sense. “I don’t get it, Joe. I just got more free publicity than we ever could have bought in a hundred years. I understand it’s not good publicity, but you’re the one who said all press is good press, so—”
“Sarah, I would have thought it was Christmas morning if you had given me this sort of PR explosion when we were pushing the other books. This feeds into everything that audience wants to believe you are. But if you’re hoping to make a transition to the Christian market?”
I didn’t understand anything that was happening. “What they’re saying about Ben isn’t true, Joe,” I said softly. “None of it.”
“I believe you.” He sighed. “Really. But look at what we’re dealing with here, kid. People were already going to have a difficult time disassociating you from Stollen Desire. But hey, look, she goes to church now. She’s changed. She’s marrying a pastor.” He took a deep breath. “A pastor whose name is now every bit as connected to sex in the news as hers is.”
I stifled my sobs. “We’re going to get Ben’s name cleared, Joe.”
“I’m sure you will. But it’s out there. You know? And let’s face it—for all the damage he’s doing to you right now, that’s nothing compared to the damage you’re doing to him.” He spoke gently, fully aware he was breaking my heart and hating every minute of it—but also not knowing any way around it.
“Because if I’m the person the world thinks I am, it’s not very difficult to think the worst of anyone who would want to marry me.”
“Exactly.”
I breathed in as deeply as I could, but it felt painfully shallow. “So what do I do now?”
“Like you said, you’ve got a contract. They don’t want the book, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have to publish it. It just means it might get buried in the bargain bin for a while,” he said. “Or you could always go back to what you do best. Maybe it’s not time for Raine to retire. Not yet. Maybe it’s time for The Thorn Birds to merge with the literary community that already loves you. Actually, kid, if you take this story you’ve been writing, which you know I love, and turn it on its ear . . .” He whistled through his teeth. “And then you reinvent yourself in a few years, when all of this has been forgotten, after you’ve milked the edgier romance market for all it’s worth. Then you have your ‘come to Jesus’ moment. I can work with that.”
He rambled on like that, but I stopped listening. I glanced up as Ben walked out of the kitchen, not saying a word but telling me everything I needed to know. He stood there with a dish towel thrown over his shoulder, the concern evident in his eyes. He didn’t need to know what was happening, he just needed to know that I was okay.
“Joe,” I said into the phone softly, never taking my eyes off of Ben. “Joe,” I said a little more loudly as he continued his rambling. “Joe!” I finally shouted.
“Yeah?”
“How much would it cost to buy out the remainder of the contract?”
He laughed. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“Probably. So how much would it cost?”
“Well, let’s see. Of course, there’s no chance they’ll ever revert the rights to you on the Desire books. And you know how much your advance was for the next book, so we can start with that. Do you still have all of that money sitting around?”
“Well, no,” I stuttered. “Not all of it. I bought the house, and I had to pay you and Sydney, and—”
“Sorry, kid. Can’t be done. Not realistically.”
The tears I’d been valiantly holding in were suddenly released with a vengeance as I began to feel truly hopeless for the first time. Ben walked closer to me, wanting to comfort me but not having any idea what was happening.
“Look, Sarah,” Joe said, softening his tone, “you know how I feel about you, and I’m just trying to be up front with you here. There is no chance, absolutely none, that they are going to give up the rights. Ever. But you’re the author who wrote those books that have made them so much money, and at the end of the day, I don’t think they want to lose you. No matter what they’re saying right now. We’ll let this blow over, you’ll give them something they’ll be happy with for this next book, and then when the next contract rolls around, we’ll build it around your Christian romance, or even your artistic and inspirational reimagining of the phone book, if that’s what you want. We just have to wait a little while. Just be patient. Okay, kid?”
I wiped away the renegade tear as it fell. “Thanks, Joe. I’ll be in touch.”
I hung up the phone and tried to decide if I was angry or sad. It was difficult to tell, but opening the door and throwing my phone outside, as hard as I could, while making the sound of a wild chimpanzee, seemed to indicate the anger was, at least temporarily, the stronger emotion of the two. The maniacal laughter that followed called it all into question—most notably my sanity.
Ben didn’t move from where he stood, but he also didn’t gawk at me, or go running from the room, or react in any of the other ways which would have been somewhat justified, considering my crazed state. He just let me have my moment. He’d slammed his hand into the wall, I destroyed a cell phone and howled like a banshee. Everyone handles frustration in their own way. When it seemed that I had dealt with the worst of it, he sat by me on the floor in front of the door, where I had collapsed into an exhausted heap of tears and calamity, his back up against the wall, arms around his propped-up knees.
I don’t know how to describe the way I was feeling. In the old days, I would have downed a bottle of wine and gone to bed rather than even try to analyze the emotions. I still felt God’s presence, so powerfully, and I knew that, as Piper had said, he had some awfully big plans. My faith didn’t falter, and my willingness to follow him had never been stronger, but it sure would have been nice to be given just a little advance peek at what he had in store. Ben was going to continue being the pastor at Mercy Point, where more seats were filled and more lives were changed for the good of God’s kingdom each and every week. I was going to use all of my fame and notoriety to inspire others, lead them to Christ, and strengthen marriages. That was the plan, right? Hadn’t that been the plan? I’d thought so as recently as morning coffee. To find ourselves contaminated by ethical and professional leprosy, rendering us unclean and untouchable, just a few short hours later was enough to cause whiplash.
I smiled sadly and snuggled into Ben once more. “Remember that time I told you nothing could shatter us? I meant that, but you do realize I only meant our love for each other, right? I think I need to add an addendum that makes it clear that I offer no such guarantees as to our careers, reputations, income, or relationships with others.”
He lowered his knees and wrapped his arms around me. “Well, yeah. Obviously. I mean, that was a different time. We were different people then.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s been about an hour.”
He sighed. “Ah, were we ever so young?”