Chapter Nine

* * *

“ . . . seasons of distress and grief”

On Wednesday afternoon he arrived home to find Trish on a ladder in the guest bedroom, applying water to the wallpaper with a dripping sponge. From this activity he read that preparations for the advent of her family were in full swing, and he knew that there would be certain expectations of him along the way.

“Hey, babe—how can I help?” he asked cheerfully.

“Oh, Jim, you’re home. Good. Check the paper in the corner there by the door—see if it’s ready to strip yet.”

He whistled. “We’re stripping, are we? Sounds interesting.”

His wife didn’t rise to the bait. “It’s interesting to me because I can’t wait to get this old paper out of here. I’ve wanted to for years, and this is the perfect excuse. I tried to steam it off, but that was too slow.”

He regarded the paper, which was a pale pink with an occasional sprinkle of small white flowers. He rather liked it, but this was obviously not the time to say so.

“What’s the new paper like?”

“Sage green with tiny beige stripes, and I’m putting up a coordinated border with several kinds of birdhouses on it.”

“Birdhouses.”

“You’ll love it; it’s really cute. And I’ll group three birdhouses on one end of the dresser to continue the theme. I have that little barnwood one with the silk flowers twining around it, and I’m sure I can find a couple of others to go with it.”

He nodded. He was sure she could, too.

“Then I’ll have to decide what goes on the bed. Obviously that ruffly thing has got to go. And I’ll want coordinated towels and rugs in the bath, there.”

Briefly, he wondered how much his in-laws’ visit was going to cost him—and why. Did coordinating towels and rugs and sage-green wallpaper somehow say to them that their daughter was in good hands—that she was happy and cherished and well cared for, while the pale pink walls and ruffly thing would scream of neglect and penury? He had to trust her instincts; his own were apparently comatose from disuse in such matters.

“Is that piece ready to come off?”

“Let’s see. Yep, I do believe it is.”

“Just let it fall onto the drop cloth. If it sticks anywhere, I’ll throw you the sponge.”

“Okay. Just don’t throw in the sponge—whatever that means.” The strip of paper came off, a wet, curling, unwieldy thing that tried to flop in all directions at once. He made a face. Wallpapering—or unwallpapering—was one of his least favorite occupations.

“How’re the kids?” he asked.

“Good. Mallory’s playing at Kirsten’s house, Jamie’s at Cub Scouts, and Tiffani is supposed to be starting dinner.”

“She all caught up with her assignments at school?”

“Far as I can tell she is, and I think we’ll finish the year in pretty good shape. She did some extra credit work in English to help balance out that test grade—and, of course, you helped her with the frog.” She threw him a smile.

“Well. The Lord helped, actually.”

“True. How are things with the ward—any appointments tonight?”

“Um—no appointments, but I can always visit people. I don’t think there’ll ever be a time when I shouldn’t be doing more than I am.” He sighed.

“You don’t want to burn out, though, almost before you get started.”

“I know. ‘Take an even strain,’ my dad used to say. He never explained exactly what he meant, but I think I’m beginning to get it. Just a slow, steady pull—no jerks and stops and rushing headlong downhill with the load.”

“Makes sense. Check that next panel, okay?”

The panel came off, except for a section in the middle that clung to the wall and began to rip. “Sponge,” he called, holding up one hand. “Scalpel. Whatever works.”

She tossed him the sponge, which he used to saturate the sticky portion of paper until he could coax it off the wall.

“I’m sure glad this is strippable paper,” Trish remarked, as her husband stepped around the mess on the floor and the covered bed to return the sponge. “Everything okay at the store? Any good melons showing up yet?”

“Yes and yes. I’ll bring one home tomorrow. Hey, Trish, what do you know about Melody Padgett?”

“Not much, except she’s gorgeous, with that tan and that beautiful hair of hers. I’ve never had occasion to get to know her. Don’t think I’ve ever seen her in Relief Society—has she been serving in Primary or Young Women?”

“Primary. Seems to enjoy it—been there five years.”

“Ah—a woman after my own heart.”

“The funny thing is—and I hope I’m not telling tales out of school here, so please don’t mention this—but her husband seems to want her to stay in Primary, in the worst way. Totally stonewalled my suggestion that she might enjoy a change.”

“Huh. Why is that—just taking her side in the matter?”

“I don’t know. Wondered if you had any insight.”

“Well, maybe he likes the idea of her serving in the auxiliary where their little girl is.”

“That’s a thought. You know, I haven’t visited Primary much, except to slip in the back and watch our kids give their talks and that—but it seems to me that the teachers don’t have a whole lot of time to visit and talk with each other.”

Trish smiled. “There’s generally not much free time. It usually took about all I could do to keep track of my own little class and help them settle down and be reverent. If I even said hello to the other teachers, I was doing good.”             

“M-hmm. So not a whole lot of interaction between the teachers that hour. And, of course, the next hour, they’re in their classrooms.”

“Right. About the only socializing we had as Primary workers was at the leadership meetings. Sometimes we’d combine those with potluck suppers or Saturday brunches just to have time to visit.”

“I see.”

“So, what are you thinking—that Brother Padgett doesn’t want Melody to be where she can visit with other people?”

He looked at his wife. “The thought occurred to me.”

She stood still, the dripping sponge in her hand. “Wow,” she said softly. “That’s scary.”

He nodded. “It sure is.”

“Is he the type to be abusive or something?”

“Is there a type?”

“I guess you can’t always tell, can you?”

“I do think he’s pretty controlling.”

She made a face. “I couldn’t tolerate that. I’m grateful you’re not that way.”

He grinned at her. “Maybe I’m just so subtle about it that you don’t recognize my strategy.”

“Maybe you’re not that subtle about anything, Mr. Guile less, Open-faced Bishop.”

“Aw, you really know how to hurt a guy.”

“I’ll make it up to you. But seriously, Jim—what do you think he’s doing to her?”

The bishop shook his head. “Don’t really know anything. Possibly hitting her, definitely controlling her—I don’t know what else. I’m hoping she’ll tell me—or somebody in authority.”

Trish dropped her sponge into a bucket and leaned back against the ladder. “I imagine it’d be hard for her to talk about stuff like that. It’d be really embarrassing.”

“Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it? If he’s the abuser, then he’s the one who should be embarrassed. Yet we both realize that she’s the one who would be.”

“I guess it’d be tough to admit you’ve been putting up with abuse. You might be afraid people would wonder what you’d done to deserve it, or why you hadn’t got out of the situation.”

He sighed. “I sure hope I’m wrong about the whole thing.”

“What are you supposed to do if you’re not?”

“Well, anytime you suspect abuse, or child endangerment, anything like that—you’re duty bound to report it to the authorities. But—I feel like I should be a little more certain than I am before I do that. After all, she didn’t tell me anything—didn’t ask for help. Didn’t tell anyone else that I know of, either. I thought I saw an old bruise on her face, but it could’ve been an accident. And I am Jack Padgett’s bishop as well as Melody’s. Oh, boy. I believe I’m going to talk to President Walker—just in general terms at this point.”

“Good idea. He might already know something about the family, for that matter.”

“Could be. Bishop Collins didn’t mention anything about them, though—at least, not anything that I remember or wrote down.”

“Do your counselors know what you suspect?”

He nodded. “It came up in bishopric meeting, but I think they’re all like me—just hoping it ain’t so.”

“Do you want me to discreetly check around among the sisters?”

He smiled. “No, babe, but thanks. I want you to be the perfect bishop’s wife and see, hear, and say no evil.”

“Okay, I’ll be a good little monkey. But, tell you what—Ida Lou’s busy trying to revamp the visiting teaching list so that people from the two wards can get acquainted. I could easily get Melody added to my list. Then, if I happen to learn anything, I promise I’ll mention it only to you.”

“I can’t think of any objection to that,” he agreed, grateful once again that he’d had the amazing good fortune to marry that shiny-haired girl. She had never been a gossip, but she was actively interested in people’s welfare. It was a good combination.

* * *

He was relaxing after dinner in a lounge chair in the shade of the backyard, nearly asleep, when his son called him to the phone.

“It’s that preacher friend of yours, I think,” Jamie said. “The guy with the really low voice.”

“Mac?” He pushed himself up from his seat, physically reluctant to move but delighted to hear from Peter MacDonald, which was a rare occurrence. Mac was a busy pastor to a large so-called nondenominational Christian flock in Atlanta. It was a tribute to the strength of their lifelong friendship that it had survived and flourished despite their many doctrinal discussions and disagreements over the years. He took the call in his and Trish’s bedroom.

“Big Mac! How’s it going, man?”

“Hey, Brother,” came Mac’s voice, still deep, but with a weary note to it as well. “How are things in your world?”

“Good, good. It’s a treat to hear from you. What’s up?”

“I just needed a voice of sanity from the sanest guy in the sanest town I know. Is Fairhaven still the same town you and I grew up in?”

“Well, it’s growing, like most places, in spite of the base closing and ChemSoft pulling out—and no place seems as quiet and simple as I seem to remember Fairhaven being when we were kids—but yeah, it’s still pretty sane. Why? Is Atlanta crazy?”

“Any city this size goes a little nuts from time to time. All these people with so many different life-styles and economic levels and ethnic backgrounds, all packed together like the proverbial sardines in a can, sweltering in the heat—I’ll tell you, Jim, it gets pretty wild. There was a bomb scare at Ruthie’s middle school today, for example. They had to send everybody home, which wasn’t the greatest because of so many working parents, but somebody had built something that looked like a bona fide bomb and put it in the boys bathroom. Turned out to be a fake, but the note that alerted the office that it was there was written in Spanish, so now everybody’s down on the Hispanic kids, although they say the Spanish in the note is written wrong and misspelled and couldn’t have come from them, but was just an attempt to make them look bad.”

“All of which just tends to make them band together more closely, right? So that now there’s more of an ‘us and them’ mentality than before?”

“Exactly.” Jim heard a heavy sigh from his friend. “And that’s just one example. Every day we hear of gang violence and drive-by shootings and car thefts and stabbings and rapes and what have you. I confess, Jim, that I don’t know exactly what Isaiah saw when he wrote, ‘woe to them that join house to house,’ but sometimes I wonder if he didn’t see Atlanta—and all these other huge cities we’re so proud of.”

“I’ve wondered about that myself. I guess I’m just a small-town boy—well, make that a small-city boy—I don’t know if Fairhaven really qualifies as a small town anymore. But I’ve never had any great desire to live in a New York or Chicago or even Dallas or Atlanta, nice though they are to visit. I like to know my neighbors and a good portion of the townspeople. I like to walk down the street and recognize at least some of the folks I see.”

“Well, I’ve lived here for nine years, and if I got out of our neighborhood, I’ll bet I could walk around town for a couple of weeks and not run into anybody I know. Of course, some folks like it that way—they enjoy the anonymity and privacy, you know?”

“I reckon so. Shy folks, introverts maybe.”

“Ha! And you know me, Jim—I don’t qualify as one of those!”

“Never have, Mac, that’s for sure. So are you thinking of leaving the city, finding a kinder, gentler place?”

“Oh, I don’t know. There’re so many good, positive things here, too. I mean, Atlanta’s vital and progressive and parts of it are absolutely gorgeous. There are plenty of interesting things going on. I love my work, and we have a nice house in a good neighborhood, but even here, the kids get pulled into stuff I’m not comfortable with. Petey’s a lot like me—he wants to be out there in the middle of everything, but he doesn’t have the maturity and judgment yet to know what might not be safe or good for him.”

“I hear you. So are you serious about making a change? What does Ruthanne say?”

“She loves Atlanta. The shopping is great, and she can be as busy as she wants with Christian women’s groups and Bible study and garden clubs and such. She does a lot of good, you know? I hate to uproot her from all the friends she’s made and the things that are important to her. Petey would object, too, I think—he’s going on sixteen and very partisan about his high school and his friends. Our Ruthie, though, might be glad enough to try a smaller community. She doesn’t make friends as readily as her mom and brother, so she’s not quite so entrenched. As a seventh grader, she’s kind of overwhelmed right now with life in general. That’s a scary age. You remember?”

“It sure is. It was hard for Tiff, even here in Fairhaven, and I remember how I felt at twelve and thirteen, for that matter. For a while, I was actually glad that I had to go sweep floors at the store after school. It gave me an excuse not to have to hang out with some of the guys we’d grown up with who suddenly seemed to be different people.”

Peter MacDonald chuckled. “Like Jakey Forelaw?”

“Man! You ever see anybody change like Jakey? One day he was an ordinary, skinny little kid, playing baseball and riding his bike out to the river to fish, and next thing I knew, he’d put on about forty or fifty pounds, grown six inches, and started cussin’ and sneakin’ beer from his dad’s cooler. It was downright spooky.”

“It was. I had a major growth spurt about then, too, but I stayed skinny for a long time. Now I wish I could take a few pounds off without some major life-style renovation! But the most interesting changes, I thought, were in the girls.”

“Isn’t that the truth? I got embarrassed just looking at some of them. All of a sudden they needed bras and were wearing lipstick.”

“Lisa French.”

“Oh, mercy—I thought Lisa had skipped ten years over the summer between sixth and seventh grades.”

“She had, no doubt about it. Poor kid. She was twelve going on twenty-one, and not a shred of good judgment to go with that body. But how could she have? Makes you wonder how much negative behavior comes from kids whose bodies just plain outgrow their minds and their upbringings!”

“That’s a thought, all right. Don’t know about you, Mac, but I wouldn’t care to go through it again—all that growing-up business.”

“At least we made it fairly well intact, my friend. No drugs or gang wars or alcoholism or legal problems or pregnant girlfriends. Just a few speeding tickets.”

“For which I’m forever grateful,” the bishop agreed. “And we’ve both been blessed with wonderful wives and good kids.”

“Right. A lot to be grateful for.” Mac’s sigh was deep, and Jim could hear the weariness in it. “Now if we can just pull those good kids over Fool’s Hill, we’ll have it made in the shade, huh, buddy?”

“Reckon that’s the next challenge. One of them, anyway.”

“Right. So what else is going on in Fairhaven? What’re you doing in your church these days?”

“Well—I’ve just been called to be bishop.”

“Bishop! Sounds heavy.”

“Exactly. But don’t go visualizing fancy robes and tall hats. The bishop just sort of oversees the ward—the congregation—and keeps things running.”

“Well, good for you, Jim! Sounds like a lot of responsibility, but you’ve never been afraid of that, so I’m sure they’ve got the right man for the job.”

“At least I don’t have to preach every Sunday,” the bishop said with a light laugh. “I’m afraid that’d be way beyond me.”

“Actually, I don’t have to anymore, either,” Mac replied. “I’ve got an assistant pastor—a woman, as a matter of fact—and a youth pastor and a minister of music. So I can spend more time ministering to people and their needs, which is what I enjoy most.”

“Sounds like a fine situation. You must have a good-sized church.”

“We have almost two thousand members, give or take a few. And a beautiful new sanctuary that we’re working hard to pay for. The stained glass window above our pulpit is incredible—it’s worth coming to see, all by itself. You and Trish ought to make the trip soon, Jim, and visit with us. We’d love to have you. Don’t see enough of old friends anymore.”

“I know. Everybody’s busy. But hey—it sounds beautiful. I know Trish’d love to see it. She’s crazy about stained glass. Maybe we can get away some weekend. Right now we’re preparing for a visit from her parents and her sister—the one who doesn’t approve of me.”

“Bless you, my son.” Mac’s deep voice held a smile. “May you have the strength of twenty.”

“Oh, I’m just planning to stay out of sight for the duration and let ’em have at it.”

Mac laughed. “Now that sounds like a plan, but I’ll bet it won’t get by Trish! Seriously, though, Jim—sneak away when you can and come visit. Come while we’re still here, because between you and me, my friend, that may not be for much longer.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Mac. Hey, thanks for calling.”

“My pleasure.”

* * *

He left the phone and went back to his shady reverie, but he couldn’t quite recapture the blissful half-asleep state he had achieved earlier. For one thing, the cat Samantha insisted on leaping up on his chest and kneading him with her surprisingly forceful little paws. He removed her once, but she came right back, settling down and purring aggressively.

“Pushing your luck, kitty,” he told her, and she narrowed her half-crossed blue eyes at him in what was very nearly a grin and purred louder. It was ridiculous. He chuckled in spite of himself.

“So what d’you think, Samantha? How’m I going to make my peace with my sister-in-law Meredith and keep Trish and everybody happy, if Meredith comes on with her usual attitude—‘Why did my beautiful sister settle for this ignorant country bumpkin when so many BYU-graduate professional types were courting her?’ How am I going to handle that?”

The kitten gazed at his mouth, stretched one paw forward and placed it firmly on his lips.

He turned his head to one side before she could deploy her claws.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he told her. “Just say nothing, huh? Mum’s the word.” He stroked the kitten’s warm back. “After all, if Trish is happy, and she claims to be, why should I worry about what Miss Highhat thinks? On the other hand, if Trish truly is happy, why this frenzy of cleaning and decorating and scheduling and menu planning? Isn’t our ordinary daily life good enough to display to the family? Is she trying too hard to prove something?”

Jamie’s voice interrupted his conversation with the cat. “Dad, there’s a message on the phone you’d better listen to.”

He came to his feet with a rush of guilt. There had been that annoying chirp on the line when he was talking to the Reverend Peter MacDonald, and he had chosen to ignore it, intending to check when they finished talking to see if there was a message. He had forgotten.

Jamie punched in the code as he approached and handed him the phone. He heard Ida Lou Reams’s voice, soft at first, saying, “Oh, dang it, I hate talkin’ to these message things.” Then louder, as if she had to bridge the gap with her own volume, “Bishop? Bishop, if you get this here message, I need to let you know that Brother Roscoe Bainbridge is dyin’. Hilda called and said she don’t think it’ll be long now, so I’m goin’ over there to be with her, but I thought you should know. Um—well, okay, thank you. Goodbye. Uh—this is Ida Lou.”

He put the phone down, deleting the message.

“Thanks, Jamie,” he said softly. “Reckon I’d better get going. Where’s Mom?”

“Washing down the walls in the guest room, getting ready to put the paper up.”

“Okay.”

“Daddy!” Mallory launched herself at him. “Come and play Candyland with me. Please?”

“No can do right now, sweetie. Daddy has to go somewhere. If I get home in time, maybe I can play later. Sorry, though.”

“Dad? Brother Bainbridge is old, isn’t he?” Jamie’s face was solemn.

“He’s pretty old, Son, and he’s been very sick. He’s ready to go. It’ll be a good thing.”

Jamie frowned. “But, I thought dying was the worst thing that could happen to a person. How can it be good?”

The bishop put his arms around his son and held him tight for a moment, breathing in his good, honest, boy-smell of sweat and bubble gum and fresh air. “Trust me on this, Jamie. We’ll talk more about it later, but for now—no, dying is definitely not the worst thing that can happen. Especially not in this case. Gotta go now.”

He took the stairs in twos, poking his head in at the door of the spare room. “Trish, Brother Bainbridge is apparently dying, and I need to go over there. I’m sorry, babe, I’d planned to help you paper tonight.”

“You go ahead. You have to. Do you need me to do anything?”

“Ida Lou’s already gone over. You might want to alert Frankie and Rosetta, in case she hasn’t called them. I’ll call back if there’s anything needed tonight.”

“All right, sweetheart. My love and sympathy to Hilda.”

He nodded. “Be back when I can.”