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Philippe and Elodie had not heard from Meredith for days. They didn’t have the girlfriend’s telephone number and hadn’t asked for it. They had been advised that their letting go ought to be total, not to check up, not to ask if she needed anything.
Late on a quiet afternoon, after working on his sermon and visiting elderly parishioners, Philippe went to Meredith’s bedroom to beseech God on behalf of his little girl. He passed her dresser and noticed that the red candle wax had splattered onto the white surface during one of Meredith’s forbidden burnings. She must have been the one who chipped at the wax with a fingernail, marring the paint. Everything she touches turns lousy, Philippe thought. Just like me. I can’t parent, I can’t preach, my church isn’t growing, and my short story stinks.
He heard the gate clang, then the front door open.
“‘Alo,” Elodie called. He heard her footsteps tap into the kitchen.
“‘Alo,” ‘he called down the stairs and descended.
Elodie leaned against the counter, the stance she’d taken when they’d discussed Meredith a hundred times. Philippe looked at her, at the stale half a baguette on the table, the carafe of water from last night’s dinner, a cantaloup waiting to be sliced, and felt it was impossible to go on in this strange, stale world. Life was now just too hard.
“I’m a failure,” he burst out, “as a parent and as a pastor. Probably as a husband, too.”
She had heard these doubts before. She poured two glasses of water at the tap and led him to the terrace. The leaves of the ivy that clambered over the railing trembled in a light breeze. A Metro train rumbled as it emerged from its tunnel and passed at the end of their street.
“Cheri, tell me what’s bozzering.”
Philippe sighed as he sat on the bench. As usual, he was seduced by her French inability to pronounce the “th” sound.
He wished he were having wine, not water. But he couldn’t, so that was that.
He sat pensively for a moment.
“I envisioned a church with young Parisian families. I wanted to reach the French, the countrymen of my Huguenot great-grandparents. And what do we get but this odd bunch of expats. A Luxembourg diplomat and his wife. An Italian scientist doing his post-doc at the Sorbonne. A middle-aged artiste from New Jersey in dangly earrings and bracelets that clank during my sermon. And we’re not growing.”
“Philippe, ze fact is, we are growing. Jus’ more slowly zan we ‘oped,” Elodie said. “Isn’t zis really about Meredees?”
“I did this to her by being a pastor!” he said. “It’s my fault.” He had to keep his voice down. The neighbor on the other side of the garden wall had his windows open. “The pressure on her to always be good, to behave, that she endured as a preacher’s kid. I’m sure she resented it. She needed freedom from it.”
“Maybe she just addicted to alco’ol.”
“No, really! You’ve felt pressure as a pastor’s wife. People tell you, ‘That sermon was too long’ and expect you to tell me. They complain about the snacks before the service, the humidity in the cave during the service, the sermon topic. It’s not easy being a pastor’s wife—or daughter. I’m a lightning rod for their dissatisfactions, and my family is, too, by default.”
“Remember zat book we read by Thomas Merton? Someone ask’ him, ‘What’s ze ‘ardest sing about being a monk?’ And he said, ‘Ozzer monks.’ Ze ‘ardest sing of being a Christian is ozzer Christians sometime’. It doesn’t mean you aren’t doing ze right sing.”
“If I’ve been doing the right thing, then why is Meredith in so much trouble?
Elodie sighed. “Her choice?”
“Why isn’t God sparing us this heartache?”
“‘He will use it for good, mon cher.”
“With all the human suffering that God used for good in all of history, why aren’t we better off?”
“Aren’t we? Medicines, treatments, democracies, books, libraries, computers, jets, telephones to connect us.”
“What took so long?”
“Human nature?”
“And you can’t trace those accomplishments to God.”
“You’re so cynical today. ‘e is ze source of creativity. ‘e made les etoiles, la lune. ‘e gives us our talents. You know all zis.”
“What possible good can come from Meredith being a prostitute?” Philippe snapped.
Elodie sank her face into her hands. A moment later, her shoulders shook as she began to cry.
“I’m sorry, darling,” Philippe said.
She lifted her face and said in a constricted voice, “You know what ze Bible tell’ us. In all our distress, ‘e too is distressed.”
“I know,” he whispered. “But right now, it doesn’t feel like enough.”
He pulled her toward his chest.
