Abide With Me

  Perhaps she hadn’t heard him right.

  As that winter passed, giving way to a late spring, the minister appeared increasingly tired, so that his eyes began to have a slightly sunken, tubercular look, and he lost weight. As summer arrived, he sometimes did not go to coffee hour, and when he did, he threw out a compliment in a voice slightly too loud. “Say, Pete,” he said, “great slide show the other night. The Missionary Committee is lucky to have you.” But by summer he seemed like a big tractor being driven by a teenage kid, slipping in and out of gear. When Skogie Gowen reported that the minister had mentioned he would like to go down south someday to help the ministers with the colored people, some felt a sting of betrayal. But we are his people, was the thought. In any event, nothing more had been said about this as autumn rolled around once more, and Katherine, now decidedly ratty-looking, began her education. But there was a slight reticulation of unease. People wanted their minister back.

  Doris Austin wanted him back; she loved him.

  And she wanted a new organ. This was not unreasonable. The organ in the church had been there for twenty-four years, and every time she played a note, there was a small gap in time, so the congregation, singing their hymns, often seemed confusedly disjointed, some singing a beat ahead, others waiting for the beat behind. Doris often went to the church during the week to play, hoping she would come across the minister there, as she sometimes had. What joy it gave her to know this man was praying while she provided, above him in the choir loft, the music of the divinely inspired Johann Bach.

  Today, after leaving Jane Watson’s house, where she had been privately pleased to hear of Katherine Caskey saying, “I hate God” (a terrible thing for a minister’s child to say; and Tyler had humiliated her last week, just letting her sit there and bawl like a baby, and had not even called her since!), Doris went off to the church. The minister’s car wasn’t there, but then sometimes he walked into town. Feeling like a criminal, she crept down the stairs to his office, and found his door was closed. That he was not there felt deliberate.

  In the sanctuary, she sat in a back pew, her hands folded on her lap, ankles tucked beneath her. Sometimes when she prayed in here alone, the silence opening out before her seemed a thrilling presence. This feeling could expand into a joyous thing, but then she’d soon become anxious, excited, no longer serene, and it would collapse within her, a bubble whose delicate skin, reflecting the shadows and lights of her thoughts, would simply disappear, and then she felt peevish; once this happened, the large feeling would not come back.

  Today her face flushed to suddenly think how this was like sex with Charlie. Praying was like sex? She was a failure at both, because even now she was glancing at this carpet thinking what a good job Bruce Gilgore did vacuuming it each week, and keeping these long windows clean, and why was she thinking that? But that happened in bed with Charlie, too. She would think how she hadn’t checked one of the kids’ homework, or if the washing machine had been properly fixed, while Charlie’s head would move over her breasts, and she would pat his back.

  She picked up her pocketbook and left. On the steps of the church she thought again how she had wept in front of Tyler, told him of being struck by Charlie, and he had never called her back. Tears came again into her eyes. “Damn you right to hell,” she said.

  TYLER SAT WITH his Bible on his lap, staring out the window of his study. He was picturing the young fiancée of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a girl with her dark hair pulled back from her earnest, intelligent face, walking boldly into the prison to visit him. Since Bonhoeffer’s death, Maria von Wedemeyer had not made public their letters, and this moved Tyler—that she would hold their love privately to her heart. It was said that the last time she saw him in prison, when the guards indicated their time was up and began escorting her to the door, she suddenly turned, calling, “Dietrich!” and ran past the guards and threw her arms around him.

  Tyler turned his attention back to his desk. A deep sorrow for the young woman swept through him, and he looked to his Bible and read Zophar’s reply to Job: If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him . . . thou shalt forget thy misery. . . . And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope—

  The telephone rang.

  “Tyler, Jane here.”

  In the next room Connie turned on the vacuum cleaner. Tyler stood up. “Jane. Hello.”

  “Are you all right, Tyler?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “All right, then. Listen. Alison was here, and it seems a small incident occurred with Katherine. Alison was embarrassed to tell you, but yesterday during the Lord’s Prayer, Katherine said, ‘I hate God.’ “

  Tyler sat back down, put his elbows on his desk.

  “Tyler?”

  “Yes, Jane.”

  “We thought if this was our child, we’d want to know. So Alison asked me to give you a call.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Tyler, “but I don’t understand.” The back of his head had grown warm. He heard Jane sighing, or exhaling after having lit a cigarette.

  “I guess the way to understand it,” said Jane, “is to know that Katherine’s angry.”

  “During the Lord’s Prayer?” Tyler asked. “Where during the Lord’s Prayer?”

  “Where? I don’t know. You mean during what part of the prayer?” A pause. “We debated whether to tell you, and maybe it wasn’t a good idea. But when Alison explained to the class that this hurt God’s feelings, well—Katherine didn’t seem to care.”

  “And why didn’t Alison speak to me herself?”

  “Because she was embarrassed, Tyler.”

  “I see.”

  “Personally, I was against it.”

  “Against what?”

  “Telling you.”

  “But you are telling me.”

  “Gosh, you’re not making this easy, Tyler. Alison and Irma and Doris all thought you should know, but nobody wanted to tell you—we know the child’s had some trouble at school, and it’s awkward, of course—so as a favor I took on the assignment. If Martha had said this kind of thing, I’d want to know. I’d wash her mouth right out with soap, but how you respond to Katherine is your business.”

  “What do you mean—the way to understand this is that Katherine’s angry?”

  “Well, Tyler—”

  In the living room the vacuum cleaner went off; he heard the nozzle knock against the floor. He pictured the living room of Jane Watson—all those women sitting around discussing his child? A large, dark fist seemed to squeeze him.

  “Tyler?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re making me feel pretty bad here.”

  “The child lost her mother, Jane.”

  “Well, we know that. My goodness.”

  “If you think this through, the child’s lost half her family, with Jeannie not being here.”

  “We merely thought you’d want to know, that’s all. My goodness,” Jane repeated.

  “All right. I appreciate your concern. I’ll take care of it. Thank you.”

  He rubbed his face with both hands, then went to the doorway of his study. Connie was tossing the couch pillows onto the easy chair.

  “Say, I’m sorry about that,” Tyler said. His mouth felt dry. “The dog makes a mess of the couch.”

  “Oh, it’s all right,” Connie told him. “I’ve got a dog myself. A big German shepherd. Dog hairs big as pine needles.” She glanced at him, and in the midst of his anxiety, there was something in the innocent eagerness of her expression that touched him. He will beautify the meek with salvation.

  “Say, Connie—I’m going to be gone for a little while. I wondered—would you be able to watch Katherine for just a little while if I’m not back in time?”

  “Ay-yuh, sure.”

  He was already opening the closet door, getting out his coat. “And thank you,” he added, “for all this,” sweeping a hand toward the living room.

  “Just doing my job,” Connie said.

  THE UNPL
EASANTNESS OF JANE and Tyler’s phone call was hardly what you’d call a catastrophe, but it was not a happy note to get played in the little town of West Annett, and Tyler instinctively knew this. His impulse was to flee (keep moving) and Jane’s impulse, of course, was to share this with as many women friends as she could before children and husbands came home and the much-needed element of feminine camaraderie was lost in the clutter and clatter of others’ needs.

  Connie Hatch, however, was as oblivious to these small-town tremors as she was to the problem of the church’s old organ being one beat behind, and when the minister left the house, she was encased in an aura of sunshine, regardless of the pale skies outside the windows, the high cloud covering that wouldn’t clear. No, as Connie stuck the vacuum nozzle into the crevices of the couch, she felt remarkably airy and light, in a way quite unusual for her, thinking how lovely it was the minister had apologized for the dog hairs, and how—most amazingly—he wanted her to babysit full-time. She liked how in the minister’s eyes there was something bewildered; this was pleasing to Connie—she was bewildered herself. She sometimes felt life was a game of checkers, and a big hand from above had reached down and smashed Jerry, flipped Becky over on her back like a beetle, while she, Connie, was simply moved aside. And who knew why? Maybe the minister knew why. She’d spent time wondering why, and she thought probably there was no reason. But she had never forgotten the first time her mother-in-law had said to her years ago, “You know, Connie, I’ve often thought when a woman can’t have children, there’s a reason why.”

  “What do you mean?” Connie had asked, water springing to her eyes.

  “I heard on the radio,” Evelyn had said, “when a woman miscarries, the fetus is deformed. Nature knows who to give children to.”

  “I guess I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, Connie, now. You’re strung a little tight. You know that.”

  Connie’d had to sit down in a chair.

  She bent now to unplug the vacuum cleaner, and hauled it back to the closet. It’s true that she didn’t like Katherine. But that could change. A picture ran through her mind: Katherine would come home from school and have a scraped knee. Shyly, she would show Connie. And Connie would say, “Oh, a little boo-boo. Let’s put a Band-Aid on it and make it all better.” Jeannie might want a Band-Aid, too, seeing that Katherine had one. Connie would say to Katherine, “Let’s let Jeannie have one, too,” and both girls would clap their hands. In her mind, Connie talked to Jerry as she hunted for the floor wax. I’m going to take care of the minister’s kids, she said.

  But thinking of Jerry made her so sad that, while she was down on her hands and knees to wax the floor, tears dropped, and she had to sit back on her heels and wipe at her eyes. All the time it smells like shit, Con. People shit. Remember when Ma made us stay in the outhouse? And I was scared of the spiders. How come people shit smells worse than animal shit? This place is bad, Connie.

  Connie poured some wax onto the floor, rubbed it with the cloth. Every night after Jerry died, Connie had woken with a dark heaviness in her, more awful than anything she’d known. It’s done now, she would think. He isn’t scared anymore. But she was never the same. Slowly she had come to realize this. You go along in life—you’re just Connie. And then you’re not the same; inside a stem has snapped. After that, you’re nothing. Nobody knows it, but you’re a simple “nothing” in the whole wide world.

  Remember the toboggan rides we took, Connie? If you thought it was dangerous, you told me to sit behind you so you’d hit the tree first. It’s cold here, Con. I’m scared.

  “Shit,” Connie said. She had been waxing the same spot over and over, and it was thickly shiny. “Shit, hell, and piss,” she said. But the minister would most likely not notice, and he certainly wouldn’t care. She stood up and put the wax away, and started dusting the dining-room table. The image of Katherine ran back through her head, shyly showing her the scraped knee, Connie standing there with the baby on her hip. Connie thought how, when the Caskey girls were grown, they’d say, “We had a housekeeper when we were little. She just about saved our lives. Dad couldn’t have managed without her. She really saved our lives. Her name was Connie Hatch, and she was the kindest woman you ever knew.” They would say this to their college roommates, their boyfriends, their in-laws.

  Connie dusted the dining-room chairs, and thought how—poking around one day—she’d discovered that every picture of Lauren Caskey had been put in the attic, in a cardboard box, along with the woman’s watch and wedding ring. “Don’t you think that’s strange, Adrian, not to have any pictures of the woman around?” Connie had asked, not expecting an answer. But after a long silence, Adrian had said, “No.” Connie pushed in the chair, dusted the one beside it. Lauren Caskey hadn’t liked her, and Connie’d known it right away. Even though Lauren had been one of those messy, careless women—dropping a pink sweater right on the floor, tossing a high heel into the corner—and certainly in need of Connie’s help, she’d never said a kind word to Connie, never really said a word at all.

  But to get sick like that! Just horrible. Connie stopped dusting and sat down in the dining-room chair, the dust cloth loose in her hand. She couldn’t for the life of her understand why things went that way, bodies becoming like prisons with the person stuck inside. Screaming, or not screaming, but staring at you like you should do something. Connie had been glad when Tyler’s mother sent her away—who wanted to watch such a thing? She didn’t. But she wondered if Tyler “believed” in suffering. People thought suffering made you stronger, but Connie thought that was baloney; stronger for what? Death? If there was some kind of afterlife, then was the suffering supposed to get you a faster train ride to heaven?

  The idea that there might be an afterlife horrified Connie. She had a hard enough time with this one. What if death was a big garbage bag where the body went, but the mind was left to hang on forever, suspended with its thoughts? That was Connie’s idea of hell. (Not that she wouldn’t like to see Jerry, or have their minds wink to each other in some netherland. But she doubted she’d be that lucky—her mind would get stuck in a different room.) Except it was all foolishness; there weren’t rooms in heaven or hell; there was no heaven or hell.

  But there was this—the warmth of the minister’s house.

  Connie looked around at the pink walls while she drummed her fingers on the dining-room table. Up in the attic, she remembered now, were—along with all those other things—lots of women’s new clothes with the price tags still on. Someday she’d offer to help Tyler with that; he shouldn’t have to have them up there forever. He’d trust her to figure out the best way to do these things, just like the way he asked her about his frayed cuffs.

  For lunch Connie ate a slice of cold meat loaf she had brought with her, banging her palm against the bottom of the ketchup bottle. She planned in her head the minister’s meals. She got up to check in the freezer for peas. There were none; she wrote it on the grocery list. Peas. She was good at this. After she’d done the laundry, earlier this morning, the minister had said, “You’re pretty important to this household, you know.”

  Connie, who, years before, had loved to square-dance in the grange hall, felt this morning the possibility of being once again, graceful and light-footed, as she rose to look through the minister’s cupboards, as though her entire relationship to the world might turn into a happy dos-à-dos of partnering.

  THE ACADEMY HAD recently put in a pay phone by the gym. Charlie Austin had a free period, and he stood now putting quarters into the slot. She answered on the second ring.

  “It’s me,” he said, glancing around. A few girls had come out of the locker room way down on the other side, wearing their blue gym suits snapped up the front.

  “Hi, me,” she said, laughing.

  “I have three minutes,” Charlie said. “And then my quarters run out. I just wanted to say hi.”

  She laughed again. “Just hi? Nothing else?”

  “I can’t really
talk. I’m on the phone by the gym, and the girls are about to have gym class.” Already a basketball bounced.

  “Are they sexy? The girls?”

  “No,” he said. To his horror, he saw that his daughter was one of them. He turned his back.

  “We could get a girl, Charlie. Wouldn’t you like to see me with a girl? Listen, if you can’t talk, maybe I can.”

  “That would be good.” His voice had gone hoarse.

  “Know what I was thinking about this morning?”

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Doing it doggie-style. In front of a mirror. So I can watch what you look like. Should I tell you more?”

  “More,” he said. He closed his eyes.

  “I’ll keep my skirt on, and you just hike it up. I’ll have my garter belt on, but no panties. Charlie,” she said softly, “I love fucking you.”

  He could not believe a woman could speak this way. His cock was rising as he stood there. He heard the gym teacher’s whistle. “I miss you,” he whispered.

  “I miss you, too.”

  “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  “Screw whenever we can, I guess. Remember, you belong to me.”

  “Only to you,” he said. He hung up and walked back to the teachers’ room without glancing at the girls. He had no idea if Lisa had seen him or not. She probably had, he thought. You are a bad, bad man.

  THE BROCKMORTON THEOLOGICAL Seminary sat on a hill, its old stone buildings and large elms dominating the town with a kind of quiet stateliness. Only the new library seemed out of place, built off to the side with a squat angularity, and the sight of it saddened Tyler, made him feel older than he was, for he would have preferred it match the old architecture instead. He understood this was “modern,” and he disliked it. It seemed to have the shape of something alien invaders would construct.

  But the familiar smell of Blake Hall gave him a deep, nostalgic pang, disorienting in its sense of not having changed at all, the large clock at the end of the hall, the pictures of past presidents looming on the wall; the faces of these men, white-haired, dignified, cheeks pinker than they might have been in real life, gazed at Tyler impassively.