Abide With Me

  “I try,” his mother said, “to help. I try to do my little bit.”

  “Yes,” Tyler said. “And I’m grateful. We are all grateful.”

  And seekest thou great things? Seek them not.

  Tyler had slept very little, and he stood before his congregation feeling as though his eyelids were coated with sand. His sermon, a permutation of the unfinished On the Perils of Personal Vanity, was called Is There Meaning in the Modern Age? Paul Tillich, Tyler said, clearing his throat, believed that anxiety was the phenomenon of modern man. And why shouldn’t it be, Tyler asked, when modern culture has allowed us to worship ourselves? Why wouldn’t we be suffering anxiety? The age of science, natural and social, has allowed us to believe the mystery of who we are can be explained, instead of celebrating these discoveries as a further example of the mysteriousness of God. Why shouldn’t we be anxious when we are told that love is nothing more than a self-serving mechanism of nature? When we are told that the world’s ills lie in suppressed memories of childhood? But the son of King David, Solomon, one of the wisest and richest kings in ancient times, a man who had never heard of Khrushchev or atom bombs or hydrogen bombs, never heard of Galileo (who kept his faith right to the end), had never known any physics or biology or psychology—this man, writing the books of Ecclesiastes, asked some of the very same questions being asked today. And concluded that, without the ability to view life as a gift from the hand of God, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

  Tyler, knowing his mother was sitting in the back, over toward the right, glanced up toward the left instead, and saw a newcomer—a woman seated in the back row, touching an open palm to the back of her head.

  Tyler straightened his shoulders, read on. “When a doomsayer told Ralph Waldo Emerson that the world was coming to an end, Emerson replied, ‘Very well, we’ll get along without it.’ “ Bertha Babcock, bless her old schoolteacherly soul, let out one sound, like a faint honk, which he took to be a chuckle, but, glancing up, he saw only blank, unsmiling faces. On he went. He heard his voice grow louder. When he glanced up again, his jaw felt as though it had wire in it, and when he saw Charlie Austin watching him with cool disdain, saw Rhonda Skillings squinting toward the window, he paused for a rather long moment, before saying, “Christians are now wrangling with insufferable sentimentality. The ability to love appears to be a simple possibility. But who among us can argue that while we ought to love one another, we do not?”

  He stepped away from the pulpit, and said, “Let us pray.” Right before he bowed his head, he realized that the newcomer in the back row was the woman from the pharmacy in Hollywell.

  “KATHERINE,” SAID ALISON CHASE in the kinderkirk room, “it’s your turn to wear the blindfold.” The woman held a scarf in her hand and approached Katherine. Katherine stepped back. “Now, stop it,” said Mrs. Chase.

  Terrible, but a tiny ferociousness had taken hold of Alison this morning. When the minister brought Katherine to the kinderkirk room, holding a wriggling Jeannie on his hip (who would be taken in a moment to the room across the hall, where the Austin girl took care of the toddlers), he had said, “Alison. Hello. Say, thanks again for that apple crisp,” then adding over his shoulder, “it was really delicious.” And it just made Alison mad. He could thank her, but he didn’t have to lie.

  Katherine Caskey may not have been Alison’s favorite child, but the woman had felt some degree of pity for her. She did not feel that way today. Today she felt she didn’t like the girl, who always, when she saw Alison looking at her, turned away. “Katherine, look at this sign the class just read,” Alison said. Alison had worked on it the evening before. THIS IS LOVE OF GOD; TO KNOW HIS COMMANDMENTS. 1 JOHN. The exercise included leading the children around blindfolded so they could learn about faith and obedience.

  “What’s that of?” asked Martha Watson, pointing to a new picture on the wall.

  “That,” said Mrs. Chase, “is a picture of the Christians waiting to be thrown to the lions. Back then, if you were a Christian, the Romans wanted to kill you.” The children in the room had become quiet. “They put you in a cage, and a guard would come and ask each person in the cage, ‘Are you a Christian?’ And people prayed for courage not to deny our Lord. When the brave person said, ‘Yes, I am a Christian, I believe in Jesus Christ,’ he, or she, for they did this even to old ladies, would be taken into a big arena, just like a football field, and the lions would eat them. While people cheered.”

  Some of the children sat down in the little chairs. One boy made a sound like a roaring lion. Martha Watson said, “Cut it out, Timmy.”

  “Come here, Katherine,” said Mrs. Chase, walking toward Katherine, holding out the scarf. Katherine flailed her arms and started to cry.

  CERTAINLY NO ONE knew what it cost Tyler to give a sermon. They were not ministers—how could they know? Many Sundays he felt ill, a peculiar kind of exhaustion washing through his bones. Other times he felt a manicky high, as though some inner furnace had its thermostat turned up, and he would take long, fast walks, or in summer months, ride his bicycle for miles. But often—and especially these days—he would feel undone. He felt this now as he walked across the lower parking lot, while his mother went to fetch the girls from Sunday school. His limbs seemed filled with wet sand, and he would not go to coffee hour.

  Standing by his car was the woman from the pharmacy. She wore a navy-blue coat, and she smiled at him with a composure he found notable. Tyler extended his hand. “I believe we’ve met before.”

  Her face was plainer than he remembered, ordinary and pleasing. Her eyes were smaller than he remembered, too. “I’m Susan Bradford,” she said. “Gosh, I hope you don’t find me too forward, but we both know Sara Appleby, I think.”

  “Yes, we do, and no, I don’t.”

  “I hope your little girl’s feeling well,” the woman said. “She was having stomachaches, but that was weeks ago, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, she’s fine. She’s doing fine.” The minister’s eyes rested on her for a moment, then traveled slowly around the parking lot, the horizon, the trees, the blue sky. Far off in a parked car was a motion, and he saw that Charlie Austin was reading the paper. Tyler turned his tired eyes back to Susan Bradford. “What would you say to coming back and joining us for Sunday dinner?”

  She followed in her car while Margaret Caskey turned her head and spoke to the girls in the back. “You are to be very, very good. We’re having company for dinner. Katherine. Do you hear me?”

  “Mother—”

  “Tyler.” She spoke firmly, looked at him severely. “I’m glad I cleaned up the house this morning. I slept so poorly. I’m glad we have that ham steak.”

  In the rearview mirror he saw Susan Bradford put her blinker on, following him down Stepping Stone Road; a careful driver, to put her blinker on—there were no other cars in sight. He always did the same, put his blinker on, even with no other cars in sight. How Lauren had hated that.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, just go,” she would say.

  “This isn’t Massachusetts,” he would answer.

  The world, with its pale noonday light washing down through the mostly bare trees, seemed filled with invisible currents—strips of knowledge he seemed unable to get hold of. He glanced again in the rearview mirror. Katherine was staring down at her hands, then she looked out the window, and her eyes, even with her bangs falling over her face, shone with a deep, hard thoughtfulness. “You all right in the backseat there, Kitty-Kat?”

  She nodded, still looking out the window.

  AS HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER set the table, Charlie stared at the wallpaper print above the wainscoting. A pale-blue print against a white background. He felt like he’d never seen it before. Vines? A trumpet wrapped in vines? He coughed.

  “I’ve asked you twice now,” said Doris. “Are you coming down with a cold?”

  “I’m not coming down with a cold,” he said.

  “If you’re coming down with a cold, you shouldn’t go to Boston next week
. I still don’t understand what kind of meeting this is. Who cares what the Massachusetts Language Arts Council is doing?” Doris set a plate of sliced bread on the table.

  “So help me God, Doris. I’m not coming down with a cold. And I’m not explaining the goddamn meeting again.” Charlie seated himself at the table, where a pot roast steamed on a plate in the center. He couldn’t catch his breath, and coughed again. He knew this feeling of sponginess in his windpipe meant that he was going to lose his temper in a bad way, that slivered images would arrive in his head, small Filipino soldiers eating the horses they had shot, the jungle on fire, smoke so black when those ammunitions dumps got hit, all that horror swirling around in the back of his head as he stared at his older son now, who had taken a piece of bread and was eating it furtively, ducking his head, the bulbous end of his nose red. Charlie found the sight so repulsive he could have thrown the pot roast across the table, smacked his hand against the poor kid’s head. He seemed to shake with the effort it took not to do this, and when the kid looked up at him, frightened, despair filled Charlie.

  “Your man Caskey sounded like a damn fool today,” he said to Doris. His voice was thick with disgust because of wanting to yell at his son. “Halfway through that puke of a sermon he starts acting like he hates us all—did you notice?”

  “He’s not my man.” Doris placed a bowl of cooked carrots on the table.

  “I thought you loved Reverend Caskey, Mom.” Lisa was feeling pretty today; she pulled herself back as her little brother squeezed by, her breasts like small funnels beneath her white sweater.

  “I do not love Reverend Caskey.”

  “You don’t?”

  Doris didn’t answer. Her mouth was in a straight line.

  “She doesn’t?” Lisa looked at Charlie. He shrugged.

  “Well, his kid was crying today,” Lisa said, folding the paper napkins into triangles. “Not Jeannie, who’s cute. But Katie spit at Mrs. Chase and I heard some mother say Martha Watson was so scared of Katie Caskey she didn’t want to come to kinderkirk anymore.”

  “Lisa, you should be careful what you repeat.”

  “No, Mom, it’s true. Katie ripped Mrs. Chase’s scarf, too.”

  “Oh,” said Doris. “This is sad.”

  “Sad,” said Charlie. “I’ll tell you one thing, Doris. If you died, I wouldn’t let these kids go around spitting at people.”

  “Charlie, stop.” Doris sat down at the table.

  “I’m not going to stop. I told you from the very beginning, when everyone was so gung ho—Tyler Caskey’s not the man he appears to be.” He saw his kids watching him with some uncertainty. “Lisa, hand me your plate.” Charlie felt all snarled up—he wanted, right now, an alliance with Doris. Knowing he would see the woman in Boston next week, knowing that Tyler might view Doris as some beaten-up housewife, made Doris, and the pot roast steaming before her, appear pathetic and touching; he felt oddly protective of her.

  “The trouble with Tyler Caskey,” he said, handing Lisa a plate of pot roast and sliced carrots, “is that he wanted to be a big frog in a big puddle, but he could only be a big frog in a little puddle.”

  “I don’t like to think of West Annett as a little puddle,” said Doris.

  “It’s not a little puddle. It’s not little enough. That’s my point. He needs a congregation of about three people who will sit there and adore him. Oh come let us adore him. And he doesn’t give a damn if you get an organ you can play,” Charlie added. “And he can’t even take care of his kids.”

  “Goodness, Charlie. That’s pretty severe.”

  “Ah,” said Charlie, putting a slice of pot roast on a plate and handing it to his wife, “he’s just an ordinary guy. Who isn’t as great as he thinks he is.”

  This might have done the trick, calling him ordinary, for Doris had not thought of Tyler as ordinary. She seemed to ruminate on this, and nodded slightly. “Well, it’s a shame. No matter what the circumstances, it’s never a happy thing when your child goes around screaming and hitting.”

  “It wasn’t only Martha Watson who started to cry; some other kid said she was scared of Katherine.” Lisa tossed back her hair.

  “That’s dumb,” said her older brother. “How can you be scared of a kid that weighs six pounds?”

  “Easily.” Lisa scowled at him. “If you’re only six pounds yourself, she can be really scary. And you should talk. Just a few years ago you’d whimper every time you saw Toby Dunlop on the playground.”

  “Stop,” said Charlie. But they finished the meal like they were a family, and Charlie had stopped coughing.

  TYLER REMINDED HIMSELF that he had simply invited a guest home for dinner, but he couldn’t stop thinking they were auditioning for parts. Susan Bradford was dressed for the part—in her navy-blue turtleneck and a navy-blue skirt that widened over her expansive hips. She wore a string of pearls and a wristwatch with a thin black leather band. Politely, she offered to help Margaret Caskey in the kitchen, was politely refused.

  “I hope you don’t object to instant mashed potatoes,” Tyler’s mother said.

  “I eat them all the time. And I love ham with pineapple. At least let me help set the table.” She gave Jeannie the spoons to carry into the dining room, and when Jeannie banged them on the oak leg, Susan looked at Tyler and laughed.

  He said, “Katherine draws wonderful pictures.”

  Susan said, “Oh, I’d love to see some,” but Katherine shook her head once, moving away. “I’ll see your pictures another time, then,” Susan said.

  As they settled themselves at the table, Tyler just about to say grace, the telephone in his study began to ring. “Excuse me a moment,” he said.

  “Tyler. We’re eating. It can wait.” His mother looked at him with a quick look of severity.

  “Excuse me a moment,” he repeated, rising, smiling at Susan, putting his napkin down by his plate.

  He heard his mother say, “He’s very conscientious, I’m afraid.”

  Adrian Hatch was calling to say that Connie had disappeared. Did Tyler have any idea where she might be? Tyler held the phone, staring down at his desk. “But have you called the police?” he finally asked.

  No point in that, Adrian answered. It was the police who were after her.

  Book Two

  SIX

  Lauren’s home was brick, three floors high, in a neighborhood south of Boston where the houses were not small and the lawns looked as though they had been brushed and combed. Standing in the foyer that first time, Tyler had felt a shadow of loneliness fold over his heart as he gazed at the ornate furniture, the Persian rugs, the tall windows with their long pale-green drapes, the dark stillness of a huge hallway table. But Lauren, rushing down the large central staircase, throwing her plump arms around him, was a shower of sun. “You’re here!” she cried, and Mrs. Slatin stepped back as Lauren kissed him on the mouth. “I love you!” Lauren said.

  “Let him get his coat off,” her mother said. “Would you like a drink, Tyler, after your long ride? A martini, perhaps?” It was one o’clock in the afternoon. Tyler sipped a Coke in the family room, seated on a rose-colored sofa, answering politely when Mrs. Slatin asked him about his studies, his year in the navy, his sister. “And what does her husband do?” the woman asked, fingering her pearls, leaning forward with a kind of exaggerated enthusiasm, as though talking to a child.

  “Tom drives a bus,” Tyler said.

  “I see.”

  Lauren had slipped off her shoes and was sitting next to Tyler with her feet tucked under her. “We took a field trip once when I was in elementary school, on a bus,” Lauren said. “Remember, Mommy? And I threw up.”

  “You were always throwing up,” her mother said. “You were always an easily excitable child. Tyler, enjoy your pistachios. Then I thought we’d drive into Boston for lunch.”

  Lauren’s sister, a tall, slim young woman, joined them. She said hello to Tyler, and then said nothing else, but sat in the front seat while her mothe
r drove, looking out the window. Lauren held Tyler’s hand in the backseat. He thought Mrs. Slatin’s perfume smelled like bug spray mixed with baby powder, but he was not used to perfume. They ate in the restaurant of a large department store, and, except for the waiters, Tyler was the only man there. He had not been in such a place before.

  “Lauren said your father was an accountant. Your mother must be a brave woman to soldier on, losing her husband early.”

  “Tyler took care of her,” Lauren said.

  “We all took care of one another,” Tyler answered. He closed the large menu. “The way families do,” he added. He ordered a turkey club sandwich, and the waiter brought it to him with a silver covering. The women ate fruit salads, Lauren reaching over to his plate to help herself to bits of his sandwich.

  “You have no manners,” the sister told her.

  “Oh, it’s quite all right,” Tyler said. “I can’t eat this whole thing.” He had lost his appetite. Nearby, a woman his mother’s age with very blond hair was applying lipstick while gesturing with her free hand for the waiter to take her plate away.

  “Somehow I doubt that,” Mrs. Slatin said, smiling at him with those warm brown eyes. “You’re a big man. Just like my husband. We like our men big, don’t we, Lauren?”

  “Don’t forget you said we’d get those earrings, Mommy,” Lauren said.

  “Jim Bearce wasn’t big.” The sister announced this slowly, placing an accent on the word “big,” and giving Lauren a heavy-lidded gaze while touching her fork to her fruit salad.

  “Maybe you could shut up,” Lauren said lightly. “Or maybe not. Maybe you and I could sit here and talk our pretty little heads off.”

  Discomfort touched Tyler like a fine dust on his face. Mrs. Slatin kept smiling. “Tyler has big shoulders just like your father, girls.”

  That Tyler resembled Mr. Slatin was mentioned more than once in the year to come, though he could not see it himself. Only that they were both, as Mrs. Slatin had said, large men. But Mr. Slatin had a somber fierceness to him, a darkness like the sister. Lauren was all light. Tyler had never met anyone from whom such light shone. When she left the room, the house loomed large and strange once again to him, seated before the fireplace with his future father-in-law.