Good-bye and Amen

by Beth Gutcheon

  Bobby Applegate Nora came running to get me. She had the ring of keys from the kitchen, and had opened a door I’d never even noticed. What was in there must have been some good idea from the fifties. There were big glass jugs of water, turned quite a nasty color, and a gallon of Scotch, and a carton of Kent cigarettes. A shelf of canned goods, some folded cots, and a card table and folding chairs. A transistor radio, all corroded. A first-aid kit. A couple of decks of cards and a set of dominoes. Can you imagine?

  Eleanor Applegate And what were we supposed to do with fifty-year-old canned goods? We’re always prepared for the wrong disaster.

  Bobby Applegate I kept the Scotch.

  Annie Applegate I spent an hour or two with the scrapbooks Annabelle Brant had made. Nora was trying to sort the family pictures in some way that made sense, the Mosses and Bings in their boxes and the Brants and Lees in others. We got pretty good at spotting great-aunts and -uncles, even in childhood. James Brant was easy; he was amazingly handsome, with a square jaw, and thick dark hair with a curl at the peak. There was a big picture of him in a silver frame on the piano, and also an oil of him and his sister Louisa, who was retarded or demented or something, when they were about eight and ten. Uncle Jimmy took the painting, which surprised Mom, who had a place all picked out for it.

  Annabelle’s scrapbook had all the clippings about her wedding in Cleveland, and pictures of people we can’t identify and lots of memorabilia from when James and Poor Auntie Louisa were small. Certificates of merit from Sunday school, invitations to parties. Pictures of The Elms in Dundee, not The Plywoods but the original house, when it was new. Pictures of Annabelle and James on some enormous yacht with the crew all in uniforms—I think it was the Maitlands’. Programs from concerts eighty years ago at Ischl Hall. Then a picture of James with a woman I didn’t recognize. They’re sitting under a tree in summer. Nora went burrowing through the laundry basket of pictures she either hadn’t sorted yet or didn’t know what to do with.

  Nora Applegate Bingo—the woman with James Brant was the girl from the mystery family on a porch in Maine. The mother in that picture is wearing the topaz ring.

  Annie Applegate Daddy said our great-grandfather was married before he married the Dreaded Candace. (And no one ever told us this?) The first wife’s name was Berthe Hanenburger and the family were famous musicians who went to Dundee in the summer. Berthe died young. And apparently we kept the ring. Later I found a scrapbook all about her singing career, with lots of pictures of her from Cleveland and New York newspapers but nothing about her death. Dad thinks that poor Berthe died because she laced her corsets too tight while she was pregnant. But Aunt Monica said she had TB and lost her voice and shot herself.

  Once I understood where the ring came from, I wanted it. It’s hard, dividing this stuff. It isn’t really bits of stone and metal and wood. It’s the history of our family. Who loved who, who was cruel, who was kind. When I look at the pictures of those children, dressed up and hopeful, I think of all the things they must have longed for when they were young—puppies, a pony—and how long they’ve all been dead and buried, the children and the ponies. What’s left is us.

  Monica Faithful The woman who was doing the estate sale arrived as we were packing to leave the house for the last time. It was a beautiful morning. Those huge elm trees behind the house were in leaf, arching over the lawn. It was the trees that really got to me. We have parishioners up on the Heights in Sweetwater with trees like that, but the one big tree we had at the rectory was an ancient spruce that blew down in a storm last winter, right onto the roof of the garage.

  I didn’t want to linger any more, it was too complicated. I just wanted to pack the car and go.

  Edith Faithful The auction lady wasn’t very happy. She’d been planning to use the dining room to do her cataloguing. But at the last minute Uncle Jimmy took the dining room table, and of course Aunt Eleanor took the chandelier. The movers were taking it down as the lady walked in the door.

  Dad was out in the driveway with the Volvo packed. Standing there with the driver’s door open. We’d have been ready to leave sooner if he’d come in and helped, but he had ants in his pants—he stood out there so Mummy would know she was keeping him waiting. He had put on his priest shirt and collar. He always drives like that so he won’t get a ticket if he gets caught speeding.

  Monica Faithful Imagine driving away from the house you grew up in, where your parents lived for almost fifty years, for the last time. The last time Eleanor and Jimmy and I would be under that roof together. And just as I really was going out the door, Nora came down the stairs with a box she’d found under a bed on the third floor. It was full of jewelry carved out of lava from Pompeii that somebody bought in Italy a hundred years ago. There were letters too, and photographs bound in a little Victorian album. Whose? Eleanor said she couldn’t even look at it. She told Nora to put it in the car and she’d deal with it at home.

  We were all out of time. Everything in the house that we were keeping had colored stickers so the movers knew who to ship it all to. Jimmy and his family had already left for the airport; Edie was going to New York with Sylvie. Bobby and Nora were in the den reading old letters while Eleanor tried to make them stop and seal the boxes so she could pack the car.

  The piano movers were in the driveway, carrying Papa’s Steinway out of the studio to take it to the showroom in New York. Edie said that Charlesie had gotten into Mother’s medicine cabinet and started taking the pills. In the end, as I got into the car Norman was talking about how far he wanted to get by nightfall, and I forgot to even look back.

  I dream about that house. On my deathbed I’ll be able to walk into any room in it and tell you exactly what it looks like; what’s on the walls, what’s in the drawers.

  I hear the family that bought it ripped out the kitchen to make a great room, and put gold-plated faucets in all the bathrooms. They have four children, all girls. They send us Christmas cards.

  II

  ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY

  How long does it take before you begin to move, leaving behind the world you knew? Three days, just as you thought. But time is rather different here, if we can be said to have it at all, so that answer may not mean what it seems.

  So many think that they will slip out of the body and whisk straight away to Heaven or Hell, singing or snarling. But no. There is much to be determined in the spirit world. The spirits of infants and children need time to become themselves. We tend them. Many others arrive with wounds or scars suffered in life in various personal collisions; these are meaningless in celestial terms. Here they are gradually unlearned. And all those bodily aspects that shape the spirit: beauty, ugliness, health or wealth or their lack, all those worldly accidents. What happens when the marks they made are sloughed off? Something slightly different for every soul, and every single variation forms part of the endlessly re-forming universe.

  The celestial kaleidoscope. An infinite pattern in which every fleck contains a whole life, and that life is made up of infinite previous lives, a pattern made in dimensions for which there are no words. Eternally absorbing, we understand. In Heaven they watch the celestial kaleidoscope. Here we watch the separate lives.

  Lindsay Tautsch Father Faithful rarely sang the mass, which was one of the problems at Good Shepherd. Not the only one or even the most important, but he didn’t take it seriously that people minded. They did mind in the choir loft, and on the altar guild. The liturgy committee. Another was that Norman chose the hymns. He entertained requests, but he rarely responded to them. He said that if you’re six feet five you don’t have to.

  It’s a big rich parish, Good Shepherd Episcopal in Sweetwater, Pennsylvania. For many priests it would be a plum, a career-topper. But for Norman, it was a consolation prize. He’d expected to be a bishop. He has no idea why he isn’t. He has a list of published books to his credit. He had his own TV show in Colorado. He’s probably the only priest in the communion who contributed a chapter to a
textbook on torts.

  You can still see the lawyer in him. He loves argument. The clash of battle, the thrill of being cornered, enjoying the mess of fighting his way out of it. He certainly doesn’t turn the other cheek to anyone. He did keep a picture of Martin Luther King on the wall in his office, though.

  George Kersey When we were in Missouri at the start of our careers, we belonged to a curates’ group. We’d meet for supper once a month and tell war stories. I was in a big parish with two curates and a seminarian, but Norman was in a small parish serving a rector who was way past his prime.

  A parish can’t fire a rector, he has to be removed for cause by his bishop, but the bishop and Norman’s rector were old golf buddies, so that wasn’t happening. Father Tom was dug in at St. Gregory’s with the wagons circled and the loyal church secretary had taken on the role of Rin Tin Tin. Norman and Monica were the Apaches howling outside the stockade with their recruited army of New People while Father Tom huddled in his chair, but Mrs. Snelling could trot in and out among the enemy, swift to sniff out predatory markings and able to carry the bad news back into the fort. When she went home in the evenings she took the print ball from the typewriter with her. Norman still had to type up the order of service and the announcements for the bulletin insert. He had to get his own print ball.

  Monica Faithful I loved our parish in Missouri. There was a small college nearby, and Norman started recruiting on campus. There had been no Protestant outreach there at all, though there was a Catholic youth group. Norman would talk to the students about civil rights, he’d tell the stories of Jesus against the Establishment, turning over the tables of the moneylenders in the temple, that kind of thing.

  Father Tom was semi-horrified when all these young people started showing up at St. Gregory’s on Sunday morning. They’d sit there in their tie-dyed T-shirts expecting Norman to preach. Some of them were black. It was after a couple of boys tried to turn over the army recruiter’s table on campus that Mrs. Snelling started taking home the print ball from the Selectric. To try to sideline Norman, Father Tom made him take the children’s service, knowing that Norman didn’t believe in that, he believed the children should come to worship with everyone else.

  Norman Faithful Missouri was fun. My rector hadn’t had a new idea in decades and times were a-changing. When Father Tom gave me the children’s service, which was nothing short of curate abuse, I started inviting town leaders to come in to talk to the children. One morning the fire chief came, all kitted out in his waterproofs and his red hat, to talk about fire safety. Remember Stop, Drop, and Roll, how they teach you that in grade school? He thought they probably knew that one so he said to the children, “Now what would you do if your clothes were on fire?” And a little girl said indignantly, “Well, I wouldn’t put them on!” Word spread that we were having fun, and the grown-ups started coming to the children’s service—poor Father Tom.

  Monica Faithful Father Tom wasn’t very well. He probably wanted to retire, but he was damned if he was going to quit the field once Norman arrived. People began to be afraid he’d die in the pulpit. Luckily, Norman was called to a church of his own, in Oregon. Of our own, I should say. They definitely thought they got me for free when they paid Norman. They were not interested in a rector’s wife who had her own life.

  Betty Kersey I was sorry when the Faithfuls left—Monica was a lovely person and she’d just started teaching at the elementary school. She’d made friends. Another one of the gals, Selina, her husband had just taken over his first parish, was having a difficult pregnancy. She’d been ordered to bed for two months. That was hard because she should have been out making friends, building her community. Monica used to go over after school and keep her company, or pitch in for her if the altar guild didn’t polish the patens right or iron the purificators. People notice every little thing that isn’t perfect when you’re new, and whatever goes wrong is your fault.

  Ted Wineapple A rule of thumb we all learn: in a new parish, beware the people who meet you at the door. They’ll be the ones who think they own the place.

  Selina Malecki There was something of a war on in our altar guild. On one side was a pair of young moms who’d gone to college back east and didn’t wear brassieres. We weren’t sure they wore any underwear at all. They insisted their husbands serve on the altar guild. They wanted a woman appointed senior warden, you see, and this was their way of forcing Geoff’s hand, even though the older members would hate it if he gave in. Remember Our Bodies, Ourselves? That was the bible they worshipped. I’m sure they wouldn’t have come to church at all, except they wanted their children in Sunday school.

  Well, the men couldn’t iron for beans, and the altar guild was all jumpy. Monica came one day, and thank God she stopped in the church before she came over to me. The altar was all decked out with pine boughs and holly and the green burse and chalice veil, and they had set out the green chasuble and stoles—it was Christmas week! She redressed the whole altar for me. Can you imagine?

  White is the liturgical color for Christmas. We don’t use green until after First Epiphany.

  Betty Kersey I remember when Norman was interviewing for that parish in Oregon. The search committee used to call at the strangest hours, just to ask Norm a few more questions—like at eleven o’clock at night. Once Norman and Monica got there, they learned that their last priest had had a problem with the bottle. The vestry wanted to make sure Norman was sober after dinner. People are always guarding against the bad thing that already happened to them, aren’t they?

  George Kersey I once worked in a school where they’d had a really pugnacious head. He couldn’t get along with anyone, although he’d come with great recommendations. Turns out the last school gave him glowing recs because they wanted to get rid of him. He was one of those guys who’s great at campaigning for the job, but not so good at doing it.

  Anyway, the board fired him. I think it was pretty expensive for them too; he was also good at negotiating his contracts. They hired a guy who seemed perfect, great education, great experience. But he was all soft, he couldn’t fire anybody, and that’s what you need a new head to do. Move fast to sweep out the deadwood the old head was protecting. This guy knew who needed to go, but he couldn’t pull the trigger. All too apt a metaphor. It turned out that the reason he’d left his last school was, he’d fired the art teacher and she came in the next day and shot him.

  Kendra Brayton (formerly of Sand Hills, Oregon) Of course I remember the Faithfuls. That was a case of Loved Him, Hated Her. It was a split vote before the congregation called them at all. The other candidate was from California, much more our kind of person, and his wife was cute as a bug. What were their names?

  Trinny Biggs I was in favor of the guy from Pasa Robles. But Norm preached better, and that carried the day. He was a tall man. When he was all decked out in his robes he looked like God himself.

  Right away he started an outreach program to pull in the “unchurched,” as he put it. He started lots of new things. That business of hugging and kissing at the Sharing of the Peace? That was new. I was the organist, so no one had to come hug and kiss me, except once in a while someone from the choir got carried away. He started a youth group. He drew the young and then some of their parents started coming, and some others in the village complained that he was poaching Presbyterians. Oh, he preached against war, and he had us all singing Negro spirituals. Not everyone liked it, but there’s always going to be some, when you change things.

  I thought he was fine. She was a cold fish.

  Kendra Brayton I was told she was Swedish. Nicky. Maybe that explains it. She didn’t take to us, and it was mutual. I remember at the first potluck supper they gave at the rectory, Cassandra Wheat brought her molded salad, and Nicky picked all the little marshmallows out of hers and left them on the side of the plate. Cassandra noticed, believe me. We all did.

  Monica Faithful Oregon was not a happy time for me at first. Sand Hills was very pretty; it was apple-growing co
untry, and the church itself was lovely, stone, with a square bell tower like an English country church. But it was in the middle of nowhere and it had been hard, leaving all those friends in Missouri. Not so much for Norman, because he had the new job, and he’d won the competition to get it. I was leaving my friends and I hadn’t won anything, and the week we were moving in, I had a miscarriage.

  There were these women from the church at the rectory, “helping” me unpack our boxes. They were ripping into things, couldn’t wait to see what we had, and they kept putting the china and stuff away wherever they wanted, wherever the last rector’s wife would have put it, without letting me stop and think where I wanted things to go. I was having savage cramps and then I went to the bathroom and under my skirt I was all bloody. I sat there weeping while my…it…all went into the toilet. There was so much blood. And then there wasn’t any toilet paper. I didn’t even have a doctor in town yet. For a while I kept bursting into tears, and it was weeks before I could find anything in the kitchen.

  Norman Faithful Of course it was a dream come true, to finally have my own parish. The congregation was small and gray when I came, but not for long. I did a youth program at the Y, where the kids played guitars and we sang “Kum ba ya” and all that, and I had myself invited to local schools to meet the kids and preach and pray. I’m told that the minister at the Methodist church went around calling me That Damned Used-Car Salesman. That got a good laugh in the vestry. We were selling the Good News, and people were buying.