Good-bye and Amen

by Beth Gutcheon

  Location was a problem. The unchurched in the neighborhood were old lefties with no interest in established religions, and the young families either weren’t interested in Christianity or weren’t interested in joining a church with the kind of financial problems Holy Innocents had. I thought it would be easy to draw families who had children in our school, but that too was not meant to be. I spent a lot of time on my knees that first year or two.

  Monica Faithful Norman tried to start a youth group, which had always been one of his strong suits, but at Holy Innocents, he couldn’t get it off the ground. He was older and didn’t look hip or cool as he had in Oregon or when we first got to Colorado. And New York teenagers are not like kids in other places. They have subways, they can move around the city without having to drive so they’re not stuck at home or prowling the mall bored out of their squashes. Sitting in a parish hall or the rector’s study with someone who reminded them of their parents didn’t strike them as an entrancing way to spend an evening. Why should it, when they could as soon be out on the street with cans of spray paint, writing their tags on people’s front doors? “Kum ba ya” was definitely over.

  Meanwhile, the vestry was wilding.

  Norman Faithful Hi Thomas was the senior warden. He’d been ill, and he asked me to bring the vestry to him for my first meeting. Seemed like a sensible request. But the anti-Thomas faction, and there was bound to be one, I realized too late, decided that meant I was Hi’s creature.

  The church was hemorrhaging money when I got there. Hi didn’t see it as a problem. The school makes plenty of money. The anti-Thomas faction wanted to rent the sanctuary to a church called St. Jude’s that had no home of its own for a nine o’clock service. Only about six people come regularly to ours. But of course, those six were addicted to their little service and their little time slot, and one of them was Hi Thomas’s wife. St. Jude’s saw themselves as the early Christians, pure and persecuted. They were Anglo-Catholics, mostly confirmed bachelors, and they used the 1928 prayer book. The Episcopal church is a big tent, but not big enough for St. Jude’s under our roof, according to Hi Thomas. They’d fill the place with smells and bells, they’d bow at the Incarnatus, and other abominations.

  In the middle of all this, I had to tell the vestry we didn’t want to live in the rectory.

  Monica Faithful There was one night when Edith literally gasped for breath; she couldn’t even get enough to call to me, but she woke me anyway, it was so loud and desperate. I called 911. We spent six hours in the ER, frightened out of our wits. Did you know asthma could come on so suddenly? Well, the upshot was that it was the mouse dirt in the house that was making her sick. One hundred fifty years of it. Mice were in the walls and under the floors. The docs said she could live in a sterile tent in her room, or we could move.

  Bella McChesney I never thought Norman Faithful was committed to us. From the first he was like one of those people at a cocktail party who is looking over your shoulder to see if someone more important has come in.

  Paul McChesney When they first arrived, we had them to dinner. I wanted to give him some advice, you know. Give him the lay of the land, tell him what he might want to watch out for. He wasn’t listening. He was very entertaining, I give him that. He told some wild story about a colleague whose church was haunted by the former rector. If you went into the nave at midnight there were noises and blasts of cold air. Lights that had been out were found burning in the morning. He and his friend went in there together and performed some kind of exorcism.

  After they left, Bella said that Norman had drunk over half a bottle of very expensive Scotch. I should have known he was already in bed with Hi Thomas.

  Ted Wineapple I never thought Norman should be a bishop. He was too much of a lone wolf. And I thought the royal trappings would be spiritually dangerous for him. The first step toward becoming a bishop should be a great deal of very humble prayer, a great deal of “Thy will, Lord, not mine.” To be sure that it is God calling you to the bishopric, and not your own ego. The higher you go in the church, the harder it is to tell which line your calls are coming in on.

  But something in the heart of man loves a hierarchy. A pyramid, having it there, and climbing it. This is a church we’ve built in the name of one who said, “When two or three are gathered in my name…” Two or three. In private, with no display and no audience, just two or three, in faith. This is a church of very poor listeners.

  Monica Faithful There was a time when I knew Jesus as a person, a man like my father or my brother, who had me by the hand—who knew and cared about me as a person, who listened for my voice in the night and found ways to answer me, showed me his love in the eyes of a friend, spoke to me, from pulpits, from books, from the mouths of children. He was alive and He was with me. To have had that and lost it is…I can’t finish this sentence.

  Ted Wineapple Norman told me once about the moment he decided to be a priest. He and Monica were on some island in Maine, poking around an old settlement that had vanished, when he heard somebody weeping. No one was there. He said it was a woman. He said it seemed to be pleading with him for something, comfort, attention, something. And he knew in that instant that he could help, that God wanted him to help.

  Have you made any sort of study of ghost stories? I have. Not The Turn of the Screw, not the kind made up by authors. I mean the kinds of contacts that happen to real people. I do happen to believe the spirit world is thick around us. How could I not? But I’ll tell you something about those stories. For one thing, there are more of them in places close to water. Islands. I have no idea why, I’m just observing. For another, by far the most common are of furious servants or slaves or victims. People who could not express their rage in life at what life had given to others but not to them. Would you seek such souls if they had bodies?

  I asked Norman that, and in about ten seconds flat he was off on a tear about starting a writing program for angry people in prisons. I mean—he wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the point.

  Islands. Interesting.

  Of course we are involved with those in the body. The air around you is crowded with us.

  How we concern ourselves with you is stage eight or nine at least. There have been those in the body who have grasped it, but usually even here it takes individual tutorial. One can’t even ensnare it in body language without using a body word like that “individual.” Since that particular personal individual thing one spends so much time protecting becomes useless here as the egg shell to the hatchling. The great relief, the great good thing about here, is that you don’t have to now protect and honor both at once, the shell and the spirit maturing inside. All those uncomfortable dualities. Art versus science. Mind versus body. Good versus evil. Becoming versus being. One yearned for the simplicity of being all one thing. Here it is.

  Norman Faithful The diocese of Hawaii was seeking a bishop coadjutor. It was perfect. It was as if the Lord said to me, through my child’s desperate struggle for breath, Take your family to a new place, where it’s pure and warm and you can all heal. There you will find a mentor to help you grow into the miter and the crozier. This is what I have trained you for. Here you will be my good shepherd, and use your highest gifts.

  Bella McChesney I made an appointment with Norman. I told Paul I was going to do it. I thought it might help him to hear what people were saying if it came from a woman, since he seemed to get along with them so well. He chose the time, and I met him in his office in the parish hall.

  I’d arrived a little early and put my head in at the sacristy, since it was open, just to be sure all was well in that department. Things have not always been perfect in appearance since Father Faithful came. There was a stain on his alb you could see from the fifth row one week, and sometimes the ushers failed to straighten up the pews after services, and I had to go through them gathering bulletins and putting the hymnals back in the racks. Which I’m happy to do, of course. But Norman came to the door of the sacristy and stood looking at me a
s if it wasn’t my business to be in there, which I didn’t like.

  I’d brought him a stole I’d been working for some time, with Greek crosses in gold thread. Actually I started it for Father Andrew and then left off when he was so rigid about the Women’s Committee. When I knew he was leaving, I got it out and finished it for the new rector. I’m a past president of our chapter of the Embroiderers’ Guild of America, so you may take it my work is excellent.

  Father Norman unwrapped the package and I could see he was very touched. He thanked me; then he asked me to pray with him that he would wear my gift in humility and gratitude, for God’s love and for the chance to serve in our parish, amen. It was slickly done. I told him how much we were enjoying his beautiful preaching, and how much we hoped that our work together would be long and fruitful, as we were so lucky that he had answered our call. He seemed pleased. Then I told him what he needed to hear.

  I said, “Father Norm, there’s something I feel I should share with you as I know there are quite a few in the congregation who have this concern. Have expressed distress and dismay, in fact.”

  “About what?” he said.

  I said, “We’re an old parish, as you know. Some of our families have worshipped here for many generations, and we may be a little set in our ways. But that’s not always a bad thing.”

  “Bella,” he said, “is this about the rectory?”

  He looked as if he thought it was funny. He interrupted me and thought it was funny.

  I was very smooth. I don’t think he had the least idea that he’d made me angry. But really, where were his people four generations ago?

  I said, “The rectory has served six leaders of this parish, and their families, for over one hundred and twenty years. We believe that it’s one of the treasures of Holy Innocents.”

  “So do I,” said Norm. “I thank God you have been such wise stewards as to possess a piece of real estate that makes it possible for a priest to live in your parish without robbing a bank.”

  I waited, since obviously there was a But coming.

  “But my daughter has had an asthma attack that nearly killed her. We were advised by her doctors to move her and, as she’s only ten, she really cannot live alone.”

  He thought he was being amusing. I said, “I’ve heard your reasons; you forget my husband sits on the vestry.”

  “I never ever forget that,” he said.

  I said a really thorough professional cleaning would take care of the problem. He said he thought so too. With a thorough cleaning the rectory could be rented for enough money to cover the Faithfuls’ rent in a clean new building, and probably leave some over for the general fund.

  I said the parish would be deeply distressed to have the rector living far from the church, where they don’t know where to find him. “You forget,” I said, “this church once burned to the ground and was rebuilt by the vast generosity of a few loyal members.” Including my husband’s grandfather, I did not say. But I did say, “That fire would not have gone undetected had the rector been in residence at the rectory instead of in France on holiday.”

  He pointed out that the same thing could happen if he lived in the rectory; a fire could break out and he wouldn’t notice as he’d be in the hospital nursing his daughter.

  I won’t go on. It was outrageous, really. I was trying to help him. I was trying to tell him what people were saying. It was not the kind of reception I expected. I honestly think some people go into the priesthood because they are little tinhorn dictators. They love the thrill of standing in the pulpit decked out like saints, while people gaze adoringly and hand over power to them that belongs, by rights, to God. I went home and said to Paul, this is it. I mean it. I’m going to transfer back to Grace Church or try St. Luke’s.

  Monica Faithful After we moved back to the East Coast I saw my parents fairly often. Papa had kept his pied-à-terre in New York. He wasn’t performing as much as when he was younger, but he loved playing chamber music with old friends and he loved teaching at Mannes. Mother belonged to the Cosmopolitan Club. When she came into town by herself she stayed there. That’s interesting, isn’t it? She didn’t stay at Papa’s apartment. Maybe they both needed their retreats from each other. Maybe all marriages do.

  Norman Faithful You ask the search committee for their package, the profile of the diocese, job description, and application. You fill that out and write a heartfelt letter explaining why you would make a splendid bishop, and you get your letters of recommendation. Then you wait to see if you’ll make the final cut. Four of us made it; I was called to Honolulu for the “walkabout” in April.

  Honolulu! The air was so soft, the birds and flowers were like jewels. I’d had a ticket for the back of the bus, which was going to be quite a spiritual test, since it’s more than ten hours in the air, altogether. But I wore my black shirt and round collar, and at the last minute the girl at the gate upgraded me. I blessed her. I have a suspicion she thought I was Catholic, but no harm done. And Honolulu—that was love at first sight. You’re shown around the diocese, you meet with various groups, ordained and lay, from the different parishes, and chat and answer questions. In the end they gave us all the same topic and we preached on it.

  Monica Faithful I was meeting Mother at the Cos Club for lunch. Mother was all in a fuss and flurry over Norman becoming a bishop. She seemed to think I’d finally done something right. She wanted to know all about the duties, and what kind of mansion a bishop gets, and what’s the tall hat called. She liked pomp. Well, it was exciting. I was telling about the investiture, how the new bishop comes to the closed doors of the cathedral and knocks three times, and waits for them to be opened to him. Inside, his new constituents are all waiting in their pews, craning their necks. It’s so theatrical, which of course would appeal to her.

  That’s where I was in the story, at the knocking at the doors. In her mind I knew Mother was inside, in the front row with the children and me, waiting to see the sudden sunlight as the doors opened, with Norman’s dark figure silhouetted in the middle, then Norman sweeping up the aisle looking eight feet tall in his cope and miter. When I suddenly felt that appalling gush that every woman learns to dread, especially when it’s not due. In mid-sentence, I said, “Excuse me, Mother, I’ll be right back,” and got out of the room as quickly as I could. She was staring, with her fork halfway to her mouth. I couldn’t back out of the room, but I wanted to.

  I got to the powder room praying that nothing had soaked through yet. In vain. The skirt was stained so badly I knew perfectly well I must have ruined the banquette. I began to cry while I tried to clean the blood off my legs with bathroom tissue, but the stall looked like an abattoir. Then I heard Mother talking to the attendant. The attendant tapped at my door to ask if I needed help. Of course I did, desperately, but what kind? A bath and a change of clothes? A diaper? What the hell was I going to do? Then my mother bugled, “Monica—do you need a doctor?” I said I thought I probably did. She said she’d call mine, what was his name. And of course I couldn’t remember. I’d seen him only once. She said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

  It was horrible. The club sorted it out, found an ob-gyn who would see me immediately. I think one of the ladies in the dining room was a doctor and arranged it. By the time Norman had finished his chats and his speech in Hawaii, I was being scheduled for a hysterectomy. I guess more than one thing had gone wrong that day, though we never understood what. Well, the fibroids we understood. Which is worse, I wonder, for a woman to lose the organ that makes her a woman and a mother? Or a man whose lifework is made of his trust that he knows what he knows, to find out he doesn’t?

  Norman Faithful How the hell do you grow a thing the size of a cantaloupe in your stomach and not notice it? That’s what I want to know.

  Jeannie Israel Norman sets off on some grand folly of his own that he’s forgotten to thoroughly sort out with his wife, and Nika bleeds into her shoes. A pattern emerges. You’d think her God could work out some other way of ge
tting her attention.

  Eleanor Applegate Mother called me. The way she described how embarrassed she was, you’d have thought Monica had deliberately gored her own ox in the middle of the dining room. I went down to stay with Nika until Storming Normal could get back from Hawaii. In any event, I stayed a day or two longer to be with Edie until Nika was home from the hospital and on her feet. She’d been through a lot and was pretty much a wreck at first.

  The night Norman got home, he was on West Coast time and he was very wound up about how things had gone in Hawaii. I think he knew he hadn’t nailed it. We stayed up half the night talking. I’d never spent time like that with him, just the two of us, plus there are some people who are nicest after they’ve been kicked down the stairs. He was very unguarded and human. I quite got the point of him that night.

  However, while I was there, I also took a couple of phone calls from no one. You know, if a woman’s voice answers, hang up? I don’t know that’s what they were. They could well have been wrong numbers. But they happened.

  Monica Faithful I cried a lot. It took me by surprise, how sad I was, and I never could tell exactly why. Knowing there would really be no more children? It hadn’t seemed like it was going to happen, and I don’t know how we’d have afforded it if it had, but still. Really understanding I was going to get old and fail and die? And the surgery itself was surprisingly awful. They cut through your abdominal muscles and leave a big scar, and you can’t hold your stomach in and it takes forever to get your energy back. I guess there were also hormone things…anyway I went to Dundee early that summer, as soon as Edie was out of school. Not fun for her. Someone at school made a joke about her parents, Mr. and Mr. Faithful, and she had to pretend it was funny.