The Proud Shall Stumble

by Gerald N. Lund

  “Not so little anymore,” Frank said. “He’s shooting up like a weed right now.”

  “Tell him how much Grandma misses him.”

  “We will,” Celeste said. “He’s at boarding school for two more weeks, but we’ll have him call you this weekend when he’s on home visit.”

  “Big party today, I’m guessing,” Frank said.

  “Yes, Rena came last night to help June with the cooking. Rowland will be here for supper. Tina and Monte had to pack up Tina’s classroom, so they won’t be here until five. But then everyone but the three of you will be here.”

  “We wish we could be there too,” Celeste said. “So the twins are fourteen today, right?”

  “Yes. And speaking of shooting up, Benji’s on a growth spurt right now. He’s now taller than me. I think he could soon pass up Dad.”

  “Oh, wow!” Frank said. “That’s hard for me to picture.”

  Edie chuckled. “Dad says we’re going to have to mortgage the ranch to keep that boy fed.”

  “And speaking of Tina, how are the wedding plans coming?” Celeste asked.

  “Fine. They’re moving down from Provo today. They’ll stay here until the wedding.”

  “And that’s on the seventh of June?” Celeste asked.

  “Yes. At the Salt Lake Temple. Oh, Frank, she would love it so much if you and Celeste could come out for the wedding. You and Tina have always been so close.”

  “Well,” Frank said, “Celeste and I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  Edie jumped up and gave a little squeal. “You’re thinking about coming out? Oh, Frank!”

  Frank laughed. “Hold on, Mom. Dad, are you on too?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Good. Celeste and I have something we need to discuss with the both of you.”

  “We’re listening,” Edie replied.

  “Good. We have two things, actually. First of all, we have decided to come out for Christina’s wedding.”

  “Wonderful!” Edie cried. “Oh, Frank, she’ll be so thrilled.”

  “We plan to be there a few days early so we can visit for a while. But we have to leave right after the wedding to get back, for reasons I’ll explain in a minute.”

  “Send us your schedule and we’ll plan to meet you at Thompson Springs again.”

  “Actually,” Frank said with a chuckle, “we’ll be flying in.”

  “What?” Edie gasped.

  “Yes. Salt Lake City now has commercial airline passenger service. We’ll be landing at Woodward Field, which is out west of Salt Lake about five or six miles.”

  “And that doesn’t frighten you?” Edie asked. “The very thought of being that high up in the air with only a metal floor between you and death makes me shudder.”

  Celeste laughed lightly. “I was a little nervous about it at first too, but Frank and I flew down to New York City a couple of months ago. It was incredible.”

  “And instead of three days on the train,” Frank said, “it will take us only about twenty hours. We’ll make brief stops in Chicago, St. Louis, and Denver. Our flight is scheduled to arrive in Salt Lake three days before the wedding. Unfortunately, it would take too much time to go down to Monticello this time, and you’ll be in Salt Lake anyway, so we’ll get a hotel and plan to stay in Salt Lake. And you said there will be a reception up there too?”

  “That’s correct. A lot of our friends are coming up to be in the temple with us. And we’ve got a lot of people from here in San Juan who live up there now, including your Aunt Martha and her family and Uncle Johnnie and his family. So we’ll have a reception in the Reissners’ ward house. Then we’ll also have a reception down here a week or so later.”

  “Well, we won’t be able to stay for that,” Frank added.

  “But you’re coming, Frank,” Edie said. “That’s all that matters. Tina will be thrilled”

  Mitch said, “We’ll plan on picking you up at the airport. And taking you back, of course.”

  “That’s great, Dad,” Frank said.

  “I am so happy!” Edie exclaimed. “And you are bringing Reginald, right?”

  “Yes,” Frank said slowly.

  Something in the way he said it brought Mitch’s head up, but he said nothing.

  “Uh . . .” It was Frank again. “Celeste has another bit of good news for you.” He laughed. “And no, it’s not another baby. Tell them, Celeste.”

  “Well, this is good news. I received a letter about two weeks ago from the Sorbonne in Paris. They have invited me to be a guest faculty member for their summer term.”

  “Oh my,” Edie said.

  “That’s exactly right, Mom. Only two people are invited each year, and Celeste will only be the second one from the United States. It is a great honor.”

  “I am very flattered,” Celeste said. “They are paying all of my expenses, plus a stipend.” She laughed, and it was filled with delight. “I didn’t tell them this, but I would have paid them for the privilege. This will look wonderful on my resume. The president of Wellesley called to congratulate me personally. She said this will make the college look good too.”

  “So when do you go?” Mitch asked.

  Celeste answered, “Summer term starts the seventeenth of June. I want to be there the Saturday before that at the latest.”

  “Are you going with her, Frank?” Edie asked.

  “Uh . . . kind of,” Frank answered. “Actually, I’m going back to Berlin for much of that time. I’m working on a project and need to do some research at the Institute. I’ll finish in time to go to Paris and meet up with Celeste when she finishes, which is . . . what day, honey?”

  “August twelfth. Frank and I are hoping to come home by way of London. We’d like to spend a week there.”

  “We also hope to travel some in Europe on weekends while we’re there,” Frank said, “but we especially want to spend some time in England.”

  “So we’d get back to Boston around the third week of August,” Celeste added.

  “And . . .” Edie hesitated. “Are you taking Reginald with you?”

  Silence. Then Frank spoke. “We wanted to talk to you about that, actually.”

  “Yes!” Edie said.

  “Yes, what?” Frank asked, already guessing.

  “Yes, we would be happy to take him. Overjoyed, in fact. You could bring him out with you for the wedding. Oh, Tina would love that. She adores Reginald.”

  “Uh. . . .” That was Frank, but he went silent again.

  Celeste came in. “We can leave him at the boarding school. We’re still thinking about that.”

  “Celeste is,” Frank cut in. “I’m not. He will do much better with you.”

  “His cousins would be so excited to have him back,” Mitch said after a moment of awkwardness. “They ask about him all the time.”

  “If we did bring him there,” Celeste asked, hesitant now, “could you or Edie, or someone else in the family, bring him out to Boston before school starts again? After being gone all summer, I’m not sure we can take the time to come out west again.”

  Edie was wishing very much that she and Mitch were in the same room. But they weren’t, so she passed him the ball. “What do you think, Mitch?”

  In the kitchen, the others were all standing around quietly listening. Rena was nodding vigorously and mouthed to her father, “Yes, yes, yes. Bring Reggie out here.” Mitch chewed on his lower lip and then said, “That’s when we start into fall roundup. Taking six days off would be pretty tough for any of us.”

  “We’d pay for you to fly out and back,” Celeste said quickly.

  “You’d never get me on a plane,” Edie said.

  “We understand, Dad,” Frank said. “We’ll work something out. We’re just exploring the options now.”

  Mitch sighed. “We need to
talk about one more issue before you make your decision.”

  “What?” Edie asked, not liking the sound of that.

  “Yes, what?” Frank added.

  Mitch took a quick breath and then plunged. “As you know, our family goes to church every Sunday. We took Reginald with us each week when we had him before, but he was pretty little then and was not aware of much that was going on. But he’ll be six in August. He’ll be attending Primary with his cousins. And he’ll be taught what we believe. Is that going to bother either of you?”

  Neither spoke for a minute, but then Frank said, “It doesn’t bother me. We like the values of the Church.”

  Celeste said nothing, and after a moment, Edie prodded a little. “Celeste?”

  “I. . . . Well, as you know, my family is Catholic. My father was not happy when he learned that his grandson was attending a Mormon church. As I remember, I saw a small Catholic church in Monticello, right?”

  “Yes,” Edie said. “St. Joseph’s Church there on South Main Street. We have quite a few Spanish Americans in the area, and many of them are Catholic.”

  “Would it be too much to ask if you could drop Reginald off there each Sunday when you go to Church? Even if the times don’t quite match, he could wait.”

  “No, it would not be too much to ask,” Mitch said, “but it’s not a good idea, Celeste.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. “And why not? Surely you don’t believe that everyone in the world has to be a Mormon?”

  “Celeste,” Frank cried, “that’s not what Dad meant.”

  “No we don’t, Celeste.” Mitch spoke calmly and without rancor. “In fact, one of the articles of our faith states that we believe that people should be free to worship and believe however they choose. We’ll be happy to talk to Reginald and offer to do that if he would like. But think about it from his perspective. All of the family, including his cousins, will be going with us to our church. They have friends who are Catholics and some who are Protestants, and even some whose families don’t want anything to do with religion. They go to school with them. But Reginald won’t know any of those families, so what’s going to happen if we drop a six-year-old off at the Catholic church?”

  “He won’t know a soul,” Frank said. “Dad’s right, Celeste. He’ll hate it.”

  “I think that’s a little strong,” she snapped back.

  “Not the Catholic church,” Frank said. “He’ll hate being there all alone, especially when the family he knows is up the street at the LDS meetinghouse.”

  Celeste was silent, so Mitch went on. “We’ll ask him what he wants to do, of course. And maybe even a time or two one of the family could go with him to the Catholic church. I think that would be a good experience for them. But if he chooses not to go there, I think it would be a mistake to force him.”

  “And you would do that?” Celeste questioned. “Let your children attend a Catholic church?”

  “Of course,” Edie said. “They’ve been there for some of the socials the Catholics have put on, just like some of the Catholics come to our socials. Remember, Celeste. This is a small town, and everybody knows everybody.”

  Again she was silent. Edie and Mitch waited. Frank did as well. “All right,” Celeste finally said, “I see what you’re saying. But we’re going to encourage him to attend the Catholic church. If he chooses to, then. . . .”

  “Then we’ll make sure he gets there,” Edie finished for her.

  “Thank you.”

  Mitch took another quick breath. “I’m not trying to make this difficult for you, because we very much hope you’ll let him stay with us while you’re gone. But I think I need to say one more thing. Frank already knows this and may have some concerns too, but I feel you need to know something else, Celeste.”

  “All right, I’m listening.”

  “If Reginald comes, he will be part of our family. And part of our family culture, as it were, is deeply rooted in our faith. In addition to going to church on Sunday, we read the scriptures together each morning and then have a family prayer. We have family prayer each night and also encourage the children to say their own personal prayers night and morning. We also pray over our food each meal.”

  “Oh? That’s quite a bit, isn’t it?”

  “It is, and Reginald will be part of that. We will not force him to attend or to do any of that, but we will invite him, because he is part of the family. And I think he’ll want to be where his cousins are and do what they do. When he was here before, he asked if he could say his prayers with us. And he loved going to church. And that will likely happen if he comes out this summer. Does that concern you?”

  “Why would it concern me?” Celeste asked. “I consider myself a religious person. I don’t pray every day, but I do from time to time.” That last part came out lamely.

  “I think what Dad is suggesting,” Edie said, “is that participating in these activities could lead Reginald to decide he wants to be a Mormon too when he comes of age.”

  “Oh.” Then Celeste caught her breath. “Oh!”

  “We don’t baptize children until they are eight, so this isn’t something that’s going to happen this summer. But down the road, it is possible that he would make that choice.”

  They could hear Celeste and Frank conferring with each other in whispers. Finally, Frank came back on the line. “Thank you for your candor, Dad. We need to discuss that some more. I wouldn’t say that I want Reginald baptized into the Church, but if he chose to, it wouldn’t upset me. But I can’t speak for Celeste. She would like to think about it some more.”

  “We understand,” Edie said, “but let me emphasize what Mitch just said. We’ll do what you ask us to do. If you don’t want Reginald saying prayers with us, then we—”

  “I have no problem with the prayers. It’s probably good to have one praying person in the family,” Celeste joked. “But . . . I know that Reginald becoming a Mormon would really upset my father. He’s heard so many negative things about the Mormons that he was quite angry when he learned you took his grandson to a Mormon church.”

  “We understand,” Mitch said. “That’s why we would like you to think about it. We’re not trying to do anything behind your back.”

  “Which I very much appreciate,” Celeste said. “But I do want to think about it some more.”

  “Good,” Edie said. “Thank you for calling to wish me happy birthday. And thanks for the birthday present, Celeste. It came last Wednesday. It is exquisite. I absolutely love it. And the twins loved the books you sent.”

  “I’m glad. Tell Benji and Abby happy birthday for us.”

  “Wish we could be there for the celebration,” Frank said. “Uh. . . .” He started to say something else but changed his mind. “Okay, we’ll call you later and let you know our decision. Bye.”

  8:45 p.m.

  The adults were seated in the living room, talking quietly together. The younger kids were now in bed; the older ones were out by the barn playing kick-the-can and Red Rover. When the phone rang, Mitch got up. He was closest to the kitchen. “I’ll get it.”

  It was Frank, and his first words were, “Is Mom on?”

  “No, but she’s just out in the living room. I can get—”

  “No, Dad. I’d like to talk to you, if that’s all right. You can tell Mom later.”

  Edie appeared at the door. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Frank.”

  “Oh, I’ll go in the bedroom.”

  Mitch shook his head and waved her off. “Let me talk to him first.”

  Edie frowned but then nodded and left again.

  “Okay, Frank. It’s just me.”

  “Uh . . . first of all, I want to apologize for what happened earlier.”

  “No apology needed. Reginald is your child. I just felt like we needed to say what we did. We can’t isolate him
from what we are.”

  “I know. And Celeste knows that too. Oh, she was a little angry at first that you were ‘painting us into this corner’—her phrase, not mine. But she knows that we can’t ask you to change what matters to you just to accommodate her feelings.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “So, she agrees. We’ll bring Reginald out when we come for the wedding.”

  “Wonderful,” Mitch said.

  “And I talked her out of the whole thing about attending the Catholic church while he’s there. She sees that it could be a difficult thing for him, and she’s decided that three months isn’t going to make some huge difference in him.”

  “I think that’s very wise.”

  Frank was quiet for several seconds, and then he said, “Actually, I didn’t talk her out of just the whole church thing. She had decided that we’d keep him here. She did not like the idea of you and Mom trying to convert our son.”

  “That’s putting it a little strongly,” Mitch replied. “That’s not our intent, but I can see why Celeste feels that way.”

  “Part of it was just her French temper rising. And part of that was aimed at me. She was quite put out that I didn’t stand with her on this. She’s not used to being told that she can’t have her way. But in the end she agreed that you were right, that it would only make things worse for Reggie.”

  “Who?” Mitch chided, unable to let that pass.

  Frank laughed. “Yeah, I’ve got to admit, I call him Reggie too. But don’t tell Celeste. Anyway, what I wanted to say, in addition to letting you know we’ll be bringing him out with us, is that we are really concerned about him. I think you’re going to be surprised when you see him. He’s really changed this last year. And not for the better. He’s gotten very stubborn, very sassy, especially with Celeste. He has no friends, not even at the boarding school. The headmaster says he goes into his room every night and reads. He doesn’t play with the other boys. He doesn’t talk to anyone. He’s not doing well in school. And, as you know, he is very, very bright.”

  “I see.” Now Mitch understood why Frank hadn’t wanted Edie on the phone. “Could that have anything to do with the boarding school?”