“You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry,” Edmund said, resuming his seat.
“No harm, brother.” Rick looked to his congregation. “Has anyone else testimony upon this matter? Have you all prayed upon it? Has the Lord shown you anything, anything you would like to share with us here today?” Two hands went up, then a third, then two more, then all the hands were raised except Sarah’s. Then Sarah raised her hand as well.
Just four days prior to this evening’s service, Rick preached a sermon that had deeply affected every member of the congregation. His wife, Tracy, had, for the third time since she and her husband had come to the church, received a divine message from the Lord. This time, the Lord had revealed to her the reason that the congregation had been so steadily dwindling in numbers over the last three years, from an average of eighty members on Sunday mornings, to a low thirty, and now, in the third year of its decline, the congregation was made up of little more than a consistent and devoted fifteen people, three of which, including Sarah, were the church’s founding members who had, in the mid-seventies, helped build the very building which still housed the congregation.
The message from the Lord was exacting: Some member (or perhaps even members) of the congregation was housing within their heart, maybe their very soul, a darkness, the precise nature of which the Lord did not reveal. But it was, the Lord had said, a darkness the person was not willing to admit even to themselves was evil, and therefore, they could not be relieved of it. This darkness was poisoning their lives, and preventing the Lord from blessing the congregation. Indeed, this darkness was the reason so many members, over the last few years, had either backslidden or abandoned the congregation for unspoken reasons. This is what their pastor had told them. This is what they had been called to pray on. They were all called to pray to the Lord to let them know if this word Tracy had received was true, and to begin searching themselves for traces of such a dark thing residing within them.
Many had searched themselves, with great fear of what insidious thing they might find plaguing their minds. Sarah had searched herself, and she’d found, very quickly, a thing within herself that could be such a dark thing. But she was loath to fully believe that this thing was horrible enough to cause the Lord to descend from on high and tell Tracy that it needed to be blotted out.
“As we leave tonight, I want you to take this with you,” Rick preached. He opened his Bible and began to read from the pages he’d marked with yellow Post-it notes. “He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. Proverbs . . . You have placed our iniquities before You,” he boomed. “Our secret sins shine in the light of Your presence.” He raised the Bible above his head and shook it. “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.” He slammed it to the pulpit. “People, let us come and pray together.” They bowed their heads and recited the prayer they all knew so well, ending the evening’s service.
The air outside was cold and sweet. Headlights shone against the white church door where Rick and Tracy stood bidding their farewells as the members departed.
Betty approached Sarah, who was parked at the far end of the church drive, as she was opening her car door. “One minute, Sarah.” She waved as she approached.
“Well, hello there,” Sarah said sweetly, turning to greet her friend.
“How are you?”
“Oh, I can’t complain. You?”
“Well,” Betty placed her hand on Sarah’s wrist and sighed. “This has been quite a week.” Sarah nodded in agreement. “I would love to get together and pick your brain about all of this.”
“I honestly don’t know what to think,” Sarah said, shifting her purse on her shoulder and shaking her head.
“It really is a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Betty asked. The two women had known each other since they were much younger. A woman of sixty-eight, Betty had come to the church just a few years after it was opened, and they’d been casual friends for most of their lives.
Sarah pressed a strand of her long, silver hair behind her ear. “Like I said, I don’t know. There’s obviously something going wrong. We’ve been losing people left and right, and Tracy has received word from the Lord before. However much we might wish otherwise, she’s always been right.”
Betty agreed. “Surely. Jacob Hollimeister, you mean?”
“Well yes. She was right about him. No arguing that.”
“When she saw the demon of homosexuality on that boy? Oh dear.”
Sarah nodded. “That poor boy.”
Betty looked side to side, checking that there was no one within earshot. “Yes, but can I just say, it didn’t exactly take a psychic to see that, if you know what I mean. She may have had a word from the Lord, but anyway, it wasn’t a very well-disguised demon.” Sarah giggled and Betty giggled harder. The women quickly covered their mouths to quiet themselves.
“We shouldn’t joke,” Sarah told her, trying to regain an air of seriousness. “He has to live with it, probably the rest of his life. His parents even, they’re enabling him now, and they don’t have anyone to support them since they left the church.”
“Oh, I know. I know.” Betty patted her arm. “It’s a new world out there.” She shook her head. “Anyway, Ellen and I were hoping you’d have lunch with us tomorrow, so we can talk about all this, and you know, commiserate.”
“Well,” Sarah looked around at the nearly empty drive and the few remaining members saying their goodbyes and getting in their cars, “I suppose that would be fine.”
“My house at noon, then. I’ll make some lunch for everyone, and maybe, would you mind bringing something for dessert?”
Sarah smiled politely. She placed her keys in the car door. “That sounds just fine.” Over Betty’s shoulder, she saw Pastor Rick watching them. He raised his hand and waved. Sarah waved back. Betty turned and waved farewell to the pastor and his wife, smiling sweetly. The pastor hollered Betty’s name, and motioned for her to come over. She nodded and shouted that she would be right there. “All right, I’ll go see what he wants now. It’s probably about the cleaning schedule,” she told Sarah. They hugged lightly, and departed.
Sarah’s large house had felt lonely to her for the last few years, since her husband died. She was the oldest of four children, and she’d helped her mother raise her three siblings, until she got married at seventeen. She’d had three children of her own, all of whom had long since grown and moved away. And when her husband died, she found herself living alone for the first time in her life at the age of seventy. This wasn’t an age at which she’d foreseen herself having to adapt to such unfamiliar circumstances. When she’d thought of beginning a new chapter at this stage of life, she’d always pictured her husband there with her. She’d always pictured herself becoming more dependent.
The large house sat at the front of a full acre of land, which she was now charged with keeping up. Every time she walked up to the house alone, and thought of the emptiness that awaited her in those large rooms, it was hard for her to enter it. Once she was inside it was all right, but entering the house was always difficult to do alone. She couldn’t help feeling astonished each time that her husband was not sitting in his chair beside the love seat, waiting for her, sipping his coffee and watching the news, or asleep behind the paper.
She made her way up the sidewalk, but when she got to the house she stopped, turned around, and sat down on the porch, taking a moment to enjoy the fresh, cool air and get a look at the stars.
The stars were brilliant out in the country, as there were no nearby cities to obscure their light. The ravens rustled in the trees above her. She would feed them in the morning, scattering bread and birdseed on the lawn, and enjoy the sight of their shining black wings coming down to collect their little treats. When she was younger, it had been sparrows, robins, and two cardinals. Then, more recently, the ravens had taken over, and chased all the other birds away. Many people didn’t, but she preferred them. She tho
ught they looked regal and dignified, and she knew they were supposedly the most intelligent of wild birds in the area. They kept her company. She felt that she and the ravens had a real understanding, and she didn’t mind that her popularity with the ravens gave her a touch of eccentricity, making her a bit more mysterious, a bit more interesting to the other members of her small town.
In the spaces between the branches of early autumn, she had a good view of the clear night sky. She spotted Cassiopeia, and enjoyed its light. She tried to see the old woman in the rocking chair, and although she knew what it was supposed to be, it always just looked like a very beautifully crafted W to her. A breeze came up, and a shudder ran through her as she recalled the darkness she was supposed to be searching herself for, which she’d found so easily and without much digging. It had to do with the thing she was about to do, but was much more than that thing as well.
She picked up her purse and stood, entering the house and turning on the kitchen light, immediately looking to the dim living room where her husband of more than fifty years no longer sat. A deep sadness forced its way toward her, but she shoved it off and went into the bathroom where she washed her face and took a brush to her long, silken gray hair.
She undressed and regarded herself in the mirror. Her naked body defied her. A part of her loathed how wrinkled and foreign her skin had become with age, but it was the part that didn’t find this altogether distasteful that caused her the most upset. Unlike her face and hands, which had remained smooth and gave her the appearance of someone much more youthful than was usual for a woman her age, the skin on her belly, neck, and hips was wrinkled, and strange to her, that of an old woman. Even more startling, though, was that she still had a lovely woman’s shape, and her breasts had remained full, taut and smooth. Her breasts, her face, her hands and arms, were smooth and pale, and appeared young. She didn’t know whether to be repelled by or happy with her body. When she looked at herself, a feeling that she now worried was a darkness swept over her. She felt sensual, not in spite of, but with her wrinkles and all. She saw that she was older, and parts of her had worn and changed, but she also saw that there was something about this body that could be desired. It might be desired in an altogether different way than it was before, but with no less ferocity. Her husband had desired her until the end of his life. She was a beautiful woman at twenty-three and she was a beautiful woman at seventy-three. She’d always been complimented on her striking appearance: her high cheekbones, and full lips, and sharp, severe eyes, framed by a mane of hair that once was a deep brunette, and had now turned into a brilliant collection of silvery gray and white streaks hanging down well past her shoulders. She stood naked in front of the mirror, looking at her own body and enjoying the fact that men would no doubt still desire her. Her house was not the only thing that had been left empty when her husband died.
Her fingers clasped nothing, missing the feeling of his interlocking, and her lips had gone unkissed, and in her chest she felt a lonesomeness and need that was growing so great she didn’t know if it would ever be possible to fill it again. She remembered the feel of his long body against hers; her head pressed against the flatness of his chest, and his slender hands sliding along her hips, taking her by the chin, and kissing her deeply, as he always had, with sweetness and desire all mingling.
What she wanted to do, what she had been doing, she realized, was awful. Each night before bed, she stood in front of the mirror and imagined him, her dead husband, making love to her, and she touched herself until she was satisfied. And then she would sometimes cry quietly, and then she would go to bed.
Defiling herself to a dead man’s image. What could she have been thinking? What could be more horrible? Of course she always knew, somewhere in her, she knew without a doubt that this was wrong, but she was so conceited and selfish, she wouldn’t allow herself to admit it. Years she’d been doing this now, and what’s worse, it had evolved. It wasn’t always her husband in her thoughts. Images of other men came into her mind as well: men she didn’t know, men who very well might not even exist; men whose bodies and temperaments she created perfect, solely to satisfy her own lust. They would come into her mind and she welcomed the images of them because the thought of them didn’t fill her with grief like the thought of her dead husband did. She could experience pleasure alone with these false men. Pleasure not found around anything, beyond anything; without having to sneak pleasure around the sadness or darkness of her grief.
Without this satisfaction, she had nearly only grief when she was alone and nothing to keep it at bay. She believed deeply that her husband was awaiting her in heaven, and when her time came she would rejoin him there, not as husband and wife, but as brother and sister living their days together in the Lord’s light and eternal grace. Beyond this deeply held belief, though, was a deeper fear that none of it was true. She’d always been a religious woman, and a woman of strong conviction. At the same time, she questioned, privately and silently. Since she was young, she’d believed. But also, she’d questioned, and when her husband died, it was like someone had struck her in the face with the knuckled back of a strong hand made of nothing but that question. When she thought of death, of his absence from the remainder of her life, and her own inevitable death, like the pointed end of a needle whose true usefulness she’d never fully grasped, she felt as cold as a distant star looks: sparkling and white hovering in darkness, blinking and blind, the weight of the void its only tether. Her private, nightly pleasure staved off these thoughts when she was alone, and gave her something, however small, to look forward to each day.
Still, this was no excuse for such a grotesque act. A woman her age, pleasuring herself to the thought of a dead man, to her husband, yes, but also, to other men; many other men. It was too horrible to admit. How would she? Would she confess it? Was this the thing that the Lord had sent word about? Of course it was. What could be worse? It was depraved. How could she tell a pastor such a thing, even if to beg forgiveness? She couldn’t bear the thought.
Although she knew it was wrong, and that it was a thing for which she must seek repentance, even now, she wanted terribly to lean back against the wall and place her hand on herself and feel some release, some sense of fulfillment again, even if it was only once more. But isn’t that what addicts say: just one more time? she thought.
She splashed water on her face, then grudgingly slipped into her robe. She hung her head, went and sat on her bed and began to weep. She tried to pray, but as often happened she could hear no other voice besides her own when she tried. God was not speaking to her, not tonight. And she didn’t know if it was because of this awful thing she’d made a practice of, or because of something she feared too greatly to give much credence to. Whether He spoke back or not, she decided He must be listening, so she repented and asked Him for help overcoming her depravity. These prayers only took her to crying harder, and soon she had exhausted herself. She climbed up and curled in the bed, quickly falling into a fatigued and troubled sleep.
She woke at seven in the morning quite naturally, and went about toasting bread and boiling one egg, which she took with black tea as her breakfast. Then she showered and dressed while the morning news played on the radio. After this, she threw on a light jacket and took a small paper bag of birdseed into her front yard, and the ravens descended about her, enjoying the daily offering. As the birds pecked at the seeds in the grass, she pondered what she would do. She hoped this lunch meeting with Betty and Ellen would strengthen her resolve in some way, and give her some clearer notion how to move forward. Should she confess, she wondered, would the pastor keep the nature of her transgression private, or would it have to be revealed to the congregation? If it was revealed, she thought, she wouldn’t be able to bear it. Or perhaps this was all silly. Perhaps Tracy was a silly woman who misunderstood things, and she was creating a drama where there was nothing truly sinister beyond everyday human transgressions. Sarah suddenly became very angry at the whole situation, and wished it
would just go away, that someone else would come forward with something much worse than anything she had to hide, or that the congregation would forget the whole event entirely, and they could move forward with things as they were. It was a small congregation, but it was enough for her. They had the Easter revival, which brought five Baptist churches from the county together each year, and the Fifth Sunday Potlucks, and the Summer Children’s Bible School, and what was wrong with it? She let out a frustrated sigh and dumped the remainder of the birdseed in a pile on the ground, causing the crows to caw and fight as she went back into the house, slamming the door for no one to hear.
On the way to Betty’s house, she stopped by the local grocery store and picked up a lemon cake for dessert, which Betty thanked her for when she came in the door, taking the cake from her and displaying it on the center of the dining room table. “Look what Sarah brought us,” she told Ellen, who sat on the opposite side of the table, sipping tea from a little blue and white floral-pattern china cup, next to Frank, whom Sarah had not expected to see.
“Well, hello, Frank. I didn’t know you were coming today.” He stood as Sarah took a seat at the table.
“I hope you don’t mind my being here. We’ve all been talking about this,” he paused, “and praying on it, and, well, I just wanted to add my two cents and catch up with you lovely ladies.”
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