Ties That Bind

by Marie Bostwick

  “Your father is a good man and you can learn a lot from him, but you don’t have to be him. You are in this church at this moment not because of who your dad is but because of who you are. God has called you, not your imitation of Philip Clarkson. Do you understand?”

  I think Bob knew he’d hit a sore spot with me, but I don’t know if he realized just how sore. Part of the reason I resisted the ministry for so long was because I thought people would measure me by my father’s yardstick. Sometimes they did. But I’ve been using the same yardstick, and every time I do, I find myself coming up short.

  I coughed, unable to speak for a moment. There was a knock on the door. Sherry peeked her head inside.

  “Excuse me for a moment, Bob.”

  I lowered the telephone and covered the mouthpiece with my hand. “What’s up, Sherry?”

  “Sorry to disturb you,” she said in an apologetic stage whisper, “but Sylvia Smitherton called from the hospital. An ambulance brought Waldo in.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t sound good.”

  The gray-haired Smitherton girls, along with their spouses, children, grandchildren, and even one infant-in-arms, a great-grandchild, were gathered around Waldo’s bedside when I arrived.

  The tableau was almost identical to the one I had seen last time Waldo was admitted to the hospital, just a few weeks previously, with murmurs and whispered prayers and muffled sobs as Waldo’s three older daughters wept into their handkerchiefs. But when I saw that Sylvia, the most stoic of the sisters, was also red-eyed and sniffling, I knew that this time it was different. Waldo truly was dying.

  Sylvia walked toward me and clasped my hand in hers. “Thank you for coming,” she said, blinking back tears. “He’s been in and out of consciousness, but I think it would be a comfort if you prayed with him.” She choked out the words and pressed her clenched fist against her lips, fighting to keep her emotions in check.

  “Forgive me,” she said, regaining her composure. “We talked about this moment so many times, Dad and I. I really thought I was prepared. I didn’t know it would be so hard.”

  Sylvia pulled a chair up to Waldo’s bedside, then turned to her husband.

  “George, could you ask everyone to go down to the waiting room for a little while? It’s too crowded. Let’s have just the four of us for now,” she said, glancing toward her sisters, “while Reverend Clarkson is praying with Dad.”

  George herded the mass of relatives out the door and down the hall, patting Sylvia on the arm as he left. I sat down. The noise, or rather the lack of it, seemed to stir Waldo to consciousness. He opened his eyes and blinked. His lips were still, but his eyes smiled when he turned toward me. He reached his hand upward, clutching the oxygen mask with feeble fingers.

  Sylvia, who was standing on the opposite side of the bed with her sisters crowded behind, leaned down. “What is it, Dad? Do you want me to take the mask off?”

  Waldo nodded, but very slowly, his movements as measured and laborious as an ancient and wrinkled sea turtle moving deliberately away from the shore to the beckoning surf, inching forward, drawn irresistibly to that hidden world and the quicksilver freedom that lay beneath the waves.

  Sylvia removed the mask and was rewarded with a grateful smile. He lifted his hand again, resting it on hers. “Good girl.”

  “Dad, Reverend Clarkson is here. You asked me to call her.”

  “I know.” Still smiling, he turned toward me. “How are you, Reverend?”

  “I’m fine, Waldo.”

  “Good,” he murmured. “Good. You know, Waldo is a good name. My father was named Waldo and his father before that. If it’s a boy, think about naming it Waldo. It’s a good name.” Waldo closed his eyes.

  I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say or do, but Sylvia seemed unperturbed by her father’s remarks. She lifted her head to look at me across the white expanse of the sheet. “Pain medication,” she mouthed. “He’s been hallucinating.”

  Waldo opened his eyes again and turned toward me, as if he’d just remembered something. “Reverend?” he rasped.

  “Yes, Waldo?”

  “You still got that file? For my eulogy?”

  “I do, Waldo. It’s in my office.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Give me a good send-off. I know you will. And help my girls when I’m gone. They can be sad if they want, but not for too long.” He twisted his head toward Sylvia as he said this last. Sylvia nodded dutifully and her sisters with her.

  Satisfied, he turned to me again. “I’m not afraid to go, you know. But, if you wouldn’t mind, could you stay for a while, Reverend? Pray me out?”

  “I will, Waldo. I’m right here.”

  37

  Margot

  “Wait!” Madelyn said as I was about to step off the porch of the inn. “I almost forgot. I’ve got leftover apple muffins. Hang on a second, I want to send some home with you.”

  “But you already gave me the quilt,” I protested, lifting up the white shopping bag that contained the beautiful lilac quilt for Olivia’s bedroom. “You don’t have to give me muffins too.”

  “I didn’t make the quilt,” Madelyn said. “I just stitched the binding. Anyway, the muffins will go to waste if you don’t take them.” She scurried off to the kitchen before I could say anything else.

  I stood on the porch, looking at the mess in Madelyn’s yard. There were leaves and limbs everywhere. The hard winter had given way to a hard and rainy spring. There had been a huge storm the night before with lightning, pounding rain, and howling wind. I’d lost power for a few hours and so had most of the town. Several houses in the area had lost limbs and even whole trees. This was especially true on Oak Leaf Lane, which, true to its name, is lined on both curbs with big beautiful oaks.

  I heard the sound of a chain saw and looked up to see Paul, head down, cutting up the trunk of a tree that was blocking a driveway. Not his driveway—a neighbor’s. Paul’s place was on the other side of the street and three houses down.

  Madelyn returned with a foil package of leftover muffins. “Here you go,” she said. “If there are too many for you, take them to Olivia. Bet she’s sick of hospital food.”

  “Madelyn, who does that house belong to? Why is Paul Collier sawing up their tree?”

  Madelyn made a pitying face and clucked her tongue. “Didn’t you hear? Waldo Smitherton died last night.”

  “Oh, no. Really?” I asked, genuinely regretful and a bit surprised. Waldo was old and always talking about dying, but he was such a fixture in the town that I never quite believed it would happen. Until recently, he’d never even been sick—not so much as a cold. “How sad. New Bern won’t be the same without him.”

  Madelyn nodded her agreement. “Waldo was quite a character, wasn’t he? He and Paul had struck up something of a friendship. In fact, Paul was the one who came over to check on him a couple of days ago, saw he wasn’t doing well, and called Waldo’s daughter, who ended up calling the ambulance. I think Paul just decided to take care of the tree so the family wouldn’t have to worry about it. They’ve got so much to deal with right now. Paul is really a good neighbor. And a very nice man.”

  “Yes. Yes, he is.”

  The noise from the saw was so loud that Paul probably couldn’t hear anything, so I just kept my head down and walked to my car quickly, hoping he wouldn’t notice me.

  I almost made it.

  “Hey! Hey, Margot!”

  My hand was on the car door. For a moment I thought about getting in and driving off, pretending I hadn’t heard him, but that wouldn’t be nice. I took a deep breath, let it out, and reminded myself that giving into the temptation to spend time with Paul was not an option. I couldn’t just be friends with Paul. I couldn’t. But I could be friendly without being friends. It was just a matter of being polite and keeping my distance.

  I pasted a smile on my face and turned around.

  “Hi, Paul.”

  He was puffing. He’d run up the street to catch me.

&
nbsp; “Did you hear about Waldo?”

  “Madelyn just told me. So sad. It’s nice of you to clean up his yard after the storm.”

  Paul shrugged. “Oh, well. Sylvia is pretty torn up. It’s the least I could do. Waldo was a good guy, sharp for his age. We played cribbage a couple of times and he practically wiped up the floor with me.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. How many men busy raising a teenage son, volunteering at church, and starting a new job would take the time to check on an elderly neighbor, even play cribbage with him?

  “Waldo was one of a kind,” I said.

  Paul bobbed his head, glanced down at his feet and then up at me. Poor thing. It looked like he was really choked up over Waldo’s death.

  “Say, James has been making noise about checking out that laser tag place in Torrington. It’d be more fun with more people, so I was thinking, maybe you and Philippa could come along. We could play a couple of games, maybe get a pizza after? What do you say?”

  “Sounds like fun, but I’m really busy getting ready for the trial. And I have this knee injury ….”

  It was sort of true. I had injured my knee back in college, playing soccer. It hasn’t been a problem for years, but Paul didn’t have to know that. Still, I felt a little guilty about deceiving him.

  “I just don’t think it would be a good idea,” I said.

  That part was the absolute truth.

  38

  Philippa

  “Clem. You’re getting drool on the fabric.”

  I gave Clementine a firm but gentle shove—a nudge is completely ineffective when your dog wrestles in a higher weight class than you—and moved her big head and paws off my lap. She gave a throaty groan and looked up at me with a pitiful expression before laying her head on the sofa, wedging her big body as close to me as possible.

  “I know,” I said. “Life is hard. But you’re just not a lap dog, Clemmie.”

  She groaned again, sputtered a sigh, and closed her eyes. I reached over and scratched her on the head before returning to my work.

  This has become part of our nighttime routine. After finishing my deskwork, I sit down on the sofa in front of the fire and Clemmie climbs up next to me and sleeps while I work on the baby quilt. It’s a relaxing ritual. I like having that precious few minutes, to unwind and think my own thoughts, mostly thoughts about the baby.

  When I sit here in this room, silent except for Clementine’s heavy breathing, and stitch the block of the week, I feel completely connected to the invisible life that is growing inside me. I make up lists of possible names, mentally conjure a little face with Tim’s eyes and my nose, or vice versa, and imagine tiny hands and feet, dimpled arms and chubby legs, so filled with gratitude that sometimes it makes me cry.

  But sometimes I worry as well, about what happens after the baby is born and what that will mean for my future in ministry. How many churches will be willing to hire an unmarried female minister with a newborn? Will motherhood mean postponing, or even rescinding, my call to ministry? I hope not. These last months, working in this community, have only sharpened my desire to minister. But it’s all in God’s hands and so, most of the time, I’m content to leave it there.

  And when I’m not, I’ve noticed that working on this quilt helps to keep my worries at bay. It takes a long time to sew a quilt block by hand, to make tiny stitches that will stay tight and secure for years to come, a lifetime even. It’s not something you can rush. And I’ve also noticed that even though you start with a pattern, you never really know how the block will turn out until it’s finished. When you’re faced with a pile of scraps it can be hard to see how it’s all going to come together, how each patch will fit with the others and how the colors and patterns will play against one another. Of course, now and then you’ve got to go back, rip out a seam, and try again—what Virginia calls “unsewing.” But, more often than not, everything turns out better than you could have imagined.

  When I finish a block and hold it up, everything looks so right together, the connections so obvious, that I wonder why I wasn’t able to see it from the beginning. But when I start on the next block I find that I’m just as confounded as I was the time before. It’s a process, I guess. You can’t rush it, so you might as well enjoy it.

  And I am enjoying it, so much. I love making this little quilt and thinking about wrapping my baby up in it, safe and warm, bundling my little one inside this colorful cocoon. And I enjoy getting to know the women in my quilt class, listening to them talk about their stories, taking careful mental notes as they discuss pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing. I’ve learned quite a bit about babies from the books I’ve been reading, but not nearly as much as I’ve learned from listening to these mothers and mothers-to-be talk amongst themselves. And I’ve enjoyed having two hours when I don’t have to be Reverend Clarkson. Sometimes it’s refreshing to take a break from being the woman who is supposed to have all the answers and just be one of the girls.

  I won’t be able to go to class tomorrow, though. I’ll be conducting Waldo’s funeral. There’s going to be a big turnout. A dozen or more floral arrangements have already been delivered directly to the church, and there are three times that many at the funeral parlor. I was there earlier in the evening, for the viewing. The daughters are bearing up pretty well. I think the flowers were a comfort to them. It’s nice to have a visible symbol of how much their father was loved. And he certainly was. I’m going to miss Waldo. Besides Margot, Waldo was the first friend I made in New Bern.

  I’ve spent a lot of time on my talk for the funeral, working out every little phrase and nuance. I even practiced in front of the mirror, trying to force myself to look up more often. I figured it was worth a try. I owe it to Waldo.

  It’s probably just as well that I’m going to miss class tomorrow. This is the first chance I’ve had to work on my quilt since Waldo’s death, so I’m behind. Hopefully, I’ll catch up by next week. As I came to the end of a seam, doing a little backstitch to secure the seam instead of tying a knot, thus helping the block lie flatter, just like Virginia had taught me, the phone rang.

  I sighed. It was after ten. I’m used to getting calls at all hours, but I’d really hoped that tonight would be quiet. Clementine grunted as I got up from the sofa, opening one eye, then immediately stretching out and claiming the unoccupied real estate as her own.

  “Don’t get too comfortable there. I’ll be back. I hope.”

  I laid the partially stitched quilt block on the desk, out of drooling distance for Clem, and picked up the phone. “Parsonage. This is Reverend Clarkson.”

  “Bob Tucker here. Hope I’m not calling too late, but I figured you’d be at the funeral parlor. How was the viewing?”

  “Nice. Big turnout and I’m sure the church will be packed tomorrow.”

  “Sharon and I are sending flowers. I sure wish I could be there.”

  “I wish you could too. You’ve known Waldo for more than thirty years; I’ve known him for three months. You’re the one who should be speaking.”

  “Remember what we talked about—just keep it simple, be yourself, and let go of the reins. If you do that, everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

  I murmured something noncommittal, thinking about the eighteen double-spaced typewritten pages, the text I’d been writing and rewriting during every spare moment of the last three days, that were sitting on my desk at that very moment.

  “Listen,” I continued, “I’m glad you called. Franklin Spaulding called me yesterday. He wrote Waldo’s will. It seems Waldo left a bequest to the church, seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  “Really?” Bob sounded surprised.

  Waldo was far from being a pauper, but I had no idea he had that kind of money put away. Apparently, neither did Bob Tucker.

  “Do Sylvia and the girls know about this? I’d hate for the church to be the cause of any family squabbles.”

  “Sylvia told me that if that’s what Waldo wanted, then the family had no problem
with it. The other daughters were there when she said it, and they all agreed.”

  “Well. Isn’t that something?” Bob paused a moment, as if he were still trying to take it in. “I’m not surprised he remembered the church in his will; Waldo was always a generous soul. But seventy-five thousand? We could do a lot with that ….”

  “Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. Waldo didn’t leave any instructions about how the money was to be used. What do you want to spend it on? Building? Programs? Benevolence? Community outreach?”

  “It’s not for me to decide. You’ll want to bring it up at the next board meeting.”

  “I don’t think it can wait that long. Somehow the word has gotten out. Members of the board have been calling to voice their opinions on the matter and—”

  “Let me guess,” Bob said. “You got ten calls and ten different opinions.”

  “Actually only nine calls, but you have it about right. What should I do?”

  “Huh.” I heard a sound of air being sucked in through teeth as Bob considered the question. “Well, I think we need to be careful here. A gift of that size can be a blessing, but if people start arguing about how we should use it, it could turn out to be a curse. We need to get everybody on the same page. This might be too big an issue to leave up to the board. What you should do is call up Ted Carney and suggest he call a church-wide meeting to discuss the options and take a vote.”

  The mere mention of Ted Carney’s name made a knot form in my stomach. Thanks to Bob, our relations were somewhat improved, but Ted had yet to get behind a single idea I proposed, not unless the rest of the board outvoted him, which they had on more than one occasion. This did nothing to improve Ted’s attitude toward me.

  “I agree, but I don’t think I should be the one to call Ted and suggest it.”

  “Philippa, we’ve talked about things like this before. I know your relations with Ted have been a little rocky, but …”