A Ruling Passion

by Judith Michael

  "No. That was something else."

  "Are you going to eat your pancakes?"

  Nick smiled, and slid his plate to Chad. "I'm not too hungry. It's better if they help fill your bottomless pit. Chad, this story goes back a long way. There was a time, about a year and a half ago, when Sybille wanted to stop somebody from being at a meeting in Washington. He was going to fly there, and she had someone put water in the fuel tanks of his plane, not to hurt him, just to delay him. He'd have to have a mechanic look at the plane, to find out if something serious was wrong with it, and then drain and refill the tanks. All that would take a while. The tragic thing was, he didn't do a proper check of his plane before he took off", so he didn't find the water. A little while after he was airborne, his plane crashed, and he was killed."

  Chad was shoveling pancakes into his mouth. "Yeh," he said.

  Nick watched his son as he resolutely kept eating. He watched Chad and felt the pain beneath that singleminded eating, and fought back tears. "The man who was killed was Valerie's husband, Carlton Sterling. Just yesterday. Bob Targus, the man who put the water in the tanks, finally decided to tell people what he'd done, and he was on his way to Valerie's house, to tell her. Sybille found out about it. And she wanted to stop him, just as she'd wanted to stop Carlton."

  Chad had finished his pancakes. He sat still, his head down, staring at his empty plate. "Yeh," he said.

  "This is terrible to talk about, Chad, but you have to hear it. If I don't tell you, some stranger will, and that would be the worst thing of all. I'd like to make you understand it all, but a lot of it I don't understand myself. We're going to have to work at that together. Are you following me?"

  Chad's head was down. "Yeh."

  "Something happened to Sybille in the past year. She was never a particularly gende person, you know that, but she had good control of herself and could get along in all kind of situations, with all kinds of people. But in the past year she seemed to change, as if she was going on a downward path, as if she had an illness that she couldn't control. Before, when she wanted to stop Carlton, she only tried to delay him. When she wanted to stop Bob Targus, she tried to kill him with a rifle."

  "She did not!" Chad glared at his father. "She wouldn't... she

  wouldn't try to.. .she wouldn^t! And you know it, too! I bet she didn't do any of that stuff! People tell lies about her; she told me that. She said people are jealous of her and they tell lies; she told me all about it."

  "I didn't want to believe it, either," Nick said. "And I'd rather have kept it from you. But nothing that's happened with Sybille is the kind of news that can be kept quiet. She always wanted to make big stories, and now she's created a story that stretches so far, and touches so many people, I'm afraid ifs going to be broadcast everywhere. I can't stop that. All I can do is help you deal with it."

  Chad shook his head stubbornly. "I don't have to. Ifs all lies, anyway."

  "No. Chad, listen to me." Nick put his arm around him, but Chad angrily shrugged it off. "Look, this is going to be hard enough for us to get through, without pretending. Sybille has spent a lifetime pretending, and we're not going to do that; it never works. She tried to live as if the world was a big painting she kept changing as she went along, covering up some things, adding others, moving people and scenes from one place to another, and then painting over everything to make it look as if it was always that way. That's not how we're going to live. Ifs the way children Hve, and adults who never grow up, and it leads to anger, and sometimes tragedy, because the time always comes when you can't paint over something and make your life look the way you want it to look, and when that happens you try to find someone to blame, and you want to punish and hurt that person because you're not happy and somebody has to pay for it. You and I are going to live in the world as we find it, Chad. Some things we can change and some we can ignore, but most things we have to live with, in the best way we know how. Sybille never seemed to learn that."

  'Well, if she's so terrible why did you marry her in the first place?" Chad yelled.

  Nick hesitated. He and Chad had talked about this before. But he knew that children forget stories if they hear them when they are too young to absorb them and incorporate them into their experience. Each time they went over this, Chad would remember more, until one day he would remember the whole of it, and perhaps be satisfied.

  "I was young, and she was different then," he said at last, and wondered how many millions of men and women said those same weary words, trying to explain a bad marriage. "She had a fierce drive to succeed, to get past the poverty she'd known and to make herself famous and influential. I admired that because I was pretty much the

  same and I thought we could understand each other, I thought she was courageous and strong and affectionate, and also lonely and needing protection. She needed someone to care about her—no one did, you see—and to keep her from feeling alone in the world. She said I did that for her, and since I wanted to believe it, I did. I needed to be needed and I mistook pity and admiration for love. Then you were born, and I found everything I'd hoped for: you needed me and I loved you so much I thought my life could be happy just because you were there."

  Chad looked at his father. "Did she do bad things then? Is that why you didn't stay with her.^"

  Nick refilled his cup from the thermos Elena had left. "We really didn't have very much to share; a lot less than I thought when we were married. And there were too many things we disagreed about."

  "Bad things!" It was almost a wail. Chad's eyes filled with tears that slid down his cheeks. "She's a bad person!"

  Nick put his arm around his son, and this time Chad let it stay there, moving closer on the banquette. "Remember I told you it's like an illness? Sybille is an angry person, Chad; most things and people seem to make her angry. It doesn't matter how successful she is or how many possessions she collects, she can't be satisfied or serene. I thought the passion that ruled her was a drive to succeed, and then I thought it was envy, but I was wrong; it's anger. We all get angry at times—there are things that should make us angry, like injustice and cruelty and prejudice, and we get angry when we're hurt or disappointed—but most of us control our anger so that it doesn't control us. We fit it into a proper perspective in a whole life. Sybille can't do that. She is so deeply angry all the time that if s like a chemical, eating her up inside, and when the pain of her anger gets too much to hold in, she explodes. That's probably what happened last night. I don't think she could stop herself from doing what she did."

  "And she doesn't love me; she never has," Chad said through his tears, as if he had heard nothing Nick said. But Nick knew he had, and would remember at least some of it, and think about it in quieter times. And perhaps he would have another way of thinking about his mother because of it.

  Chad gulped and took a shaking breath and hiccupped. "When we go to dinner, I save up these stories from school or tv or a book, you know, and I tell her... and she doesn't like them! She listens and everything, but she doesn't laugh or tell another story right back, the way the guys do at school. And you too. She's just... there, you know?

  Only, she's not really... there. I mean... oh, you know. I hate it, and then I... hate... her... Not really, you know, only it feels like I do... and then I get home and it doesn't seem so bad, like I figure it won't be the same next time... and I wish I could see her again..." He was sobbing now, rubbing his eyes and nose with the back of his hand. Nick handed him a napkin, and held him close while he cried. There was only so much he could do. Most of it Chad would have to do himself.

  "I hate her!" Chad yelled. "I'm not ever going to see her again! She's mean and bad and she can go to jail, and be alone forever and ever, and I don't care! I hate her!"

  Tears stung Nick's eyes. His son's pain stabbed through him; he hurt all over. "That's pretty strong," he said. "Why don't you wait before deciding that? You may change your mind. If she really does have an illness, you wouldn't hate her, would you?"
r />   "Uh. I don't know... What does that mean, anyway? She's not sick."

  "I wouldn't be too sure of that. When someone stands in the dark and shoots a person in the back, it sounds pretty sick to me."

  "In the backr'

  "She was across the street and he was ringing the doorbell, so his back was to her."

  There was a long silence as Chad struggled with his thoughts. "I don't know."

  "Think about what I said earlier, about being angry."

  "Yeh, but, even if you're mad at somebody you don't go out and shoot him!"

  "You don't, and I don't, and fortunately most people don't. That's why it looks to me like a sickness when someone does it. Most of us grow up and get our angers under control and stop pretending we can paint a new world whenever things go wrong. You've learned that, Chad. You're beginning to live in the world like a grownup."

  "But I'm not, yet!"

  "No, but you're on your way. You're learning a lot of grown-up things, and dealing with a lot of awfully hard facts. I'm very proud of you, my friend. And I love you very much."

  There was a silence. "Yeh," Chad said, nodding. Silent tears ran down his face. "Yeh. I love you, too. Dad. More than anything." Abrupdy, he slid down and lay hill length on the banquette with his head in Nick's lap. Nick put his hand on his son's hair, stroking it. I have to tell him about Lily too, he thought, but not now. Soon, but

  not yet. They sat that way for several minutes, until Valerie appeared in the doorway.

  She looked at Nick, and then around the room. "Isn't Chad here? I thought you'd be talking."

  Chad shot up. "I'm here!"

  Nick met Valerie's eyes past Chad's tear-streaked face. For all their sakes, he was very glad, at that moment, that Sybille could not see the joy that leaped to his son's face when Valerie appeared.

  Lily had a private room on the top floor of the hospital, and she liked to sit beside the window looking out over the town. The nurses had identified buildings and sights for her, especially Falls Church, where George Washington had been a vestryman, and the Fountain of Faith, dedicated to four clergymen who sacrificed their lives early in the Second World War to save four soldiers. I don't deserve to be a vestryman, Lily thought. I've never sacrificed anything. I've never even known what it's like to be alone, without someone taking care of everything for me.

  Sybille had been arrested, and was free on bond. So was Bob Targus, home now fi-om the hospital, taking physical therapy for his shoulder, but facing conviction and a prison sentence. He'd told Lily he thought he probably wouldn't go to prison, or anyway not for very long, because he was going to testify against Sybille for the prosecution. But he'd lost his new job and it didn't look as if anyone else would hire him after what he'd done. He was so depressed about not flying again that Lily thought he'd already been severely punished.

  She would be going home, too, she knew; she was recovering rapidly. "Young and resilient," the doctor had said that morning, as he did every morning. "And very lucky. If that bullet had been an inch higher, it would have hit your heart."

  So I was lucky again, Lily thought. Not special, not saved for higher purposes. Just lucky.

  But what am I going to do now." I have to have something to beheve in, something to build my life around. Something I have a passion for. And I don't know ... I don't know what it will be. What am I going to do? Where will I go when they send me home?

  'Tou'll stay with me," Rosemary said that evening, when she came to visit. "It's been wonderful for me, having you there. I like feeling usefiil, and Valerie has become so independent, ever since the crash, I've felt quite superfluous. I'm thinking of getting a job, can you believe it? I've talked to some art galleries, and one of them may actually

  want me. But in the meantime, you'll stay with me."

  "Ifs too crowded," Lily said. 'Tou're very good, but I never expected to stay long."

  "It won't be crowded at all; I can't imagine Valerie spending much time there anymore. I really do want you, Lily; that little place is going to seem enormous with just me in it."

  Each night, the television newscasts had a report on the widening investigation into Graceville and the Hour of Grace Foundation. At the beginning of the week there had been long reports on the shooting of Lilith Grace, with reporters positioning themselves in front of the sumacs in the park, or next to Valerie's front door, finding various ways to repeat the litde they knew, asking neighbors how they felt about all this, and showing pictures of Sybille's Italian luxury car, the Testarossa, which they had photographed by bribing a gardener at her farm. By the end of the week, the news of Lily had shrunk to a mention during the reports on Graceville and the Foundation: she was recovering, the newscasters said, but refused all interviews, and no one knew when she would resume her preaching.

  Then, on Sunday, eight days after the shooting, when she had spent the silent hours thinking and praying, Lily made a decision. And because she was a child of mass communication, she knew exacdy what to do: she called reporters from radio and television and the newspapers, and told them she had a statement to make.

  She told no one except the nurses, who let her use their lounge for her press conference. And that evening, when Nick and Valerie came to visit, bringing Chad, she told them she wanted them to watch the seven o'clock network news with her.

  'We'd rather just talk to you," Valerie said. "We brought some new books, and fruit"—she was emptying a shopping bag—"and a word game you can play by yourself or with someone—"

  Lily shook her head. "Please, Valerie, I really want to watch the news."

  "They don't want to because of me," said Chad. "It's hard, you know, people talking about your mother every night, so they don't turn it on. I watch at eleven o'clock, upstairs."

  Nick's eyebrows rose. "You watch it alone."

  "Yeh. I'd rather be with you or Valerie, but you're always too worried about me."

  Nick chuckled. "From now on we'll watch together. I think you ought to be asleep by eleven, anyway."

  Lily picked up the remote control. "It's all right if I turn it on?"

  "Sure," said Chad grandly, but Valerie saw that his fists were clenched, and she went to sit on the arm of his chair, her arm around him.

  Lily began with NBC, where the opening story was on the Soviet Union. Nervously, she switched to CBS, but it was reporting the same story, and so was ABC. She went back and forth, from one to the other, until she heard an anchorman say "—continues into the finances of the Hour of Grace Foundation. Two more members of the board. Arch Warman and Monte James, resigned yesterday, three days after the Reverend Lars Olssen demanded their resignation. But the main story tonight belongs to Reverend Lilith Grace. Reverend Lily, as she is known, was shot last week in a bizarre set of circumstances dealing with money invested in the town of Graceville. She held a hospital press conference today and it's such an extraordinary statement we're going to let you see it in its entirety."

  Valerie and Nick exchanged a glance.

  Lily was on the screen, pale and fragile, in a large wicker armchair, wearing a blue silk robe Valerie had bought her. "To all of you, strangers and friends and my congregation," she began in the high voice that was familiar to millions, "I came to tell you that I am leaving the ministry. I can't be the kind of minister I always dreamed of being until I understand more about myself and the world, and right now I don't understand very much at all.

  "The people who trusted me for help and answers, all the people who trust their ministers and priests and rabbis, deserve honesty and seriousness and love. It is a truly terrible thing to take advantage of them.

  "I know there are manipulators and exploiters in all fields, but I didn't think there were any in Graceville. Well, it seems there were, and I'm told they used the money you sent me, a lot of it anyway, for their own pleasures, instead of helping people. I didn't know it, but that's not an excuse, because I should have known. I knew the people involved in the Hour of Grace Foundation and the production of
The Hour of Grace' and A.t Home with Reverend Grace' on television. I knew them very well. One of them I thought I loved; I trusted her and admired her. But I didn't look at her, or anything else, very careftiHy; I didn't demand information. I was naive and inexperienced and foolish; not the kind of person who should be giving advice and comfort.

  "In my sermons, I always asked people to look within themselves to find the core of goodness that is there. I always said they could be better than they thought they were, or than others thought they were. But I should have been talking to myself!

  "Please forgive me for not being a better person. Please remember that there are many good ministers, and good religious organizations, to help those in need. They shouldn't be swept away in the storm that a few selfish, cynical people have created.

  "I think the biggest problem with ministries, especially in television, is that they're good places for bad people to hide. Too many of them tell you they'll make you happy and bring you peace. In other words, they're saying they'll take care of you. That makes you feel dependent, and when people feel dependent and helpless, it's easy for others to take advantage of them.

  "You must not feel helpless! Don't let anyone tell you you are! Find the goodness and strength in yourself, build on them, take control of your lives! And if you do need help, find those who help you believe that you can be wise and good zn&^reat.

  "I'm going to say goodbye now. I'll miss all of you: your letters and your love. I'll think of you and pray for you and maybe... maybe someday I'll... be able to come back to you."

  On the screen, tears glistened in Lily's eyes, and a small smile was on her lips as her picture disappeared and the anchorman returned. "Reverend Lilith Grace, withdrawing from the ministry earlier today, while the investigation of the Hour of Grace Foundation continues. She'll be questioned by investigators as soon as she's released from the hospital, probably next week."

  Lily switched off the television set and her head dropped back on the pillow. "Was I all right.>