“Okay,” he said, exhaling and finally allowing himself to smile. “Okay. So, now I guess we just figure out the next step.”
“Next step? Why is there a next step? It’s not even worth acknowledging, is it?” I took another sip of coffee, feeling unbelievably calm, apart from my increased dislike of Laura. “What a psycho! What could she possibly hope to accomplish? Okay, here’s what we do. We call a press conference or something and you tell the world there is no truth to any of it, she’s a family friend, blah, blah, blah. I mean, whatever you want to say. It’s all over and done before the end of the day. We’ll just want to make sure you have all of the facts laid out. What were you doing fourteen years ago? Or, what, fifteen, I guess? Were you with Christa yet?”
The smile faded from his face as he realized I wasn’t as caught up as he had thought I was. “Fifteen years ago I was dating Laura.”
“Oh. Right. Oh.” The room started spinning. “She couldn’t be yours, right? I mean, it’s impossible. Right? When is Kaitlyn’s birthday?” I began to panic. For just a moment, I began to panic. “Is . . . I mean . . . how sure . . .”
Okay, Lord. I’m in the fight. I love him and I’m not going anywhere. But . . .
He wasn’t talking. Why wasn’t he talking? “Why aren’t you saying anything, Ben? I need you to say something. I need you to tell me that you were on a mission trip to Rwanda when she got pregnant, or something.”
“Sarah,” he said quietly and cautiously. “We broke up about six months before Kaitlyn was born, so it’s going to be pretty difficult to argue based on timing alone.”
Trust in who you know Ben to be.
And then realization dawned. “You never slept with her,” I said, not as a question but as a fact.
His eyes grew wide as he quickly said, “Of course I didn’t!”
I wanted to kiss him and I wanted to strangle him. “Why didn’t you start with that? Sheesh, Ben! I’m over here doing the math, and you knew the math didn’t matter.”
He was silent for a moment, which wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. Finally, he quietly asked, “Did you really think . . . I mean, really, Sarah? You thought I slept with her? You thought I’d just drop Maddie off at her house and expect you to mingle with her at my parents’ house, and just never mention it?”
“Well, you were with her for years! Why wouldn’t you have slept with her?”
He smiled cautiously. “I think you know the answer to that.”
I sighed. “Of course I do. I’m sorry. The force is strong in this one,” I said as I pointed to him, and then I shook my head, feeling like a complete dork for once again falling back on pop culture in an attempt to deal with life.
“The force?” He suddenly got very tickled and couldn’t stop laughing. “So, are you and I Jedi now? Is it time to just own that?”
I groaned.
“In all seriousness, Sarah . . . I am so far from perfect. Please don’t think that the reason I never slept with Laura was because I’m this super-Christian. That’s not it. I’ve screwed up. A lot. But that one was honestly never too tough for me. I’ve had my temptations, but I’ve only been in love with two women, and Laura wasn’t one of them.”
He reached out and caressed my hair, and I should have savored the romantic significance of what he was saying, but I was too caught up in the scandal in my midst.
“She did a lot more than kiss some guy in her study group, didn’t she?” I gasped accusatorily. “She was already pregnant when you broke up with her! And just think! You were going to propose to that woman. But, wait—” I tilted my head and looked at him in confusion as some gears finally began to shift into place. “If you were never in love with her, then why—”
Ben just looked at me with love, patiently waiting for me to put it all together. And then in one giant moment of clarity, I understood.
“You knew? You knew she was pregnant. That’s why you were going to propose?”
“But everything I told you was true, Sarah. Every single thing. I knew about the one time—we had gotten in a big fight when we were both home for Christmas that year, and she stormed out of my family’s house on Christmas Eve. I guess she went to a bar and got drunk with some guy. When she found out she was pregnant a couple months later, she told me everything and swore it had been a big mistake. A one-time thing. She didn’t even know who the guy was. I thought I was about to do the noble thing, and I suppose I was, but then I found out she had cheated on me a second time. And of course the fact that I ran into Christa about that same time made the choice to walk away even easier . . .”
“Yeah.”
I inhaled through my nose and exhaled through my mouth, trying to regain my focus and my equilibrium. I sat back down on the couch, and he sat next to me. We were both facing forward, staring into space.
“Do you remember,” I began softly, “when we were driving to your parents’ house that evening and I asked you to tell me if there was ever anything about your relationship with Laura that I needed to know, and you said you would?”
“Ah,” he said. “So, you meant something like this?”
“Yeah. This would have been good to know.”
“Noted.”
We sat there for another minute, and then I put my hand out and grabbed his and then rested my head on his shoulder. I knew we’d have to start thinking about what to do next, but right then I just wanted to sit there, loving Ben, trusting in who I knew him to be.
18.
Ethical and Professional Leprosy
Within a half hour, we had discussed all of the nooks and crannies of the situation and all of the potential repercussions, some of which were already in the early stages.
Ben had been immediately placed on unpaid leave while Mercy Point addressed the accusations. The unpaid part certainly presented some challenges, but it was the leave that was devastating to him. To some extent he understood. While he would have preferred his congregation to immediately defend him, call the claims ridiculous, and throw all of their support behind him—and he was hurt that they didn’t—he also understood that there was a responsibility to Laura, a member of the body. They needed to be sure they knew the truth before a decision was made.
As hurt as he still would have been, I think he would have agreed that the church was proceeding correctly if it hadn’t been for the way Lenore Isaacs had stepped up in the meeting with the leadership committee and valiantly volunteered her husband’s services in the interim, before Ben had even left the room.
It was interesting, as we talked, to see just how much his feelings of friendship for Laura had changed. I suppose that was to be expected, but I was still taken aback by the hostility he was expressing toward her. He was much angrier than I was, actually. Then again, that made perfect sense, I guess. As far as I was concerned, she had just lived up to her potential. In Ben’s mind, she had undone a lifelong friendship and not only destroyed his career and reputation in the process, but also threatened his relationship with me. Yeah, that was pretty bad.
I, however, just couldn’t believe she had acted alone. What was the end game for her? To ruin Ben? To split us up? To ruin me? Perhaps. Those were all things that she most likely believed were well within her grasp. But then what? Why would she do that to Kaitlyn? And did she think Ben would run to her for comfort after all she had done? That seemed a bit unlikely. Tom and Lenore Isaacs, on the other hand, may have had a desired outcome very much in sight.
“How did you end up at Mercy Point?” I asked Ben as we sat on the same couch, resting on each other, taking a breather from our strategy session.
“Well, Christa and I grew up there. It was our home church. So—”
“Hang on,” I interrupted. “You and Christa attended Mercy Point together?” I guess I’d just never thought about it, never considered that for Ben those halls could be full of memories with someone other than me.
He nodded. “Vacation Bible School, youth group, summer camp, everything. Her dad was our past
or until they moved to Indiana, when we were in high school. There were so many people there then that I can almost understand how I went so long without really noticing her.” He walked over to the bookshelf full of photos and carefully selected the one he wanted and brought it over to me.
I took it and studied it, and while I had previously only noticed the man I loved and the beautiful young woman he was marrying, this time I saw all of the details beyond the tux and the white dress. There was the baby grand piano in the background, just to the left of them, and the steps on which they stood. The built-in baptismal area in the back, and the familiar ornate designs on the pulpit. They’d even been married at Mercy Point.
“When we moved to Connecticut, I think we attended every church in New Haven searching for another church home. I accepted a few positions, but they never lasted very long.” He laughed thinking back on it. “My first professional ministry position was as youth pastor at this little church on the outskirts of town—great people, great building, plenty of resources. The only problem was that the median age of the congregation was seventy-six. Well, until Christa and I joined and threw those figures off slightly.” He winked. “They just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get teenagers interested in attending there. That one didn’t last too long, needless to say.”
“I’m sorry.” I laughed. “That’s awful.”
“Oh no. You haven’t heard anything yet. The next church was much younger and much healthier. I got hired on as an associate pastor, and everything was fantastic for about two months, and then it all went up in flames.”
“Oh no! What happened?”
“The church literally went up in flames,” he deadpanned. He raised his hand to cross his heart. “Honest to goodness. But that wasn’t even the bad part. It turned out the lead pastor had lost all of the church’s money at the horse track, so they couldn’t afford to rebuild.”
“That can’t be true!” I protested.
“It is,” he insisted with a chuckle. “I couldn’t make that stuff up! There were other stories like that too. We were like a personification of Murphy’s Law for churches. I started to think my résumé should come with a warning. But we just kept plugging along, convinced it was what we were called to do. And then Christa was diagnosed, and we moved back to Chicago. There was an opening for a youth pastor at Mercy Point, so we could have gone back then, I guess. But I just couldn’t commit that sort of time and dedication. I needed to save that for Christa and Maddie.”
“So what did you do?” I asked, fascinated by this brief period of Ben’s history that we had never discussed. “I mean, for a job?”
He smiled. “Lots of prayer, and lots of help.” He returned the photo to its proper place and stood there staring at all of the memories for a moment. “Gary and Beth—Christa’s parents—insisted I shouldn’t work, and that they would take care of us for a while, financially. They wouldn’t take no for an answer. For about two minutes I considered that a threat to my masculinity and a lack of faith in my ability to be the breadwinning, independent head of the household I needed to be.” He looked back at me, still smiling. “But it didn’t take me long to realize what an unbelievable gift it was. I was able to go with her to chemo and steal her away on little trips when we woke up and realized it was going to be a good day. I’ll never be able to repay them for providing for us so that I didn’t have to miss a moment of those months with her.”
My eyes were misty again, so affected by the capacity of his love, and theirs. “I’m guessing they’d never want you to.”
He shook his head. “All they want, I think, is time with Maddie.” He laughed softly. “I don’t know that they were counting on just how much time they would get with me too. I love being around them, and they spoil Maddie rotten, so obviously she’s a fan.” He smiled. “Gary and Beth understand me in a way I don’t think my own parents ever have. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents—”
“I’ll be honest,” I interrupted, “I expected much worse from your parents.”
“Give them time.” He rolled his eyes. “But no, they’re good people, and I love them a lot. But Gary and Beth . . .”
“They get it.” I smiled, remembering his words when I walked out of the sushi restaurant and found him on the phone with Beth.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “They always have, I think, but the past few years have really driven that home.” He stood up and went to the kitchen to get us both more coffee, and I followed him in. “So after Christa died, I took a little bit of time, and then I needed to get back to work. The lead pastor job was open at Mercy Point, and my mother pushed me to take it. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t do it. From the time we came back to town, we’d been going to church with Gary and Beth. He’s been the pastor of this great little church in Algonquin ever since they moved back from Indiana. And then Christa was gone. I couldn’t walk into Gary and Beth’s church and face those people and those memories. And I sure couldn’t walk back into Mercy Point and face those people and those memories. Christa was everywhere. And then I entered my anger stage of grief, and I stopped going to church anywhere for a while.”
As I listened to him I understood, without him telling me, that this subject—more than Christa’s death or my desire to have children—was actually the one that had never been up for discussion. The things he never discussed and which he had never told anyone were all wrapped up in the conversation we were having. He was telling me about his deepest pain.
“Mercy Point pursued me pretty relentlessly, actually,” he continued. “And a few other churches did too.”
“Why?” I asked with a wicked grin. “Didn’t they know about your track record?”
“I guess everyone thinks they’ll be the exception to the rule,” he said with a laugh.
Though I teased him, I had no trouble at all understanding why he was in such high demand. In addition to being biblically sound and extremely knowledgeable, Ben is an engaging, charismatic speaker. Of course he’s also incredibly sexy, though I highly doubted any of those churches actually put that in their offer letters.
“So you got some pretty good offers?” I asked.
He nodded. “Offers I shouldn’t have been able to refuse. But I was busy wrestling with the Lord, and I just couldn’t let go.”
We returned to the couch, full cups of coffee in hand, and I did a little mental wrestling of my own. I just couldn’t picture Ben falling away from his faith, and I certainly couldn’t imagine him as anything other than a pastor. It just always seemed like it was what he was meant to do.
“What is it?” he asked in response to my expressionless silence.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, really. I guess it just makes me sad to think of how bad things must have been for you to turn away from God.”
He set his coffee cup on the table in front of us and then took my cup from my hands and did the same before wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close.
He took a deep breath. “I don’t think I ever turned from God, actually. It was more that I turned on him. I just wanted answers, and I wasn’t going to budge until I got them. But I knew it was my battle with the Lord, not Maddie’s, so I sent her to church with Gary and Beth every week. And we still read Bible stories and said prayers together. I never lost my love for Christ,” he insisted vehemently. “If anything, it grew stronger. But I don’t think I’d ever realized how much my faith had been wrapped up in Christa’s faith. It was like God, Christa, and I had been on this journey together, and then suddenly it was just God and me. I guess I just had to find out where he and I really stood.”
“So what changed?” I asked.
He’d been very serious and focused for the fifteen minutes or so that he had been telling me the story, but as he pulled away to look at me, his face lit up and the smile returned.
“Isn’t that obvious?”
I thought really hard, but no. It wasn’t. I shook my head.
He sighed and pulled me even closer
to him on the couch, and I snuggled into his embrace. “After four years of saying no, the offers pretty much went away. I was teaching some college courses—all thoughts of church work were ancient history—and then I got one last call from Mercy Point. In all that time, they hadn’t been able to find a permanent pastor, and they’d lost a lot of the congregation. They couldn’t afford to pay me anywhere near what they’d offered originally, but they told me they were sure I was the right pastor to help rebuild the church. They begged me to consider it.”
“And you were finally done wrestling?”
“Oh no.” He laughed. “I hadn’t given up on that yet. But I also couldn’t stand the thought of Mercy Point having to close the doors. Especially if I could have done something. So I told them I would think about it. But before I could even give it any serious thought, I knew I had to walk through those doors and see if I could even handle it. So that was the first step. It was a Thursday evening, and no one was there besides the cleaning crew, but I did it. I walked through the doors.”
“And it was okay,” I said softly, believing I finally saw how God had allowed it all to come about.
“No, it wasn’t okay,” he corrected me. “It was a lot of things, but it wasn’t okay. She was everywhere, and I’d only made it down one hallway. I knew I couldn’t do it. I started walking back to the door and pulled out my cell phone right then and there, to call and tell them I couldn’t do it. But I started feeling a little light-headed. As badly as I wanted to get out of there and never look back, I had to sit for a minute. I’d had all of these memories flooding my mind and my heart, threatening to overtake me. I just didn’t know if I could take any more,” he said, still holding me. “I tried to stand up, needing to get out of there, pretty certain I couldn’t survive anything else. I wanted to run away as fast as I could, but I couldn’t get off that bench.”
The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck Page 20
