“Yes, ma’am. It certainly does.”
“Tell me how you see it.”
He swallowed. “Well, we believe in the great atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ—that he took upon himself our sins and transgressions, and also our sorrows and pains—and that’s why he can succor us in times of need. We teach that he provided immortality and a literal resurrection for all of us, and the opportunity to gain eternal life with our Father in Heaven.”
“By grace or works?” she asked sharply, frowning at him.
“Both, actually,” he replied. “We believe that the Lord expects us to do certain things in the way of ordinances, such as baptism, as well as good works, such as kindness to our fellow man—but we also believe that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”
She nodded. “Second Nephi.” She pronounced it “Neffy,” and the bishop didn’t dare smile. He was astounded that she knew the reference, but with his next thought he wondered why he should be. Of course she would read anything her beloved granddaughter brought home.
“Grandma, that’s Nee-fie,” Tashia stage-whispered.
“Thank you, Miss Lady. In any case, I believe that’s what the Bible teaches, if you take it all together, and don’t try to pull it apart like some folks. Now, James, would you give us a prayer, before you go?”
Obviously, the meeting was being adjourned. He wasn’t certain whether to stand, kneel, or sit forward, but Tashia and her grandmother answered his dilemma by getting to their knees on the braided carpet. He and Bob Patrenko did the same. He prayed sincerely, asking the Lord’s blessings of protection and wisdom and bounty on this good home and its inhabitants. Grandmother and granddaughter echoed the amen, so he hoped the prayer was acceptable, both to the Lord and to them.
“Tashia, run around back and fetch both these gentlemen one of our good muskmelons,” Mrs. Ruckman directed. While the girl was gone, Mrs. Ruckman looked searchingly up at her former student. “Well, James, you don’t do too badly for a lay minister. In my mind, the jury’s still out on your beliefs, but I feel your heart’s in the right place. Tashia seems happy worshipping with you, and so far, I’m still all right with her doing so.” She smiled and reached out to tap his arm. “But you can rest assured I’ll continue to monitor the situation.”
He nodded. He was certain she would.
* * *
He was starving by the time Bob dropped him off at home, and he bounded into the house like a teenager, sniffing the air eagerly to see what Trish had prepared for dinner. He hoped it was something with onions and peppers. He was in luck—she had made steak kabobs, with chunks of not only onions and peppers, but zucchini and yellow squash on the skewers. She served them on a bed of rice pilaf, with a salad of spinach, fresh mushrooms, and some kind of sweet dressing. It wasn’t a meal his mother would ever have prepared, but he had to admit that Trish’s innovations were mighty tasty. The children had already eaten, but Trish had waited for him, and they ate on the patio, watching Jamie and Mallory play with a lightweight plastic ball and bat.
“Mallory said something kind of disturbing today,” Trish remarked, refilling his glass of ice water.
“What was that?”
“She asked me if I’m ever naughty, and if you give me spankings.”
“Oh? Where’d she get such an idea? I don’t even give her spankings.”
“I tried to inquire, tactfully, and I guess it was from something little Andi Padgett said when she was here for Mal’s party.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Right. Andi reportedly said that sometimes her mommy was so naughty that her daddy had to spank her all over.”
He put down a kabob, suddenly less hungry than he had been. “I’m going to have to do something, aren’t I?” he said. “I just don’t know what’s best. I spoke with President Walker about it, and he said to let the Spirit guide me, and to be mindful of the state laws on family violence.”
“Then just keep praying, sweetheart. I’m sure it’ll come to you.”
“I think I’ll fast about it tomorrow. That’s all I know to do at this point.”
Trish smiled at him, her eyes warm and sympathetic. “I can’t think of anything better.”
Chapter Eighteen
* * *
“ . . . for the injured interceding”
The owner of Shepherd’s Quality Food Mart arrived at work early and went into his office. Mary Lynn wasn’t due in for another hour and a half, and he locked the door, leaving the light off, hoping his arrival had gone unnoticed by anyone who might come knocking. Plenty of summer morning light filtered in through the high, dusty, barred window, but no one could see in through that unless they had a ladder. He knelt beside the old oak swivel chair with the leather seat and back. It had been his dad’s chair, and he wouldn’t have traded it for the newest, most ergonomically correct office chair on the market. He folded his hands on the worn seat and bowed his head.
“Heavenly Father,” he said aloud, and then didn’t know how to continue. For several long moments, he just let his thoughts and feelings flow heavenward, then finally began again. “Lord, you know—that is, thou knowest—how weak and confused I feel. How concerned I am for Sister Melody Padgett and her little girl, how certain and afraid I am that Brother Jack Padgett is abusing his wife, though she refuses to say so, and begs me not to do anything. I feel I’ve got to do something, Heavenly Father, but this is such a delicate matter that I don’t know how to go about it. It won’t do any good if I frighten them away from church. And I’ve got to acknowledge before thee, Father, that my feelings toward Brother Padgett are not as loving right now as they probably ought to be. The man just rubs me the wrong way, and I know it’s my own weakness that makes it hard to be his bishop. Even though I suspect him of ugliness and meanness, I know I need to approach him with a desire in my heart to help him overcome his problems, not with the same kind of anger that causes him to strike out at his family.
“Lord, I don’t know what’s happened to him in his life to bring him to this kind of behavior, and I need a spirit of love and compassion to replace my anger and disgust, or I don’t think I can minister to his needs or his family’s. So it’s for this cause—for wisdom and love—that I submit myself to thee this day in fasting and prayer. There are other problems in our ward, too, and I know thou art aware of each of them—far more than I am—and I pray thy tender watchcare to be with each family, each individual, according to their various needs. But for right now, I plead with thee for help in dealing with the Padgetts.”
He closed his prayer in the name of the Savior and stayed where he was, on his knees, thinking and mulling over the situation, mentally listing his options, and trying to be open to any inspiration the Lord might see fit to send him. After a while, his knees began to complain, and he pushed himself up into the chair and leaned forward, burying his head in his arms on the desk.
He woke to the sound of Mary Lynn’s key in the lock and lifted his head, momentarily confused to find himself in his office. He had thought he was tramping the green hills of Shepherd’s Pass.
“Jim! What the heck’re you doing locked up in here? You don’t look so good. You okay?”
“Good morning, Mary Lynn, and I’m fine. Just doing some thinking, and you know that’s hard on an old man like me. I fell asleep working at it.”
“Old man!” she chided. “Not likely. Just a worried man, from the looks of you. Everything okay at home?”
“Oh, yeah. Home’s fine, work’s fine. It’s just my other life that isn’t always so great. Well, no, that’s not exactly right, either. Let’s just say I’m not always so great—at figuring people out, and knowing how to help them.”
“Oh—you mean your job as bishop, or whatever?”
“That’s it.”
“Can I help?”
“Probably not, but thanks.”
She shrugged and flipped her long brown hair over her shoulder. “Don’t reckon I even know anybody in your church,
so feel free to run it by me if you want.”
“Well, just tell me this—why would a woman deny that her husband physically abuses her, when it’s evident he does? Why would she beg me not to do anything about it? Wouldn’t she want him to stop?”
“Oh, boy. Well, my cousin Selma was in a situation like that. Her husband beat her every week or so, but she defended him to everybody, even the law. Her mama asked her how come she did that, and she just said, ‘He’s all I’ve got. At least I know what to expect outa him.’ So maybe she’s scared of what changes it’d bring, other than him stopping the beatings.”
“Interesting. But this woman’s young, good-looking, and smart—has everything going for her—and I can’t, for the life of me, see why she’d think she needs to put up with such mistreatment. This guy strikes me—no pun intended—as a grown-up playground bully.”
“Into controlling everybody and everything, is he?”
The bishop nodded. “Sure looks that way.”
Mary Lynn considered the ends of a long strand of hair. “Fear,” she said succinctly.
“Well, yeah, I’m sure she’s afraid of him—”
“No, I mean him. He’s full of fear. At least, most bullies are. I think of my brother Dwight, when he was in grade school, you know? He was the worst bully you ever saw. But alls it was, was that he thought if he didn’t control everything and everybody in his life, it’d all come tumbling down like one of those card houses kids try to build, you know what I mean? See, the thing was, right then Mama and Daddy was all concerned about my other little brother, Casey, who was in the hospital down at Birmingham with this real rare blood disease, and he like to’ve died of it. Poor old Dwight didn’t see our folks for days at a time, and he wasn’t allowed to go see Casey, and things just weren’t the same at home, with all us older kids bossin’ him, so he just plain took it all out on the kids at school. They were the onliest people on earth he could exert any control over, ’cause he sure as heck didn’t have no control over any part of his own life, and he got to feelin’ like as long as he kept them kids in line, ever’thing might turn out all right.”
“What happened?”
“Well, the teacher and the principal couldn’t let the bullyin’ go on, and kids’ parents were starting to complain, so they sent Dwight home with a note saying he was suspended till his folks could come to school and straighten things out. He was home for quite a spell, ’cause Mama and Daddy just couldn’t leave Casey long enough to tend to it, and in fact, we didn’t even tell them about it till later. Then, one day I was home, too, not feelin’ so good, and first thing I know, Dwight’s outside yellin’ at our old dog, and goin’ after her with sticks and rocks. I went out and grabbed him and asked him what in creation he thought he was doing, ’cause I’d always figured he loved old Maisie. And that poor youngun’ just broke down and cried like a baby, and it all come out, how scared he was that Casey would die, and our family’d never be the same again, and maybe he’d get the same disease, but nobody’d care if he died, ’cause he was so mean and ornery.” She sighed and leaned back in her chair, her eyes looking beyond him as if the past were being portrayed on the office wall.
“Mercy,” the bishop murmured.
“So—fear was what it was. The little old kid was scared plumb to death.”
“How’d things turn out?”
“Well, I tried my best to comfort him, which maybe helped some, and then finally, Casey got better, and they all come home, and I told Mama all about it. She cried, and said poor little Dwight, he’d been caught in the middle in all this, and she and Daddy went to school and tried to explain things, and they understood, and I think Dwight was just so glad to have everybody home, and to be back in school, that he didn’t feel the need to try to control everybody any more. But it was a rough patch.”
“Must have been. But now, I’m trying to apply that to these people. What would a big, strong husband and father—a former Marine, mind you, and a good provider—have to fear from a slender young wife?”
Mary Lynn shrugged again. “That she’d leave him?”
The bishop spread his hands. “So he thinks hitting her will make her want to stay?”
“I know. Sounds crazy, huh? But see, I don’t reckon he’s real concerned right now with how she feels and what she wants—just with keeping her under his thumb, like Dwight with his schoolmates.”
“Okay. But why would she beg me not to talk to him, and not to turn him in to the authorities? Her own fear?”
“Like as not. Do they have kids? Does he abuse them?”
“They’ve got one, and offhand, I’d guess he doesn’t. At least, not yet.”
“Well, see—she may be scared that he’d start in on the kid, if she rebelled, or left.”
“Or, like you said earlier—she may dread the unknown—the changes that might occur, if he’s caught.”
“Could be. ’Course, I don’t know, those’re just my homespun reckonin’s. Maybe you oughta talk to a psychologist, or a marriage counselor or the like.”
He smiled at his bookkeeper. “I probably should, but don’t knock your insights, friend. I thought they were pretty profound.”
She ducked her head, but he saw her pleased little smile before her hair swung forward to cover it. He suspected she had received far too few compliments in her life.
* * *
The image from his dream of Shepherd’s Pass kept intruding on his thoughts, and by noon he was on the phone with his cousin Spurling Deal, who lived there.
“Hey, Spurl? Jim. Doing great, how’re you folks? Super. Hey, listen—do ya’ll care if I come up and hike around the hills a little bit this afternoon? I just want to get out in the sunshine, but I don’t feel sociable enough to go play golf, you know? Thanks. Just give the guys the word not to shoot if they see me, okay? I won’t be rustling cattle or sheep. I’ll probably hike up to the falls. Thanks, Spurl, I owe you one.”
He told Mary Lynn he’d be unavailable for the afternoon, called Trish and advised her of his plan, and set his truck in motion. He felt just a little guilty, like a kid playing hooky from school, but he craved silence and solitude and the peace of the sunlit hills. As his truck headed into those hills, he wondered if there was a prettier place on earth than northern Alabama, with its many waterways and foothills and gorges, all green in the glory of June, with wild blackberries and roses climbing on fence posts and rocky outcroppings. At one of his favorite spots along the way, huge trees formed a canopy of deep shade over the road for at least half a mile, providing a tunnel of natural air-conditioning that he slowed down to enjoy.
Since he was fasting, it wasn’t a day for serious hiking. He just rambled slowly along a sheep path after he left his truck, stopping whenever he wanted to gaze out over a meadow, which was still veined with silver streamlets from the spring rains and runoff, though by now they had dwindled to a trickle. In late February and early March, the whole meadow would have been wet. A few of his cousin’s small band of sheep grazed peacefully on the sloping ground, their bells tinkling faintly when they moved. A couple of lambs cavorted playfully for a few moments, then returned to their mothers. He knew the fields of the Holy Land were probably far dryer and the forage much more sparse for those Biblical sheep, yet in this setting he could imagine the Savior teaching about the ninety and nine and the importance of the one that was lost.
He had a sheep in his flock in danger of being lost, did he not? Wasn’t Jack Padgett spiritually headed out into the desert?
“Stupid, stubborn ram,” he muttered, and then remembered Mary Lynn’s story of her frightened little brother, Dwight. “Okay,” he amended. “Make that a frightened ram, butting against the very sheep he should be protecting, trying to ignore the calls of his shepherd, insisting on doing things his own way.”
But did that fit with his image of Jack? He thought of Jack’s face and the expressions of stubbornness and annoyance he had seen there. He imagined Jack backhanding Melody, knocking her against a wa
ll of their beautiful new house, or grasping her upper arms so tightly they bruised. “I don’t see fear, there, Lord,” he whispered. “I see anger. So much anger, and I don’t understand why. Does Melody have a knack for setting him off, somehow? How can it be anything kin to fear that he’s feeling?”
He sat in a patch of shade and bowed his head, trying to clear his mind and open it to promptings of the Spirit. But his mind, stubborn thing that it was, insisted on intruding with random thoughts of this and that, unrelated memories and bits of trivia.
“Sorry, Heavenly Father. Reckon I need more practice in meditating. Or maybe I have an attention deficit problem. Please bear with me, and bless me with the wisdom I need.”
He stood again and plodded slowly upward, hand-vaulting over a fence post and entering a wooded area where the mingled fragrances of sun-warmed pine and wild flowers acted as a relaxant, calming his mind. He climbed to the spot the family called “the falls,” which was perhaps a glorified name for an area where a small stream came to about a three- or four-foot drop off, then spilled over some rocks to puddle in a small pond before meandering on its way. It was little more than the sort of thing many backyard gardeners constructed to provide the soothing sound of water, but it was private, the woods surrounding it were shady and fragrant, and it was a place where generations of Shepherds (and Carsons and Deals) had come to picnic, or to think, relax, and possibly commune with their Maker. At this time of year, the volume of the stream was negligible, but he’d been here before in early spring or anytime after a good rain, and he knew how it could increase.
He sat on a primitive bench—actually a weathered log that someone had stripped the bark from and set in a low cradle formed by notching two sections of split logs and fitting them together in X-shapes, and binding them with leather thongs for extra stability. Who? He wondered. Which of his ancestors had provided this simple seating, and how long ago? The bench creaked as it took his weight, but it held. He looked around, enjoying the pattern of the sunlight as it filtered through leaves and needles high overhead. It caught and sparkled now and then on facets of the water, which here flowed reddish-brown from the color of the soil. So much of Alabama’s soil was red clay, which, he reflected, was the slipperiest dang stuff on the planet when it was wet, but which also, in his opinion, provided a pretty contrast with the green things that grew so readily from it. He remembered how, as a boy, his socks and sneakers—and, indeed, the rest of him—usually had a rusty cast that his mother despaired of getting white again. Now Trish fretted over Jamie’s socks and shoes and the knees of his jeans. He smiled.
A Fresh Start in Fairhaven Page 22
