A Morning Like This

by Deborah Bedford

  Even though he’d been sad for his friend Charlie, even sadder because Charlie had talked to him about it beforehand, Braden couldn’t help feeling just a little bit proud.

  My dad kisses my mom when they think I’m not looking. My mom wraps her arms around his neck like she never wants to let go. Sometimes they pinch each other and pop each other with rubber bands and laugh.

  Although that part was yucky and mushy and he tried to ignore it, it made him just a little happy, too.

  My parents would never break up, not in a million years.

  Braden picked up more speed. He rode the turns hard all the way. The mottled shade felt cool on his face, and aspens zoomed by in flashes of white.

  A chiseler paused on the side of the half-pipe, and Braden couldn’t resist aiming the sled for it. The rodent raised its front paws and chattered at him, its tiny body a question mark. It scurried away just in time.

  Maybe it’s my fault they’re so upset. I must have done something wrong.

  Braden leaned further forward. He was flying—too fast, breaking the rules of the slide. It didn’t matter. Today he didn’t feel like obeying rules anymore. Water streamed from his eyes along the sides of his face. He squeezed them shut and tried to remember the prayer everybody wanted him to memorize from Sunday school.

  Our Father, who art in heaven…

  Hm-mm. He couldn’t remember any more. He took a running start at it and tried again.

  Our Father, who art in heaven…

  That’s as far as he could get. Certainly not far enough to do any good. Nothing like calling God’s name and then leaving Him hanging.

  The bottom of the Alpine Slide loomed ahead of him. On the bridge beside the miniature golf course, mothers held their children tightly and pointed at him. He narrowed his eyes at them, pleased with himself, and leaned into the downhill, thinking again that maybe he was to blame. He wasn’t thinking about the slide anymore. No one could catch him, or match this speed.

  He passed beneath the shadow of the bridge and someone shouted at him.

  That’s when Braden finally looked up.

  Just ahead of him on the track, Wheezer, his own teammate, had stopped at the end of the track. He was slowly climbing out of his cart.

  “Wheezer! Jacoby. Out of the way!”

  Braden wrenched the brakes. Metal wheels screeched against concrete. Wheezer bellowed and rolled out. Braden hit Wheezer’s sled with a crash that sent it toppling violently into the grass. Wheezer stayed on all fours, his head drooping toward the ground as Braden’s cart bashed into the tires at the end and, with an awful jounce, flew end over end in the air. Braden’s Elk’s-Club cap went soaring. He tumbled safely into the grass.

  “Too fast!” hollered the man running out of the ticket booth toward him. “Too fast!” He caught Braden by the arm and yanked him around. “What’s your name?” the man demanded. “You tell me, what’s your name? You were riding dangerously. You could have hurt somebody. You aren’t riding here anymore.”

  Charlie said, “Did you see all those chiselers on the track? I almost hit one.”

  “Hey,” Jake bellowed from behind them. “Wheezer can’t breathe.”

  Wheezer crawled on the ground in no apparent direction, his nose low to the grass, his fingers desperately spearing the blades. His gasps for breath came labored and hollow—the same eerie, rattling whistle as a flute.

  “He’s lost his inhaler,” Charlie shouted. “Come on!”

  Braden tried to help Wheezer but the ticket man held on and wouldn’t let him go. He stood watching, helpless and terrified, as eight of his team members worked through the grass like starlings, getting in one another’s way.

  “What does it look like?”

  “It’s orange.”

  “It’s a little bottle that you push.”

  “There’s a prescription thing on it with his name.”

  Wheezer gave up and rocked back on his heels, sucking and rattling for air.

  “I’ve got it!” Chase leapt from the lawn, clenching the medication in his fist. “Here, Wheezer. Here. I found it. Take this!”

  Jake held Wheezer’s shoulders while he and Chase fumbled for what seemed like an eternity with the small plastic spout. Then came the hiss, and another hiss, and Wheezer gasped and gulped in a great lungful of air.

  “Yeah, Wheezer!” they all shouted, applauding their friend, paying tribute to their own relief.

  “Way to go.”

  “Good job.”

  Wheezer took three more deep, satisfying breaths before he could speak.

  “Thanks for my inhaler, dude. I must have lost it.”

  “Wheezer—” Braden tried to wrench free.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” The ticket man gripped Braden’s biceps. “You’re not going anywhere.” He pulled a radio out of his pocket and keyed it. “Call for Snow King Security. Call for Snow King Security. Security needed immediately at the Alpine Slide.”

  “Oh, c-come on.” Braden tried to choke the words out, and they weren’t very respectful. It didn’t matter, though; his protest wasn’t loud. He couldn’t breathe, either. His own windpipe was choked with tears.

  Chapter Twelve

  Nelson Hull and David Treasure jaywalked across Cache Street, dodging the two Clydesdale horses and red tourist stagecoach making the same slow, circuitous route it made at least three dozen times each day. Nelson mouthed a Dum Dum lollipop he’d picked out of a teller’s jar in the bank lobby. “David, you’re my climbing partner. This is hard. I don’t know how to start this.”

  “You’re good at starting things. They pay you to start things. You’re a preacher.”

  “You want a Dum Dum?” He pulled several out of his pocket.

  “How many of those did you take?” David asked. “The bank can’t afford you much longer.”

  “Here.” Nelson tossed him a green one, David’s favorite. Only a good friend would have known what flavor he’d want.

  “Thanks.” David caught it in midair and jabbed it into his pocket.

  “Well,” Nelson started again.

  They passed through the famous elk-antler arches that curved over each entrance to the town square. Just as they did, a gentleman in Bermuda shorts handed David a camera.

  “Here we go. Sir, would you mind taking our picture for us? I’ve got five rolls of vacation, and there isn’t a one with me in it.”

  “Sure. No problem. I’ll take it.”

  David and Nelson both watched as the man took charge and arranged everyone. He had a certain place he wanted them, on the rock pedestal beneath the landmark tangle of horn. For a moment, David was distracted again, listening as the fellow gave him instructions on how to focus and which button to push. He lifted the camera to his eye and saw a family very much like his own inside the viewfinder. The father hurried around to take his place, spreading his arms wide to encompass his wife and children.

  “Okay, are you ready?”

  “Yes!” they all chimed.

  “Okay. Say…” By this time, just looking at them, David had to clear his throat and start over again. “Say ‘cheese.’ On the count of three.”

  “Cheeeese,” the children said, before he’d even gotten ready.

  “Okay. One. Two. Three.”

  “Cheeeese!” they all shouted, their arms wrapped around each other, their grins as broad as the MacKenzie drift boats used by fishing guides on the Snake River.

  David snapped the picture and handed over the camera. “Here you go.” He thought of all the family Christmas card portraits he, Abby, Braden, and Brewster had posed for. Under the antler arch. On the balcony of the Old Faithful Inn. In a raft, riding the whitewater called Lunchcounter.

  “Thanks so much.”

  David watched them a few moments more, then he and Nelson walked on. They came to the veterans memorial statue in the center of the square—a bronze cowboy busting a bronco over a listing of Jackson Hole heroes from each war. Some of these family surnames went back ninety
years. Warren Watsabaugh. Bert Schofield. Pete Karnes, Harvey Hagen, and Clinton Budge. Nelson sat down beside those names and said, “When you hear what we’re going to talk about, you’ll wish we’d gone mountain climbing instead. It would have been easier.”

  “Well, then. Go ahead.”

  The affection and regard in his eyes spoke of something larger than himself. “I think we need to talk about what’s happening between you and Abby.”

  A beat. David offset his jaw then righted it again. “Well, I don’t know why we’d need to talk about that.”

  “Maybe we need to discuss it because I’m your pastor. Maybe we need to discuss it because I’m your friend.”

  David picked up a stick lying beside his feet in the grass. “Seems to me that’s Abby’s business and my business, Nelson.” He hurled the stick, watched it soar aloft. “It isn’t yours.”

  When David turned back to Nelson, the gentle, careful expression he loved was gone and in its place sat frustration. “Don’t close me out, buddy. You need a friend right now. And I’m here. I’m your climbing partner.”

  “Stop saying that. Stop saying you’re my climbing partner.”

  “I thought you might need some guidance.”

  David picked a piece of grass and examined it. “Abby and I… well, I don’t know what we’re working toward, Nelson. She’s got every reason to feel the way she feels. I’ve committed adultery and the verdict is in.”

  Nelson stared in stunned surprise. “That’s what’s happened between you? You cheated on Abby?”

  “Yes.”

  The expression on Nelson’s face had slipped. He wasn’t the caring pastor anymore; he was the concerned and incredulous friend. “C’mon, man. What were you thinking?”

  Both men settled in on their bench as if they were settling into themselves. David slouched a little, shifting his weight from one buttock to the other. Nelson leaned his chin into his left hand with elbow propped on his knee—the thinker’s pose.

  David puffed out his cheeks and blew. “Well, I guess I had my reasons.”

  “Which were?”

  David rocked back and leaned his weight on the heels of his hands. “I was thinking I’d gotten married too fast, is what I was thinking. All of my buddies were playing in the Montana Hot Box baseball tournament and camping by the Platte River over the weekends and making all-night road trips to Denver for the Bronco games, and here I was with a kid on the way. And Abby wouldn’t… I don’t know.” He stared at the sky, searching for words. “Sometimes she lived around me instead of with me. I had a wife but it often seemed like she wasn’t there.”

  He waited for some response from his comrade and got none. At the corner, a START bus loaded passengers and pulled away from the curb with a sheer billow of diesel. Behind the bus, the town stagecoach made another slow circle of the square, the horses’ hooves clattering on the pavement.

  David added quickly, “But none of that is any excuse, is it?”

  Nelson didn’t answer that question. “Sometimes it’s the hardest thing I have to do, being both a pastor and a friend.”

  That admission made them both look at the sky again. Then David let out an uncertain chuckle. “If I had to pick between one or the other, you know which one I’d choose.” He threw another stick. “I could find a different pastor.”

  Two men sat on the rock ledge, leaning on the balls of their feet while the birds began to sing again. David clapped his hands once, twice, three times. Nelson slapped his knees and stood up. “I only wish I didn’t have so many other people to worry about.”

  “Other people?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Nelson didn’t want to answer. David could tell by the way he fisted his hand at his side. “Well, I’m the pastor of a church. And others know there has been strife between you and Abby.”

  “What?”

  “You’re in the church leadership. People have been calling.”

  “They have?”

  “Yes.”

  “About our marriage?”

  “Yes.”

  David said, coloring faintly, “You know I was going to talk to you about it, Nelson. I was just waiting for the right time.”

  “You waited too long.”

  “Who’s calling you?” David pressed. “Who’s talking?”

  Nelson scrubbed his forehead. “If I were to tell you, it would only make it worse, and you know it. But I have the health of the church to think about. There are chasms beginning to form.”

  “Who?” David asked again, even though he knew Nelson couldn’t answer. So David began running over the hit list in his head, trying to answer for himself. Grant Fisher, Jake’s dad from baseball. Hal Carparelli, Kate’s husband from Abby’s work. Larry Watt, his administrative assistant’s brother. In his mind, they all became suspect.

  “How can people in the church know? Braden doesn’t even know. Abby and I don’t want this to be all over town.” David hated the way everyone, including himself, thought of them as a pair.

  Abby and me. Me and Abby.

  “The presbytery committee is coming to meet with you, David. I asked them if I could speak to you first because we’re such good friends.”

  “Meet with me?”

  “You need to be prepared. They’re going to come to you and ask you to step down. From the finance committee, too.”

  His anger erupted. “What?” He leapt up, his breath coming in another heavy chuff. Nelson’s expression didn’t waver. “Fine.”

  But it wasn’t fine.

  Sure. I’ll quit. I don’t have to be an elder.

  He broke off a branch from the cottonwood beside them and began to snap it apart in inch-long increments.

  All this time I’ve served and this is the thanks I get?

  He kicked a pinecone with the toe of his Hush Puppies and watched it skitter away.

  I don’t have to teach the sixth-graders either. Let them try to find somebody else who can handle Scott McComas.

  That made David smile, if a little viciously. The boy was a handful, and everybody knew it. Three weeks ago, after David had prepared and prayed over a middle-school lesson the entire week, he’d asked the class to share ideas how they could reach other kids for Christ. He’d called on Scott immediately, impressed by the arm high in the air and the waggling fingers. “Go ahead, Scott. What do you want to say?”

  “You know how to hypnotize a chicken?”

  Eight pairs of eyeballs had locked on Scott McComas. Eight heads had scrambled to figure out if this had anything to do with leading friends to Christ.

  “My uncle was here from Iowa and he taught us to hypnotize a chicken. Hold its face close to your face and look it straight in the eye.”

  Sure, let somebody else listen to those barnyard stories. “Nelson, if they had problems with what was happening, why didn’t they come to me? Have they had phone calls? Meetings? Have people been discussing it as a group?”

  David had been in a leadership role at the church for over nine years. He’d even sat on the committee that had hired Nelson Hull. How could they ask me to step down as elder? How could Nelson let it happen?

  “It’s wrong, how people go about it, David. They talk because they want to make sure they’re right. They win others to their side without realizing what they’re doing.”

  David felt like he’d been booted in the gut.

  “It’s in 1 Timothy, the part about a church leader managing his children and his household.”

  “Stop it,” David said. “Stop it. You and Abby both quoting Scripture at me. I know what the Bible says.”

  “David—”

  “This is the only thing I’m doing right for God anymore. And they want to take that away from me, too?”

  The Dum Dum was long gone, but Nelson still wheedled the stick around in his mouth. For a long moment he didn’t say anything. He looked at his friend with all the care of heaven in his eyes. “Are you really doing this f
or God, David?”

  David stared him down. “That’s a ridiculous question. Of course I’m doing it for God. Who else would I be doing it for?”

  “Yourself.”

  “Right,” he said with no small hint of sarcasm. “I sit through meetings two nights a week during the school year and stay past nine o’clock at night. I miss Braden’s Junior Jazz basketball games at the rec center. I miss Abby’s Chorale concert and the night Braden gave his speech for student council at Colter. Sure, I miss all those things. And I do it for myself.”

  “Or maybe you do it for your wife.”

  “Right.”

  “Maybe you’ve been doing all this, trying to be worthy of something from Abby.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Maybe you’ve been trying to earn her love and trust because you know you don’t deserve them anymore.”

  “You’re nuts.” David rose and jammed his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I know exactly what I’m doing. And I know exactly why I’m doing it. For nine years I’ve been serving the Lord.”

  “Maybe you’re trying to be acceptable to Abby,” Nelson stayed right with him, “and maybe you’re trying to be acceptable to God.”

  Silence formed a wall between friends.

  “If that’s what you want, here’s my resignation. Officially. I step down. Tell them they don’t have to come—that I’ve already done it. Take me off the elders’ board and the finance committee. Take me off all the other lists, too. Especially sixth-grade children’s church. I really don’t want to do that anymore.”

  Nelson spread two hands in the air, helpless. “You have to resign to the presbytery committee, not to me.”

  David began to walk away, his shoulders sagging.

  “What you’re doing this minute might be the only thing you’re doing right for God. Being honest with yourself. Admitting to the world where you stand.”

  “God forgave me a long time ago for what I’ve done.” Why wasn’t Nelson telling him the things a pastor was supposed to say? “Don’t you think that?”

  “Frantic servers. That’s what I call them. Trying to make up for something they won’t ever be able to make up for.”