Life Goes On (6 page)

I
t took me sixteen days to learn pastors were expected to be perfect. I was fresh out of seminary and pastoring my first church, when I'd mentioned in a sermon that Barbara and I had fought that week. I said it in order to reveal my imperfections, to show the congregation I was one of them. It didn't work. The elders said if we didn't set a better example with our marriage, they'd find a minister who would.

So much for honesty, I thought. So much for sharing your struggles with the body of believers. So much for bearing one another's burdens and thus fulfilling the law of Christ.

After that, Barbara and I were careful to hold hands in public and gaze fondly at one another, even when we wanted to kill each other. Others in town could trade in their spouses the way some traded in cars, and people hardly blinked. But let me mention I'd gone to bed mad at my wife, and parents would cover their children's ears, lest they be tainted by the sacrilege.

In my twelfth year there, we had met with a marriage counselor in the next town who turned out to be related to an elder in our church. The counselor let it slip at a family reunion, and the next week I was hauled before the Sanhedrin, where I was ordered not to discuss my personal problems with other people. In fact, I was not supposed to have problems in the first place. And if I did, why couldn't I just go to the Lord in prayer? Could it be I no longer believed in the power of prayer? the elders wanted to know. They saw no alternative but to fire me, so they could hire a minister who took seriously Christ's command to be perfect.

Our biggest problem turned out to be that particular church. Once we moved, our marriage was fine. Now we get along well, so long as I don't work too many hours or volunteer my wife for tasks in the church, both of which I am prone to do.

To their credit, the people of Harmony Friends are more realistic when it comes to marriage, and though divorce is rare, so is passion. If I were to conduct a marriage enrichment program, no one would attend. When the pastor before me, Pastor Taylor, had preached a sermon on active listening in which he and his wife role-played effective communication in the Christian marriage, the offering for that week went down 60 percent. The next week he'd preached on sex for the Christian couple and was very nearly fired.

Occasionally, some of the church members will come to my office to unburden themselves and tell me the deepest secrets of their marriages, which, being nosy, I find a bit thrilling. Sometimes, though, I hear things I'd rather not think about, particularly about people's sex lives, or lack thereof. I've known these people most of my life and prefer to remain ignorant of certain aspects of their lives, the sex aspect being one of them.

Though nothing surprises me anymore, I was a bit taken aback when I came to my office early one August morning to find Dolores Hinshaw awaiting my arrival. She was visibly distraught; a handkerchief was knotted in her hands, and her eyes were red and swollen.

I pulled up a chair, sat beside her, and rested a hand on her arm. “What is it, Dolores?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words would come. She dabbed her eyes, blew her nose with a liquidy snort, and then blurted out, “It's Dale.”

“Is something wrong with Dale?” It was a question whose answer was so obvious it scarcely required a response.

“I don't know how much more of it I can take,” she said.

“More of what, Dolores? What happened?”

For the next hour, she poured out her soul, unloading forty-one years of resentment. Not only had he burned their car, he'd taken a thousand dollars she'd saved for their fiftieth anniversary cruise and given it to the Mighty Men of God ministry. “When I asked him not to, he told me the man is the head of household. If I hear him say that one more time, I might just choke him.”

She felt guilty as soon as she said it, as if voicing her displeasure was somehow unfaithful. But after forty-one years of submission, she'd reached her limit.

As it turns out, the Mighty Men of God had mailed Dale a letter claiming to be under attack by liberal forces and needing Dale's “prayerful and tangible assistance” to beat back Satan's latest assault. Dale had written back, including a check for a thousand dollars. Just
the week before, another burner on their stove had gone out. They were now down to one burner. It would cost a hundred dollars to fix the stove, which Dale had refused to pay. A thousand dollars to beat back the liberal tide they could afford, but not three new burners for their stove.

“I was so mad, I could have spit,” she told me. “First the car, then the stove, and now our money's gone.”

The month before, Miriam Hodge had given her a book written by an evangelical woman who had kicked off the traces and was challenging the Church to set its women free. Dolores had wrapped it in a plain brown wrapper and was reading it under the covers with a flashlight after Dale fell asleep. She had been thinking of taking the wrapper off and giving him a jolt.

But forty-one years of passivity was not easily overcome, so Dolores's rebellion had taken quieter forms. Dale hates wasting food, so she had begun adding large amounts of salt to his food, just for the pleasure of watching him choke it down with water, which she had also salted. When he complained about the food, she blamed it on the stove. “I must have got confused trying to cook three dishes on one burner. I'll try not to let it happen again,” she said, as she spooned another portion onto his plate.

She wasn't proud of this, she told me, but felt she had no recourse.

Then she invited the town's most notorious liberals, Mabel and Deena Morrison, to their home for dinner. She didn't salt their food, but loaded down Dale's pretty good. When he complained, Mabel and Deena said it was probably his imagination, that their food tasted fine.

Mabel studied him closely. “Maybe you have this disease I was reading about the other day. Everything tastes salty and you're always thirsty. Next thing you know, you're worried all the time and your gums bleed when you brush your teeth and then you're dead, just like that,” she said, with a snap of her fingers. “It's one of those diseases you get from mosquitoes.”

The thing was, Dale had been noticing blood on his toothbrush lately.

“Have you been worried?” Mabel persisted.

“There's a godless, liberal assault against Bible-believing Americans,” he'd said. “How could I not be worried?”

And two of them were right there at his dinner table. Deena Morrison was the worst of all. She was wearing a toe ring, which Dolores admired out loud, knowing it would irritate Dale, who believed toe rings were a sign of immorality.

“I went out and bought one just to make him mad,” Dolores confided.

He had hit the roof. He was certain there was a verse against toe rings in the Bible, but after an exhaustive search couldn't find it. “If it's not against the Scriptures, it should be,” he'd told her, and had ordered her to take it off; she was a mother, not a dance hall girl, he'd said.

The next day was trash day. She'd upped the ante by cutting slits in the trash bags, so the bottom would give out halfway down the driveway when Dale was carrying the trash to the curb. She'd watched from the kitchen window as the coffee grounds had trailed behind him like a snake. A soup can fell out about a quarter of the way down, which was when it first occurred to Dale he might have
a problem. He'd picked up the pace and tried to make it to the curb before the bag split open.

It took Dolores three bags to get it right. If the slit was too small, Dale could make it to the curb without a hitch. If it was too big, he'd notice and use the wheelbarrow. Three inches turned out to be the optimum slit.

Thinking the bags were defective, he'd returned them to the Kroger for a refund and bought a new box. Dolores had lain low for a week to lull him into complacency, then struck with a vengeance—a three-inch slit with a rock in the bottom and spoiled chicken livers mixed with rotten eggs.

She confessed she had been thinking of leaving him, of moving to the city and living with her sister, but couldn't bring herself to walk away from forty-one years of marriage. Instead, she had tried not talking with him, which hadn't worked. “I could set myself on fire and he wouldn't notice,” she told me. “All he does is ramble on about the church and liberals. He doesn't even ask me what I think. Last month it was Bob Miles and the
Herald.
This month it's the ushers.”

There are two aisles at the Harmony meetinghouse. For years we've run an usher up each aisle, which requires only two ushers a week, so the rest of the ushers don't get much playing time. There had been some mumbling among the bench warmers, who wanted to switch to a zone collection, two men up each aisle with a floating usher in case of an injury. Five ushers a week, instead of two. It was a big change, something not to be taken lightly, so Dale had been holding regular meetings to pray about it.

“Then he comes home and turns on the TV and watches those kooks on Channel 41,” she said. The “kooks” are the Reverend Rod Duvall and his pink-haired wife, who are prone to fits of crying, especially when they're asking for money, which is every other day. “I can't even sleep for listening to those two caterwauling.”

I knew I was supposed to urge her to forgive Dale and be reconciled with him, but by then I was so worked up, I wanted to choke him myself.

Instead, I put my hand on her arm and prayed for her and for Dale and their marriage, then gave her a box of Kleenex to take with her. I suspected she'd need it.

At three o'clock the next morning, my telephone rang. It was Dolores, calling from the hospital in Cartersburg. She was hysterical. “It's Dale,” she cried. “I think I've killed him.”

He'd awakened several hours before, his head reeling, unable to walk for the room spinning. He'd crawled into the bathroom and vomited. She'd taken one look at him and ran to the phone to call Johnny Mackey to come with his ambulance. It took Johnny forty-five minutes to get there. He wasn't feeling all that well himself. But they finally made it to the hospital in Cartersburg, where they took Dale's blood pressure, then took it again just to be sure.

“It's a wonder you haven't exploded,” the doctor told Dale. “Do you put a lot of salt in your food?”

“No, lately it's been salty enough,” Dale said.

Dolores paled.

“That's probably why you're dizzy. You're retaining water, and it's messed up your inner ears and your equilibrium. Salt will do that
every time. I'm putting you on a low-sodium diet.” The doctor shook his head as he wrote. “It's a wonder you didn't have a stroke and die.”

That was when she'd phoned me.

Dale's blood pressure was so high, they kept him in the hospital overnight. I drove over the next morning to visit him. Dolores was seated in a chair next to his bed, stroking his hair.

I visited for a while, then said a prayer for Dale. I thanked God for sparing his life, then went from prayer to editorializing, pondering aloud whether our brushes with death might be the Lord's way of causing us to reflect on certain things, like how we treat our spouses, for instance.

Then I said “Amen” and promised Dale I would visit him the next day. Dolores followed me out of the room.

“You won't tell him what I did, will you?” she asked, when we were out of earshot of Dale.

“I won't tell a soul,” I promised. “But maybe you and Dale should get some marriage counseling.”

“He'd never do it. He doesn't believe in it. Besides, he'd never listen. He doesn't listen to anyone.”

I gave her a hug. “You come see me whenever you need to blow off a little steam. It's probably better than salting him to death.”

I walked out of the hospital, thinking back on the first years of my marriage. Sometimes I marvel that we've made it. When Dolores had mentioned how Dale never listened, I tried not to think of all the evenings I'd spent in my recliner, responding to my wife with monosyllabic grunts.

To be heard, to have someone who will listen, might be our deepest human need. I marvel that Dolores had gone forty-one years without it.

I didn't go to the office. I went home instead. My wife was upstairs, folding laundry on our bed. I asked her where the boys were. Over at the Grants' house playing, she said. She asked what I was doing home. I told her I missed her. She smiled, and then she talked, and as she spoke I listened, lying on my back, my feet propped on the footboard.

Then we did something else, which I won't talk about, preferring to keep that aspect of our lives a private matter.

“What's that on your foot?” I asked afterward.

“A toe ring,” she said. “How do you like it?”

“I like it very much, though don't you think it's a bit racy for a minister's wife?”

“It depends on the minister's wife,” she said. “I say if you've got the toes for it, then why not.”

Why not, indeed.

T
he heat had continued through much of July and into August, but was broken the second week of August by a thunderstorm that ushered in a cool breeze from the north, carrying with it the scent of pine trees and lakes. All over town, people turned off their air conditioners and opened their windows.

It's been a quiet month. Attendance is down at the churches and several of the businesses have closed while their owners are on vacation. Ned Kivett has taken his annual fishing trip to Minnesota, leaving his cashier, Nora Nagle, to run the Five and Dime. Kyle Weathers locked the barbershop and posted a sign on the door announcing he would return in two weeks. He didn't tell anyone where he was going, fueling speculation he was up to no good.

I was at the Coffee Cup on a Tuesday morning, where the conversation turned to Kyle and what sin he was likely pursuing and with whom. The consensus of the Coffee Cup crowd is that he has driven to Florida to visit a woman he met on the Internet. Kyle is one of those men who are defeated by proximity. Distance is his ally.
Women who've never met him, except over the Internet, find him witty and urbane. If he were to leave it at that, he would have no shortage of female admirers. Unfortunately, they eventually meet in person, causing Kyle to suffer the pain of rejection time and again.

He had been spending his mornings at the Five and Dime admiring Nora Nagle, hoping to strike up a romance with her. Though she would enjoy the companionship of a man, she is not so desperate that Kyle would be seen as a viable choice. He has a great wing of hair on the left side of his head, which he combs over to cover his balding crown. That she could overlook, were it not for the profusion of hair growing in thick tufts from his nose and ears.

Doctor Neely has also left town for his first vacation in twenty years. He and his wife, Marcella, have taken a two-week trip to France. It was a gift from their daughters, who knew their parents would never leave town unless forced to do so. People were not at all pleased with this abdication of responsibility, and several of them considered getting sick and dying just to teach him a lesson.

Fern Hampton has had a mole on her left knee for over fifty years, but about five years ago it began changing shapes. It used to look like Rhode Island, but was now the shape of Ohio and starting to resemble Texas. She was convinced it was cancerous and had been meaning to consult Dr. Neely for the past several years. When she read in the
Herald
that he had flitted off to Europe, she phoned his answering service, demanding he catch the next plane home.

Instead, she was informed Dr. Neely's patients would be attended by a Dr. Daniel Pierce, who would be happy to look at Fern's knee. This upset her even further. What made them think she'd be willing
to bare her naked knee to a total stranger? She fumed about it to anyone who'd listen, warning the Friendly Women's Circle that a pervert with a knee fetish had come to town, jeopardizing their chastity. This tripled his business, as unattached ladies all over town made appointments, hoping to become the object of his passion.

Deena Morrison went to visit him on a Wednesday afternoon, during the slow hours at the Legal Grounds. Her upper legs had been itching for several weeks. She'd put off going to the doctor, he being male and she being modest. But finally she couldn't bear it and phoned on Wednesday morning for an appointment that afternoon.

She sat in the waiting room for close to an hour, watching a parade of women file into his office and walk out ten minutes later, starry-eyed.

Hester Gladden was seated beside her. “Have you met Dr. Pierce yet?” she asked Deena.

“No. This is my first visit. I have a rash on my legs.”

“This is my fourth time to see him,” Hester confided.

“Oh, have you been sick?”

“Never felt better,” Hester said. She sighed. “Sure wish I was thirty years younger, though.”

Finally, the nurse called Deena's name and escorted her to an examination room, where she was measured (five feet, four inches), weighed (a hundred and eighteen pounds), asked to remove her clothes, and handed a paper gown. Now she was remembering why she seldom visited the doctor.

She kept her clothes on and began studying the room. Diplomas hung on the wall, a glass jar with Q-tips sat next to the sink, an eye
chart was fixed to the back of the door. A skeleton Dr. Neely had purchased at a medical auction years before and loaned to the Rotary Club each Halloween for its haunted house stood in the corner, ogling her, its teeth fixed in a permanent leer. She draped the paper gown over it, then sat on the stool and began thumbing through a pamphlet on diseases of the liver.

She heard the doctor before she saw him. “Haroldeena Morrison,” he said, apparently reading from her chart. “That poor woman, they really hung it on her.”

Although she had never cared for her full name and preferred Deena, it rankled her that a total stranger would comment on it.

The door swung open, and in stepped Dr. Pierce.

“I've had that name twenty-nine years and it's worked just fine,” Deena snapped, rather uncharacteristically. “I'll thank you to keep your opinion to yourself.” And without even a glance in his direction, she stalked from the room and out the front door.

By Friday afternoon, her skin was raw from scratching. The rash had spread to both legs and up onto her stomach. She decided to close early and go home for an oatmeal bath. She was putting away the coffee pots when the bell over the door tinkled. She looked up as a handsome young man with blond hair, blue eyes, and a cleft in his chin walked into the Legal Grounds.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I'm looking for a Miss Deena Morrison.”

This was just the way she'd always dreamed it would happen—a ruggedly handsome man would walk into her coffee shop, seeking her out.

“I'm Deena.”

“I'm Dr. Pierce,” he said. “And I've come to apologize for my rudeness the other day. I don't know what I was thinking. I hope you'll forgive me.”

She looked at the slight cleft in his chin and his strong jawbone and suddenly felt quite charitable. “Apology accepted.” She extended her hand and he shook it. As hands go, his was a nice one, with neatly clipped nails, his handshake firm but sensitive.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said. “And you?”

“I'm doing well, thank you. I didn't get to examine you Wednesday. Are you feeling better today?”

“Not really,” she said. “I have a rash and it's spreading.”

“Where is it exactly?”

“Umm, well, it started on my upper legs and now it's moved to my stomach.”

“Would you like me to look at it as long as I'm here?”

She glanced out the front windows. “It's not very private here. Maybe I should just call your office and reschedule.”

“I'm leaving town for the weekend,” Dr. Pierce said. “I couldn't see you until next Tuesday. I'd feel better if I could just look at it now. Do you have a back room?”

“Well, there's the supply room,” Deena said.

“I can examine you there,” he offered. “Really, it's the least I can do.”

“Yes, I suppose that would be fine.”

She led him to the supply room, flipped on the light, and pulled up her shirt a half inch to expose her midriff.

“When did this start?” he asked.

“A couple of weeks ago”

“And you say it started in your groin region.”

She blushed. “Yes, that's right.”

“Could you ease your shirt up a notch higher. I can't quite make this out.”

She turned her head away and lifted her shirt another inch.

“Hmm,” he said. “Very interesting.”

I wonder now why they didn't hear the bell over the door tinkle when I entered the Legal Grounds looking for my wife, who occasionally helped at the coffee shop. I heard voices in the storage room, so I walked behind the counter and looked in, just in time to see Dr. Pierce, whom I'd met earlier that day at the Rexall drugstore, studying Deena's midsection with great interest.

I barely had time to apologize for intruding on their private moment, before Deena pulled down her shirt and ran past me and out the door, her face beet red.

“Ringworm,” Doctor Pierce said, straightening up. “Most unpleasant, but curable.”

“It sounds gross,” I said. “Worms, yuck.”

“Actually, they're not worms. It's a fungus.” He looked around the storage room. “Where'd she go?”

“Out.”

“Does she have a history of bolting from rooms?” he asked.

“Not to my knowledge.”

“She strikes me as an impetuous woman.”

“She's really quite nice,” I said.

“Well, now she has ringworm. She'll need medicine. I have some samples back at the office. Could you tell me where she lives?”

Since both his office and Deena's house were on my way home, I volunteered to take the medicine to her. I had to knock five times before she would come to the door.

I handed her the medicine, told her she had ringworm, and repeated what Dr. Pierce told me. “Apply it three times a day, wipe down your shower with bleach, and don't share a towel with anyone. It's highly contagious.”

“What did he say about me?” she asked.

“I think he finds you interesting.”

“Thank you for the medicine, Sam.”

“That's okay. I'm sorry if I startled you. I didn't mean to embarrass you.”

“That's all right. I shouldn't be so jumpy.”

“Is everything all right, Deena?”

She sighed. “I'm twenty-nine years old, don't have a prospect in the world, and the most handsome man in town thinks I'm crazy. And I've just been told I have worms. Other than that, everything's fine.”

“Actually, it's just a fungus.”

“Oh, that's much better. I'm sure he thinks I'm the picture of feminine charm. Fungi are much more attractive than worms.”

She thanked me for bringing the medicine. I left for home, but then remembered I hadn't finished my sermon, so I headed back to my office instead. Frank was there, putting the final touches on Sunday's bulletin. I phoned my wife to tell her I would be home a little late, and mentioned Deena's ringworm to her.

The next day we worked in the yard, mowing, trimming, and pulling weeds. It was a beautiful Saturday, and the clouds were puffy and white as sheets. That evening, we went to the fire-department fish fry, then came home and sat on the porch while the boys caught fireflies, pinching their lights off to make rings.

I arrived at church the next morning an hour early and set out the bulletins on the table near the door, surveying the list of persons in need of prayer. It had grown to fifty-three names, many of whom were now fully recovered but enjoyed being prayed for and insisted their names remain. At the bottom of the list was Deena Morrison's name, followed by the word
ringworm.

Frank came in the door as I was reading the bulletin.

“Morning, Frank. I see Deena called to be put on the prayer list.”

“Nope. I heard you tell your wife she had ringworm and thought I'd add her name.”

“I wish you hadn't done that,” I said. “I think Deena wanted it kept a secret.”

“Then why'd you tell your wife?” Frank asked.

“I tell my wife a lot of things that are meant to be private.”

“So you admit to being a gossip, then.”

I gathered up the offending bulletins. “Maybe we'll just do without a bulletin today.”

“Can't do that. The words to the last hymn are on the back cover. Why don't I just go through and black out Deena's name with a pen?”

“Do you mind?”

“No, I suppose not.” He let out a heavy, inconvenienced sigh.

Halfway through the opening minute of meditation, it occurred to
me we'd have been better off throwing the bulletins away and picking a new closing hymn. Half the congregation were holding their bulletins up to the lights trying to make out what Frank had crossed out.

“The first letter's a
D,
” Ellis Hodge whispered to Miriam. “It's probably Dale.”

“It can't be,” Hester Gladden piped up behind them. “The second name starts with an
M.
”

Ellis glanced around the meeting room, eyeing each person, looking for a fit to the initials DM. His glance settled on Deena Morrison. Slowly, others in the meeting room stole glances at her, trying to discern her medical condition.

“I can't be sure,” Dale Hinshaw called out, “but I think it says
ringworm.
”

Hester Gladden turned toward Deena. “I thought you went to the doctor.”

“Who went to the doctor?” Opal Majors asked, while reaching into her ear to adjust her hearing aid.

“Deena Morrison,” Fern Hampton said.

“What's wrong with Deena?” Opal asked.

“Dale said she has the worms,” Hester said.

With that, Deena stood, mustering all the dignity she could, and strode from the meetinghouse.

The next day she hung a
Closed for Vacation
sign on the door of the Legal Grounds and hasn't been seen for a week. The rumor circulating in the booths at the Coffee Cup is that she has run off to Florida to elope with Kyle Weathers, though I know for a fact it isn't true. If I were a gossip, I could set the rumor straight, but since I
don't indulge in such practices, I can't mention how I saw her in Cartersburg in the company of a handsome young man with a cleft in his chin, looking positively radiant, albeit a tad itchy.