Not a Sparrow Falls (6 page)

She stopped her shuffling of plasticware, shocked at what she was feeling toward her brother. Irritation. No, anger. A surge of shame engulfed it. Alasdair had been through a horrendous ordeal—losing the wife he’d loved, then trying to deal with the newborn twins and the eleven-year-old daughter she’d left behind. Everyone dealt with grief in his or her own way, she remembered, paraphrasing what the associate pastor had told her when she’d confided her concerns.

Alasdair would someday be himself again, and for a moment the person he had been flashed across the screen of her memory. She remembered him as a boy, kindhearted to a fault and passionate in his defense of the underdog. The worst punishment he’d ever received had been for fighting at school, for defending her from perpetual teasing about her weight, a fact he had never divulged to Father and forbade her to reveal.
“It doesn’t matter,”
he’d told her, sparing her the humiliation of repeating the names they had called her.

She remembered his intensity, his fire. He had loved with all his being and had given himself completely to whatever he did. She remembered watching him run, and oddly that image became the sum of all he had lost. His body had moved with such fluid ease, cutting through air like butter, feet and legs
seeming to flow just above the surface of the earth instead of pounding onto it, his face a picture of joy and abandon.

She thought about the man her brother had become and knew the truth, whether anyone else would acknowledge it or not. Something was wrong. Something was gone. Something precious had been lost. She felt a pang of sadness and hoped this new person hadn’t taken up permanent residence in Alasdair’s body.

“Well, what have we?” Winifred queried, and Lorna turned her attention back to the contents of the refrigerator.

“The week’s meals are done,” she answered, glad for the distraction. She slid the last plastic container into the refrigerator.

“Pantry and refrigerator are stocked, and Samantha’s lunch money is in the envelopes,” Fiona put in.

Lorna glanced at the bulletin board where five envelopes, labeled Monday through Friday, were stuck with a thumbtack.

“Did you put in a quarter for ice cream?” she asked, knowing the answer.

“Ice cream is unnecessary,” Winifred said. “It will only keep her from eating properly. Besides,” she added, giving Lorna a sidelong look, “we wouldn’t want her to get plump.”

Lorna’s face heated up, but she didn’t answer back. She would have added the quarter. But then, it hadn’t been up to her.

The telephone rang, and Winifred answered quickly. Fiona dried her hands on the towel and leaned back against the counter in exhaustion. “So we’ve done the meals and started the laundry.”

“I cleaned a little yesterday,” Lorna put in.

Winifred hung up the phone and turned toward them, her face grim. “That was the baby-sitter.”

“Not again!” Lorna closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Yes, again. She says she feels as if she’s coming down with something.”

“What are we going to do?” Fiona’s voice sounded as weary as Lorna felt.

“Tomorrow is Alasdair’s day off,” Winifred pointed out. “I suppose he’ll just have to manage.”

“It’s not just that.” Fiona shook her head, pulled out one of the kitchen chairs, and dropped into it. “It’s everything. I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up.” Her voice sounded defeated. It was the closest any of them had ever come to complaining.

“It wouldn’t hurt the rest of the congregation to do more.” Winifred’s face drew into bitter lines.

“I doubt if they even realize there’s a need,” Lorna said. “The machine continues to hum along.”

Winifred frowned at her, and Lorna flushed. She should keep her opinions to herself. Her sisters were justifiably proud of Alasdair. Who wouldn’t be? He had taken the medium-sized congregation his father had passed down to him and turned it into a nationwide organization of daily radio broadcasts, a monthly magazine, conferences, seminars, and books on every subject in Christendom. He was even editing his own study Bible. She was proud of him, too, she told herself, as if someone had argued the point. Still, the nagging awareness returned that there was something out of place. Something not as it should be.

His sermons were still well researched and interesting, dynamically delivered, though perhaps a shade intense. Angry was the word she wanted to use, but then again she had always been overly sensitive. She smiled gently, remembering the early days of Alasdair’s ministry. Having been accustomed to her father’s rather remote style, the congregation had drunk in Alasdair’s personal care. He had preached with passion and gentleness, sat at many a deathbed and sickbed, comforting, counseling, praying.

But then some board member had had the bright idea of beginning a radio broadcast. One thing had led to another, and soon Alasdair was a speaker in great demand. Eventually
his days on the circuit outnumbered his days at home. That was when Bill Wright had moved into the gap. She felt a rush of affection as the earnest, homely face of their former associate pastor appeared in her mind. When someone’s child was in the hospital, it was Bill who had gone and prayed with them. When a marriage was falling apart, it was Bill who had helped mend the pieces. She recalled tearful hours she had spent in that process herself, Bill’s kind and steady voice like a line tossed across the frothing waves toward her outstretched hand.

For the first time she wondered if the heavy burden of ministry was what had driven Bill away. The longer she considered it, the more probable it seemed. There was no way the church could hire a third pastor to help the assistant. At Bill’s new church, he would have the same duties, but with an associate to help him. She felt a twist of regret that he’d been so unappreciated, and a twinge of worry when she thought of what might happen now that he was gone.

“This morning I heard someone say that Alasdair’s healing process would be complete when he married again.” Fiona’s voice brought Lorna out of her reverie.

Winifred snorted. “I’m sure there would be plenty of applicants for that position.”

“I suppose,” Fiona said, smiling. Almost at once, though, her pretty face clouded. “By the way, I heard a rumor that disturbed me.”

“What was it?” Winifred demanded.

“That there’s a movement afoot.”

“What kind of movement?” Winifred asked, seeming only slightly interested.

Lorna understood why word of rumors didn’t bring an immediate panic. The three of them were veterans of their father’s years of ministry. These so-called movements could be motivated by the slightest of disturbances, from unhappiness with the color of the carpeting in the Sunday school rooms to major doctrinal concerns. They could be anything
from a quick shower to a devastating hurricane. She waited for Fiona to elaborate, the clenching of her stomach her only premonition.

“A movement to have Alasdair replaced.”

Her stomach twisted. This was a gale force wind.

“Piffle,” Winifred dismissed. “Who told you that?”

“Ruth Anderson said she heard it from Edgar Willis.”

Winifred frowned, and with reason. Edgar Willis was one of the ruling elders, the senior ruling elder, as a matter of fact. “If it’s true, I lay it at Bill Wright’s feet. He should never have left.”

Lorna thought perhaps they should be grateful Bill had stayed as long as he had, picking up pieces and smoothing the path for Alasdair.

“I’m sure there’s nothing to it, though,” Winifred dismissed. “Just the usual gossip.”

Fiona didn’t answer, just lifted one of her exquisitely shaped eyebrows.

Lorna took a deep breath and tried to ignore her feeling of foreboding. She closed the refrigerator door and went to the sink to perform her final ritual. Neither of her sisters ever scrubbed it, and the food scraps in the drainer and yellow stains on the porcelain made the kitchen look even more grim and neglected than usual. She emptied the drain trap into the garbage, then shook the green cleanser and watched the granules turn dark as they hit the wet sink. She felt a frustration she couldn’t name, and suddenly she was angry with Winifred and Fiona. And she was angry with Alasdair as well, she realized with a shock.

“What were you two arguing about?” Alasdair’s voice behind Lorna startled her, and oddly, instead of banishing her thoughts, the little surge of adrenaline from his appearance only increased their force. Her brother picked up the empty coffeepot and reached around her to fill it at the faucet.

Winifred looked stricken, probably wondering how long he had been listening and trying to remember what she’d
said. Alasdair didn’t even look at her. He reached up to get the filter and coffee from the cupboard.

“I can’t remember,” Fiona said, laughing. “You know us.”

Suddenly Lorna was hot, as if someone had lit a little fire in her chest. Why did no one in this family ever tell the truth?

“They were arguing about how long it’s been since Anna died,” she blurted out. “How long has it been, Alasdair? Surely you know.”

Winifred’s jaw dropped. Fiona’s eyes widened. Even Lorna was shocked, though the words had come from her own mouth. Alasdair stopped his coffee preparations and looked at her. For just a moment his eyes seemed unveiled, and she glimpsed the churning froth behind them.

“I don’t remember exactly.” He turned away.

“Really, Lorna,” Winifred reproached under her breath. Fiona said nothing, just became very interested in the contents of her purse. Alasdair went back to his coffee preparations. He did not look up again. Lorna began scrubbing and rinsing the sink with hot energy, and when she was finished, she turned her irritation toward the countertops, cluttered with a week’s worth of debris.

There were phone messages, a schoolbook of Samantha’s, a clean, empty baby bottle, two dirty spoons, a yellow writing tablet, a cracked mug full of pens and pencils, two letters addressed to the Reverend Alasdair MacPherson, John Knox Presbyterian Church, 922 Fairfax Street, Alexandria, Virginia, one from B. Henry, 33 Harrison Street, Richmond, Virginia, another with the Old English Italic letterhead of the United Presbyterian Church denomination headquarters in the same city, both neatly sliced open along their folds. One small glove, looking lost without its mate.

The entire house needed a good going-over. She should take down the curtains over the sink and give them a wash. They were awful—gold things with brown rickrack and a fringe of little orange balls around the bottom. In fact, everything was awful. The wallpaper was dark—a pattern of orange
and brown mushrooms against a green background. The cupboards were dark and outdated. The paneling on the bottom half of the walls was dark. All in all, the room gave the effect of moldering decay and depression. And Lorna had to admit it had been that way even when Anna was alive.

“I’m going to finish reviewing tonight’s sermon.” Alasdair flipped the switch on the coffeemaker and it began to gurgle. He looked each of them in the eye. “As always, I thank you for all your help.” His face was once again wiped smooth of any expression.

Lorna shook her head and felt frustration mixed with a searing sadness as she thought of her sister-in-law’s legacy: a small brass marker in the churchyard next door, a perpetual collection of brown-tipped potted plants with limp ribbons at the bank of the Potomac beneath the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, three motherless children, and a husband who became more untouchable each day. Her mouth opened, once again without her conscious intention, and she spoke, the words fueled by this unfamiliar emotion.

“Anna died October fifteenth, two years ago. This is the twenty-fourth of October. That makes it two years, one week, and two days.”

No one spoke. Alasdair turned back and stared at her for a moment. She was half afraid of his anger, half hoping for it, but when he spoke his voice was steady, his face expressionless except for those desolate eyes. “Well, then. There you have it. Argument settled.” He turned and left the room.

Fiona and Winifred gave her disapproving looks behind his back. She started to call out, hesitated, then followed him. She reached the hallway as he came to the stairs. She opened her mouth to speak, to apologize, but something stopped her.

Alasdair had stopped at the bottom step, his hand on the banister, head bowed. His shoulders were rounded and she wasn’t sure if he was praying, weeping, or simply gathering strength. She felt a strong whip of shame at her cruelty. She
opened her mouth again, but once more something stopped her.

No,
a still, small voice corrected.
Leave him.

She nodded, blinking back tears. Alasdair raised his head. His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. He climbed the stairs. She watched until he disappeared from sight, then returned to the kitchen where her sisters awaited.

“What in the world was that about?” Winifred demanded, furious.

“Really, Lorna. I should think you’d want him to put it behind him,” Fiona added gently.

Lorna had no answer. She felt very ashamed of herself. Her anger had fizzled out like a wet sparkler. What
had
she been thinking? What
was
she trying to prove?

Her sisters shunned further conversation with her, turned as if by mutual agreement, and began to gather up their coats and purses. An old method of controlling her and as effective as always.

“I’ll stay until evening service,” Lorna said, feeling miserable and guilty.

“I’ve got to arrange for the nursery,” Winifred protested, as if Lorna had shamed her. Her sister hated being bested in the competition of who could help the most.

“That’s fine. You go,” Lorna soothed. “I’ll just be here when the babies wake, and I’ll keep an eye on Samantha.”

“That sounds fine.” Fiona checked her watch and pulled her coat closed, buttoned it with a firm hand that allowed no slipping and sliding. “Come along, Winifred. I’ve papers to grade.”

Winifred reluctantly agreed, the two sisters made their exit, and Lorna felt the flood of relief that she always did when they left her. There was something about their mere presence that made her feel ignorant and inept. She poured Alasdair’s coffee into the carafe, put the teakettle on for herself, then went upstairs to check on Samantha.