Not a Sparrow Falls (7 page)

Her door was open a crack, and a thin slice of light shone
along the dark hall carpet. Lorna pushed it open quietly so as not to disturb her niece at her studies, but Samantha wasn’t at her desk. Her schoolbooks looked untouched, still in a pristine stack. She pushed the door open all the way. Samantha wasn’t there at all. She must have slipped out again.

Lorna sighed and wondered if she should alert Alasdair. She looked around at the room before closing the door. There were new posters on the wall—of rock bands—some of them ominous-looking. The vanity was covered with lipstick and eye makeup, the sparkly kind that sold for a dollar in the pharmacy. She’d noticed Samantha’s attempts in that direction lately and wished she could help. She was such a pretty child. Brown hair, pink cheeks, and those fine, even features she’d gotten from her mother. Lorna wished she felt more capable of helping her niece with the practical matters of womanhood, but her own adolescence seemd light-years away. Besides, Samantha didn’t seem to be listening to anyone’s advice these days. It was as if the sweet child who had been her niece was gone. Lorna felt the loss as sharply as another death. The strangeness of her role with these children assaulted her again. She lived in that gray region between mother and aunt. For the first year of the twins’ lives, she had been the one who cared for them. She had stayed at night for a while and then begun arriving before they arose each morning. They were her treasures, especially the babies. They were like her own. In fact, she often imagined they were. She rocked them, fed them, worried over them. The cruelty of her situation cut her again. Michael’s unfaithfulness and financial debacle had rocked more then her little world. Her small share of the debts not discharged in bankruptcy had put an end to her surrogate mothering. Now she spent days at one job and nights at another instead of being here, caring for the children who felt so much like her own. She took a moment to release her anger, to forgive him again.

Lorna closed Samantha’s door, then paused outside the twins’ room. She didn’t hear a sound. She crept back down
the stairs, not really breathing again until she reached the kitchen, and just caught the kettle before it began to whistle.

She took down the teapot, ran the water until it was finally hot, then filled it and took out the tin of tea. She emptied the pot, added the tea, and poured the boiling water over the leaves. While she waited for it to brew, she made the usual telephone calls. She located Samantha on the second one—the home of that poor boy with all the earrings who never looked anyone in the eye. What kind of radar did these unhappy children have that allowed them to find each other?

“Come home, please,” she said pleasantly, but was rewarded by a sullen reply. “Shall I call your father to the telephone?” she was forced to threaten. This time the line disconnected. She sighed, replaced the telephone, and made another halfhearted stab at cleaning off the counter.

She picked up the empty bottle and started to put it away, then reconsidered and took out another. She filled both with milk and set them in the door of the refrigerator, ready to warm when the babies woke. They were two years old and really should be weaned and potty trained. But there were only so many hours in the day, and for her, eight of them were spent at the secretary’s desk at John Knox School and four nights a week processing film at the Kodak plant. She had bills to pay. She half smiled at the irony of the understatement, then checked her watch. She was due there at three o’clock in the morning, as a matter of fact, and really should go home and get some sleep.

She went back to her tidying. She put the yellow pad in the drawer under the telephone and gathered up the scattered messages, glancing at them briefly to see if any were urgent or hadn’t been answered. There were six from various committee members and parishioners regarding classes needing teachers, families needing counseling, people with questions only Alasdair could answer.

And one from Mrs. Tronsett at Knox School. Lorna frowned. Mrs. Tronsett was the principal. The message had
been received late Friday.
Please call regarding Samantha
was all it said in the sitter’s loopy handwriting. That brought on another spasm of worry, and Lorna spent a few moments thinking about Samantha’s problems.

She sighed and picked up the last piece of debris—yet another telephone message. This one from someone named Bob Henry with a long-distance number. She frowned and remembered why the name sounded familiar. B. Henry had been the name on the letter she’d seen earlier.

Lorna retrieved it, along with the one from denomination headquarters. She turned them over and inspected the backs of the envelopes, then placed them both down on the counter very gently, as if they contained explosives that might go off in her hand.

She took the glove and added it to the load of dirty clothes in the washer and started them washing, took Samantha’s schoolbook upstairs and set it on her desk, returned to the kitchen and washed the two spoons, dried them and put them away, all the while taking sidelong glances at the two letters. Then for the third time that day she did something for which she had no explanation. Certainly no justification. She picked up the first one—the one with the United Presbyterian Church logo. She unfolded it and began to read. She wasn’t halfway through before her puzzlement turned to apprehension.

Dear Reverend MacPherson,

Even though I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting you, I greet you as the apostle John greeted the church at Thyatira in Revelation, chapter two, verse nineteen. “I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience.” You, like they, have poured out your life in service to the Gospel, and your sterling reputation is known to all.

It has not escaped my attention that it has been just over two years since your wife, Anne, passed on to her eternal reward.

Lorna shook her head. The least he could do was get Anna’s name right.

   I am aware that a grief of such magnitude extends its shadow to the farthest reaches of one’s soul and circle of influence. And though we are exhorted to run with diligence the race marked out for us, there may come times when rest is called for.

This was ominous. Her stomach clutched, but she read on quickly.

   Though you have carried out your responsibilities with the strength only Christ can provide, the cost of doing so may be great, not only to you, but to your family and congregation as well.

Lorna frowned as she deciphered the roundabout phrasing, and her pulse picked up as the message became clear.

   As overseer, not only of the sheep, but of those who shepherd them, I would appreciate an opportunity to dialogue with you regarding your needs and those of your congregation. It is no shame to allow oneself a temporary respite, and I must confess my motives are not entirely unselfish. The services of a man of your singular talents would be coveted by many here at denominational headquarters.

Sincerely,

Your co-laborer in the harvest,

Gerald Whiteman,

President

Lorna sank into a chair and dropped the hand that held the letter onto the table. Her brother was being summoned. There was no other interpretation. She’d known the situation was bad, but not this bad. She took three or four deep breaths and finally calmed herself enough to think. Determined to hear all the bad news at once, she took the second letter out and read it as well. It was dated the same day as Gerald Whiteman’s.

Al,

I can’t believe you’ve let the inmates take over the asylum. Gerry got a letter from a few strays from your flock, bleating that you’ve lost your zip. Maybe it’s not too late to sidetrack him, but we need to make a plan. Call me.

Bob

It was signed with a flourish. Lorna squinted her eyes at the far wall and finally remembered Bob Henry. He’d been in seminary with Alasdair but had withdrawn before graduation and was now obviously in the inner circle at the administrative offices in Richmond.

She put both letters back into their envelopes and carefully
placed them where she had found them. She’d forgotten all about the tea. It was black as tar. She poured it out, then sat down at the table again and tried to think.

So. The rumors were true. Those who were unhappy with Alasdair were taking advantage of Bill’s leaving to make a move against him, and it was no mystery why they were going in through the back door. If Alasdair were reassigned rather than being asked to leave, the damage would be contained. There would be no rancor, no name-calling, no angry MacPherson loyalists leaving the church and taking their tithes with them.

Without wanting to, she recalled the tittle-tattle she’d heard. It always got around. They were saying that Alasdair was more interested in his empire than his church. More concerned with writing books about apologetics than shepherding the flock that had been entrusted to him.
“If I want to hear my pastor’s voice I turn on the radio,”
one had quipped at the last congregational meeting.
“His office door is always closed.”

“I feel pulled in too many directions,”
Alasdair had confided to her after the meeting was over. She had thought of a hundred things to say. Perhaps you should readjust your priorities. Maybe they need you, Alasdair. You are their spiritual leader, after all. She tried to remember what she
had
said and remembered with a grimace that she had offered him a cup of tea and changed the subject.

That wouldn’t do now. There would be no avoiding this. No changing the subject this time. Still, for all the urgency, her mind was blank. The only thing she could think to do was pray. She dropped her head, more in dejection than reverence.

“Oh, Father,” she began, then faltered and stopped.

Her sisters were right. She was slow-witted, not quick and smart. After all, she had never gone into the world, never done anything important. Fiona and Winifred would know what to say, how to help.

“Oh, Father,” she repeated, “help my brother. Help
Samantha. I don’t even know how to pray.” But the thought had scarcely dawned before a verse of Scripture she’d learned long ago popped into her mind.
“The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
She thought about that for a moment, took heart and a deep breath, then went on.

“You work in ways we cannot see,” she finally managed to wring out. “Make a way through this problem for Alasdair. Ease his burdens, Lord. Heal his heart.”

She felt as if she ought to at least offer the Lord a few suggestions as to how He might accomplish the task. Fiona would have a list of them, she was sure. She thought of her—intelligent, teaching her classes at the university, so smart and quick. She could call her.

No,
said a quiet voice.

Winifred, then. Winifred, who could organize anyone to do anything, even if she pulled them along by the ear.

No.
She felt the blank wall of refusal again.

“Oh, Lord,” she whispered. “Surely someone must do something.”

You are someone,
the voice said, bypassing her ear.

She felt a stir of something. Fear.

“I’m not . . .” She paused, and any number of adjectives competed to fill in the blank. Smart enough, quick enough, brave enough.

I am, though,
the voice answered back, implacable.

“You are,” she agreed, but the sentiment didn’t seem to reach to her stomach, which was still twisting.

I can use you,
the voice insisted.
May I?

“Anytime or anywhere,” she whispered back, her heart sinking. “I only wish you had more to work with.” But then she remembered a sermon her brother had preached years before, before the darkness settled. He’d said God uses ordinary people, fallible and imperfect, to accomplish His purposes. God writes straight with crooked lines, he had reminded them. She covered her face with her hands.

“If you can use anyone, Lord, maybe you can use me,” she said. She suddenly remembered David, the shepherd boy, the one God chose to be king, the one who had battled the giant Goliath. “Everyone who watches will know that it is not by the sword or the spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s,” she recited from memory. She nodded. Of course. She saw now why He had chosen her. She held out her hands on the table, open.

“If you can use anyone, Lord, you can use me.” She repeated the words, this time with faith, but even as she said them, she remembered Samantha’s troubles, her brother, walking though wounded, the motherless babies. The thoughts felt like small sharp darts aimed at her weak resolve.

“If you can use anyone, Lord, you can use me,” she repeated again, stubborn now. He could prevail, even against darkness this thick. For that is what the light loves to do. Pour through the darkness and clear away the shadows.

She had a sudden blinding image, almost a vision, it was so real. Of Alasdair, face open and smiling. Of Samantha, playing and laughing like a child again. Of the twins, being loved and cared for.

Then the voice, in a final benediction, delivered one last message.
I’m going to do this,
it pronounced.
And you may help.

“Thank you, Lord,” she exclaimed, and no sooner had she finished speaking than one of the babies cried, sounding hoarse and congested; then the other’s voice joined in. The front door slammed, and Samantha came in and stomped up the stairs. Lorna rose and hurried up after her, wondering what would happen next, from which direction reinforcements would arrive.

Four

Mary Bridget rounded the bend in the gravel road, and there it was. Home. A white clapboard house with a sloping tin roof, wide front porch, glossy boxwoods, and huge pink and red azaleas nestled up against its foundation. Farther out on the wide, cool lawn were two big oaks, dogwood and redbud underneath, and off to the side a stand of white pines. Beyond it were the misty blue mountains. She stepped onto the graveled driveway. The screen door screeched open, and she strained to make out the face of the one who stood there. It was familiar and loved. Her hesitant steps quickened into a run.