Pocketful of Pearls (30 page)

His simple faith humbled her. If only she could have an attitude of love and appeal like that. “Thank you for Matthew, Lord,”
she whispered to the grassy expanse outside the window. “And help me to trust you.”

“Amen,” Matthew said softly. “Amen.”

OVER THE NEXT
week, while they waited for William Chang to call and tell them he’d filed the petition, and for the notice to Tamara to
come out in the county paper, Dinah began to wonder if somehow the news of what she’d done had leaked out. No one in the history
of the Elect had ever brought a Shepherd’s name into court. Many wouldn’t recognize the name Philip Leslie anyway, but some
of the old-timers might. She didn’t want to think about what would happen once the word got out. No matter how discreet Chang
was, this was the Elect they were talking about. The harder you tried to keep something quiet, the faster people would find
out about it.

Except for Phinehas and what he had done to her family. That had been kept quiet because they were all too afraid to fight
for each other. Well, that was going to change. No one had stood in the breach for her, but she was going to do it for Tamsen,
no matter what the consequences.

She tried to remind herself of that after Gathering on Sunday. She’d half expected Derrick to approach her again, but after
catching her eye during the second hymn, he ducked his head and—she turned her head to look more closely—blushed.

What did he have to blush about?

People shook her hand more as a formality than because they were glad to see her, but Dinah had become used to that. But the
best news of all was that Claire was back. She touched the other girl on the elbow as she was talking to Tracy, the second
of Linda Bell’s daughters.

“Dinah! Oh good, I’ve been meaning to call you. Come on, let’s go outside.”

On the lawn, some of the younger kids were playing tag while their mothers tried to round them up and get them into their
cars. Claire pulled her over to where her parents’ car was parked.

“How was your class?” Dinah asked. “Did all the junior tellers go?”

“There were about twenty-five of us, from all over the state. Charlene Fox from Richmond said to say hello.”

Dinah smiled, pleased. She and Charlene had gone to a training class together back when Dinah had first started at the bank.

“But who cares about work?” Claire hurried on. “Guess who else says hello.”

“Who?” Dinah couldn’t imagine there was anyone else at the bank who would remember her.

“Julia Malcolm says there’s room enough in Rebecca’s suite for you and me to room together, and if you don’t say yes, she’s
going to send Ross’s partner down here to convince you.” Claire laughed. “And believe me, you don’t want that to happen.”

“Who is Ross’s partner?”

“His name is Ray Harper. He came over for dinner one night when I was there.”

“I knew it! I knew you’d go over there. Good for you. How are they?”

“Happy,” Claire said simply.

“What’s it like, being with them when she’s Out? I wouldn’t know what to say. What to talk about.”

“I just remembered to put our friendship first, and everything seemed to follow from there,” Claire said. “There was no awkwardness
at all. She’s just the same, only happier. More at peace somehow. You know, inside.”

“How can that be?” Dinah couldn’t imagine being Out. Her world was so circumscribed by structure and rules and expectations
that going outside and having to make the right choices among a bewildering array of possibilities was at once tempting and
frightening. In the Elect, choices were easy. They had been made thousands of times before by everyone around you, and the
results either measured up to expectations or they didn’t. You could see right away how good your decisions were by people’s
behavior.

And in Gathering this morning there had been a whiff of that very thing, telling her something was wrong. It made her a little
nervous.

“I don’t know,” Claire admitted. “They go to church.”

“You can’t find peace in a worldly church. Everybody knows that.”

“Do we know it?” Claire asked. “Or are we just told that? I mean, has any of us actually gone and seen what happens in a worldly
church?”

“Melchizedek went once. He said it was empty of the Spirit and full of noise. They even had a rock band up front.” Dinah had
a sneaking suspicion that it would have been in Melchizedek’s best interests to say so, in order to keep his flock from going
and experimenting with other churches themselves, but there was no way to say such a thing aloud. He was probably just speaking
the truth as he saw it.

“Well, regardless, Julia is happy and there was no wall between us. We talked about everything and everybody, same as always.
She sends her greetings.”

“Thanks. What did your relatives say when you went over there?”

Claire shrugged. “It’s not like I was staying with them and I’d have to tell them where I was going. I was in a hotel. I didn’t
see them every night, and it’s really none of their business who I visit anyway.”

But it was something to conceal. And something concealed from God’s people was by default something wrong, as Dinah knew only
too well.

“They live in Ross’s condo,” Claire went on. “It has this little grass courtyard and the complex has a pool where Ross takes
Kailey to swim every day. It’s a whole different life for her now.”

Dinah had heard a rumor that the child had been kidnapped by her now-deceased mother and brought up in a cult. “Is it true
she’d never seen her father before last summer?”

Claire nodded. “They’re making up for lost time, let me tell you. He’s a cop, right, so his time isn’t really his own, but
he’s involved in her school doing talks and field trips and stuff. So is Julia.”

“How does she like being a mom?”

“It seems to suit her. Want to know a secret?” Dinah grinned, amused at the way Claire’s voice dropped. “Her family doesn’t
even know yet, but she missed her period while I was there.”

“No kidding.” So Julia was to be a mother twice over. Dinah could tell her a thing or two about formula and baby food.

“Don’t say anything. I’m sure she’d want to tell them herself.”

“I won’t say a word.”

Claire eyed her. “I believe that. You don’t say a word about a lot of things. Tell me, what’s this I hear about you and Matthew?”

“Me and Matthew? Not this again. What’s to hear?”

“I overheard Julia’s mom and Rebecca inside just now. Apparently Phinehas is staying with Blanchards because he didn’t have
freedom of spirit at your house. That doesn’t sound like the Traynells I know.”

“No freedom of spirit?” People lost their freedom when they mingled with worldly people. That was why Dinah had been so surprised
when Claire had said there were no barriers between herself and Julia. Freedom of spirit was a mark of fellowship among the
Elect, and when it was missing, it meant something had gone seriously wrong with one party or the other.

“Yes,” Claire said. “He says it’s because of you and Matthew. ’Fess up. What’s going on?”

How dared Phinehas say he’d lost freedom of spirit, implying there was something wrong with her and her mother? Blaming the
victim. He was doing it again. What he’d lost was his freedom with her body, and just as she’d feared, he’d chosen this way
to retaliate. And Dinah couldn’t say a word in her own defense.

Even though Claire had shown every sign that she could be trusted as a friend, Dinah still couldn’t tell her the truth. Not
only would Claire not believe her, she’d be Silenced for saying such a thing of the senior Shepherd in public. He could say
he’d lost freedom because, really, who could prove he hadn’t? It was spiritual, ephemeral, and totally damaging—and it was
doing its work.

That, she realized suddenly, was why Derrick had blushed.

“Dinah?” Claire said, tilting her head to look into her downcast face. “Did you hear me? Or are you thinking of a nice way
to tell me to mind my own business?”

In spite of herself, Dinah smiled. “Matthew is our hired man. That’s it.” The only man she’d ever allowed to see into her
damaged soul. Who looked and didn’t run, but instead made her think and act in ways she never would have dreamed of before.

No, it wasn’t even that. He didn’t
make
her do anything. He spoke his mind and allowed her to see he cared, and because of that she was free to think and act in
new ways.

Scary ways. Ways she was probably going to regret. But new and exhilarating and adult ways nonetheless.

“Oh, my.” Claire’s gaze was frank and a little penetrating. “He’s a nice guy, but not everyone could put a look like that
on your face.”

A flush flooded Dinah’s cheeks. “A look like what?”

“The look a woman gets when she thinks about her man. The look Julia has when she talks about Ross.”

Her man.
Oh Lord, can it really be true?
“You’re seeing things,” she mumbled.

“I don’t think so.” To Dinah’s astonishment, Claire slipped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. She’d never touched
the other girl, outside of shaking hands after Gathering, and for a moment she didn’t know whether to pull away or hug her
back. Before she could decide, Claire dropped her arm and faced her again.

“You’re lucky,” she said fiercely. “I’d give anything to feel that way about someone. But in this town, unless you want to
marry a boy of twenty-one or somehow get adopted into a favored family and become Mrs. Derrick Wilkinson, there are no prospects
at all.”

“You can be adopted into mine if you want.” Dinah’s tone was wry.

“You know what I mean. I’m twenty-six and no closer to finding someone than Melanie Bell.”

“You need to get out of Hamilton Falls.”

“I need something.” Claire gazed, unseeing, at the cars in the parking lot. “Or I’m going to go nuts here.” She glanced up.
“Julia’s right. We should room together at Rebecca’s. Do weekends in Seattle. Forget to put our hair up. Wear red pajamas.
Be wild and crazy.”

“I can’t, Claire. Don’t forget Tamsen and the chickens.”

“Oh, right. Boy, you should hear Linda Bell on
that
subject. No matter where I go these days, people are talking about you.”

Oh, great.
“Good or bad?”

“Just talking. Nobody really knows you, Dinah. Half the time people just gossip about what little they know.”

“I’ve never given anyone anything to talk about.” She fiddled with the zipper on her Bible bag, and ran a finger along the
little pocket for her pen.

“I’ll say. Time was, I really disliked you for being so perfect.”

Perfect?
The word was like a hammer blow. “Don’t say that.”

“Oh, I know none of us are, me most of all. But my parents were always saying, ‘Why can’t you be more like Dinah Traynell?
Her hair is always
this
way. Her clothes are always
that
way.’ Blah, blah, blah.”

Dinah shook her head, a little bemused. “I always thought Julia was perfect. And look what
she
gave the gossips to talk about.”

“Isn’t that the truth. I guess maybe I don’t want to be in a favored family after all.”

“Everyone is always staring at you, wishing they were you. And here we are, wishing we were somebody else. Anybody else.”

Claire gazed at her, a clear gaze that demanded the truth. “But you’re not really who everyone thinks you are, are you?”

“No,” Dinah said. “Not anymore.”

WHO SHE WAS
didn’t seem to matter. Who she had been didn’t seem to matter either. Twenty-four years of trying to be the perfect daughter,
perfect woman, perfect representative of the favored family, and what did she have for all her efforts?

The beady eye of Alma Woods watching her, waiting for her to do something wrong so she could pick up the phone and tell someone
about it.

At least, that was how it felt after the notice came out in the Friday paper and people got wind of it. Elsie fielded a couple
of dozen phone calls from the women in her circle, demanding to know what on earth Dinah was thinking of to take Tamara’s
baby away from her, before she gave up and let the answering machine screen the calls. By Saturday afternoon, they stopped.
Except for one.

“Dinah, the phone’s for you,” Elsie called from the back porch. “It’s Melchizedek.”

“He probably wants to have a young people’s meeting here or something,” Dinah said to Matthew as she crossed the floor of
the barn to where the extension hung on the wall next to the door. Three of the chickens followed her, convinced she was going
to get cracked corn for them.

But a young people’s meeting was the last thing on Melchizedek’s mind.

“Dinah, I just had a very disturbing conversation with Phinehas. So disturbing, in fact, that he wasn’t able to speak to you,
and he asked me to call you in his place.”

“What is it?”

Oh, Lord, be with me now. This can’t be good. I know now it’s not you who’s been throwing bolts of lightning at me all this
time. It’s Phinehas. And it looks like he hasn’t lost his aim. Help me, Lord.

“A young man came to the Blanchards’ this morning and gave Phinehas a document. Do you know anything about it?”

Play dumb.
“Who? What kind of document?”

“I don’t know who it was, but Owen said he was Chinese or Korean. And the document was a legal notice.”

“Of what?”

“Of your intention to petition for the custody of your niece.”

“Oh,” Dinah said.

“Is this true?”

“Yes.”

“But Dinah, why on earth would this—this notice be given to our senior Shepherd?”

“Did you read it?”

“It upset Phinehas to the point where he couldn’t even pray, and he has to lead two Gatherings tomorrow.”

“But did you read it?” she persisted. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe she could be vague and he would go away.

“Yes, I read it.” His voice was heavy with years of the knowledge that he had stayed in her home, eaten meals with her, comforted
her in her grief, and advised her in her distresses. “I can’t tell you how much this grieves me, Dinah.”