Pocketful of Pearls (32 page)

The lump in his throat swelled in fresh pain.

He had no way to make amends for his clumsiness with her, either.

DINAH KEPT HER
mouth shut and her foot jammed on the gas pedal as they sped down the highway toward town. Matthew had tried to speak once
or twice, but with Tamsen in the back trying out her vocalization skills it was easy to freeze him out. If she let him say
anything, her heart would melt and she’d beg him to forget what she’d said and stay.

But she’d made up her mind. He’d broken her trust and now he had to go and that was that. She couldn’t even think about the
howling pain in the region of her heart, or the sick dread in her stomach at the thought of having to face Phinehas’s third
condition alone. She even felt as though she ought to apologize to Schatzi for sending him away, but some childish jealousy
held her back on that one. Schatzi could just get used to the real alpha bird in the flock—Dinah.

She parked the truck outside the bank, where she could see Claire at the counter through the picture window. Next door, the
coffee bar was doing a rousing trade, some brave souls even drinking their lattes at outdoor tables. Across the street, people
browsed in Rebecca Quinn’s bookshop, Quill and Quinn.

Everyone looked so normal, while her world was splintering all around her.

“It will just take a moment to cash this and close the account,” Matthew said before he slid out the door.

Dinah looked out her own window and caught sight of her mother going into the post office on the corner. Her arms were full
of red, white, and blue “Priority Mail” boxes, and someone held the door for her while she maneuvered them all inside.

What was going on? Was she sending presents to everyone she’d ever met? In the middle of April?

Dinah popped Tamsen out of her buckles and locked the truck. Holding the baby, she crossed the street and pushed open the
post office door with her hip. Her mother was already at the counter with her pile.

“Mom,” she said in a low voice, “what’s going on?”

Elsie looked her up and down, and nibbled the inside of her lower lip. Then she seemed to come to a decision.

“I’m mailing my things to my customers,” she said.

Dinah stared at her. Tamsen waved an arm and grabbed a pen out of the postal guy’s pen holder, and she took it away from her
without looking. “What?”

“The baby clothes. I’ve been selling them for a couple of weeks now. Well, Matthew has. These are all going to the people
who ordered them.”

“Selling them?” Dinah was getting tired of sounding like a parrot, only able to mimic, not think.

“Our hired man has many talents, in case you haven’t noticed. I took pictures of the clothes on Tamsen—yes, you’re Granny’s
pretty model, aren’t you, love?—and Matthew had them scanned at the stationery store. Then he made a Web site and is selling
them on something called eBay, too. He looks after all that, though. I just fill the orders.”

“Matthew?”
Come on, Dinah. Get your brain in gear.

“Yes. He’s got a little computer in the barn, you know. I know we’ve been taught that the Internet is a window into wickedness,
but it sure is handy when a woman has to make a living and all she knows how to do is cook and sew.”

“Mom, I just fired Matthew.” There. That was something sensible to say. Besides, technically it was her little computer. And
it was still sitting in the hired man’s suite.

Now it was her mother’s turn to stare in astonishment. “Fired him? Why?”

Why? It was completely impossible to explain why. She finally settled on the easiest part. “He was arrested for sexual abuse
earlier this year.”

“Good heavens. Well, was he guilty?”

“No.”

“So what did you fire him for?”

“I just don’t want him around any more. He broke my trust.”
And my heart.

Elsie took her change from the postal employee and led the way out the door. “You don’t. Well, goodness, missy, some of us
might. How am I going to run my business without his brain, not to mention his computer?”

“That computer is mine.”

Now it was Elsie’s turn to stare at her. “Is it, now. And here I was feeling guilty about letting Matthew talk me into this.
Not that I’m not enjoying it,” she added. “But I felt I had to hide it from you. I guess now I don’t.”

“I think we’re done hiding things from each other. The truth has set us free, hasn’t it?”

They had reached the Oldsmobile. “But for some reason that doesn’t apply to Matthew?” her mother asked. “Where is he? I’m
going to tell him he isn’t fired after all. I don’t know what you were thinking. If he wasn’t guilty and he’s been a good
friend to you, what would you want to get rid of him for?”

“Mom, don’t.”

But it was too late. When Elsie marched down the street to the truck, Matthew was nowhere in sight. Dinah went into the bank
while Elsie put Tamsen into her seat.

“Claire, did you see where Matthew went?”

The customer at Claire’s window gave her a dirty look for interrupting his transaction. “He said he had to catch a bus. I
told him he’d better hurry—the one to Richmond went through at three o’clock.”

Elsie was right. What was the matter with her? She had pushed Matthew away the way she pushed everyone away who got close
enough to really see her. She had branded him with the same label the newspapers had. She was quick to judge when he had not
judged her. And she had been unkind when he had been nothing but gentle toward her.

She was an idiot and she needed to fix that, right now, before it was too late.

Dinah looked at her watch. Three fifteen. But the bus station was just on the next block and around the corner. There might
still be time.

As she pushed the bank’s glass and steel door open, she heard a roar and the Richmond bus accelerated down Main Street and
picked up speed as it passed the old apple-processing plant where the discount store was going to be.

Dinah stood on the sidewalk and watched her only chance for happiness roll down the highway, leaving nothing behind but the
choking smell of exhaust.

HAD IT NOT
been for Matthew and the gifts he’d given her during those black nights when she’d emptied herself of ugliness the way she
had purged her body of food, Dinah wouldn’t have been able to bear it when Phinehas called. Of course, Elsie did the expected
thing and invited him to dinner. If not for Matthew and his unselfish acceptance of the horror that had been her life, she
would not be able to sit across the table from her abuser and make small talk while her mother served Dutch apple pie.

She had accused Matthew of keeping himself from her, but maybe, she thought now, it was more a case of the poor man not being
able to get a word in edgewise. Had she asked him about his family and friends? Had she shown interest in his passion for
seventeenth-century literature? Had she made even the smallest attempt to enter into his life the way he had wholeheartedly
entered hers?

No.

No wonder he had left without a word in his own defense. She hadn’t given him a chance to do that, either.

But if God had given her Tamsen as a reason to live, then Matthew had given her the tools to live by. Courage, honesty, and
above all, the knowledge that she was worthy of love. Not the twisted reflection of his own ego that had passed for love with
Phinehas. But real, unselfish, generous love that reached out, even when it wasn’t wanted.

The kind of love God showed when he sent his son to an earth that didn’t know him and didn’t care to. But God did it anyway.
And Dinah was determined to as well.

“I got your message from Melchizedek,” she said calmly to Phinehas when Elsie went out to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.
“I’ve fulfilled two of the conditions.” To her own detriment and sorrow.

“And what about the third?” Phinehas cleaned the last of the vanilla ice cream off his plate with the tines of his fork. They
were using Grandma Simcoe’s silver—she of the Simcoe Schnozz.

“I’m afraid not, Phinehas. There will only be the two. You don’t have the right to ask the third of me.”

“And you have the authority to tell the Shepherd of your soul what he has the right to do?” His voice was as calm and smooth
as oil on water.

“The only authority I have is over my own body,” she replied steadily. “And I choose not to allow you to rape me any more.”

Silence fell in the dining room, punctuated only by the sound of running water from the kitchen as Elsie filled the reservoir
in the coffee maker.

“It grieves me that you still view your service this way.” Phinehas laid his fork carefully on his plate, so that it didn’t
clink. “It used to be a willing service. Now you heap ugliness on it.”

“Let’s call a spade a spade, Phinehas. I was never willing. Never. I told you I would not make it public if you never touched
me again.”

“You broke your word. So anything you ‘told’ me is null and void, my dear.”

“How did I do that?”

“You had that attorney serve me with the notice, as if I had any connection with that child.”

“You can deny it all you like, but it doesn’t change the facts. You chose to show the notice to Melchizedek. Our deal still
stands. I won’t make the third sacrifice. And I will go public if you don’t stop.”

“Are you threatening me again?” All the music had leached out of Phinehas’s voice, leaving it harsh and flat.

“No, not at all. Just telling you the truth. I take it our discussion is closed? Would you like some coffee?”

“Our discussion is
not
closed. It’s obvious to me that you have forsaken God and given yourself wholly to Satan. I have no choice but to call the
Testimony of Two Men. This very evening, in fact.”

GOOD THINGS COULD
take a whole lifetime to come. Bad things, however, could be arranged in half an hour.

If ever there was a time when Dinah could have used love and support, it was now. But Elsie had retired to her room in tears
after unsuccessfully begging Phinehas not to make those calls. And Matthew? Well, her selfishness had done a fine job of chasing
him away just when she needed him most.

It’s not God throwing lightning bolts at you,
she reminded herself as Owen Blanchard’s car rolled into the driveway, joining that of Melchizedek.
It’s Phinehas. You can fight this. Only the truth is spoken in this house now. You have nothing left to lose, so you may as
well say it out loud. God is a God of truth, not lies and covering up. He is with you.

He had to be. Otherwise, how could she sit here in this dining room chair so calmly as Phinehas, Melchizedek, and Owen filed
into the living room and seated themselves in three chairs facing her? In fact, she was more than calm. She was filled with
a quiet joy brought on by the knowledge that she had done the right things all along, and with the shield of her newborn faith,
she could take on anything they had to throw at her.

Owen Blanchard looked unutterably weary, she thought as he seated himself. His suit was as crisp as ever, his shirt and tie
impeccable, a nice contrast with red-gold hair that had faded over the last year or so to a sandy gray. It couldn’t be easy
for him as Elder. All the girls from the two favored families except one were either Out or Silenced, and the one remaining,
his wife, Madeleine, was at some kind of asylum getting treatment for a disorder no one wanted to talk about.

Strange that it was the girls this was happening to, Dinah thought suddenly. Is it because we’re the only ones able to struggle
free of generations of tradition and open our mouths to speak the truth?

Phinehas pulled Morton’s Bible from the end table next to the easy chair, opened it, and began to read.

“Jesus said in the eighth chapter of John, ‘And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father
that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.’” He looked up at her. “Dinah Traynell,
we have called the Testimony in response to your unwillingness to support the leadership of the Elect of God. You may choose
two of us to decide your case. Who will you have?”

“Melchizedek and Owen,” she replied. That was a no-brainer. Why should she choose Phinehas when he had engineered the whole
thing and was determined to get his revenge for her daring to tell the truth? Not that either Melchizedek or Owen would go
against what he wanted. Her “case” was probably already decided. She pressed her knees together and tried to invite the spirit
of peace into her heart. She was going to need it.

Phinehas handed Melchizedek the Bible, open on both hands, and the latter flipped further along in the New Testament. “Paul’s
first letter to the Corinthians, chapter five. ‘But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called
a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no
not to eat.’” The Shepherd’s voice was heavy, the way he said grace at the table. As a little girl, Dinah had always thought
he had a stomach ache. Maybe he did now. “‘For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them
that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.’”