was having all those plus cramps and mood swings.
But this deviation from my own body’s norm was proof that my body was changing, that time was passing.
I finally convinced myself that the sanest response was, “So what?”
Letting myself into my silent house in Shakespeare, I peeled off my sweaty clothes and headed for the shower. Fifteen minutes later, fluffing up my curls with my fingers, I checked my answering machine. My friend Carrie Thrush’s voice said, “When you come in today, give me a call, please. I know you’re in the middle of learning a new job, but I have a cleaning crisis. Plus, I just want to talk to you.” I wrote her name on the notepad by the phone. The second message was from Melanie. “Hey, I guess I got the right number, that sounded like your voice on the message. Listen, we all need to talk. Give me a call.” She read off her number, hesitated as if she was going to add something, then hung up.
For the first time, I looked at the message counter. Eight. I’d never had so many before.
A smoky voice began, “Ms. Bard, I hope you’re over your shock today. This is Detective Stokes. I need you to come in to make a statement about last night.” Alicia Stokes bit out each word as though it would dissolve her mouth if it weren’t perfectly enunciated.
The next call was from Tamsin, who wanted to reschedule our interrupted therapy session. I had to laugh out loud at that.
Firella had called. And Janet, sounding weak. And Carla. Everyone but Sandy. Her husband had called.
“Lily, this is Joel McCorkindale.” He had a rich, sincere voice that I would have recognized anywhere. “I would like to speak with you about this therapy group you’ve been attending with my wife. I hope you don’t think she broke whatever confidentiality you have to keep with the group; I just recognized you walking in last week when I dropped Sandy off. Please call me back at the church at your earliest convenience.”
I glanced at my watch. It was five-thirty. I looked up the church number and dialed.
He picked up the phone himself. His secretary must have gone home. This must be an important conversation to the Reverend Mr. McCorkindale.
“Lily,” he said with elaborate pleasure, when I identified myself. “I was hoping you could come down here and we could have a talk?”
I thought about it. I’d had my shower, and felt better, though still very tired.
“I guess,” I said reluctantly. “I can be down there in a couple of minutes.”
I put on a little makeup to obscure the dark circles under my eyes, brushed my hair, and set out. Locking my front door behind me, I plodded down the front steps and over to the sidewalk, turning right. Watching my feet carefully because the sidewalk was cracked in many places, I went past the Shakespeare Garden Apartments and then around the corner (the big squared U that went around the arboretum road bearing three names was actually a cul-de-sac) to the parking lot and redbrick buildings of Shakespeare Combined Church. Joel McCorkindale’s office was upstairs over the expanded Sunday School wing, and the day-care program it housed was closed for the day. The gym was busy, judging by the cars parked outside, but it was a separate facility on the other side of the church proper. So the big building was silent when I opened the glass door at the bottom of the stairs.
I plodded up, gripping the handrail, feeling more and more exhausted as I mounted. I didn’t think I’d ever felt as washed-out in my life. I managed to get to the reverend’s office and knock on the door without stopping to rest, but I had to push myself. And it was karate night, too, I groaned to myself. I’d just have to miss.
Joel came to the door to open it and usher me in. It was one of those little courtesies that endeared him to so many of his congregation, especially women.
I sat down in the comfortable chair he indicated, and I was happy to do it. Joel sat in a matching chair a careful distance away-no desk between us for this conversation, another signal-and steepled his hands in front of him, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair.
“Lily, I don’t know if you feel you’re getting anything out of this therapy group, but I’m concerned about Sandy.”
“You should probably talk to the counselor about this.”
“I don’t think she would be objective. She’ll maintain Sandy needs her services, no matter what.”
“Now you’ve lost me,” I said, after a pause during which I tried to make sense of his words. I wondered if my mind were going through some sort of trough the way my body seemed to be.
“I have heard, not through idle gossip but through the concerns of members of my flock, that Tamsin Lynd has strong views about the relationships between men, women, and the church. Views that don’t coincide with our interpretation of the Scriptures.”
I would have left then if I hadn’t been too tired to get up.
“And this is my problem… how?”
“I come to you for your… advice.”
“I’m just not understanding you.”
“I understand that y’all know each other.”
I stared at Joel’s smoothly shaved face, his carefully trimmed mustache, and his razor-cut hair. He wore a very good suit, not so expensive that the people of the church would whisper, but nice enough for sure.
“Joel.” He didn’t like me using his first name. I’d always found him distasteful, but fair, and I didn’t want to be as ugly as my first inclination led me to be.
“Joel,” I said again, trying to pick my words carefully. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Tamsin say one word about any religion in our therapy group.” I took a deep breath. “It seems to me you should be more concerned about your wife’s mental health than about the possible theological opinions of her counselor.”
“Of course, Sandy’s well-being is my primary concern,” Joel said. “I’m just-why does she feel the need to go to this group at all?” he burst out, seeming genuinely puzzled. Suddenly, Joel looked like a real man, not like a little impervious god. “We’ve prayed about it and asked for her healing and her forgiveness of the one who did such a terrible thing to her. Why does she need to talk about it?”
“Because your wife was raped,” I said, as if I was telling him this for the first time. “She needs to talk to other women who’ve lived through the experience. She needs to be able to express her own true feelings about what happened to her, away from people who expect so many different things from her.”
He tilted back in his chair for a moment. At that second, he looked more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him. I didn’t doubt that Joel McCorkindale loved his wife. I did doubt that he knew what a burden his public persona was on his wife’s shoulders and what a struggle it was for her to preserve the image of the kind of wife she thought he deserved.
“My wife was accosted in college, over twenty years ago, from what little she’s told me,” he said. “Why would she need help now?”
Accosted? He made it sound as unthreatening as a panhandler asking you for spare change-though under some circumstances, that could be pretty damn scary. And I noticed that even Joel didn’t seem to know exactly what had happened to his wife. “Don’t you ever counsel members of your congregation who’ve been raped?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’d be glad to help if someone came to me with that problem, but it hasn’t happened.”
“Then you’re not doing your job,” I said, “in some sense. Because believe me, Reverend, your congregation contains rape victims.”
Joel looked unhappy at the idea, though what caused that unhappiness I couldn’t guess. “How many women are in your group?” he asked, staring at his fingers so evenly matched together in front of him.
“More than me and your wife, I can tell you that,” I said sadly. “And we’re just a fraction. How many women in yours?”
He blinked. Considered. “Two hundred fifty, more or less.”
“Then you have about twenty-five victims,” I told him. “Depending on whose estimates you use.”
He was shocked, no question.
“Now, Joel, I have to leave. I don’t think I was any help to you. But I hope you can be to Sandy, because she definitely has some heavy problems.” I pushed myself to my feet, thinking this had been a waste of time and energy, and I left.
He was still sitting in the chair when I shut the door behind me, and unless I was completely wrong, Joel McCorkindale was deep in thought. Maybe he was praying.
