Sam gave me his full attention then. “Do I detect a tiny bit of reluctance from you about making a pledge?”
“More than a tiny bit,” I admitted. “But I was trying not to influence you.”
Sam and I kept our finances separate, mainly because he had no desire to live off Wesley Lloyd Springer, whereas I had no qualms at all about spending the proceeds from my first and unmourned husband’s estate. We, therefore, contributed to the church on the basis of our separate incomes.
“What’s going on, honey?” Sam lowered the volume on the television and turned to me. “What’s the church doing that’s upset you?”
“What’s it doing?” I asked with a touch of sarcasm. “Let me count the ways. Besides openly supporting an illicit operation, no one is the least interested in hearing from the other side. I’m feeling ignored, overlooked, and patronized.” Then, from that introduction, I told him of my chance meeting with Kenneth Whitman, who had pretended to be sympathetic to my cause, but had really been shrugging me off.
“And,” I went on, “there’re a few hints that something else is going on under cover. Another instance, you might say, of eventually announcing a fait accompli, and I want nothing to do with it.” Having told Sam of the finance committee’s misuse of church funds by donating to Madge, I now told him of Pastor Rucker’s asking if we would serve on a relocation committee.
“When I turned him down,” I said, getting it all off my chest, “he asked me what Jesus would do. And, Sam, that almost stopped me, until Lloyd reminded me of the Good Samaritan. So I told the pastor what Jesus would do, and as far as I’m concerned the subject is closed. I laid it all out for him, but whether it got through to him or not, I don’t know. ‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.’ Matthew, chapter eleven. And, to also quote from memory,” I went on, “‘That’s all I have to say about that.’”
Sam smiled. “Matthew again?”
“No. Forrest Gump.”
Then, tentatively, I ventured to say, “But you may feel differently.”
“Oh, I doubt it,” Sam said. “I’m not much for jumping on a bandwagon without knowing where it’s going.”
“Exactly!” I sat straight up on the sofa, energized by Sam’s putting into words what I was feeling. “That’s exactly why I’m reluctant to pledge for all of next year until they tell us what they’re going to do with it. Just this very afternoon, Pat Lowell called me—you know her, don’t you? Her husband’s retired from some big corporation in Chicago, so they’re fairly new in town. Anyway, she was calling members who usually make a pledge, but who haven’t turned in their cards—of which, I am one. She wanted to know if I was unhappy about anything, and I just told her straight out that I was holding off because I’m concerned about some things the church is supporting. Then I asked, ‘Doesn’t that worry you?’
“And, Sam, there was dead silence on the line, then she said, quite firmly, ‘No, it doesn’t.’ Well, I had to laugh because it was so abrupt and unexpected, but speaking bluntly is typical of your average Northern retiree, as you know. Anyway, I had a good mind to tell her that in that case, she should just double her pledge to make up for mine.
“Anyway,” I said, sighing, “I guess I’m feeling misunderstood and unappreciated, and to top it off, I’ve lost a friend.”
Sam put his arm around me and said, “You always have a friend, but who’re you talking about?”
I had already told him about that shameful intervention to which we’d subjected Helen. “I still feel awful about it because I jumped onto somebody else’s idea without looking into it or realizing what the outcome could be. I mean, of course she was offended—who wouldn’t be? And why I didn’t see that from the beginning, I don’t know. I guess I thought that it was something I could do, rather than sit by and watch the train wreck, as I seem to be doing with the church.”
“Honey,” Sam said, “listen to me. Let the church go its way—it’ll do that anyway. We’re members of the real church, regardless of where our letters of membership are. As for Helen, you two have been friends for too many years to end it all because of one little misstep—made, I remind you, with her well-being in mind. You’ve prayed about it and you’ve apologized—”
“Groveled, more like it.”
“Okay, groveled, then,” Sam said, tightening his arm around me. “That’s all anybody can do. Now let me tell you a funny story that’s making the rounds down at the Bluebird Café. Clara McDonald is getting married again.”
“What!” I sat straight up, my worries completely pushed aside. “Why, Sam, she’s ninety, if she’s a day, and she’s already been married a number of times.”
“Four husbands in all,” he said. “And buried every one of them. But this is what’s funny about it. Her new beau has about outlived his retirement fund, so he couldn’t afford a wedding ring. Instead, he took her four previous wedding rings and had a new one made using all the stones. Word is that she’s thrilled with his originality and his financial management skills.”
“Well, my word,” I said, trying to picture Wesley Lloyd’s measly little stone in a new setting. “We could probably use him on the finance committee at church.”
—
Having successfully lightened the mental load I’d been carrying, Sam took my hand as we made our way upstairs to bed. We’d just crawled between the covers, though, when my mind switched on to another unpleasant image.
“Sam? Something else has been bothering me.”
“Oh, really?” Sam said, pulling the comforter over his shoulder. “Now, I wonder what that could be.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. But don’t fall asleep until I do. I don’t want to dream about it tonight.” I slid up close
