Rebecca’s announcement had an electrifying effect on Lila. She leaned forward as though stuck with a cattle prod. “TINKERBELL?!”
“Yes, Tinkerbell! Look!” Rebecca pointed to the white blotch floating slowly across the upper field with the other deer.
“Omigod!” said Lila, almost unable to believe what she was seeing with her own eyes. “It IS Tinkerbell!”
A rush of adrenaline shot through her slender body, and a mass of pent up emotion followed quickly upon its heels. The sight the long hoped-for white deer acted as a catalyst, pushing Lila through the anger and denial, which had been holding her back. She began to laugh and cry at the same time, expressing years of anguish, loss and grief. “Haahaa, arnnnnn, ahhh, haahaa! Tinkerbell! Arnnn, haha! Oh, oh, oh!”
“Oh, my dear!” exclaimed Rebecca, hugging her young friend to her motherly breast. “There, there,” she soothed her; “let it out, let it out!”
Ten minutes passed in this fashion until Lila reached the bottom of her emotional well. She sat back up, and dried her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She thought momentarily of Mike Hobart’s blue handkerchief and experienced a stab of pain mingled with joyful love. “Thanks, Becca,” she said. “I’m OK, now.”
“But, dear, can’t you tell me what’s wrong?” Rebecca implored.
Lila exhaled deeply. “No, I can’t. It’s too complicated. You wouldn’t understand.”
Rebecca looked hurt, and Lila immediately felt the sting of her own words. She wouldn’t have wounded her friend for anything! “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean that like it sounded,” she added quickly. “It’s soo complicated! It has to do with good and evil, and why bad things happen to good people.”
Here was another clue!
Rebecca deliberated over this new information. Good versus evil? In her New England born, Congregationally-churched mind, there was only one course of action. “Why don’t you go down and talk with the minister of the little church?” Rebecca suggested. “That’s what I would do.”
Lila’s spine stiffened at the suggestion. “What can a minister do to help me?!”
Rebecca remained calm. “I don’t know, dear, but there’s one way to find out. Maude told me that the minister keeps open office hours at the church on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, just in case anyone wants to drop by to talk with her.”
Lila was about to come back with a sarcastic retort, when she experienced a moment of déjà vu. Something about this conversation seemed familiar.
She recollected in a flash motoring up to Miss Hastings’ house after their first meeting with Mike Hobart at Gilpin’s General Store, recalling in particular Rebecca’s concern about her treatment of him and of men in general. To her chagrin, Lila also remembered that she herself had resolved that day to gratefully accept Rebecca’s motherly suggestions, instead of balking her like an immature child all the time.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized to Rebecca. “I promise—I’ll try to do better.”
Lila fell silent. She gave serious consideration to Rebecca’s suggestion that she meet with the local minister. She remembered what Ralph Gilpin had said about the pastor of the little white church: “Come summer she strips down bare-ass naked and goes runnin’ through her field of goldenrod like Lady Godiva, only without the hoss!” Despite her doldrums, Lila smiled.
Why not meet with the minister? Why not! What harm could it do?
“Ralph DID describe her as an odd duck,” Lila said, decidedly. “I suppose that’s as good a recommendation as any.”
Rebecca laughed hopefully. “You’ll do it?!”
“I’ll do it; I’ll go down and see the minister. What have I got to lose?”
“Oh, nothing, dear! And you have so much to gain!” cried the good-hearted Rebecca.
Chapter 24
The Little White Church
The news about the reappearance of Tinkerbell was delivered throughout Sovereign from one household to the next with the efficacy of personal delivery telegrams. After the initial sighting Monday evening, traffic on the Russell Hill Road picked up 10-fold as residents strove to get their own personal glimpse of the white deer. Beat up old trucks with entire families crammed inside motored up and down the road, especially in the gloaming, those refreshingly liberating twice daily spells when Day and Night are so preoccupied changing guard that wicked and wonderful things slip past.
Most of the residents of Sovereign are hunters or come from hunting families and, however conflicted this might seem, they harbor a deep love of nature and appreciation of the natural world in their breasts alongside the killing instinct. They are like executioners who oppose capital punishment, yet still persist in pulling the switch. The affection for the creatures that they kill is real, and therefore the sighting of Tinkerbell created enough of a sensation to push Lila and her troubles off the forefront of the local gossip.
Ralph Gilpin accosted Wendell the moment he walked into the general store Wednesday morning. “Didja see that white deer yet?” he asked, excitedly.
“Ayuh,” said Wendell, with some satisfaction. “I seen Tinkerbell last night.”
“What’s she look like?”
“Looks jest like she did last year, Ralph; ‘cept bigger, course.”
“Maude’s takin’ Gray ovah to yer place after school to mow the yard,” the shopkeeper continued. “Think that deer’ll be back this evening? Kid’s hopin’ to see her.”
“Most likely.”
Miss Hastings, whose own upper field was frequented by the same roving band of white tail deer, was nearly ecstatic with anticipation. She tugged her Canadian rocker around so that she could keep sentinel at the eastern kitchen window; parking her child-like frame in the chair and hoisting binoculars in lieu of a musket. On Wednesday evening she was rewarded. She immediately dialed Lila on the younger woman’s cell. “Dahrrrling, I’ve spotted her! I just KNOW it’s Tinkerbell!” she cried. “OOoo, I can’t TELL you how BLEST I feel!”
Lila, much like Miss Hastings, Rebecca, Wendell, the Gilpins and everyone else in Sovereign, felt her own spirits rise as a result of the presence of this enchanting genetic mutation in the local deer herd. The reappearance of Tinkerbell combined with the arrival the day before of her 200 baby chicks – all alive and kicking – had cheered Lila more than she could have believed possible on Sunday evening after her break-up with Mike Hobart. The combined events did not satisfy her desperate longing for the handsome carpenter, but they did make the loss of his steady, physical presence easier for her to bear.
On Thursday afternoon, after her chores were attended and she’d gathered the eggs for the second time that day (and after she checked on her baby chicks for perhaps the 10th time) a hopeful Lila rolled the 1964 Pontiac LeMans out of the barn. She motored the short distance down the road to the little white church on the corner, intending to keep her promise to Rebecca and meet with—me, the minister of the little white church.
As Maude had said, the church was unlocked, and Lila took a deep breath, swung open the solid wood door and walked in. The interior of the Sovereign Union Church is much larger than you would have imagined from the outside, since it encompasses mostly one large room with an expansive cathedral ceiling and elongated leaded windows that stretch nearly from ceiling to floor. The initial effect is one of uplifting brightness, most likely the intended effect of the town’s originators, who painted the walls, ceiling and pews the highly polished white that seems to be a prerequisite of churches in the New England Protestant tradition. One 19th century Maine writer, Lura Beam, has even gone so far as to say about her little white church that from the back pew a visitor might feel as though she was “well down the throat of a calla lily.”
A burgundy carpet crept up the center aisle and divided two rows of 12 pews, each able to seat eight worshipers comfortably. The elevated altar bore the traditional empty cross and beneath it the mahogany lectern was situated. The carpet in the foyer was stained and threadbare, and shamefully worn up the distance of
the first eight pews from the door; however, the red rug appeared almost plush and new up near the front of the church where no one ever wants to sit, leading one of our members recently to joke that we should turn the carpet around to make it last for another 100 years. An old upright, out-of-tune piano rested tiredly near the choir pews, which were never utilized during these days of sparse attendance.
A pillar candle burned cheerfully on the altar, and its flame flickered in the draughts that chased each other like small children around the church. Lila hesitated, glanced around, and seeing no one, walked half-way up the aisle and took a seat in the right hand pew facing the altar.
I saw her come in from the vantage point of an open door in the tiny office that a former pastor had cobbled into the front south corner of the church, next to the unisex bathroom (which now fortuitously has indoor plumbing). I was surprised to see Lila, since most young people I know regard churches and organized religion much like our ancestors regarded witchcraft. I knew who she was, of course, although we had never met. I had lived in town long enough to become acquainted with not only my attenders and church supporters, but also almost everyone else by description and personal history. And until the reappearance of Tinkerbell, Lila Woodsum’s drama had been the most talked about in Sovereign.
She settled herself into the white pew, which was recently made snug with thick cushions purchased with money raised by Maude Gilpin in our February fundraiser. After a few minutes of Quaker quiet I heard Lila exhale in the restful manner of someone who arrives with a burden – but has found a Comforter with whom to share it.
I’ve discovered during my many years in the ministry that when a person enters a church looking to commune with the Divine, a third party is not required. Therefore, I rarely put myself forward. If he or she is hoping to speak with a minister or a priest, well, one is more often than not underfoot.
Lila espied me ten minutes later, as she rose and prepared to exit the church. “I saw your light,” she said, poking her black-capped head in through the door of my front office. “I didn’t know anyone was here.”
I pushed my ample frame up from my desk where I was reviewing my pastoral message for Sunday. “I didn’t want to bother you,” I replied, and introduced myself. We shook hands, and I waved vaguely toward the one gothic-looking chair in the room, apart from my own, which was empty of papers and books.
Lila slid into the proffered seat, and surveyed my extensive collection of theological and religious books, which encompassed three walls of bookcases. “You read a lot?”
“No, they’re just for looks.”
She tittered, and I was reminded of the perky chickadee.
“Ralph Gilpin said you were different,” she said, smiling.
“An ‘odd duck,’ I believe is the actual term Ralph uses. He doesn’t quite know what to make of me, but he shows up every other Sunday when I’m here, anyway. Of course he wouldn’t show up at all if it wasn’t for Maude – and maybe Gray and Bruce.”
“Mmmm,” said Lila. I could tell that she was already turning over in her mind how much of her burden she wanted to share with me – and how much would remain with her previous confessor.
“What is it, Lila?” I said. “Something a worn-out, odd duck can help you with?”
She pulled a slightly yellowed, postmarked envelope out of her jacket pocket and handed it across the paper-strewn desk. I took it, with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing. “Open it,” she directed. “It was the last letter I ever got from my Mom. She was killed in a boating accident in 2009; along with my stepfather. She mailed the letter on the morning she died.”
I did what she told me; I opened the letter. It contained a few short sentences, hand-written in faded blue ink. I read the few words aloud:
“I’m so very, very sorry, darling! He’ll never bother you again.
Love, Mom
p.s. I’ll always love you.”
Wordlessly, I folded up the letter, tucked it back into the envelope and handed it back to her.
“She killed him,” Lila said.
I nodded. “It appears that way. She probably had good reason.”
“He sexually molested me when I was eight, not long after they were married.”
“Damn.”
“I WANTED to tell her, but I didn’t dare. He said he’d kill Mom if I told her. When he’d come to my room at night, I’d fly away, up into the wallpaper, until he was gone. I didn’t have a clue what was happening or why. Then, when I was 10, we had a program at school about incest and abuse. I was able to make him stop by threatening to tell my teacher. I still had nightmares, and worried constantly it would start up again; but I made it through high school without anything else happening.”
As she talked, I felt the rage rising inside of me like a female tigress whose cubs had been violated. But I tamped my emotion back down. “Did he physically hurt you? Have you seen a doctor?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m physically OK, but I can’t seem to leave the flashbacks behind me. I KNOW that Mom killed him partly because she felt guilty—and partly so I’d have a chance to live a normal life. I don’t want her death to go for NOTHING, but I haven’t been able to shake the flashbacks since the accident!”
“How do suppose your mother finally found out about the abuse?” I asked.
“When I graduated from college, he and I had a terrible argument,” Lila said. “Mom had gone out to get my graduation cake. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I gave him an ultimatum; I would tell Mom myself when I turned 25, unless he confessed to her before then. I guess he believed me. They died shortly before my 25th birthday.”
“Tragic,” I said, simply.
“But why, WHY did she have to die?!” Lila wailed. “She never hurt anyone! I should never have given him the ultimatum! Mom would still be alive! Why did she have to go and kill him!” She put her face in her hands and began sobbing.
I understood Lila’s mother perfectly, because – one woman to another – I’d have done the same thing; except maybe I’d have used a shot gun on him. (I’m not the best of Quakers, which is probably why I’m no longer a member of the Religious Society of Friends.) But the challenge now was not to find absolution for Lila’s mother, but to find absolution for Lila herself. The poor pip, in addition to bearing the burden of her stepfather’s predation, also bore the guilt of her mother’s unnecessary death.
I’ve witnessed many Shakespearean tragedies during my days in the ministry, but never one quite so twisted as this. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t figure out how to untwist her wrong-headed thinking about herself and her role in the family drama. Something was missing from the convoluted equation – not taking anything away from the power of the Divine, but I like to have my own ducks in a row. There was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on here.
Mother, Father, Holy Spirit, I said to myself. Give me a clue!
Mother. Father? Father!
“Where was your real father during all of this, Lila?” I probed.
“Dead,” she said, tiredly. (I could tell she wasn’t going to stay with me much longer.) “He died of pancreatic cancer when I was five.”
“Was he a good Dad?”
“My father was the BEST. He was so kind and gentle! Dad used to read to me every night, and when he’d tuck me in, he’d give me a kiss and tell me I was his special little chick. When he turned out the light, I was never scared, because I knew he was there to protect me.”
“But then he died and left you to fend for yourself.”
Lila’s hackles rose. “It wasn’t his fault; he died.”
“It was no one’s fault, except your stepfather’s,” I said, quickly. “He was a sick, thoughtless, selfish man, who made a lot of people suffer needlessly!”
“I know, I know!” Lila cried. “I’ve tried to put this whole thing behind me by moving to Maine – and I soo love Mike! – but I don’t want to ruin HIS life, too!”
I reflected a moment. She was a spunky little
pip, and I desperately wanted to help her; but I still didn’t have a clue. She had hit a snag in the healing process, which she herself had initiated by moving to Maine and daring to love again. However, most people know what they need to do to heal themselves, and when I run out of sage solutions, I generally just ask them. “So, what do you think you’d need to do – no matter how crazy it seems – to put this whole thing to rest once and for all, Lila?”
Surprisingly, Lila replied almost immediately. “If I could just see my Dad once again! If I could just go back in time and hear him telling me that everything was going to be OK … I’d believe it. But that can’t happen,” she added, sadly.
“No, probably nn…” I began, but broke off. A chill ran up my spine, and the hair on my arms stood up. A crazy idea overtook me; a simple solution to Lila’s problem. Oh, how often we go off the beaten track searching for something that’s right under our noses!
“You know, I’ve got an idea that you’re going to get your wish,” I said, confidently. “Or something pretty close to it.”
“No way!” she said, with a sharp intake of breath.
“Way!” I replied.
“You mean … I’ll be able to talk to my father again?!” she said, tremulously.
“I believe you will.”
“That’s not possible,” she said, flatly.
“Not if you think like that, it isn’t.”
She eyed me like Ralph Gilpin looks at me sometimes, as though I was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. “How?” she challenged. “When?!”
“Patience! Patience, Lila!” I counseled. “Have a little faith.”
She bit back a sharp retort and silently pondered my words. I could see her turning everything over in her mind. I knew she wanted to believe me.
“Stuff like this takes time,” I coaxed. “You’re on the right track—you did a good thing moving to Maine. But your spirit needs more time to heal. It could take weeks or even months before you get your wish. In the meantime, just go about your daily life; follow your heart, and all that blather. If you do that, I think your wish will come true. Think you can hang in there a while longer?”
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