“As I said, I don’t have time for this today.” Jacob pushed himself up from the table and carried his coffee cup into the bedroom. He closed the door behind him.
Job stared at his plate and felt the urge to run away, as Jacob had. He hated these scenes.
“Well,” Liv said to Lilith. “I guess it’s just you and me.”
“As my husband said, there’s nothing more to talk about.”
“You don’t have to let him order you around like that, you know,” said Liv.
“He’s my husband and it’s my obligation and privilege to be obedient to him. You would do well to do the same to your husband. It’s very freeing.”
“Like hell it is,” said Liv. She pushed her chair back and grabbed her coat. “Thanks for the coffee.” And she was gone, out the door.
Job jogged down the stairs after her. When he reached her, she turned. “How can she defend him like that?” she said.
They listened to gunshots from the lake, then the woosh woosh of wings as panicked ducks flew so low overhead Job felt he could reach up and grab them.
“I haven’t see you at the café for a while,” said Liv.
“I didn’t feel much like going into town, with all the talk.”
“There hasn’t been that much talk, Job. Everybody’s already moved on to the next round of gossip.” From the lake, a shout from the hunters. The bark of one of their dogs. “I thought you were going to phone.”
Job shrugged. “It looked like Darren was back on the scene.” He looked up. “Is he?”
“I don’t know. We’re going to see the counsellor we take Jason to. She asked a pile of questions to see why Jason was acting out, about what was going on at home. At the end of the session she told Darren he was abusive.”
“He hit you?”
“No. He’s way too smart for that. But Jason saw lots of scenes growing up. Me on the couch crying, Darren standing over me yelling and yelling. That sort of thing. I guess Jason kept it bundled inside, then, when puberty hit, it started bubbling out. At the end of the counselling session the counsellor said I could stay in the marriage if Darren was willing to go through counselling with me. Or I could leave and she could help me straighten myself and Jason out. But she couldn’t do a thing if I stayed in the marriage and Darren didn’t make an effort. It kind of shook Darren up, to see the effect he was having on Jason. To hear someone other than me saying it. He said he’d give it a try.” She shrugged. “We’ll see.”
As Job tried to think of something to say, he looked across the road, at the excavation site in his hayfield, the square of earth scraped down to the tan clay beneath the sod. The string and stakes that marked out the building site. The mounds of dirt covering the trenches in which he and Jacob had laid the power- and waterlines. Down the road a vehicle dragged dust towards them. Likely Rod driving the church van, bringing the volunteers. “I’m sorry about all this with Jason and Ben,” Job said.
“It’s not really such a big deal, not like Jacob and Lilith are making it out to be. The boys have settled things. They’re friends, you know. Ben’s been coming over to my place quite a lot during the days since school started.”
“You let him skip school?”
“It’s not a matter of me letting him. He’d skip whether I turned him away or not. There’s no place for a kid to go in this town. So he stops in at the café. Sometimes I give him coffee and lunch. He does dishes or cuts carrots, whatever Crystal’s got for him to do, to pay for it. If I’m not at work he’ll stop by the house, see if I’m home. He offers to do some work, so I got him mowing the lawn a few times, so Barbara won’t fine me again. I just give him a safe place to go. If he didn’t have it, I’m afraid of what he’d get into. He’s a smart kid, but he’s pretty messed up.”
“Does Jacob know?”
“I’m sure the school’s informed him Ben’s been missing so much school. There’s got to be something going on with him at home. Sounds like Jacob gives him the strap a lot.”
“A father’s got a right to discipline his son the way he wants.” Something Abe had always said.
Liv laughed. “What about Ben’s rights?” she said.
The church van pulled into the Sunstrum yard and parked. “Well, I see Penny and your other church friends are here,” said Liv. “I guess I better get going.”
“You’re welcome to stay and visit,” said Job. “Lilith is bringing out coffee before we get started.”
Liv laughed. “No, thank you.” She lifted a hand as she walked off. Nodded at Penny as she got out of the van but didn’t stop to talk.
Penny, in pink shorts, a pink T-shirt and flip-flops, slapped her way over to Job. “What was Liv doing here so early?” she said. She glanced at his cabin and lowered her voice. “She didn’t stay overnight, did she?”
“No! Of course not. There was this incident at school, between Jason and Ben. She came to discuss it with Jacob and Lilith.”
“Huh.” But she didn’t look convinced.
Rod came up behind them, dressed in a brand-new plaid work shirt and jeans that hadn’t yet been washed. The creases from the store packaging still etched on his sleeves. “Job, did you ever meet Rod?” asked Penny.
“No.” He shook Rods hand. A tattoo of a cross on the back of Rod’s knuckles. “I saw you at the revival.”
Rod took a quick step behind Job. “You’re right!” he said. “He does have a great butt!”
“Told ya!” said Penny, giggling.
Job swung around. Felt his face flush.
“Ah, we didn’t mean nothing,” said Rod. “Just having a laugh.”
Penny was changed in Rod’s company. A flirtation went on between them of the kind that went on between coworkers, or a brother and a sister-in-law. A freedom provided by a line that couldn’t be crossed. Something. Job couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He didn’t like it.
A woman leaned against the van. Black hair pulled back with a yellow scarf. Prominent cheekbones under tanned skin. A wide, full mouth painted in red lipstick. She smiled at Job, toyed with her hair and held him in a long look. Job felt a churning in his stomach and a sudden awareness of his groin.
“This is Jocelyn Pryer,” said Rod. “Jocelyn’s a nurse.”
“Glad to meet you,” she said. She took just his fingers and gave them a squeeze. Her hands were warm and a little slippery. There was a slick of suntan oil at her neck and on her face. The smell of coconuts about her.
Penny took Job’s arm and pulled him close, as if she had made a claim on him. “Jocelyn’s just new to the church,” she said, and gave Job a knowing look.
Jacob tapped down the house steps as Pastor Divine pulled into the yard in his truck. “Is this it for volunteers?” Jacob asked Rod.
Divine closed the truck door behind him. “You wrote in the church bulletin you only needed a handful,” he said.
“But a few more than this would have been nice.”
“People are busy, with school back in. Speaking of which, I’ve got to run.”
“You aren’t staying?”
“Looks to me like you’ve got things well in hand. Just came down to give the project a blessing.”
“We could use your help.”
Divine patted Jacob on the shoulder. “You’ll do just fine without me.” He clapped his hands together. “All right. Let’s gather over at the building site and have a prayer.” They stood in the excavation, and Divine said a prayer for their safety as they worked and that the work might be productive, that God might bless the project. Then Jacob walked Pastor Divine back to his truck. They stopped at the old wooden wagon wheels Job had bought at the Olson auction years before. A ribbon of steel around the wheels’ circumference. Job had planned on nailing them on the gate in front of the house but never got around to it. Jack Divine pulled one up from where it lay in the grass beside the barn and inspected it.
Rod picked up a shovel and leaned, chin on hands, on its handle. “So Job,” he said. “What’s your story? P
enny’s told me a few things. How’d you come to find the Lord?”
Job scratched his chin. “I don’t know. He was always just sort of there. I grew up in a Baptist church.” When Penny shifted away from him he added, “My father was a reformed Lutheran.”
“Huh,” said Rod. “I guess when you’ve grown up with this stuff the evangelical fire burns low, doesn’t it? But for me, this is first-generation stuff. This is rare. This is meaningful. You understand what I’m saying? This is all new to me. I never set foot in a church until the day I was saved.”
“Rod lived on the street,” Penny whispered in Job’s ear. “He was a prostitute.”
“Ah.” Job didn’t ask, from politeness, but wondered how this worked. Did women drive down the street in cars, looking to buy a night’s pleasure? Had Rod stood on the street, dressed in—what? What did women find sexy? Very short shorts?
“Jesus came to me one night when I was stoned,” said Rod. “I was in a doorway, you know, just having a snooze, and he was suddenly there, all shining and everything. And he was really built. He had, like, these really big muscles. Nothing like the paintings you see of him, all skinny and everything. I mean, he was built. He said, ‘I’ll take care of you.’ And he did. The next day Pastor Jack stopped me on the street and invited me to his revival and I was saved that night. He cleaned me up, got me straightened out and gave me a place to stay.” Rod nodded at Jocelyn. “How about you? What’s your story?”
“Nothing very original,” said Jocelyn. She pulled the yellow scarf from her head and used it to tie her hair into a ponytail. “About a year ago I found out my husband was screwing around and I fell apart. You know, crying all the time. My neighbour, Linda Bergen, you know her? Anyway, she brought over cookies and sat with me and listened to me gripe and cry. She invited me to go to Pastor Divine’s church with her. She’d been so nice, so I went along. Then in church I had a crying fit. Linda said it was a sign Jesus was working on me. After the service, she and one of the deacons sat on either side of me. They got me to say a prayer, to accept Jesus as my saviour. Then all these other people came up and hugged me. And I felt better, like somebody cared about me.”
“Have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit?” said Penny. The look on her face that said, Probably not.
“Yeah,” said Jocelyn. “I spoke in tongues.”
“You feel anything when the Holy Spirit comes on you?” Job asked. “I mean, did things change for you?”
“Yeah, sure,” said Jocelyn. “Kind of. Didn’t things change for you?”
“At first I felt different. But now I don’t feel like I thought I would.” After the vibrancy of that first service where he spoke in tongues, his colours had faded again. He had tried to get the Holy Spirit back during Pastor Divine’s services over the weeks that followed, confessing his sins over and over silently, in prayer, but he couldn’t catch the euphoria, or speak in tongues again, though he’d tried to loosen his tongue in faith as Pastor Divine had suggested. He spoke gibberish, feeling nothing, as he watched others fall into fits on the floor or light up in flames of giggles or go stiff and bob from the waist. The Spirit fell on them easily but left Job cold. He felt as though God was punishing him, withholding from him. He didn’t know what other reason there could be for his emptiness.
“Once you’re baptized in the Holy Spirit you’ve got to be on guard,” said Rod. “Because Satan will really be on the attack now, seeding your mind with doubts.”
Job thought of that past Sunday, when, as Penny lay on the floor pushing out forced laughter, they locked gazes for a moment. “You don’t always feel something either, do you?” said Job, then wished he hadn’t. An unwitting confession. But into it now.
“Feel what?” said Penny.
“The Holy Spirit, when you’re speaking in tongues, or laughing.”
She laughed and glanced at Rod. “I’m not faking it.”
“I sometimes give it a little help,” said Rod. “As Pastor Divine suggested. You know, loosening your tongue in faith.”
“That’s different from faking it,” said Penny. “You’ve got to make yourself receptive to the Holy Spirit. I mean, it’s not like you always feel something right away.”
Job mulled over this, that if Penny didn’t always feel the euphoria and had to try to work up the feeling, then others might be doing the same. Maybe most of them.
Lilith walked down the steps in her sock feet, with two plates of cookies covered in tinfoil, and stepped into her rubber boots at the bottom of the steps. She shrieked, tossed the plates into the air and kicked a boot several yards away from her. A mouse scuttled from the boot, and Lilith ran back up the stairs, slamming the screen door behind her.
Penny jogged over to pick up after Lilith, and Rod followed to help her. Together they took the cookies and plates into the house.
Jocelyn sat on the side of the excavation site, and Job sat with her. “So is Penny your girlfriend?” she asked him.
“No.” He wasn’t sure what was going on between them. He hoped for something, watched for signs of Penny’s intent, but didn’t want to step in too soon after her breakup with Will.
“It felt like there was something going on between you two.”
“She was my friend’s girlfriend.”
“Did this friend die or something?”
“No.” He didn’t try to explain. It was all so embarrassing.
“How about that other woman who was here. In the long skirt.”
“Liv? She’s married.”
“So, you’re not seeing anyone?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe we could get together for a coffee or something sometime. Or maybe supper.” When Job didn’t answer right away, as he weighed his options, Jocelyn threw up her hands and said, “There I go again. My ex always told me I was too pushy.”
“No. Not at all.” From Will’s field, the loud quacks of female ducks and the whispering calls of the drakes, as birds foraging in the swathed grain called to the flock circling overhead.
“Well then, I’m thinking of going to Pastor Divine’s next workshop,” said Jocelyn. “On evangelizing with the Holy Spirit. Maybe I’ll see you there.”
Jacob crunched over the newly gravelled road to the construction site as Pastor Divine drove away down Correction Line Road. “Jack took a real shine to those old wagon wheels,” he said.
Job glanced over to where they had lain. They were gone. “He took them?”
“I offered them to him. He’s going to use them in his garden.”
“But they were mine. I bought them at the Olson auction.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“I was going to put them on the front gate to the farm. I just hadn’t got around to it.” It made him angry, not just because Jacob had given away the wagon wheels without asking him, but because he had given them to Pastor Divine to garner social favour, as if he had to buy the pastor’s respect. It was something Job himself might have done. Had done. He’d emptied his pickle jars to give to Will, just because Will had made an off-handed comment that he liked them. Two years before, after Solverson complained that he was late in getting his harvesting done and had no sons to help, Job volunteered to give him a hand. He drove his own equipment over to Solverson’s, baled and brought in the straw just before the first snow of the season, neglecting his own crop as a consequence. Solverson was right there alongside Steinke at the Out-to-Lunch Café, giving Job the gears for neglecting to get his straw bales in before the snow. Too late, Job had realized Solverson was only complaining as he always did; he would have brought his crop in with or without Job’s help. He didn’t care one way or the other that Job helped him. More than that, he’d thought Job a fool for letting his own field work suffer, though he’d accepted the help readily enough. But Job said nothing more to Jacob about the wagon wheels, just as he’d said nothing to Solverson. What was there to say? The wheels were gone now. There was no getting them back.
“Where’s R
od and Penny?” said Jacob. “We better get this show on the road. The cement truck will be here at two.”
Job slapped dirt off his jeans. “They went into the house. I’ll get them.” Job didn’t bother going inside; he didn’t want to take his boots off. Instead he pulled open the screen door and called, “Penny. Rod. We’re ready to get started.”
Lilith stepped into the hall, wiping her hands on a dishrag. “They went back outside.”
Job turned, scanned the farm, the construction site. “I don’t see them.”
“Penny said something about showing Rod that old cabinet of your grandmother’s that’s stored in the barn.”
The barn door was partly open. Job slid inside and stood a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, and then to let his mind adjust as well. Rod pressed Penny against the back wall of a box stall. Her shirt was pulled up, and his hand was on her exposed breast. Penny’s eyes fluttered open. She saw Job, made a startled squeak like that of a mouse underfoot and pulled herself from the kiss. Rod turned, wiping his mouth, and Penny said, “Job,” and held out her hand. Then she laughed, nervously, as Job turned and fled, with the barn door swinging out after him.
Fourteen
Jacob, Lilith, Job and Ben drove up to Edmonton in the station wagon on a sunny October Saturday. All of them wore shorts and T-shirts, to take advantage of the last days of warm, mosquito-free weather. Earlier that week, over breakfast, Job had explained to Jacob that if he were serious about getting the halfway house to lockup before the weather turned, they should have used these fair days for a work bee, to put up the walls and roof. But here they were driving up to Pastor Divine’s workshop on how to evangelize with the Holy Spirit. “You can’t expect people to turn up for a work bee without any warning,” Jacob had said. “Besides, Pastor Divine’s had this workshop planned for months. And he won’t have another one now until after Christmas.”
The difference between those living in the city and those on the farm, Job supposed. In the city, people planned for things, committed to social engagements a week or two or even months in advance. But on the farm, where almost everything depended on the weather, people were less inclined to make plans or commit to a dinner out. A rainy day was a town day. A sunny day this time of year meant a farmer would take to the field because, any day, winter might arrive. Job knew that’s where he should have been this day, on the combine, harvesting his barley. If he didn’t get to it quickly, he might end up one of those poor sods he sometimes saw out combining in snow, guiltily. Farmers in the area would eye his field as they drove by and later, over coffee in their kitchens or in the Out-to-Lunch Café, speculate that perhaps Job had had some equipment breakdown. Or they’d say the things that Job himself had said of others, that he should get the lead out of his pants, that he was sloppy in his field work or just plain lazy “If we’re not going to work on the building this weekend, then I should be out in the field,” he’d said to Jacob that morning.
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