Falling for Grace

by Robert Farrell Smith

  The entire congregation seemed to lean in, waiting for Grace’s answer. Sister Morris decreased the volume of her prelude music.

  “I’ll be going to school here for a semester,” Grace informed him.

  “How nice,” Brother O’Shawn smiled, scratching his forehead. “So where will you be staying while you are here?”

  All around us, ears perked up.

  “I mean, certainly you’re not residing at the Williams’ home.”

  “Certainly not,” Grace smiled.

  “She’s staying with our neighbor Wendy,” I answered.

  “The nonmember?” Brother O’Shawn said, leaning closer and allowing us to see that his white shirt was tinted pink, evidence of his laundry-challenged household.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So you met Grace on your mission?” he asked, as if I were on trial.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, the circumstances are not entirely appropriate, but we welcome you here anyway,” he said, looking directly at Grace and speaking to her as if he were bestowing some great blessing. “Now, would you two classify yourselves as a ‘couple?’” he asked, making quotation marks in the air, “or just ‘good friends?’” again with the fingers curling like bunny ears.

  “Somewhere in the middle,” I answered.

  “Be careful or that fence might give you splinters.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “The heavens don’t like fence-sitters. I’m speaking figuratively, of course.”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  Brother O’Shawn’s cell phone rang. He snapped it open as if he had watched far too many Star Trek episodes. “Talk to me,” he said. Then, “Oh, it’s you, dear . . .”

  I looked back at Sister O’Shawn. She was six rows back with her own cellular device clutched to her ear. I could almost hear her talking into it from where I stood. Brother O’Shawn “Okayed,” and “Rogered,” and then signed off, flipping his phone together like a phaser and hooking it to his belt.

  “Well, I need to return to my family,” he said, as if we were just begging him to stay. Then, looking at Grace and remembering to raise his voice, he added, “It’s nice to meet you . . . uh . . .”

  “Grace. Grace Heck.”

  “Oh,” he said. “In our home heck is a sloppy word.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Grace replied.

  Brother O’Shawn smiled awkwardly and stumbled off. Apparently, the congregation had eavesdropped on enough of our conversation to restimulate their own, because they all turned back to their neighbors and began whispering again. Sister Morris picked up the volume on the organ, and Bishop Leen stood up to walk toward the pulpit. I looked over at Leonard Vastly. He had scooted about as far away from us as possible. I spotted my mother and sister coming in the far chapel doors.

  The whispering spiked as others noticed them too.

  Mom looked as if she wanted to pull her scarf up over her head to shield herself from recognition. It was as if she were a criminal being whisked into the courthouse; as if my bringing Grace back from Tennessee had besmirched her good name.

  My inactive father had worked long and hard to bring our family to a position of respect within the community. Both he and my mother had hoped my mission would turn me into a bilingual, well-polished, go-getting, ladder-climbing, shiny, young Republican. Instead I had gone native. I had come home with a slight accent and a local girlfriend.

  Horror of horrors.

  Dad was not happy. And if Dad was not happy, then Mom was red-ring-around-the-eyes miserable.

  My mother had never felt that she lived up to the image my father’s position demanded. She tried, mind you, but it was an impossible goal. So she filled the supposed gaps by trying to raise children that Dad could feel completely smug about. Now her oldest boy, the chip off the old block, had ruined things for her. They had been so happy about my premission dating. Lucy Fall would have been the ideal daughter-in-law for them—blond, tan, and oozing with better-than-thou. Now this. Apparently, Grace just didn’t measure up.

  The prelude music stopped and Bishop Leen tapped the microphone. Nelson Leen had been the bishop for six years. He was a short, light-skinned man with a long neck and thinning blond hair. His skin was so fair, in fact, it was almost translucent. From anywhere beyond the fifteenth row of the chapel, his features started to fade. He liked to say he was proud of the Norwegian blood coursing through his veins, and that if you looked real hard, you could see it.

  Bishop Leen owned a successful landscaping company called “Leen’s Lawns.” Consequently, all of his gospel analogies had to do with landscaping: “We must combat the weeds of Satan,” or “Let us roll down the lush lawns of truth.” He was passionate about the parable of the olive tree in Jacob, chapter 5.

  He started the meeting with a few words of welcome, and then announced that due to ward conference the previous week and Noel Miller’s mission farewell the week before, our ward was having its fast and testimony meeting a couple of weeks late.

  Today.

  My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t believe it. Why hadn’t my mother warned me? Sure, we weren’t on the best of terms, but she owed it to the ward to let me know. You see, to say that Mormons don’t condone gambling wouldn’t actually be completely true in Southdale. Sure, we frowned upon slots and roulette like everyone else—visiting Vegas for the buffets and amusement parks alone. But I’d wager my last copper penny that there wasn’t an active member of the Thicktwig Ward who didn’t feel fast and testimony meeting was a proverbial roll of the dice.

  One month we might be edified past the point of realizing that we were sitting in a pew, surrounded by people who knew altogether way too much about us. Then, the next month, it took every ounce of willpower to keep from bolting from the room to flee the droning boredom. Standard fare, I realize, but in our ward the stakes were much higher, thanks to Brother Rothburn.

  There was an unwritten rule in the Thicktwig Ward: no visitors or investigators on fast Sunday. If someone unknown to Brother Rothburn showed up, he always took it upon himself to stand. He always bore powerful testimony of Joseph Smith, but after that his thoughts would start to wander—and I mean wander, like a picnic napkin on a windy day.

  I had just broken that unwritten rule by bringing Grace.

  Pleading ignorance would get me nowhere. Had I known that today would be fast and testimony meeting, Grace and I would have attended another ward in town. But it was too late for that. I considered taking off my coat and throwing it over Grace’s head but figured she wouldn’t go for that. I looked around for Brother Rothburn and spotted him on the third row. He was sitting at the end of the pew, near the aisle, next to the Cummings family. Poor Sister Cummings was aware of the problem. She was taking evasive action. She appeared to be asking him questions about the tie he was wearing to keep him from looking around.

  Everyone sitting anywhere between where Brother Rothburn was and where Grace and I were suddenly sat up taller, hoping to block his view if he were to start scanning the congregation. I put my arm around Grace and tried to push her down.

  “Trust,” she protested, “what are you doing?”

  “Believe me, it’s for the best . . .”

  We sang the opening songs and sat nervously through the ward business. I felt some peace during the sacrament when I could pray and all heads were bowed, but before I knew it, Bishop Leen was back at the pulpit inviting one and all to share the microphone.

  Sister Johnson was the first member up. Once again she had drawn her eyebrows in a little thick. She no longer had real ones thanks to an accident at a ward picnic about five years ago. You see, Sister Johnson wore extremely thick glasses. Her vision without them was as poor as a bat’s in bright daylight. Well, at the picnic she fell asleep in her lawn chair. About ten minutes into her nap, her large lenses caught the sun and magnified its rays, setting both her eyebrows aflame. She woke up fast enough and ran around screaming before she found a punch cool
er to dunk her head into. Her life was spared, but it was too late to save her brows. Now she had to draw them in. But apparently, she had to take her glasses off to do it. They never looked anywhere near normal.

  Sister Johnson told a nice story about a nephew of hers who had made some bad decisions in life. He ended up marrying a girl that couldn’t cope with motherhood. She used it all as some sort of analogy for the life of the Savior, but it seemed so out of place.

  Next up to the pulpit was Janet Laramie. Sister Laramie was a polished woman. She lived her life in peach-colored suits and big self-adjusting sunglasses. Her mouth constantly smacked from the thick coat of glossy lipstick that covered her thin lips. She always held her left hand up as if she were continually hailing a waiter or a staff person of some kind. Sister Laramie owned two small poodles, Minty and Shoo-nu, and was often out of town attending dog shows. She had blond hair that was so poofy that it was perfectly round. It created a halo-like effect with the choir lights behind her. I had always liked Sister Laramie, but I began to wonder if she felt the same.

  “Now, I’m not up here to make friends,” she said, looking directly at me. “But I felt impressed to stand before you all and relate a story.”

  Grace looked over at me with concern.

  “All of you here know the Williams boy, Trust.”

  There was a silent gasp from the congregation. Speaking my name directly could prompt Brother Rothburn to turn around and take a gander, causing him to spot Grace.

  He began turning his head to look our way. A desperate Sister Cummings handed him one of her toddlers to distract him.

  It worked! Brother Rothburn took Isaac Cummings on his knee and began whispering a story into his ear.

  Poor kid, I thought. Sacrificed for the cause.

  “Well,” Sister Laramie continued, “I taught Trust in Sunday School for two years, and I know that we must have covered some lesson concerning the importance of honoring your parents.” She stopped to pull a Kleenex from the box next to the microphone. She lifted her glasses and wiped at the small eyes on her taut face. She smacked her lips and sniffed directly into the microphone. “I want to add my testimony of the great job that Sister Marilyn Williams is doing to keep her family active and strong. I hope we can all learn from her sterling example. I also hope that it isn’t too late for her children to come around.”

  I didn’t hear the last part of Sister Laramie’s testimony due to the fact that Leonard Vastly had decided to make a move for the pulpit. He stepped on Grace’s and my toes as he tried to slip past us out of the pew. He accidentally elbowed the head of Sister Barns who was sitting right in front of us. She turned around and gave me a dirty look. I pointed at Leonard, but she just turned away.

  We should have stayed away today. We should have gone to another stake, another state for that matter—maybe even have tried out a different religion. I knew that my mother wasn’t happy about my dating a girl I had met on my mission. I imagine that there were those who couldn’t resist speculating on how Grace and I had grown close when I was a missionary and supposedly unaware of the opposite sex. At first I didn’t really care what others might think or say, but it was getting old. I had done nothing wrong. We had done nothing wrong. Why couldn’t anyone see what a great thing Grace was?

  Then Brother Vastly walked up to the pulpit. He talked for ten minutes about being physically prepared for the Second Coming. He bragged about his closets full of beans and Spam, and warned us all that he had also piled away ammo and wasn’t afraid to use it on anyone who tried to take away his stuff.

  He witnessed to the fact that in his opinion, all prophecy—except that moon turning to blood one, unless you counted last weekend’s spectacular sunset—had been fulfilled and that at the first of next year the angels of retribution spoken of in Revelation would come to burn the wicked.

  He spoke of a man named Noah Taylor, a visionary guru of emergency preparedness, a veritable fountain of lamp oil for foolish virgins—allegorically speaking, of course. He thanked the Thicktwig Ward Relief Society for bringing Brother Taylor to town to help us all get ready. He also reminded the ward to keep praying for rain. Southdale had been going through a horrible drought over the past year, and if God didn’t bless them with some moisture soon, Brother Vastly feared for the safety of his topsoil.

  Leonard Vastly was our resident mis-understood. He lived alone in a long single-wide trailer down by Southdale Falls. He was short, spongy, and had big bushy eyebrows. He wasn’t exactly heavy, but he was one of those people who refused to let go of his old wardrobe even though he had grown a couple of sizes from when he was younger. Everything he wore was tight—uncomfortably tight—both for him and for us. I felt pity for his belts and buttons.

  Brother Vastly had not always been a Saint. He had joined the Church years ago after he had broken into someone’s car and stolen what looked like a purse, but turned out to be a leather tote with scriptures inside. After his initial anger at being cheated out of a purse, he read the Book of Mormon and joined the Church. He was the fabled convert that Church members always hoped would be the result of their stolen Mormon goods. He blamed his criminal past on the fact that his brother used to put straight mayonnaise in his bottle when he was a kid—all that egg had made him rambunctious and deviant.

  I had always kind of liked Brother Vastly, despite his many annoyances. He was such an interesting person to look at and listen to. His lessons were off the wall, his ideas were absurd, and his insights were consistently way right of center and unbelievable. He gave our ward color and comical confusion.

  After Brother Vastly finished speaking, he came and sat down two benches in front of us. He must have sensed conspiracy in the presence of Grace.

  Lonora Leen, the bishop’s wife, got up and bore her testimony. It was like a peaceful intermission during a confusing play. She simply testified to the fact that the Lord had helped her through each day. There was no mention of disobedient children or ill-advised marriages, just gratitude and answers to prayer.

  For a few moments after her no one got up. Tension grew thick as faces started to wander. The Saints between us and Brother Rothburn sat up again in their seats and Sister Cummings started knocking her kids’ books on the floor and asking Brother Rothburn if he’d mind picking them up.

  A chair-sitter coughed. Sister Lewis psyched us all out by standing up only to take one of her twins out to the foyer. Someone had to break the suspense. I thought about getting up and bearing my testimony, but judging by Grace’s reception so far, I wasn’t sure how it would go over.

  Someone caught my eye, moving up the aisle to the front.

  My relief was short-lived.

  It was my mother, Marilyn. She was already moving up the platform stairs. Mom never bore her testimony—I was in for it now. She must have felt a great burning about something to actually get up the nerve.

  Mom patted her set blond hair on the sides and smiled weakly. She was wearing a lime green dress with a lace doily collar. She seemed ill at ease, but that wasn’t surprising—Mom dreaded public speaking. She had refused to speak at my farewell, let alone my homecoming. It was stage fright. She liked the people in the Thicktwig Ward fine, she just didn’t like the idea of talking in front of them.

  My mother wore glasses and had a small button nose. She smiled a lot, but it never looked easy for her to do. She had been a good mother, a little more emotionally timid than I felt I needed at times, but kind and concerned about her children.

  My mother bore her testimony, sounding like she had lost a child to war. She thanked the ward for their support. She asked them all to pray for her. It was heartfelt. She worked her way around the story of the prodigal son, mixing up important aspects of the story with the tale of David and Goliath. The part where the prodigal son sold his slingshot for food was particularly interesting. At the end she paused, as if she feared she had gone too far. Changing the subject, she thanked Noah Taylor for his insightful and timely instruction at homemaki
ng meeting last week, and challenged the ward to give him their full support. “December seventeenth is just around the corner,” she added in strangely cheery tones. “I’d hate to be caught short.”

  “Who’s this Noah Taylor?” Grace whispered. “And what happens on the seventeenth?”

  “I have no idea,” I replied.

  Mom paused awkwardly again, suddenly said “Amen,” and sat herself down. Though I was glad she was through, it occurred to me that she had ended at the worst possible moment. If she could have gone on for just a few more minutes then time would have been up and the bishop could have closed the meeting. Now, however, there was still a five-minute window for Brother Rothburn to work his magic.

  I know it was dumb to be so bothered by Brother Rothburn and his never-ending oratory style, but no one could truly understand unless they had actually suffered through it. Brother Rothburn’s nickname was Brother “Oh, that reminds me.” After almost every sentence he would make some odd connection and go off on some completely unrelated subject. Unfortunately for all of us, he always went off on the same unrelated subjects. He rarely said anything new. In fact, I’m certain that, if pressed, a large portion of our ward could recite much of his testimony by heart. For my entire life he had stood up whenever there was a visitor, and gone on and on about everything from Church history to modern-day appliances. He would tell how the golden plates were translated. How the Saints came west. How when he was in the army, his friend Ryan Hinkle was saved from a bullet by a Book of Mormon in his breast pocket. Of course it always took him two minutes to recall Ryan’s name. It was something to watch—everyone biting their tongues, dying to shout “Hinkle! Hinkle! Okay? His name was Hinkle!” though no one ever did, it being sacrament meeting and all.

  The big hand on the chapel clock moved a minute. Still no one moved. I watched Brother Rothburn notice that there was dead air in the building. He looked at the clock, then at his watch. His head began turning my way. I pushed Grace down as far as I could. Sister Cummings tugged hard on Brother Rothburn’s sleeve. He paid her no mind. He was going to take a look around, even if it killed us.