"So do I. At least, I've always believed that there is a Supreme Being, and that God is loving, compassionate, powerful, all-knowing. But that's not quite what I'm asking. I guess I'm looking for something more specific, more immediate."
Carlene took another sip of her drink. "Where is all this coming from?"
"I suppose it's coming out of my own need," Diedre admitted reluctantly. "All my adult life—an admittedly short time—I've regarded myself as a capable, resourceful, relatively intelligent person who could handle pretty much whatever came along."
"I'd say that's a fair assessment."
"When Mama got sick, I felt helpless, but I didn't feel angry with God. Cancer is just one of those things that happens to people. I prayed for her healing, of course, but I didn't blame God when she didn't get well. I accepted it as part of the natural course of life and death. But ever since her funeral—"
She paused and shrugged. Carlene waited, motioning for her to continue.
"Well, I feel as if I've been going around in circles," Diedre said after a minute. "Right before she died, Mama told me to search out my own truth, but not to expect it to be what I thought it would be. And that's what I'm trying to do, except that I've only got bits and pieces of it, like a jigsaw puzzle with whole chunks of the picture missing and no box cover to go on. I don't know where to find the missing pieces, don't even know what the finished picture is supposed to look like."
"And just how does your question about God play into this?" Carlene leaned forward and rested her elbows on the porch rail, gazing off into the distance.
"I need—I don't know, something. Insight. Wisdom. Direction. Hope, maybe. I need to feel as if I'm not alone in this, that Someone who knows more about it than I do is with me, watching over me, giving me guidance along the way. I've attended church most of my life, but I'm still not sure how God works, or even if God does get involved in people's lives. That's why I asked you what you believe about God. I'm not sure if I'd recognize divine guidance if it came up and bit me on the leg."
Carlene stifled a laugh. "Maybe you don't need to recognize it. Maybe you just need to listen to it."
"How do I do that?"
Carlene considered this question for a moment. Then she cocked her head to one side and said, "Follow your heart."
"That's it? That's your great offering of wisdom?"
"Hey, you asked me what I believe about God. Well, here it is: I believe God knows our hearts, knows the deepest desires and needs of our souls. I don't accept the idea that God bulldozes into our lives without being invited, but I also think we can be unaware that we've issued the invitation."
"How do you mean?"
Carlene thought for a minute. "I guess just that we don't always have to get on our knees and compose some intentional kind of prayer. God sees beyond the walls we erect around our souls, walls of self-protection or self-sufficiency."
"You mean that God hears when our hearts call out, even if the cry is too faint for human ears?" Diedre asked.
"Exactly," Carlene nodded. "It's the universal, quintessential prayer: Help."
"I'm not very accustomed to asking for help."
"You've already asked. You've admitted you need it."
Diedre thought about that for a minute. "So what kind of response should I expect?"
"Who knows?" Carlene shrugged. "Maybe all the things you've enumerated: wisdom, direction, the missing puzzle pieces. Maybe just the strength to endure whatever the future holds." She ruffled a hand through her hair and looked into Diedre's eyes. "When we were in college, we pretty much thought we understood everything about everything, didn't we?"
Diedre laughed. "Did we? Well, we were wrong—in a big way."
"Yeah," Carlene said. "I guess we grew up and found out how little we can really be sure about. But of one thing I am very, very certain: you can't go back. You have to keep going forward. And for me, faith in God means that I don't have all my questions answered, and yet I still believe."
"Like Crazy Horse," Diedre mused.
"Crazy Horse?" Carlene repeated. "You mean the big guy in the rock?"
"Right. I had a very powerful response to being at the Crazy Horse monument today," Diedre said. "I felt like I was there in the mountain with him, half-trapped in the granite, straining forward, trying to escape the imprisonment of the rock, yet uncertain whether I really wanted to get out or not."
"Freedom is risky, that's for sure." Carlene frowned and bit her lower lip. "But honestly, what choice do you have? You've already been confronted with at least part of the truth. You can't go back to being Daddy's girl. I know you, Diedre; I can't imagine you'd want to go on being deluded. It's scary and it's costly and things are very confusing right now, but I can't help believing that when you get to the end of all this, the payoff will be worth the price."
"I guess you're right. Something inside me keeps pushing me on, insisting that I can't stay in the past, that I have to build the future on the truth rather than on a lie."
"Don't you think you'll be glad you did?"
Diedre heaved a sigh. "Maybe. But it sure felt safer inside the mountain."
18
The Shepherd and the Lamb
KITSAP COUNTY, WASHINGTON
EARLY MAY
In the past few weeks, ever since she had begun meeting with the Reverend Doctor Susan Quentin, Amber had vacillated between hope and despair. On her best days, she found herself looking forward to the challenge and progress that counseling could bring—and, of course, to some distant point in the unknown future when she would, once and for all, be free from the black cloud that cast a shadow over all her relationships, present and past. On her worst days, she doubted that the sun would ever shine again.
Prodded on by Meg's gentle encouragement, she had repaired the statue of the Two Sisters, and now it sat on a shelf next to her sculpting table. At the place where the girls' hands joined, you could still see a faint line in the clay, a hairline scar.
But nothing was ever perfect, was it? No matter how idyllic life seemed, there was always a dark underbelly, a hidden place, a secret. Something families didn't talk about in public—or even in private.
Amber had learned long ago that perfection was not an option. You could try to keep them quiet, but the skeletons in the closet insisted on rattling about and making their presence known. Most things got fractured in the end, and the only thing you could do about it was try to effect a competent repair job.
That's what she was endeavoring to do now, Amber mused—to repair her life, the same way she had put the pieces of the ruined statue back together again. The work was agonizing, and there would always be scars, evidences of the damage. But the only other option was to throw the whole thing away and forget about it.
Just as her father had attempted to do with her so long ago.
She shifted her gaze from the Two Sisters statue back to the current work in progress. This was the sculpture she would take with her to her next session with Father Susan, the one that revealed, at least in part, the source of the pain and anger that overwhelmed her.
She was almost finished, and she could barely stand to look at it. Whenever she touched the cool, pliable clay, she fought against the temptation to smash the figure into nothingness. Every time her eyes rested on that face, a flame rose up in her belly that felt as if it might consume her.
What doesn't kill you makes you strong, she reminded herself, and in truth, the fire of her rage seemed to be having a purifying, cleansing effect. In years gone by she had tried to forget, to run away, to put the past behind her. But it hadn't stayed back there; it never did. It kept following her, stalking her, waiting for her to let down her guard.
Just as in the dream that came again last night—the one where she was running, panting, falling, trying to escape. And following her, up the mountains and through the woods—what? A shrouded form, a figure whose face she could not make out.
And yet, instinctively, she knew the identity of her
pursuer. Knew that if she stayed asleep long enough, one of these nights the beast that shadowed her would overtake her. She would hear its footsteps on her heels, feel its hot breath on her neck, and turn in terror to see—
Herself.
It was time to stop running and let the beast catch up.
Susan Quentin sat in her office, her chin propped on her fingers—preparing herself, praying, thinking. Thinking about Amber Chaney.
The woman had so much going for her. She was wise and witty, intelligent and intensely creative. Under different circumstances, exactly the kind of person Susan would choose as a friend and confidante.
But they couldn't be friends. At least not yet.
That was the problem with being a parish pastor—and a counselor. You had to keep a professional distance, to care and yet remain objective. She loved the work, loved the challenge of helping people sort through their problems and come to a resolution. Loved the intellectual and spiritual stimulation of opening people's minds to new ways of perceiving and relating to God. It was a calling that made her feel complete, at one with God and with herself.
But sometimes it could be isolating, too. Isolating and exhausting. Even when she wasn't technically working—meeting with clients or parishioners, preparing worship services, visiting hospitals and nursing homes, planning weddings and funerals—her mind and heart were never far away from the flock.
The flock. It was still an apt image, Susan thought, even if it was two thousand years removed from its social setting. In Jesus' day, a shepherd lived with the sheep, night and day. A shepherd stayed out in the fields, eating on the run, sleeping on the ground. Keeping watch for predators, leading the sheep to fresh water and good pasture, midwifing at lambing time and burying the bones of the old ones when they died.
And that was exactly what she did. She was a shepherd. A pastor.
Although pastor wasn't the preferred title among modern Episcopalians—it was too intimate, she suspected, too personal—she preferred it immeasurably to priest, and probably for the same reasons. Referring to herself as pastor made her feel more connected, somehow. Still, she imagined that even those good shepherds Christ talked about, the ones who had lent their name to her present calling, were no doubt solitary, isolated individuals with few friends except among other shepherds.
Susan could just see it—all those filthy, smelly sheepherders from the hills of Judea congregating at the Nazareth Rotary Club once a month for the Shepherd's Association luncheon. Trekking to Jerusalem every year for the National Council of Shepherds Annual Meeting. And then going back to their respective lonely hillsides to carry on.
Things hadn't changed much in the past two millennia.
So here she was, the Reverend Doctor Susan Quentin, parish priest in a community where everyone recognized her face, greeted her by name on the street, and welcomed her with the place of honor whenever she walked through the door. Everybody loved her, but nobody really knew her.
She had read once about an old Jewish rabbi, an acclaimed teacher with a large following of young and eager pupils. One of his students, overcome with wonder at his mentor's wisdom, cried out, "I love you, my master!"
The rabbi thought about this for a moment, and then responded, "How can you claim to love me if you do not know what makes me weep?"
None of Susan Quentin's flock knew that she rarely cried when she was sad, but couldn't hold back the tears when touched by some poignant sweetness. They weren't aware that she despised slapstick but loved satire. They had no idea that she planned her daily schedule around the airing of Jeopardy, or that she preferred her steak rare, or that she hated big parties but loved a cutthroat foursome of Trivial Pursuit.
Still, she found satisfaction in her work, even if it came with a distance. And her work with Amber had been rewarding. Amber had done a lot of the hard work already. Most of her recovery had already been accomplished years ago, and despite her current depression and anger, she was much more emotionally healthy than she gave herself credit for. Remarkably healthy, considering what she had been through. They were just tying up loose ends now.
Susan was fairly certain she understood the secrets her client wasn't willing to talk about yet—at least not with her counselor. The recent setbacks were not a result of repressed memories, some hidden truth Amber did not know about herself. She knew, all right. She just needed to tell the story in her own time, in her own way. She needed to find forgiveness. Rest. A place of peace in her own soul.
And much to Susan's surprise, she was beginning to look for it. For all her protests against a God who could not be trusted, Amber had actually started coming to church with Meg and Twojoe. She had admitted that parts of the worship service were becoming meaningful to her, that she might consider giving this faith thing another try.
After that first session, Susan hadn't talked to Amber again about God. But as had been her experience in the past, the Almighty seemed to be working in the background entirely without her help. When Amber finally did come to peace with herself, it wouldn't happen because some counselor-priest had coerced her into swallowing religion whole. It would be the result of her own search for truth, a combination of inner reconciliation and spiritual insight.
And it didn't matter one bit whether counseling or faith turned out to be the primary catalyst for Amber Chaney's emotional healing. Therapy and spirituality were both in God's hands.
All Susan Quentin could do was listen and pray.
On the edge of her desk lay a worn, dog-eared copy of The Book of Common Prayer, bound in burgundy leather. Susan picked it up and turned to the Order for Compline, prayers for the end of the day. This was her favorite of the daily offices, with its eloquent prayers for protection during the hours of the night. She had long been convinced that those words applied not just to physical darkness, but to the dark night of the soul as well.
Her eyes lingered on the evening Collect. She knew it by heart, but her gaze touched down lightly on the familiar, comforting supplication,and she smiled. As she had done so often in the past, she would pray again for all whose hearts languished in the darkness: for clients who labored uphill toward mental and emotional health, for parishioners who groped toward God. For all who found themselves enervated by the sheer effort of living.
Including herself.
Including, and especially, Amber Chaney.
"Be present, 0 merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
At the appointed hour, Amber Chaney paused outside Susan's office. The door stood ajar a couple of inches, and Amber pushed it open with one shoulder and set her burden down on the desk. "Well, here it is, raw and unfired," she said, and with a little flourish removed the wet towel that covered the still-damp clay.
Susan sat for a few moments in silence, considering Amber's work. Clearly, the woman had taken seriously the exhortation to let her feelings come out in her sculpture, not to hold back. It was a magnificent piece, full of dark power and subtle emotional clues.
Rendered in a charcoal-colored clay, almost black, the sculpture depicted an enormous easy chair occupied by a man with a little girl in his lap. On the surface it looked as if this might be the loving embrace of an adoring father or a doting uncle, his arms wrapped around the girl in an attitude of devotion. But the smile on his face was devoid of any real compassion, his eyes seemed hollow and empty, and his hands, clasped around the child, knotted into fists at her waist. As if she were trying to break free from his grip, the girl's tiny fingernails dug into his forearms, her wiry little body taut and unyielding, tense and trapped.
Susan could feel Amber's eyes scrutinizing her as she surveyed the sculpture. "Interesting," she said at last.
"Interesting?" Amber let out a enormous laugh and dropped into the leather easy chair. "Come on, Reverend Doctor, you can do better than that. I opened a vein for this pi
ece. I nearly destroyed it twice, and it just as nearly destroyed me. And all you can say is, 'Interesting'?"
Susan grinned, leaned back in her chair, and regarded Amber. "That's what a shrink is supposed to say. It's in all the books." She slipped a fresh cassette into the tape recorder and pushed the red button. "Shall we talk about it?"
"What's to talk about? It's all there." Amber edged forward. "What do you see?"
Susan watched Amber's face carefully as she spoke. "I see a representation of a grown man—a father, perhaps, or an uncle, someone close—and the child he supposedly adores. Everything seems fine and loving and normal, until you look harder, and then you see that the man has his little girl trapped against her will. He pretends to be holding her, but he actually has her captured by his superior strength. She's trying to get away from him, but she isn't powerful enough."
The grin faded, and a shadow passed over Amber's countenance. "Very good, Doctor," she whispered. "Meg was right. You are the best."
"You're doing the work here," Susan corrected. "I'm just sitting back and watching."
"So how come I'm paying you ninety bucks an hour?" Amber quipped. Then she shrugged. "Oh, that's right; I'm not paying you, am I?"
Susan laughed. "If you are, somebody else is getting our money." She let the silence settle between them and then said quietly, "Tell me about the men in your life."
"You know about my father; I've already told you. The great man, loved and honored by all who know him. The man who threw his daughter away like last week's garbage."
"Anyone else?"
"Yes. Uncle Jack. He wasn't really my uncle—he was my father's attorney, and a close friend of the family. He worshiped my mother; I always thought he was secretly in love with her. And he treated me like his own daughter." She grimaced. "Yes, exactly like his daughter. The same way Daddy treated me, at least in the end. He helped my father put me away."
"So he betrayed you, too."
Amber hesitated for a moment. "Everyone did."
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