by Nancy Rue
“Yeah.” He shifted in his seat.
I scraped back my chair and swallowed down the emotional lump in my throat. “If anyone asks, I’ll tell them you didn’t deserve what I did to you.”
Before he could answer, I wove among the tables and out to my daughter.
CHAPTER THIRTY - EIGHT
The air was misty the day of the board meeting, which seemed fitting. Sunshine wouldn’t have worked for the uncertainty that shrouded the school as I made my way from the car up the hill toward the admin building.
I stopped at the top and looked down on the campus. The last of the day’s protestors, lounging on the chapel steps in Northface, their signs dripping at their sides. People under a canopy of umbrellas moving into Huntington, shoulders nudged together in concerned conversation. I could see it all at once, and I knew what it meant: if I didn’t go forward with the story I had spent all night receiving from the God-whisper, the struggle for truth through doubt would disappear.
And part of me would vanish with it.
Hanging the bag of rocks I’d collected from our brook over my shoulder, I picked my way down and went in through the back door. This might be the last time I climbed through that old stairwell with its battered couches and student clutter.
The board members were gathered at the front of the conference room, all looking decidedly Washingtonian at the front in their suits and polished hair. The place was swollen with people, and I stopped in the doorway to look for one with an unmistakable Chia-pet do.
Fletcher Basset waved covertly to me from the corner where he stood, a wireless earpiece in one ear and a pencil tucked behind the other. I nodded to him. Calling him to alert him to what I was going to do and to urge him to fill the place had been the source of much floor-pacing in the middle of the night, but I decided the light this might shine on the public debate was worth having to consort with a little weasel.
He looked less like a rodent than a concerned citizen at the moment, though. His eyes rested on Ethan Kaye, who sat still and distinguished on the front row next to Andy Callahan, right in front of the pompous St. Clair and Estes—and he covered my friend in unexpected compassion.
I marched myself up to Peter Lamb, the round, black-bearded chairman of the board of trustees, and put out my hand.
“Demitria Costanas,” I said.
He seemed taken aback, which gave me a chance to hurry on. “I understand it’s in the by-laws that anyone wanting to speak on behalf of a person who is up for dismissal is allowed to do so.”
“So, I take it you’d like to speak,” he said.
I’d never noticed the hint of a speech impediment, which made him sound less than chairmanlike. At the moment, I appreciated that.
“I do have something to say,” I said. “As early in the agenda as possible.”
“There is only one item on the agenda,” Lamb said. “We’ll call on you as soon as the position evaluation regarding Dr. Kaye is read.”
I wanted to hand him a stone to throw while he was reading, but I just leaned against the far right wall, since there were no seats left. Fletcher had outdone himself. He’d filled the place, and there were still more neck-craners in the doorway, practically bulging the frame.
Peter Lamb mumbled the meeting to order, and people poked each other until all was quiet.
Lisping his way through, Lamb regaled us with “details” of Ethan’s ministry to the college that made me want to chunk the whole bag of rocks over his head. The only thing holding me back was the uncomfortable scarlet his face turned as he went on about Ethan’s creeping liberalism and the unrest it had caused among the students. How Ethan was not holding the line on traditional moral values, and how the consequences of that were becoming evident in the way students were expressing their disbelief in class. How the instances of pregnancy, drug use, and cheating were increasing as the truth was diluted.
I felt my eyes roll so far back in my head it would have made Jayne proud when he read that, due to the situations that had occurred under Ethan Kaye’s watch, he must be held accountable for the failures in morality on campus and be dismissed from his position as president.
Half the room clapped when he finished. The other half joined in a low growl. The whole thing had so obviously been written by Kevin St. Clair. The only thing missing were the blowfish lips.
Peter Lamb held up a hand and bawled over the vocal chaos, “Excuse me—ladies and gentlemen. There is someone who would like to speak on Dr. Kaye’s behalf. And then we will hear from others—” He looked anxiously at the second row. “On both sides of the issue.”
As I elbowed my way through the standing rows of folks in front of me, the first real hush of the day fell over the crowd. If I hadn’t known already that most people had put two and two together and come up with my affair, I was sure of it now. I thought of Rich, so worried about exposure that had long ago stripped our life naked before the world.
Peter nodded to me, his face still a bilious red above the beard, and muttered something about keeping it brief.
I leaned close to him. “It will take as long as it takes,” I said in his ear. “So you might as well sit down.”
By then the crowd was stirring. They hushed when I plunked the bag of rocks on the desk, opened it, and took them out to display them, one in front of each board member. The rest, all but the one I left in the bag, I piled at one corner. With the last one set on top, I turned to the now wide-eyed audience.
Only a few faces stuck out clearly from the mass. Wyatt Estes, jowls drooping on either side of his square mouth. Ethan, with the permanent vertical line between his eyebrows etched in deep, concerned surprise into his ruddy skin. Fletcher, nodding at me. And, of course, Kevin St. Clair. His baggy eyes grew smaller in proportion to the swell of his lips.
I drew in a breath. I was a teacher—and this was the most important lesson I would ever give.
“As this is a Christian college,” I said, “I’m sure you’re all familiar with the story of the woman caught in an act of adultery, as told in the Gospel of John.” I pointed my eyes at Kevin St. Clair. “That’s John 8, verses one through eleven, in case any of you brought your Bibles.”
My eyes went to Ethan, who was shaking his head at me.
You have to do this, Demi.
“If you’ll recall, John tells us that a group of teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought the woman in, having caught her red— well, handed. They reminded Jesus what the Law of Moses commanded was to happen to such women. She was to be stoned. They said to Jesus, ‘Now, what do you say?’”
I turned to the stones on the board table and heard some uneasy shifting in seats.
“What we we often overlook in this passage is verse 6: ‘They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.’” I swept my eyes over St. Clair and Estes. “On February 27 of this year, Dr. Ethan Kaye was presented with a similar dilemma. I was summoned before him—having been caught in the arms of a man who was not my husband, on the very night I had finally come to my senses and determined to end the affair.”
Someone, a woman, gasped. The rest were silent.
“Wyatt Estes, who as you know gives a sizable sum of money annually to Covenant Christian College, and whose family’s endowment provides a number of essential programs, placed before Dr. Kaye a series of photographs of me and my lover—former CCC professor Dr. Zachary Archer.”
The group in the doorway tangled its voices together until Peter Lamb said, “Quiet, please.”
“Dr. Kevin St. Clair was with Mr. Estes, and together they basically put the same question to Dr. Kaye that the Pharisees posed to Jesus. ‘The laws of this college say that such behavior is contemptible and must be punished; now, what do you say, Dr. Kaye?’”
I strolled to the end of the table and rested my hand on the pile of stones. My heart pounded, urging me on. “Now, Ethan Kaye is not Jesus Christ, but as a true follower of our Lord and a man who tries to emulate the Savior, Dr.
Kaye showed compassion to me, a sinner. I sinned, and I hurt not only my husband and my children to a degree that may never be fully healed, but this college as well. Yet Ethan Kaye forgave me.”
My gaze went to Estes and St. Clair, stiff as a pair of iron bookends, holding up their self-righteousness.
“But Wyatt Estes and Dr. St. Clair, like the Pharisees in the story, were uncompromising in their treatment not only of me, a proven sinner, but of Dr. Kaye, whom they accused of establishing an atmosphere here on campus that condoned behavior like mine. They put as much of the blame for my sin on him as they did on me. In fact—”
I turned to the board. “They were ready to stone Dr. Kaye, metaphorically speaking. They asked for his resignation—which had nothing to do with my committing adultery any more than the Pharisees’ threat to stone that woman had anything to do with her sin. It was Jesus the Pharisees were after, and in this case, Mr. Estes and Dr. St. Clair were hell-bent for Dr. Kaye. Yes, what I did was wrong, and I will pay for it for the rest of my life. But they merely used me as a wedge between Dr. Kaye’s pledge to uphold the moral code of this school and his vow to show compassion. Sounds like what those teachers of the law were trying to do to Jesus. Doesn’t it?”
In the back, Fletcher Basset nodded over the pad on which he scribbled. The bulging group in the doorway raised thumbs to me, and for the first time I realized they were students. Brandon Stires’s red head rose above them all, pumping with nineteen-year-old earnestness. I felt a rush of energy.
“Somehow these upstanding men had obtained pictures of me in a compromising position. I don’t know how, and I don’t even venture to suggest that they procured them by less than ethical means. That isn’t the point. More to the point, they used them to trap Ethan Kaye. To show that he would be soft on me and was therefore no good for the morals of this college.”
I tilted my head at Ethan. He was still shaking his head, the direct eyes awash. “Unlike Jesus, Dr. Kaye had to sacrifice me to keep the college alive, and I was willing. I resigned rather than let him leave the office he has held with such honor. He had no other choice, as I see it—but in the wake of that decision, the stones have flown, and not only at me.”
I stepped into the narrow aisle still left between the banks of chairs.
“People too cowardly to give their names sent letters to the editor of the Port Orchard Independent, rendering innuendos that cast doubt on Ethan Kaye. Protests were organized that involved students, most of whom had no idea what they were speaking out against, much less for. One unstable student got so caught up in the thing, he attacked a reporter and Ethan Kaye himself, and was not discouraged by the people intent on upholding moral values.
“The attempt to remove a man who has done nothing but try to do as Jesus did has been deliberate, manipulative, and as un-Christlike as anything I can imagine. No stone, to carry the metaphor further, has been left unturned . . . or unthrown.”
I moved back to the front of the room. Wyatt Estes’s jowls were quivering like bare nerve endings.
“In the midst of all this, in my own personal pain, I have had to ask the same question Jesus Himself asked. Where is the forgiveness that Jesus showed, not just for me, but for Ethan Kaye? Where is the chance to live a new life? To go on with the work we have been given to do by God our Father?” My shoulders went up in a shrug, unplanned, born of the indignation that rose in me.
“In the story, Jesus grew silent. He bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger. Here at CCC, here in Port Orchard, in all of South Kitsap County, His silence has also been deafening. What is written in the Word about things like compassion and forgiveness hasn’t seemed to register with anyone here. Noses have been buried in the rules and mouths have spewed out rigid edicts and limitations that have nothing to do with seeking to know God, to having a relationship with Jesus Christ.”
I bent down and pulled the last rock out of the bag. Its paint bumps felt familiar and reassuring against my palm. “Jesus said, ‘If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’”
I plunked the big rock down, hard, on the table. “This is the rock I have been throwing at myself for two and a half months, and I am ready to set it down. If any of you has not sinned, in any way, be the first to hurl it at me, or at Dr. Ethan Kaye. Go ahead, dismiss him and deprive the students of this school of the kind of spiritual leadership that brings them into deep and authentic relationship with God.”
No one moved. I pointed to the big rock that had taunted me for weeks, months, and swept a questioning gaze over the audience, half of whom could not look back at me.
“Do you remember what happened next in the Jesus story?” I licked my lips and tasted sweat. I was almost to the end. I could do this. “When Jesus made that challenge, people dropped their stones and left, one by one—the eldest first.”
I looked directly at Wyatt Estes and Kevin St. Clair. “I suggest you do that. As Jesus told the adulteress, He doesn’t condemn you. You can go now and leave this sin you’re about to commit behind you. You can allow this college to continue to stand for what Jesus was and is.”
I didn’t expect St. Clair or Estes, or anyone else for that matter, to rise from his seat and go, head down, to the door. But someone did. Someone I didn’t see until he threaded his way from a chair in the corner, along the wall, and through the student knot in the doorway. Rich never looked at me as he parted them and disappeared.
As I put my hand to my mouth, a voice, distinctly un-Southern and livid, rose from the second row. I turned to see Kevin St. Clair on his feet, his blowfish lips already in undulating motion.
“Is it not obvious that Dr. Costanas is merely trying to make herself out to be more than she is, which is a—”
“Watch yourself, St. Clair.”
I stared at Ethan, who came halfway out of his chair.
St. Clair shoved the ubiquitous finger near his face. “How can you believe that those photographs were obtained illegally or unethically?” He shot the finger toward me. “But they—and the aspersions you have cast on my colleague and myself—guarantee that you will never work in the Christian academic community again if I have anything to do with it.”
I felt my eyebrows go up. “Is that a threat, Dr. St. Clair?”
“It’s a promise!”
I held my hands out, palms up, to the audience. Ethan turned not toward St. Clair but toward the door. The students jostled aside to let a short, blondish young woman squeeze into the room. Even in the midst of the turmoil St. Clair had managed to stoke, her face was expressionless—until she apparently found the face she was looking for.
Ethan held out one hand to her and motioned to Peter Lamb with the other. “Mr. Chairman,” Ethan said, “there is someone else here who would like to speak.”
“I protest,” St. Clair called out. He placed one hand on a snakish hip for all the world, as if he were in full charge now. “It’s time we heard from our side.”
To my surprise, Peter Lamb said, “Sit down, Dr. St. Clair. You’ve had your say.” He nodded to me. “You may have a seat, too, Dr. Costanas.”
Andy Callahan, the school attorney, waved me to his chair and stood up in the aisle next to Ethan. I could feel the people behind us jockeying to see the diminutive young woman who came to the front as if she were on automatic pilot.
“Who’s that?” I whispered to Ethan.
He didn’t look at me. “Wyatt Estes’s niece. I didn’t think she was coming.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, please.” Peter Lamb produced a gavel and banged it on the table.
What was Wyatt Estes’s niece doing here—speaking for Ethan? I wanted to glance back at Estes, but I didn’t have to. I could hear him wheezing as he exchanged unintelligible hoarse whispers with Kevin St. Clair.
Peter Lamb pulled back from the girl, with whom he’d been having a whispered conversation of his own, and glared over the audience.
“Tatum Farris has the floor. Please, people, let�
��s refrain from any more outbursts, shall we?”
“I only have a few things to say, and then I’m done—with all of you,” Tatum Farris said.
I was stunned by the clear strength of her voice. Unfeeling as she might be, she was obviously a little powerhouse. I looked at Ethan, who leaned forward on his thighs, fingers to his lips.
“A student named Van Dillon took the pictures of Dr. Costanas and Dr. Archer,” she said. “Dr. Archer paid him to do it, because . . .” Tatum stopped. “Well, that doesn’t have anything to do with this. After he did what he was paid to do with the pictures, Van brought copies to me because . . . he thought I might be interested.”
Why?
And then I knew. The pain that passed through her eyes in spite of her best efforts to appear stoic could only have come from one source. Zach had been involved with a student, Ethan told me. And here she was. My heart ached for her as if she were a sister.
“Let’s just say I freaked out—and I took the pictures to my uncle, Wyatt Estes.”
She looked in his direction. I heard him wheeze.
“It didn’t have anything to do with morals, just so you know,” she said. “I only wanted revenge on Zachary Archer and the woman he was with.”
Her eyes flickered to me.
“I told my uncle I was sure he would want to know what was going on at the college he was giving money to.” Her gaze went back to him. “I didn’t tell him where they came from or why I had them—and he didn’t ask.”
Tatum looked at the ceiling, head tilted back so I could watch her swallow down what she didn’t want to say. It was a thing I’d done many times.
“And then I called Zachary Archer and told him he was about to be in trouble and that as the most heinous man I had ever known, he deserved it. That, I assume, is when he disappeared—and that was exactly what I wanted.” She brought her face down, mouth now struggling. “Dr. Costanas was let go, which was also what I wanted. What I did not want was the trouble this has caused Dr. Kaye, who is a fine man and good for the school. At first I didn’t care what happened to this college—but after I sorted out that my real hatred was against Dr. Archer and Dr. Costanas, I felt bad for Dr. Kaye. I wrote an anonymous letter to the editor to try to shift the attention away from him.”