Out Of The Deep I Cry

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “As a memorial to my mother.” She frowned. “Oh, heavens. I do hope the work they did back then isn’t a factor in our present problem.”

  Sterling shook his head. “The artisans only replaced the existing color-block window. There wasn’t any structural work done.”

  “Kind of a grim verse there,” Burns said from his chair at the far end of the table. “I thought people usually went for more uplifting resurrection theology in memorials.”

  “Do they?” Mrs. Marshall’s polite tone implied Geoff Burns’s idea of a suitable memorial would contain big-eyed children and puppy dogs frolicking about a blond-haired Jesus. “I thought Lamentations most suitable.”

  “Getting back on point,” Clare said, “I’d like to understand more about the Ketchem Trust. What is it used for? Why haven’t you broken it up to now?”

  “How much money are we talking about?” Robert Corlew leaned forward on the table.

  “It varies with the state of the stock market, of course,” Mrs. Marshall replied, just as Norm Madsen said, “You don’t have to answer that, Lacey,” and Sterling Sumner chimed in, “Oh, sure, with somebody else’s money you’re interested.”

  There was a pause.

  “Between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” Mrs. Marshall gave her defenders a quelling glance. “Roughly.”

  Geoff Burns whistled. “In that case, I like it rough.”

  Clare coughed, and McKellan and Corlew snorted, but evidently that particular phrase didn’t mean anything to Mrs. Marshall. “Has it all been accumulating in there, like a savings account?” Clare asked. “Or is there money being paid out currently?” A thought struck her, and her cheeks pinked. “It’s not-do you need-is it helping you out?”

  “No, dear. The trust does generate a modest income, and since 1973, it’s been used to help defray the expenses of the free clinic.”

  Clare should have been surprised, but after living over a year in a town of eight thousand, she was beginning to realize that sooner or later, everything and everybody was connected. In one way or another.

  “When we were foster parents, Karen and I went to the free clinic a few times,” Geoff Burns said. “Two of the moms we dealt with got treated there. Dr. Rouse does good work.”

  Clare noticed that when Geoff spoke of foster parenting, the veins in his neck didn’t bulge out like they used to. Becoming a father-finally-had mellowed him. Of course, he was branching his practice out into criminal defense, so she supposed he hadn’t softened up all that much.

  “My mother founded the clinic. That is, she donated the building and money to support it. She was a deeply Christian woman. The most charitable I’ve ever known.”

  There was an expression on Norm Madsen’s face that made Clare think that he, perhaps, had a different view of Mrs. Marshall’s mother. “Mr. Madsen,” she said, “how do you fit into all this?”

  “I was the late Mrs. Ketchem’s attorney. I handled the property transfers that established the clinic. I also drew up the trust documents.”

  “Mother wanted to make sure the clinic would be able to keep running, but she also wanted to leave a legacy to me. We discussed it before she died. Up till now, there was never any need more compelling than the clinic’s. But”-she tossed up her hands-“that leak! We have to get the roof fixed and we have to do it now, before the entire north aisle becomes unusable and the rot spreads into the main roof.”

  “Hear, hear,” Sterling Sumner said. “But I’m confident we could do the repairs with half the sum you named, Lacey. You keep the other for yourself.”

  She shook her head. “No. I couldn’t. Besides, if I gave the whole amount, we might be able to avoid a capital campaign altogether.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Robert Corlew said.

  “There are other reasons for running a capital campaign,” Geoff Burns said. “In addition to making repairs and building the endowment, it gives donors an investment in St. Alban’s. They have a stake in its future, a vested interest. It’s the difference between renting an apartment and buying your own house.”

  “I happen to agree with Geoff,” Clare said, “but it’s a moot point. I don’t think, in good conscience, we can use the Ketchem Trust money when the clinic is struggling financially.”

  “Says who?” Corlew tapped his nose. “They get a fat check from the town every year. Courtesy of us, the taxpayers. Plus, they do that annual fund-raiser. Believe me, you won’t be seeing sick people staggering around in the street.”

  Fortunately, Terry McKellan spoke up before Clare had a chance to say something unpriestly. “Besides. Even if the trust is invested in high-yield dividends, it can’t be throwing off more than a few thousand a year.”

  Mrs. Marshall nodded. “It’s usually about ten thousand.”

  “So eight hundred a month. It must be a welcome addition to the other funding. But it’s not a make-or-break amount.” He turned to Clare. “I know you’d prefer to keep that money going to the clinic. I would, too. But let’s face it, we’re up against the wall. Even if we started the capital campaign tomorrow and every pledging unit at St. Alban’s gave, it would still be months before we actually saw any income. That roof could be down in the aisle by then.”

  “There must be some other way.” She pushed back her chair and walked around the perimeter of the meeting room, past Gothic Revival bookcases, past diamond-paned windows, past small, thickly painted oils of biblical landscapes. “Look at all this. Look at what we have. There must be some way to raise fast cash besides taking away medical treatment from the working poor.”

  Mrs. Marshall surprised her by rising, too. “But then we’d be robbing Peter to pay Paul, dear. You agreed, as did I, that preserving St. Alban’s unique history and beauty was worth the cost. I believe you described it as ‘big, honkingly expensive.’ ”

  Despite herself, Clare’s lips twitched.

  “Are you going to back out now that the price turns out to be more than you wanted to pay?”

  Clare looked down at the intricate carpet. She thought she would have learned by thirty-five that saying yes to one thing meant saying no to something else.

  “Before we all agree to this, I want to state my objections in the strongest terms.” Clare and Mrs. Marshall both turned to Norm Madsen. “It was Mrs. Ketchem’s intention that the money from the trust be used to support the clinic. Only when the trustee judges that the clinic no longer needs the funding is the principal to be disbursed. And you cannot convince me, Lacey, that you honestly think they no longer need that ten thousand a year.” He shook slightly from the force of his tone. “Your mother would not have wanted this.”

  She sat down again. “Maybe not. But she left me to decide, Norm.”

  Clare never would have imagined that news of her parish getting a $150,000 gift would depress her. She sat in a funk while Corlew, who had a 1:30 appointment, wrapped the meeting up and everyone shucked on coats, hats, gloves, and mufflers. She had enough presence of mind to make her good-byes, but she was still in a blue devil, as her grandmother would have called it, when she gathered up the papers to return to her office.

  She was surprised to find Mr. Madsen lingering outside the meeting-room door.

  “Thanks for giving it a try,” he said, sounding much more his usual even-handed self. “Not that it helped, but I appreciate the effort.”

  “I feel like I did when I was a kid and found out we were moving near my grandparents. I was all excited, until I realized I was going to be leaving behind my friends. I guess this defines a mixed blessing.” She looked up at him. “I was surprised at how, um, passionately you felt on the question. You must be a big supporter of the clinic.”

  “Not particularly, no.”

  “Then why were you so vehement in defending its funding?”

  “Jane Mairs Ketchem, that’s why. She’s rolling over in her grave right now, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she kicked her way out of the coffin and marched down here to de
fend her precious clinic.” He ran his hand over his thick white brush cut. “I’ll tell you something. She was the only woman who could ever scare me. And the fact that she’s dead doesn’t make me any less scared.”

  Chapter 7

  NOW

  Monday, March 13

  Clare came with Mrs. Marshall to the clinic the next Monday. “You really don’t have to do this, dear,” Mrs. Marshall said, pulling on her black kidskin gloves and setting her hat at an angle on the silver waves of her hair.

  Clare brought her attention back from her look-around at the airy foyer of the Marshall house, one of several “executive mansions” outside Millers Kill that had been built for high-level General Electric people in the sixties. It was decorated-tastefully and expensively-at the same time and had never been changed again. Clare hadn’t seen so much Danish modern and smoked glass since her last visit to an Ikea store.

  “I know,” she said, fishing into her pocket for her own bulky Polarplus gloves. “You don’t have to tell the clinic director about your decision in person, either. But you are.”

  Mrs. Marshall smiled. She had on fuchsia lipstick today, and the effect against her paper white skin was startling. “I suspect we were both raised to do the right thing, whether we want to or not.”

  “You should have met my grandmother Fergusson.” Clare opened the front door. “Do you want to take my car or yours?”

  Mrs. Marshall paused on the steps to consider the Shelby Cobra, badly in need of a trip to the car wash, parked next to her Lincoln Town Car. “Mine, I think.”

  They didn’t talk much on the ride into town. Clare watched the landscape, covered with sodden, tired snow, and tried to shake off the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She could handle disagreement, disapproval, even, she supposed, disdain, with equanimity. But she hated disappointing anyone. She dreaded it with the same nauseating plunge she had felt as a child, standing in front of her mother or grandmother and admitting, yes, she had lost her new shoes, yes, she had let the twins out of her sight, yes, she had brought home a report card full of low grades and slack effort.

  Mrs. Marshall could evidently read minds. “It’s hard to deliver bad news, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not that, exactly,” Clare said. “You can’t be in the army and then the ministry without learning how to say things people don’t want to hear. It’s this feeling that I’m the cause of the bad news. That’s hard to live with.”

  Mrs. Marshall slowed the car to turn onto Route 51. “You might be taking a little too much responsibility for this, don’t you think? You’re a wonderful priest; a little rough around the edges, of course, but experience will help with that-” Clare sat up straighter in the crushed velvet seat and surreptitiously checked her black blouse for any traces of breakfast.

  “But you aren’t St. Alban’s, dear, and you mustn’t go around confusing yourself with the institution.” The scenery was more crowded now as they neared the center of town. They passed an auto repair shop, a tire store, a barren plant nursery hunkered down for the long, cold spell between Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. “If anyone should feel responsible, I should. It’s my decision, ultimately. But even so, I came to it as part of the group, not as an individual. Neither you nor I can carry the day all by ourselves. We’re part of a democracy.”

  “An oligarchy,” Clare said under her breath.

  “Perhaps.” Mrs. Marshall sounded amused. “But you’ll concede me my point.”

  Clare flipped her hand over. Mrs. Marshall turned onto Barkley Avenue.

  “What the devil?” Mrs. Marshall said. From the opposite end of the avenue, two squad cars raced toward them. The elderly woman yanked the steering wheel, plowing them nose first into the nearest parking spot, but instead of racing past them, the black-and-whites skidded to a stop in front of the clinic. Clare popped open her door and jumped out in time to see the chief of police and the department’s youngest officer, Kevin Flynn, pounding up the steps into the building.

  Clare started forward across the street, recollected herself, and turned back to see if Mrs. Marshall needed any help. The driver’s side window unrolled smoothly and Mrs. Marshall said, “I’ve got to do a better job of parking. You go ahead, I’ll be right there. Be careful, dear.”

  She didn’t need any more permission than that. Clare ran toward the clinic, her boots slapping through slush. One of the wide double doors had been left hanging open, and she slipped through it into a tiny foyer papered over with leaflets on AIDS prevention, domestic violence, immunization schedules, and flu shots. The inner doors-heavy, modern fireproof slabs that had undoubtedly replaced something older and more elegant-had swung firmly shut, but Clare could hear shrieking and bellowing coming from inside.

  She pushed into the clinic. She was in a wood-floored hall, with pocket doors opened wide on the right revealing a waiting room. Its orange plastic chairs were knocked over and children’s toys had been kicked everywhere. Immediately in front of her, a mahogany staircase swept up to a landing, where a redheaded woman in a medical jacket clutched a newel post and looked down an unseen hallway. The sounds, much louder now, came from whatever she was watching.

  “Oh!” She spotted Clare and hurried down the stairs. She was a tiny thing, a head shorter than Clare, and with her sneakers, jeans, and hair braided down her back, Clare would have thought her some sort of teenage volunteer if not for the fine lines around her sharp, skeptical eyes and her white coat embroidered L. RAYFIELD, N.P.

  “I’m afraid we’re having a bit of trouble right now. You can-” L. Rayfield, N.P., glanced around, frowning. “You can wait in the office, back here. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

  “It’s okay,” Clare said. “I’m a priest.” Without waiting to see what effect that complete irrelevance had on the woman, Clare charged up the stairs.

  “You’re a what? Hey-wait! Come back here!”

  The hallway off the landing ran the length of the house to a single dull gray elevator, jarringly at odds with the mahogany six-panel doors opened, two to each side, onto the hall. Above the shrieking and shouting coming from the last room on the right, Clare could hear Russ Van Alstyne’s voice, hard with authority, pitched to control.

  “Put the stool down! Back away from the cabinet!”

  She felt a thud vibrate through her feet and turned to see the nurse headed up the stairs. Clare ran down the hall, skidding to a stop in front of the open door.

  Russ and Kevin Flynn, backs to the door, were angling to box in a wild-eyed Debba Clow, who brandished a metal stool like a battering ram against a glass-fronted cabinet filled with medical supplies. “-defend myself against this monster who wants my children taken away from me!” she was saying, her words a high-pitched screech.

  “And you’ve proven me right,” roared Dr. Rouse, rearing up from his shelter behind the examination table. “You’re so obsessed with revenge for nonexistent wrongs you can’t even stop to think about your kids!”

  Debba shrieked and raised the stool.

  “Debba, stop!” Clare stepped forward into view, her hands raised. Officer Flynn twisted around to stare at her, but Russ never took his eyes from Debba.

  “We’re handling this, Clare,” he said, his voice tight.

  Clare ignored him, fumbling with her parka’s zipper to yank it down like Superman revealing the S on his chest. “Remember me? From St. Alban’s? We talked the other day.” Debba stared at her, pulling the stool in tightly against her chest. Clare took another step into the room. “You don’t want to do this.” She could hear the sound of the nurse’s shoes as she reached the doorway and stopped. “I bet you don’t hit your children to discipline them, do you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if she-”

  “Not now, Al!” The whispered command from the woman behind Clare cut Dr. Rouse off.

  Clare reached one hand out slowly. “Then you already know that violence isn’t the answer.”

  “Yo
u don’t know what he did,” Debba said. “He wrote my goddamn ex-husband and told him I was endangering the children. Today I was served with papers-he’s suing me for full custody! Except he doesn’t want to keep Skylar, he wants to institutionalize him!” She shifted the stool in her grip as if she might throw it at the doctor. “Did you know that? Did you know that before you wrote him, you bastard?”

  Clare took another step forward. She was almost shoulder to shoulder with Russ. “You’re so angry and frustrated you want to hurt Dr. Rouse, don’t you? But I bet you’ve felt that way before, haven’t you? Every mother I’ve ever met has felt like that. Has been pushed so hard she wanted to lash out at her kids. To hit them. To hurt them.”

  “Clare…” Russ’s hiss warned her to shut up.

  “But you didn’t give in to that feeling, did you? You didn’t hurt anyone. You controlled yourself.” She stepped forward. Almost close enough to touch the stool if she stretched out her arm. “You controlled yourself. You are in control.” She deliberately looked away from Debba and laid her hand on Russ’s arm. Under the slick nylon of his parka, his muscles were tensed. “Chief Van Alstyne is a good man. Why don’t you let him help you? Before you get yourself into real trouble.”

  Debba’s eyes grew larger. “I’m going to get arrested, aren’t I? Oh, God.” Her lower lip bowed down like a toddler’s caught between anger and anguish.

  “Put the stool down, Deborah,” Russ said. “And we’ll talk about it.”

  Hands shaking, Debba lowered the stool. As soon as it touched the ground, Russ stepped past Clare and took the trembling woman by her upper arms. “Okay, Deborah, listen to me.” He looked directly into her eyes. “I’m going to have you sit in another room while I talk to Dr. Rouse. Officer Flynn will stay with you.” He flicked a glance toward Clare. “As will Reverend Fergusson.” He reached to the small of his back and unsnapped his handcuffs. “Now. I don’t want you to get alarmed, but I am going to cuff you.”