The man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he,
Lord Sabaoth his name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
—From the lyrics to “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” (a hymn written by Martin Luther, paraphrasing Psalm 46)
LaCroix Homestead, Kearneysville, West Virginia—Two Months Before the Crunch
Megan had put the boys down for an afternoon nap, which meant that they would spend forty-five minutes giggling and likely not sleep, but it was worth the effort if they did. It was Saturday and Malorie was busy doing side work fixing vehicles to earn some money for herself. She usually took clients by word of mouth only and arranged parts and consumable supplies during the week, giving her the opportunity to work nonstop on a Saturday when Megan was home.
Megan was moving some electric fencing in quiet reflection when she caught herself saying out loud to the curious sheep nearby, “I need to decide about Joshua.” She pounded in the grounding rod and set the charger on the fence before heading over to Malorie. She rarely disturbed her sister when she was working to earn money; Megan was well aware what Malorie had given up to come be with her. Megan grabbed two cold National Bohemian beers from the refrigerator on the back porch and headed out to the shop.
There exists a nexus of unspoken communication between sisters that is not understood outside of that relationship, a connection that meant not having to say anything before introducing a topic. Megan saw Malorie’s legs sticking out from underneath the F-250. She turned down the volume on the radio, touched the cold bottle to Malorie’s calf to get her attention, and said, “He’s a good guy and deserves my decisiveness.”
“I know that you don’t get personal over high-side e-mail, and it’s only been five months since you started having lunch together. Where does that leave you?”
“That’s just it, I don’t know. I’m very hesitant to have him come to Kearneysville to meet you and the boys—it’s a huge risk. What if the boys don’t like him, or what if they really do like him and then the relationship deteriorates between us? You know that I do all that I can to protect Leo and Jean, and if I bring Joshua across the boundary of my life to their lives it changes things.”
“I haven’t met him.” Malorie grabbed the right-side mirror to help herself up from the creeper. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, took a long swig from the bottle to counteract the August heat, and asked, “What would Papa say about him?”
“Joshua is not a logger, and he was raised in a Catholic orphanage, not the backwoods of Maine. I doubt that he could set a choker line or sharpen a saw chain, but he is very grounded and a good Christian man—I think that Papa would approve once he got to know him.”
“You weren’t there when Papa died in that logging truck rollover, but those few weeks before the accident he seemed to know about his impending death—he became quite chatty.”
“Papa? Je ne comprends pas.”
“Yes, Papa! He would still continue to drink a lot after Mom was killed by that drunk driver, but he somehow sensed that his time was short and would give me these long monologues on life and what was important. It kept me up until late doing my homework, but I would trade all my frustration then for another opportunity to hear him again now. Do you remember what his favorite saying was?”
“I think so—it was, ‘I already told you no.’”
“Not that one.” The two sisters enjoyed a long laugh together before Malorie said, “Le génie est une longue patience.”
Megan cocked her head and offered, “It would seem that after five months I’m becoming impatient perhaps?”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. Things broke down with Eric before he asked for a divorce, n’est-ce pas?” Megan nodded and Malorie continued. “It’s been three and a half years now since Eric left, Leo is five, and Jean is a precocious three. If nothing changes in your situation, then you are not going to progress past where you are now. Those boys need an opportunity, more than the pittance Eric pays you every month. I know that you’re having a lot of trouble trying to reconcile how much you disagree with what the Agency is doing domestically and the fact that you have to work for them to make ends meet. Someday that will have to end, because you will not be able to live with yourself if you stay there. Moreover, Leo and Jean need a mother and a father—you don’t expect me to teach them how to pee on a tree, do you?”
They laughed, and without saying any more Megan collected the bottles and put them in the recycling bin while Malorie slid back under the truck to finish replacing the universal joints. Megan reached into her pocket, pulled out her cell phone, and stood on the corner of the property where she could get the best signal and dialed Joshua. After two rings, he answered, “Hey, good lookin’, how are the chores coming along? Did the boys go down for a nap?”
“Joshua, would you like to come over next Saturday? There’s a great coffee shop that I’d like to take you to after you have a chance to meet Malorie and the boys. Can you come for lunch?”
“I will move heaven and earth to make it, if need be.”
• • •
The following Saturday, Joshua was prompt. He had two Hot Wheels cars in his cargo pocket and he carried a plate of vegetable rolls for lunch. Megan came out of the house with the boys holding her hands while Malorie emerged from the shop with grease on her arms.
Seeing Malorie for the first time gave Joshua the opportunity to compare Megan alongside her sister, and their differences were apparent immediately. While Megan was a classic beauty, Malorie was taller, with sharper facial features. She could have worked as a model. Both sisters were brunettes with blue eyes, although Malorie’s hair was a shade lighter than Megan’s. Megan’s hair was longer, reaching the middle of her back, when unbraided. Malorie had the fashion-model cheekbones, but Megan had the prettier smile. They both had pale complexions and a strong LaCroix family resemblance that was distinctively French—so much so that both would have fit in without comment if they were included in a “Beauties of Quebec” calendar.
“Did you find the place easily?” Megan asked.
“I did.” Joshua took a knee to be on the same eye level as the boys, and he said, “Hello, you must be Leo and you must be Jean. My name is Joshua, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” The boys knew enough to offer their extended hand to shake Joshua’s, but had not learned the art of eye contact or a firm grip yet. “I heard that you boys liked to eat your vegetables, so I brought these veggie rolls for us to have with lunch.”
None of the interaction was lost on Megan, who was warm but not overly affectionate with Joshua in front of the boys. She was not experienced in how to navigate the situation and Joshua was very cautious to pick up on her signals and tread lightly. Malorie came over, and after she was introduced said, “Cool Jeep. Megan tells me that you did a small-block Chevy swap.”
“I had it done, since I’m not set up at my apartment to do that kind of work. Everyone recommended Sam up at Mid Atlantic in Glen Burnie. I went to talk to him because originally I thought about swapping a 4BT Cummins into the Jeep. Sam knew his stuff and said that the twelve-valve 6BT was likely a better candidate and would work with the longer wheelbase on my Jeep. But in the end, those drive trains are heavy, require a lot of suspension work to accommodate the extra weight, and are expensive and hard to come by, so a small-block swap was less expensive, by a large margin. I love it. I’m guessing that Megan told you about my spare HEI circuit board?”
“No, she left that part out. But you can be sure that your stock value went up with her when she heard that, though! Going for EMP-proof?”
Joshua smiled and said, “I’m guessing that the analyst gene is dominant in the LaCroix DNA.”
Megan asked, “Who’s hungry?” and the boys responded loudly and raced each other round to the back porch. The five of them sat down at the table, where lunch was served. Megan looked a
t Joshua, squeezed his hand, and asked him if he would pray before their meal.
• • •
After lunch, Malorie offered to clean up and put the boys down for a nap. Joshua discreetly asked Megan if it would be okay if he left the Hot Wheels cars on the couch where the boys could find them after their nap. Megan kissed the boys and left with Joshua to go get coffee at the Black Dog Café.
As Joshua pulled down the driveway, a chicken strutted out at the Jeep and then ran off of the gravel driveway. Joshua looked over at Megan—realizing that he had never seen her in jeans before but certainly wasn’t disappointed—as he said, “Leo and Jean are great boys! Very polite, and they listened to their mother very well; I know that you’re proud of them, as you should be.”
Megan smiled and her piercing blue eyes caught his. “Butter me up all you want, but you’re still buying the coffee.”
As they cruised along the back roads, Joshua slowed down to enjoy the scenery and found that comfortable RPM in fourth gear that allowed him to hold Megan’s hand and not have to shift. The weather was perfect and the whole firmament seemed to resound with praise toward its Creator with lush green in every direction that they could see. Joshua eased the Jeep into the dirt parking lot close to both the farmers’ market and the Black Dog Café. “Aw, too bad the farmers’ market is only open on Wednesdays; I could really go for some fresh vegetables and local honey!”
Joshua continued to hold Megan’s hand as they walked up to the door of the Black Dog Café. He held the door for Megan, and she waved to Marcy as they walked in. Megan looked over to Joshua and said, “I am going to the little girls’ room, just get whatever Marcy recommends for me—she knows what I like.” He nodded back and walked up to the counter to order.
Joshua brought her coffee, some freshly baked goods, and a tea for himself back to the table where Megan was sitting. He was hoping for a long afternoon of conversation with her, because there is really nothing like falling in love at a coffee shop. It would have been nice to take her to Montreal, but Charles Town, West Virginia, was as good a place as anywhere to talk for a few hours.
“It was nice to finally meet Malorie. She really seems to know her vehicles. And your boys are quite handsome and well-behaved—I can say that now that I’ve made good on buying you coffee, ma chérie. They certainly seem like a lot of fun. Are they a help around the homestead?”
Megan averted her gaze and traced her finger across the lace holes of her Dr. Martens unconsciously as she answered. “I think that they’ve had to grow up faster than I would hope. I was expecting the Thomas the Tank Engine stage to last a lot longer than it has, but the boys really have become good workers around the homestead. Auntie Malorie cracks the whip between snacks, hikes, games of tag, and extra stories.” Megan smiled, locked eyes with Joshua, who was listening attentively, and said, “They don’t understand why Eric isn’t there, but they do very much realize that he’s absent.”
Joshua reached out and put his hand on her hand, gently squeezed it, and did not say anything as Megan continued. “Hawaii was paradise. Eric and I were very much in love as newlyweds. Eventually, we both came down on orders together—compassionate assignment, of course—to come to Fort Meade. It was hard to get promoted in the Marine Corps when you’re having children—that is a fact. So I was passed up for two promotions and was seemingly locked in at being a corporal. As an NCO I had plenty of responsibility, but as an E-4 it’s hard to live on such a small paycheck. Eric was in the navy and we were fortunate to be stationed together. The world was our oyster, or so we thought. We found this house in the country and we bought it. Eric wanted to raise the boys far out of the pressure cooker of the Beltway metropolis, but then not long after we got settled into our new routine and duties, Eric came down on orders to deploy again as a ‘Sand Sailor.’”
Joshua asked for clarification. “Sand Sailor? I’m afraid that I haven’t heard the term before.”
“It’s navy slang for a ‘fish out of water’ or a sailor who is deployed in the desert. It’s almost always used as a pejorative term.”
“I see.” Joshua thought it best not to interrupt her.
“So he was on orders for a whole year; our oldest son was two and starting to toddle around. We thought that he would go over, get his ticket punched, and be in a good spot for his next promotion—such a simple plan. All the while I would be home saving the extra money and paying down our mortgage. Eric said that he liked the job okay, and the long days made the time go by so that he didn’t have to think about missing Leo and me as much. But as the time went on, he was not staying grounded in true godly things. He stopped going to chapel services and there was a noticeable decline in substantive letters from him. I guess that the targeting mission really got to him. It’s one thing to process signals impersonally as strictly empirical data; it’s another to track someone’s life and be responsible for steel on target when the boys in black show up to shoot people in the face.
“Somewhere between the ones and zeros of Johnny Jihad’s life and the ‘actionable intelligence’ derived from the analysis—we lost Eric. To deal with that stress, the office would generally play television shows in the office on those huge flat-screen monitors that they used for shift-change briefings. They showed everything from Seinfeld to Friends to Desperate Housewives. You can’t take in that level of pop culture and not be affected by it.
“Eric eventually started to notice a female Air Force senior airman attached to his section. She would bring him up on chat more often than necessary and comment on certain scenes in the television shows. Seems like histrionic crass girls with ‘daddy issues’ are beacons for extracurricular activities. Toward the end of the deployment he called and said that he wanted to discuss the ‘dissolution of our marriage,’ which could not have come at a more inopportune time because I was pregnant again, but had been reluctant to tell him because things were deteriorating so quickly.”
“Wow, so you went from deployment widow to single mom and pregnant?”
“It was illogical. Yes, he wanted to chase his sweet young complicated thing and I was holding down the fort with all the responsibility. You can say that we had a ‘mismatch in our commitment level’ to the relationship. He initiated the paperwork on his end with the JAG office, and I signed it, and that was that. I was here, pregnant, alone, and a single mom. I called Malorie, and she dropped everything to move down to West Virginia. I could hardly afford the live-in nanny anyhow. I took the option to separate from the Marine Corps and I became another green-badge contractor. I ended up with the house and the leased car, while he took his porn collection, his truck (with the payments), and all of the guns. I changed my name back to my maiden name of LaCroix, and the rest is history. That was three years ago now.”
Joshua squeezed her hand and said, “I’m sorry you had to go through such a terrible ordeal, Megan, but I want you to know that you haven’t scared me away. Knowing what you’ve overcome, I’m even more amazed by you.”
9
TOLERANCE
Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.
—President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Millinocket, Maine—Four Years Before the Crunch
Malorie LaCroix went on to trade school after she finished high school early and worked as a first-year apprentice machinist at Millinocket Fabrication and Machine, Inc., in Millinocket, Maine. She was more conversant in French than her elder sister, Megan, and after translating some French machinery manuals for Millinocket, Malorie eventually developed a side business doing French-to-English technical translation. She was an avid 4WD enthusiast, preferring older Ford eight-lug pickup trucks to all other modes of transportation. She was nineteen years old and already had a local reputation for building trucks for several people around the state.
Malorie was single and, like her older sister, grew up in a stable family home where her parents loved each other. Their father, Cedric LaCroix, was a
lumberman in the northern woods who might be away at camp for weeks at a time, but while he was home he doted on his girls. After an accident late one winter that would have broken most men, he was left injured, with a permanent limp, and no longer able to have children. Since then, he had always joked that he would have to raise his girls like boys, so both Megan and Malorie would learn to sharpen axes with a stone, rebuild chain saws, and drive a skid steer during the summers, and in the autumn they would rack, hunt, pack out, and process deer. No matter how hard he worked them, both Megan and Malorie knew that they were the object of their father’s love.
With that level of confidence, the sisters never needed to be reaffirmed by other boys. So why should they care if they never were asked to go out by the football players for pizza after a game or to an unsupervised party out by the lake, which usually meant underage binge drinking and propositions for sex. Malorie had consoled way too many women who had given away what they could never get back.
Megan and Malorie were both homeschooled up through their eighth-grade year in the classical tradition of education. Their mother, Beatrice, had them memorize huge portions of the Bible as well as read nearly all of the classics, the writings from the Scottish Enlightenment, and the Founding Fathers. Beatrice would tell them, “You never know when these books will be outlawed, so read them now. The Founding Fathers were not clairvoyant; they just read their history and decided what kind of government they did not want.” Cedric did not have an education beyond the eighth grade, so he was insistent that he would work as hard as he could so that Beatrice would be able to stay home to educate the children properly. He would drill them on their memory work every night after dinner that he was home to ensure that they were getting their money’s worth from homeschooling.
After Malorie completed the eighth grade, she had attended the local high school as her sister had for ninth through twelfth grades and, like her elder sister, pursued intellectual interests after her other schoolwork was complete. Since Beatrice worked part-time at the local library in Sherman, Malorie would catch a ride there from Katahdin High School and hang out in a quiet corner consuming volumes of da Vinci, amazed at his mechanical acuity, his use of physics, and his contributions to mathematics.
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