“Six hundred dollars, huh? Cool.” Chuck took the clipboard and signed where Lucy indicated. Lucy took the clipboard back, then pulled a check out of her pocket and handed it to him.
“Here you go, all yours. And so is that.” Lucy pointed to the U-Haul.
Chuck looked at the U-Haul, then back at Lucy.
“You just signed the paperwork so the divorce procedure can get started,” Lucy said.
“So that’s it?” Chuck asked.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
Chuck stood with his hands hanging at his side. He didn’t seem to know what to do next. I had expected more drama. I had worked myself up all afternoon for a brawl, the cops coming, and the works. But none of that happened. Lucy hugged him and he hugged her for a long time. Then she told him to drive home, back to California. He got in the car. Then without a wave he pulled out of the parking lot, braked once halfway down the block, and then continued on and out of our sight.
“Merry Christmas Eve, Jeannie.” Lucy hugged me and pushed her face into my earmuffs.
“Merry Christmas Eve, Lucy.”
The highways were clear the whole way home. I drove fast, except near the Holt city limits, and we were crossing the Causeway when Lucy said, “I suppose he’s making good time. The highways are good.”
“Yeah.” I glanced over at her in the dark and patted her knee. “I’m sure he’s fine.” It was then that I saw her crying. “I spent two hundred dollars on that round of drinks, then eight hundred dollars on the legal aid person, then the money for the U-Haul, and I gave Chuck the last of the Squirrel money. Now I’m broke again.”
I pulled over on the shoulder of the road. “That’s not why you’re crying, Lucy,” I said gently. “It’s going to be all right. I promise.” We sat in the dark for a while. “Hey, Lucy. Look up.” I reached over and pulled up her chin, directing her gaze outside. “See that?”
The local VFW had been at work again. Every pine tree lining the Causeway was decorated with Christmas lights. The colored lights reflected across the windswept ice of the pond. Snow had begun to fall. “It’s Christmas, Lucy. I bet Mom has eggnog with fresh grated nutmeg. And I bet that the carolers are out. We’ll go to midnight service and they’ll turn off the lights during ‘Silent Night’ so only the candles are lighting the church.” I reached over and hugged her. Then I carefully pulled back onto the Causeway, made my way past the Four Corners, and drove down Ruddiman. I turned on Fourth Street and headed to our house, to the water. Maybe every road in North Muskegon wasn’t a dead end. Maybe the water that waited at the end of every road was there to soften our falls.
Chapter Thirty-six
December 1986
When Lucy and I arrived home, Lucy holed up with Mom and Dad at the kitchen table. She explained what had happened, omitting some of the juicier details. Dad said he was happy with whatever Lucy was happy with and went back to the TV. He was looking almost normal now, though he was pretty weak. The doctors said he couldn’t smoke anymore and that he had to take walks every night. This was good news for Snowflake, the dog.
He had taken an instant liking to Dad. He padded after Dad everywhere he went, including the bathroom. Dad took to calling the dog Ake, because he said he was an ache in the behind.
From my vantage point on the couch, I could tell Dad was relieved that Lucy had left Chuck. I think he knew what had been happening between the two of them.
Eventually, Mom, Dad, Elizabeth, Ron, Sammie, Lucy, and I left for midnight Christmas service. Evan and Anna were meeting us there. But when we walked up to the church it was dark and the doors were locked. There was a note taped to the door that said the service had been postponed. “How do you postpone Christmas Eve?” Sammie asked. “Postponed until when? Next year?” The note blew away in a gust of freezing wind.
“You have to go get it, Jeannie,” Mom fretted.
“Why?”
“So people will know there is no service tonight.”
I looked up at the darkened and locked church and thought that if the congregation couldn’t figure it out, then they really had problems. But I dutifully chased after the paper and then made my best attempt to get the wet Scotch tape to stick to the door. Other churchgoers joined us and we huddled on the snowy sidewalk discussing the situation. It became apparent that the only thing to do was go home. I climbed into the backseat of Evan and Anna’s car since I could sleep on an actual bed at their house.
“What do you suppose happened tonight? Do you think Father Whippet is okay?” I mused to them. Evan passed the town square with the prominently lit scene of the shepherds gathered around the baby Jesus in his manger before he spoke.
“I’m sure Father Whippet had a good reason to cancel the service. I just think there’s some . . . difficult things happening in his life right now.”
I leaned forward and put my elbows on the back of their seat. “He’s having an affair, isn’t he?”
Evan looked steadily at the road. Anna patted his hand and said, “You might as well tell her; she obviously already knows something.”
“I promised the Catholic priest at our wedding that I would never tell anyone,” Evan said.
“What does this have to do with your wedding?” I was startled. “Was he having sex with Roly Poly at your wedding?”
“Roly Poly?” Evan and Anna said together. They even both turned their heads at the same time to stare at me.
“Not Roly Poly? Then Teeni—he was having sex with Teeni?”
Anna and Evan stared in the backseat until Anna swatted Evan and told him to watch the road.
“Actually, it was . . .” Anna considered. “Actually it doesn’t matter. But yes, he was having sex with someone. Evan and the priest walked in on them in one of the back church offices. That’s why Evan was late to the altar. After seeing that, he didn’t want Father Whippet to be a part of our ceremony. He and your dad talked it over before they decided they had to go ahead and just let Father Whippet help conduct the service.”
I sat back. Who knew our little town could have so many secrets?
“Is Father Whippet having affairs with Teeni and Roly Poly, too?” Evan said wonderingly. When I replied yes, he demanded to know if I had told anyone. If the news was out, then he didn’t want anyone to think that he had been the one to tell. He said that he had been sworn to secrecy by the Catholic priest. Since Evan wasn’t a Catholic, I wasn’t sure why he thought it mattered, but Evan took promises very seriously. Evan didn’t seem convinced when I told him I hadn’t said anything. He fell silent and focused on driving through the snowy night. When we arrived at Evan and Anna’s house, I gratefully crawled into bed. It had been a long, long day. I fell asleep almost immediately.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Why the hell is the phone ringing at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning? I wondered as I rolled over and pulled a pillow over my head. It rang about fifteen times before thankfully it stopped. After a minute, it started ringing again. I sat up. I was closest to the phone since I was in the Jimi Hendrix room. On the tenth ring, I got up and answered it.
“Hello?”
“Is Evan Thompson at home?”
“Who is this, please?” Even at that hour, I was pretty good with my manners.
“This is Bishop Smyton from the Episcopal Diocese. It’s urgent that I speak to Mr. Thompson.”
I tiptoed to Evan and Anna’s room and knocked on the door softly. There was no response. I knocked louder. Evan ripped open the door in his boxers. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yeah, I do. But Bishop Smyton from the Episcopal Diocese doesn’t.” I motioned toward the phone. This must have something to do with last night, I figured. Evan grabbed the phone as I went back into my room.
But my curiosity outweighed my need for sleep so I got dressed and padded down the stairs. Evan was hurriedly microwaving tea. He had a parka on over a pair of jeans and his red flannel shirt. I plugged in the Christmas tree lights because it was, after all, Christmas.
“Wha
t did the bishop want?”
Evan was trying to drink the hot tea too fast and winced. “He said that there’s an emergency down at the church. I have to go there right now.”
“Why you?” I yawned.
“He wouldn’t say. But he told me to pack a bag.”
I noticed the small duffel bag at Evan’s feet. Anna shuffled in, wrapping the tie to her robe around her. Evan kissed her good-bye without breaking stride and was out the door. Anna quizzed me but I didn’t know any more than Evan had told me.
We decided to go to Mom and Dad’s house to be with everyone on Christmas morning, but only Mom was up. She was busy making her famous cheese and egg casserole. I noticed she didn’t have a cigarette in her hand and asked about it.
“I’ve quit and I don’t want to talk about it,” Mom snapped. As an afterthought she added, “Merry Christmas.”
As Anna told Mom about the early morning phone call our own phone rang. Anna answered it.
“Evan called from a gas station to say he forgot his duffel bag. I’ve got to take it up to St. Peter’s for him,” Anna said.
“I’ll do it,” I said. I wanted to know what was going on up at St. Peter’s. Anna was all too happy to turn the delivery duty over to me. Who wouldn’t be? It was six o’clock in the morning and eight degrees outside. I drove over to their house, picked up the bag, and headed for the church. The front doors were still locked. Weren’t they doing a Christmas morning service either? I went around to the side door and went in. Father Whippet’s office was locked, too. Finally, I went down to the basement. I could hear raised voices from the big, open room where they sometimes set up folding tables for bingo or lunch receptions after funerals. Entering, I squinted at the fluorescent lights reflecting off the green-and-white-checked linoleum floor.
Roly Poly, Teeni, Shirley, and several other women from the congregation were there, sitting on the steps of the choir’s portable risers. Father Whippet was sitting with them. My brother was, oddly, smoking in church. He stood across the room next to a man dressed in red robes who, I figured by process of elimination, was Bishop Smyton. Mr. Roly Poly was there, too, along with several men I recognized as the husbands of the women on the risers. Mrs. Whippet was sitting off by herself.
“There she is! The bitch that told everyone and ruined everything!” Teeni pointed at me. All heads swiveled around and I blinked.
A woman I recognized as Mrs. Mearston patted Teeni’s knee. “There’s no need for profanity, dear.”
I would have responded with a witty remark but the rifle in Teeni’s lap put me off. Evan gestured me over with a jerk of his head. I walked slowly over to the group of men, careful not to make any sudden movements.
“I didn’t tell anyone anything!” I hissed to Evan. “I swear!”
“That’s not what she’s mad about anyway.” Evan took another puff. Bishop Smyton held out his hand and Evan passed the cigarette over. I expected the bishop to stub it out, but instead he took a very long drag, then handed it back.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Shirley piped up. “I didn’t realize so many people would be coming. I’m going to put some coffee on.” She stepped from her perch on the risers and went over to where the large metal coffee makers were stored. She lugged one by its black plastic handles over to the sink to fill it. Teeni brandished the rifle. “Shirley, damn it, get back over here. We have to have a show of solidarity.”
“This will only take a minute.” She measured out the coffee and said in a stage whisper, “After all, the bishop is here.”
“Is Father Whippet a hostage?” I leaned into Evan.
“Sort of. They are demanding that the bishop let Father Whippet keep having sex with them or Teeni is going to kill him.”
I looked nervously over my shoulder at the women. Roly Poly was shifting her large bottom back and forth on the hard step of the riser, obviously trying to get some circulation going. She was also knitting a pink bootie for her new granddaughter. Mrs. Mearston leaned over to compliment her on it.
“How long have they been here?” I asked.
“Since last night. The bishop paid Father Whippet a surprise visit because of an anonymous phone call spilling the beans on Father Whippet.” Evan paused here and looked at me meaningfully.
“It wasn’t me!” I protested.
Evan didn’t look convinced, but he continued. “Bishop Smyton came to the church yesterday evening and found some sort of papers on Father Whippet’s desk, like sex rituals or something. He told Father Whippet that he was going to have to resign or go to a church psychiatric hospital in Kansas. He doesn’t want to go to the hospital but if he resigns he’ll lose his pension. Shirley overheard them and called all the other women, and, well, here we are. Apparently, Father Whippet has been . . . servicing all of these women.”
Sex with all of them? I thought. What in the world could possibly be the attraction to the good Father? Mr. Roly Poly skittered toward the group of women on his Florsheim-clad feet. “Eunice, let’s go home. We’ve been here all night. The grandkids are probably already up and waiting for us. I don’t want to miss them opening the Lincoln Log set we bought them.”
Eunice looked torn, but Teeni whispered in her ear. Eunice straightened her spine and said stiffly, “George, I have loved you for forty years, but we haven’t had sex in the last ten. I still love you and I don’t intend to leave you, but John makes me feel alive.”
“But it cost us $39.95, Eunice!”
“You see!” Eunice turned to the other women. “He never listens to me. For forty years I have been trying to have a two-way conversation with this man but he doesn’t listen. He just waits for me to stop talking so that he can say what’s on his mind.” The other women nodded their heads. They knew exactly what Mrs. Roly Poly was talking about.
Evan hissed at me, “Go home.”
“No way.” I wasn’t missing this—especially since Teeni was no longer threatening me with the rifle. Right now she was pointing it at Father Whippet.
“Enough fooling around,” Teeni said, waving the rifle around again. “Either we all leave here peaceably and go on like before, or the Linen Guild is going to have a helluva time cleaning up this floor.”
“Why don’t you call the police?” I murmured to the bishop.
“It’s a church matter,” he said matter-of-factly. “We have procedures for this kind of thing.” How often did “this kind of thing” happen? I wondered.
Bishop Smyton approached the risers with his hands up in a placating manner. “Why doesn’t everyone just step down and we’ll talk this problem over? I know you gals think you have a solution, but it’s not going to work.”
There was a stunned silence from the group. Shirley said it first. “He called us ‘gals.’ We hate being called ‘gals.’ It’s derogatory.”
“Does anyone have any Valium?” Mrs. Whippet asked suddenly from her faraway chair.
The women began digging in their purses. Shirley looked up. “Five milligrams or ten?”
Mrs. Whippet said, “I think I need ten.”
Shirley got a glass of water and brought it with the Valium to Mrs. Whippet.
“Why do you need an overnight bag?” I asked Evan.
“I’m supposed to escort Father Whippet on the plane to Kansas. They even said I had to be handcuffed to him.”
“Why you?”
“Because I’m the youngest adult male member of the church. They think I’m the strongest in case Father Whippet tries to overpower me.”
“Guess they don’t know that you’re a pacifist, huh?”
“Guess not.”
Teeni’s husband burst into the room. “Teeni! Honey! I’ve been so worried; I didn’t know where you were!” His gray hair was completely askew. His slippers and the legs of his pajama bottoms were wet from the snow.
Teeni eyed him, keeping a tight hold on the rifle that she had now swung toward her husband. “Don, I left you a note on the kitchen counter plain as day
. You were too busy to notice because you were watching the Alabama-SMU game.”
“I fell asleep in the La-Z-Boy. I didn’t realize you were missing until this morning!” Don protested.
Teeni still had him in the sights of her gun. Don weighed his options, then joined the men’s side. He told Evan in a low voice, “There’s no ammunition in that gun.”
Bishop Smyton said, “Are you sure?”
“Sure. Last time I used that gun I was hunting. Saw a huge buck in the woods, thirty, maybe forty yards away.”
Mr. Roly Poly looked interested. “How many points?”
“That rack must’ve had sixteen points on it. Like I said, it was a huge buck. Anyhow, I used every shell I had firing at it.”
“Did you bag it?” Evan asked.
“Nah.” Don shook his head. “Good thing, too. I probably would’ve had a heart attack dragging it back to the car. But the point is, that gun is empty.” The men glanced knowingly over at the women. The jig was up. Bishop Smyton strode over to the risers. “Hand over the gun, Teeni. We know it isn’t loaded.”
Her response was to fire an ear-splitting blast up through the ceiling. We all covered our ears and cowered. Plaster rained down on us. “Don Patterson! Do you really think I don’t know where the sporting goods store is?” Teeni demanded.
“I think she hit the altar,” Evan said, peering upward.
Shirley stood up to shake dust from her Christmas sweater. “Darn it, Teeni! I just got this sweater and look at it.” Embroidered on the front of the red sweater was Santa in his sleigh being drawn by reindeer.
“That is really attractive,” Mrs. Roly Poly observed. “Is that from Talbot’s? I think the dust will come out fine if you use the cold rinse cycle.”
Father Whippet finally brought the situation to an end. He rose calmly, took the gun from Teeni, and held it just out of Evan’s reach. “I’ll go to the treatment center as long as I can return to my church.”
Bishop Smyton nodded in assent. Father Whippet nodded his head solemnly back, then stepped forward and handed Evan the gun. The bishop hustled in and quickly put one handcuff on Father Whippet’s wrist and the other on Evan’s. Evan handed the gun to Don, who promptly opened it and shook out the rest of the shells. “I’ll be damned,” he said shaking his head.
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