“She came out of the office, and her cheeks were wet and her face all flushed. I could tell she’d been crying, but she was smiling.” My head felt like it fell asleep, all pins and needles and a fast throbbing. My mouth dried, and my words came with great effort. “I asked her what was wrong, and you know what she said? ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ That’s all I got out of her.”
I sat down for a minute and crossed my arms over my stomach. The acidity of the coffee nauseated me.
“Wow. That sucks.” For a hospice nurse, Aida sure lacked sympathy. “Must’ve hurt to hear her say that.”
“What really hurt was that I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
“Bull.”
“Excuse me?” My voice rose sharply. I reminded myself Nadine slept in the next room. I brought my voice down to a controlled seethe. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Want to know why we butt heads so much? ‘Cause we’re too much alike. Stubborn as all get-out. I don’t buy that you didn’t or that you can’t understand. That’s the same line of bull I handed to Nadine and to my parents for years. I could; I just didn’t want to. Same with you. You get it. You’re way too smart to say you don’t understand. Call a spade a spade, Connor. You don’t want to believe.”
Nadine’s voice came from behind me, “Am I interrupting something?”
I shook my head, stared hard at Aida. “I’ll be in the room writing.”
Aida nodded. “I’ll bring some lunch in.”
Chapter 14
Sunday, September 6th
The sun had hardly split the window when I woke to Mason’s face hovering inches above my own. “Rise and shine.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
My eyes struggled to focus. I fumbled for my glasses. By his breath, I judged his breakfast consisted of coffee heavy on the cream and something with onions.
“Where’s Aida’s story? Can’t wait to read it.”
“On the desk.” I sat up. Nadine must have woken before me. At least she felt well enough to get up and around. “Took me most the night.”
“Nadine says you’re a perfectionist and make everything harder than it should be.”
I nodded. “In a nutshell.”
He picked up the papers I’d printed the previous night and thumbed through them. “I’m going to read this while you’re getting ready.”
I lay back down and covered my eyes with my arm. “What’s so important it can’t wait until eight or nine? I’m working on three hours of sleep here. That’s in the last three days.”
“Church starts at eight. You have to be there to meet your next subject.”
“He better be the Pope to get me up at a quarter after six.”
“Not his fault. Takes a while to drive out there, and I’m guessing you’ll need a good hour to get yourself ready. I’d say you look like death, but that might be understating things.”
He tossed me a bag of disposable razors. “Do something with these.”
“What, my stubble not holy enough for church?”
“Nothing like that. Think Nadine wants to cuddle up with a porcupine?”
“Anything you guys didn’t talk about?”
“It’s her and Aida. I just tag along for the subtle digs at you.”
“Sounds very Christian.” I sat back up and rubbed my eyes. “You want me to get ready, you’re going to have to kill that light. I’m going to need a minute for my body to get working.”
“Fair enough.” He walked out and, still fidgeting with the pages about Aida, turned off the light.
I wondered about his true motives. Was God really on the other side of this, or was this Mason’s way of digging up dirt on his neighbors? Maybe he planned to blackmail them; maybe that’s how he made his money. But how much money can you wrestle out of a third-world desert?
Still, I couldn’t deny Nadine’s improvements when I worked on the articles, and her scary declines when I decided not to. I owed it to her to humor him, even if I didn’t like him.
My body resisted my commands to move. When it finally did, it lurched around in heavy, clumsy steps. I grabbed a clean towel from the shallow linen closet and headed in to clean myself up.
***
The “church” Mason spoke of was a converted one-room schoolhouse. Early on, this building served as the school, post-office, and local church. Both the school and post-office outgrew the structure and eventually built their own. The church, however, never really grew. According to Mason, it declined in membership over the last twenty years.
Aside from a beat-up Nissan from the 80s, the gravel parking lot was empty. I asked Mason what the current membership was.
“Counting me and Aida? Two.”
I shook my head. We walked into the one-room building. Pits and cracks marred the plaster and stucco. Termites had gotten to the wooden eaves. I wondered if the place would stand long enough to make it through the service.
The stiff, wooden pews needed a good sanding. I decided not to complain. Nadine sat next to me. I slipped my arm around her, grateful she felt well enough to make the journey. I still worried about her, and resolved to keep a close eye on her through the service.
Sitting in a church again made me nervous, especially since I didn’t share the faith of the others who came here today—Aida, Mason, and Nadine. Anger still welled up in me when I thought of God, thought of Him striking my wife with cancer, devastating cities with hurricanes and nations with tsunamis.
Now, Mason wanted me to talk to a minister? As if I had any business with clergy. If my luck held, he’d not spend the entire time trying to convert me. I’d once considered faking the prayer to appease Nadine and get Mason off my back, but I couldn’t lie to Nadine.
I pulled my glasses off and rubbed the bridge of my nose. I’d be lucky to stay awake through the service. I checked my watch.
Mason smiled. “Don’t worry, Connor. Church seldom runs more than a half-hour. More of a Bible study really.”
“What, no singing?” Nadine’s voice was hushed and hoarse, but she smiled—something I’d not seen her do much since the cancer. I pulled her a little closer, to let her feel my smooth cheek on hers. The color came back to her face, but her skin remained clammy.
The door in the back of the chapel swung open. A man sauntered in wearing a crisp blue suit and a smile. He carried a black slim-line Bible under his arm, nodded to Mason and Aida, and turned to Nadine and me. Scars lined his face, swollen pink lines marring his left cheek, circling his left eye. “Welcome! Connor and Nadine, right? Mason called this morning. Good to have you here.”
He extended his hand. Nadine shook it and smiled. “Pleasure to be here.”
I followed her lead, shook his hand and smiled.
When he looked at Nadine, his smile sunk. “How are we feeling today?”
“Better today than most.” She pointed to the front of the room. “You have a nice piano.”
He laughed. “It’s a relic. All I can do to keep it in tune from week to week. I hear you play some?”
“The best you’ve heard,” Aida said.
“Do you feel up to playing a tune for us?” The minister pressed his right hand into his left shoulder.
She looked to me, and I grinned. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard you play.”
We stood. She steadied herself on my arm, and we walked to the front. I sat next to her on the bench, my arm around her waist. Her fingers ran over the keys, but she didn’t press them. She wanted to feel their texture, understand the wood from which they’d been fashioned.
“It is old.” Her voice wheezed with the effort of speaking. “85 keys. Real ivory, real ebony.”
She plunked a key. The tone reverberated in the small room, then faded quickly. She pressed another key, then the sustain p
edal. The note rang. High C above middle E. “Still in tune.”
The minister moved to the piano to watch. “Just fixed it up this morning.”
Nadine’s fingers moved slowly. I didn’t recognize the tune immediately. I’d expected something jazzy, or something whimsical. She liked those songs. Instead, the sound came out sorrowful, longing apparent in each note.
“Just As I Am,” the minister said. “One of my favorites.”
Nadine smiled. “Aida told me.”
“You are something else.” His smile widened. “What a lucky man you are, Connor.”
My smile fell. I didn’t feel lucky, but decided not to say so. Nadine looked happy for the first time in days. I wouldn’t take that from her. Instead, I said, “Thanks.”
The minister began to sing, and Aida and Mason joined in. I didn’t know the words, so I hummed. It felt good to feel Nadine’s body moving, her arms brushing mine as she stretched across the keyboard, her back swaying, straightening with the rhythm, her foot tapping out the beat.
My heart lightened, and I kissed her forehead. “I love you,” I whispered.
Nadine kept playing. She played Amazing Grace next, and then asked to go back to the pew. The minister and I helped her along.
Once we sat down, the minister walked to the front. He pressed his right hand into his left shoulder again and grimaced, contorting the scarring into a macabre, branchless tree. He set his Bible on a black music stand, and, without moving his eyes from the text, sighed deeply. He’d prepared a weighty message, probably about salvation, how we all needed Jesus. Something directed at me in sentiment but not in print. I prepared myself for a very long half-hour.
Instead, he asked us to turn in our Bibles to Luke, Chapter 8. He’d not prepared a message for me, but for Nadine. Long story short, a woman touches the cloak of Jesus and is instantly healed. Then, Jesus says her faith healed her. He’d meant for the message to be inspirational, to reaffirm her faith, but it shook mine. How easy it would be to touch Jesus’ cloak. And, if it were so easy for Jesus to heal, why didn’t he heal Nadine?
He slapped his Bible closed, and I prepared myself for the inevitable altar call, the “If anyone needs Jesus, let him come forth now!” rally cry I heard in so many other churches. But Pastor Caleb skipped that. He looked to Mason and asked, “Care to close us in prayer?”
Mason nodded, stood, bowed his head and prayed.
After the service, Nadine took the time to thank Pastor Caleb and shake his hand before she asked Aida for a ride home. She’d enjoyed her time in church, but it took all her energy. Her color faded; she held tightly to my hand and put most of her weight on me as I helped her out to the car. I kissed the top of her head, held her firmly around the waist.
“I can do this interview later. I’ll come home with you and get you set up.”
She shook her head. “Aida can do that. You have a job to do.”
We stood next to Aida’s silver Plymouth Breeze. She wrapped her thin arms around me and squeezed with what was left of her strength and whispered in my ear. “My faith is strong. Don’t worry about me. Do your part, and I’ll do mine, and I promise we’ll beat this thing.”
“It was good to hear you play again.”
She kissed my lips. “It felt good.”
I wanted to pull up stakes and drive us back to Colorado, but I remembered what happened last time I’d decided to quit. Rationally, I knew the two couldn’t be related, but the timing couldn’t be denied. Maybe if she told me it was okay to quit, then I’d be off the hook, and we could go back to as normal of a life as her disease would allow.
She hugged me. “I’ll be home when you’re done. I’m a fighter. I’m not going to let this thing win.”
I reminded myself to be careful with her. I wanted to hug her with my whole being, but that might crush her ribs. Instead, I gave her enough of a squeeze to tell her I loved her, cherished her, needed her.
After they left, I returned to the church. Pastor Caleb undid his suit coat and put it over the corner of a pew. He sat behind the piano plunking out a tune I’d not heard since I was in church last. I couldn’t place the name of the song, but remembered the melody. He hummed quietly; if he answered questions as quickly as he preached, I might have a chance of finishing this interview inside of an hour.
“Quite a talent.” I nodded toward the piano.
“Nothing like your wife’s talent, but a man can’t have everything in life, can he?”
I thought of Nadine and me raising children. “No, I guess not.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if you could?”
I smelled a trap. No matter my answer, he’d find a way to bring it around to a talk of salvation.
He continued tapping out the tune and humming. We’d scarcely made eye contact since I came back in. “Mason says you’ve got a few questions for me?”
“I do.” I looked over the list of questions I’d put together on the drive over and tucked them into the pocket of my jeans. Before I got to those, I decided to use the time to get the answers to questions Mason wouldn’t give me. “How well do you know Mason?”
“I’d like to say I know him pretty well, but he can be pretty guarded. He’s a great guy, I can tell you that. One of those people who really cares about everyone else. Selfless. If I could sum him up in a word, it’d be charitable and insightful.”
“That’s two.”
“Exactly.” He tapped on a single key repeatedly, alternating speed and rhythm. Already, the note started to slip out of tune. “Mason’s not a one-word kind of guy.”
I sat on the front pew and crossed my legs. Stretching my arms across the back of the pew, I rolled my head around in circles. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you have any reason to doubt his sanity?”
He groaned, shrugged his left shoulder. “You serious?”
“I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention I asked, but yes. I’m serious.”
“No reason at all. Why?”
I frowned. “What has Mason told you about this interview?”
“Not much. Like I say, he’s guarded. Doesn’t give up information, and I’ve learned not to ask. He gets withdrawn, even standoffish at times. So I leave well enough alone. He called me this morning and asked me to clear my schedule so you could ask me questions. I told him I could do that.”
“That’s it?”
“He mentioned you could be pretty defensive when it comes to salvation, so he suggested not being pushy about it.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“I’m guessing you were just in church today so you could interview me afterward?”
“Guilty as charged.”
This line of questioning wouldn’t get me far. If he couldn’t give me a glimpse into Mason’s personal life, maybe I could see him from a professional standpoint. “Do you know him outside of church?”
“Met him a few years ago when he came to the last church I pastored. He and Bernie came in and talked to me after service one day, asked if I wanted to come out here to Hailey. From there, it was just a professional relationship, working out compensation and all that.”
My curiosity swelled. “Where was your last church?”
“Just down in Newland.”
I nodded. “Was that your first?”
He shook his head. “Before that, I pastored in Tennessee.”
“How’d you go from Tennessee to Hailey?”
“Long story. I’ll try to keep it short.”
Chapter 15
LEAVING TENNESSEE
At the luggage carriage in LAX’s west terminal, Caleb took Natalie’s biggest suitcase and strapped another over his good shoulder. She had her mother Tamara’s green eyes and the slope of Caleb’s nose. “You have everything? Clothes, CDs, make-up?”
Her
eyelids looked bruised, purple and swollen. “Yes. Can we please go?”
She must be exhausted. Thunderstorms in Knoxville delayed them for six hours, and midnight in LA meant three a.m. in Tennessee.
They walked out of the west terminal and toward the weeklong parking lot. “Did you sleep much? On the flight, I mean.”
She shook her head, pushed her hair behind her ear. She’d done that since she was a kid, whenever she was nervous or tired. Of course, that’s when she was still a blonde. Now, her hair was as black as the Los Angeles night sky. “How long has your hair been that color?”
She shrugged.
“Seriously. What, a month? More? Give me something.”
“What’s it matter?”
“Right,” he said. “What was I thinking?” He loaded her luggage in the back of his cobalt Mazda 6.
“Let me get your coat.” He reached for her shoulders.
She shrugged his hands off. “It’s cold.”
“Car warms up quick.”
“I’m fine.”
Was that condemnation in her voice? Like he’d done something wrong, like this whole mess was his fault. But then, maybe it was. “You sound like my wife.” Natalie rolled her eyes and slumped into the passenger seat.
Caleb started the car and let it idle. Natalie closed her eyes. She might sleep the whole way. Would that be so bad? Still, he hated silence, though he’d lived with little else the last fifteen years. “You hungry? I know a great little café that’s open late.”
“I ate on the plane.”
“Peanuts aren’t a meal.”
“It’s enough.”
“You need to eat.” What was she, thirty pounds? Arms like rails, legs like a pair of scissors. Like his when he was young, just before he joined the Army.
“What’d Rebecca say?” Natalie asked. She crossed her legs, opened her eyes and looked at him. For a minute, she looked exactly as Tamara had sixteen years ago—something about the way her lips pushed together. He’d found Tamara’s sorrow subtly seductive, which is exactly what got him in this position to begin with. Now, looking at her daughter—his daughter—he wanted to gather Natalie in his arms, reassure her, reassure himself, maybe both.
The Bargain - One man stands between a destitute town and total destruction. Page 11