Now and Again (3 page)

“What will you do?” asked Lyle, his eyes wide with love and regret as he and Maggie ate their last sad sandwiches in the munitions plant lunchroom, where they were constantly interrupted by people who stopped by their table to ask Maggie questions or offer advice.

“I'll find a different job,” said Maggie with her old optimism, but it went without saying that her job perks and benefits would be hard to replace. In fifteen years, she had risen to the position of administrative assistant to Mr. August Winslow, civilian chief of operations, which gave her a far greater status than Lyle and their friends who worked in shipping or production. And if she were to stay on for another ten, she would get lifetime health care and a burnished wooden plaque.

“I guess you know that good jobs are hard to find,” said Lyle.

“I do,” Maggie replied.

“It seems like you're giving up an awful lot.” But once Maggie had made her decision, she wouldn't reconsider.

Lyle wasn't the sort of person to ask “Why?” but that was the first word out of Will's mouth when Maggie could no longer put off telling him about her plans.

Maggie was proud of her big, strapping son, who took in bits of information and then, when no one was expecting it, let them out again, rearranged. Like the time he asked Pastor Price if the identical Farley twins each had only half a soul and the time he asked if it was a sin to starve your children. “It's not only a sin, it's illegal,” said the pastor, which prompted Will to ask, “Then why is it also a sin and illegal for people without any money to steal?” The teachers in the lower school still talked about the day Will had surprised them by standing up at quiet time and asking if spilling seed was tantamount to murder. “Tantamount!” said the teacher gaily. “Now there's a big word. Let's all take out our dictionaries and look it up!”

“I've made my decision,” said Maggie, gently setting out the chipped rose-pattern dessert plates and a cinnamon raisin cake with drizzle icing. “I can't pretend I don't know what the bombs and bullets are used for. I can't pretend innocent people aren't getting killed.”

This led to a discussion of duty and if it was based on a person's own imperfect sense of things or handed down by a greater authority.

“What you're saying is that because a person can't know everything, that person is obligated to do as he or she is told,” said Maggie.

But Will and Lyle insisted that wasn't what they were saying.

“It's just that each person is looking through a tiny peephole,” said Will, which was a reference to how, in years past, Lyle had taken his young son to look through the circular holes cut in the plywood barricade whenever there was a construction project in town.

“Two heads are better than one,” added Lyle.

“Is mine one of those heads?” asked Maggie. “Or is it everybody else but me? Anyway, I haven't suddenly become a fanatic, if that's what you're worried about.”

But she didn't tell them about the top-secret document she had taken from Mr. Winslow's desk or about the letter from the Department of Defense she found and copied a few days later or about the book she had subsequently checked out of the library, which was called
The Economics of Nuclear Waste
and which made a connection between the waste disposal problem of nuclear energy facilities and the need of the munitions industry for cheap and lethal raw materials. She didn't tell them how 40 percent of the dart-shaped bullet tips broke off before impact, causing secondary explosions and widespread dispersal of radioactive dust or about the Internet articles documenting the effects of radiation poisoning on unborn babies in Iraq or about the ones questioning whether their own drinking water supply was safe. Will was optimistic and she wanted him to stay that way, so she didn't tell him that she sometimes wondered if the earth was the thing with a soul and if human beings were a boon to the planet or a curse.

“I love you too much to make a product designed to harm somebody else's child,” she said as she cleared away the rest of the cake.

“Don't make this about me,” said Will, getting up to do his homework. “Tell her, Dad. Tell her this has nothing to do with me.”

Maggie didn't say, It's always been about you, Will, ever since the day you were born, but she smiled to recall the day she and Lyle had brought Will home from the hospital in his blue-striped cap and how they had worried when he never cried. “Do you think it's normal?” asked Lyle. Maggie replied that she wouldn't have married Lyle if she'd thought he would father a normal son. “He's going to do something good in this world,” she had said. “Maybe even something great.” But now it seemed to Maggie that it was unfair to pin the burden of her hopes and dreams on Will. Parents had a duty to lead by example, and that was all she was trying to do.

Two nights later, Maggie unintentionally let it slip to Lyle about the Iraqi babies, and Lyle must have let it slip to Pastor Price, because the pastor cornered her at Sunday coffee and exclaimed, “What's this I hear about quitting your job?”

“I want to set a good example for Will,” said Maggie. “Besides, if I had to live my life over again, I wouldn't want to regret my decisions—or worse, to feel ashamed.”

Rain was pelting the tall parish hall windows, and a flash of lightning made the bulbs in the sconces flicker as if God was trying to tell them something. Maggie was a believer, but she wasn't the sort of person God spoke to, so she figured He must be communicating with Pastor Price.

“Don't get me wrong,” the pastor said after Maggie had explained everything to him as well as she could. “I'll support you any way I can, but monkeying about with definitions can lead a person seriously astray.”

Maggie didn't think she had monkeyed about with anything unless it was Mr. Winslow's files. “I'm not sure I understand,” she said, hoping old Mrs. Farnsworth would come forward with one of her questions about adultery and lust, but Mrs. F. was eyeing the donuts and eavesdropping while she patiently awaited her turn.

“Exactly!” said the pastor. “We run the risk of hubris whenever we think we understand.”

Even though he said “we,” Maggie knew he wasn't talking about himself. Still, she thought it best to admit she understood very little and would be extra careful of hubris in the future, whatever that was.

“We run the risk of heeding false prophets,” said the pastor, and Maggie merely nodded her head and said she had to follow her heart.

“Don't get me wrong,” Pastor Price said sternly, “but following your heart can be a tricky business, especially for a woman with a heart as big as yours.”

The next Sunday, the pastor and his wife Tiffany approached Maggie after services. “Lex Lexington told me one of his administrative assistants up at the prison is leaving,” said the pastor. “If you're interested, I can put in a good word for you.”

“The prison!” Maggie didn't like to think about the fortress filled with the nameless and forgotten where her father had worked when she was a child.

“If there's one place on earth that needs someone like you, it's that prison,” said Tiffany. “Besides, my Mothers of Mercy group is conducting an education outreach for the inmates, and we need a few dedicated people on the inside.”

“On the inside!” exclaimed Maggie. “That makes it sound so dangerous.”

“It's one thing to avoid doing harm in this big old world,” said Tiffany. “But it's quite another to do some good. That's what the education outreach is all about. Believe me, that prison is just crying out for people like you.”

“Just so long as your expectations for what you can accomplish are modest,” said the pastor. “Don't get me wrong—Tiffany can work miracles when she puts her mind to it. But if you set your expectations low enough, you won't be disappointed.”

The pastor had a habit of saying “don't get me wrong” the way Misty Mills said “no offense.” The phrase proved so useful to him that Maggie started using it herself. She said it when she went to collect her final paycheck and the payroll clerk said, “I hear you're taking matters into your own hands.” She said it when Misty Mills called her high and mighty. And she said it when Mr. Winslow lectured her about patriotism and exploding weapons. “Why, they even talk about shrapnel bombs in ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,'” he said. “They're as American as apple pie.”

E
ven though he vowed that his growing church and weekly radio show wouldn't change the way he looked at other people, Houston Price couldn't deny that he sometimes felt a slight sense of superiority as he watched the solid citizens of Red Bud file into his church every Sunday morning. There was Garner Hicks, pressed and frayed and dying of cancer but hopeful of reprieve, just as they were all dying and hopeful. Behind Garner tiptoed Mrs. Farnsworth, iridescent in her polyester pants suit and squinting about for telltale clues of sexual indiscretion. Her eyes lit on Lily De Luca, who was all dolled up and ready to flirt if the opportunity arose, which, for Lily, it always did. There was the new baby Hollister, born out of wedlock but saved just the week before through the holy baptism of the Redeemer. Edging away from the baby and its mother was Tyler Hicks, who only came to church to snitch from the collection plate, and behind Tyler was Sammi Green, surpassingly sulky and adolescent until things got going and she started to stretch her hands up to heaven and shimmy mightily in a show of what God could do with bodily glory when he chose.

He had outdone himself in that regard when He created the pastor's wife. Tiffany was the daughter of the largest landowner in the county, so marrying her had turned out to be as much an alliance as a love match. The union had led to the donation of the land the new church building was sitting on, the one condition being that Tiffany would participate in the design consultations and take charge of a healthy budget for good works. And if Tiffany had progressive ideas about the relationship between buildings and the earth, she also had progressive ideas about intimate relations, which more than made up for any architectural compromises the building committee had to make.

Before each service, Tiffany arranged a clean surplice on the back of a chair and set out the scented powder that kept the pastor's feet from sweating. “Sealed with a kiss” was always the last thing she said before he walked out into the swoop-ceilinged nave, and thrusting her tongue in his mouth was always the last thing she did. She did it, they both agreed, in order to free his spirit from his body for the task ahead, and it always worked—if he could resist Tiffany, he could resist anything.

“Bless you my child,” he always said when she handed him his prayer book and leaned in for the freeing kiss, careful not to stand where people passing by the door to the sacristy could see them.

“Sealed with a kiss,” she always said, but sometimes instead of kissing him, she just gazed into his eyes as she put his fingers on her breast, right where the nipple poked through the lacy cloth of the undergarments she wore beneath her choir robe. All of that added spice to the weekday humdrum of his job: the marital spats he had to adjudicate, the patient explication of texts to people who wanted to use the Bible to prove this or disprove that, and the more delicate approach he needed when the town scions he depended on for his livelihood sought his support for their favorite political causes.

It was six minutes to ten on a bright spring morning, but now, instead of Tiffany rushing into the sacristy and apologizing for her tardiness, it was August Winslow who filled the doorway. Winslow, who was not only civilian director of the munitions plant and husband to the Woodford oil fields heiress, but also a senior member of the pastoral council, now came charging in demanding to talk about Maggie Rayburn and how a reporter from the
Sentinel
wanted to write a story about her. “I called the publisher and put a stop to it,” bellowed Winslow. “There's no sense giving the woman a megaphone. There's no sense giving all of my other employees ideas.”

“I hope you handled the reporter carefully,” said the pastor. “That kind of thing can backfire.”

“Of course I handled him carefully. It was the publisher's nephew who apparently had the bright idea for the article, but I have no doubt we can count on the Fitches to do what's right for the town.”

“I've already had a talk with the Rayburn woman,” said the pastor, who had come to rely on what Tiffany called his pre-game routine and who was sweating because things were sliding off track. According to the sunburst-shaped clock on the wall, there were less than five minutes left, and if the pastor was known for anything, it was for exploding through the curtain at exactly ten o'clock on a crescendo from the organ, just when the stage lighting went from an expectant blue to a pulsating blaze of silver magnificence, and once his lighting manager had surprised him with giant sparklers and another time with a crazy purple fog. His entrance was hardly the most important part of the service, but it pleased him when Tiffany said he got a ten for showmanship on top of his ten for execution.

Winslow was saying, “She's a loose cannon. She worries me, to tell the truth.”

“She's lost her way, but with a little help and understanding, she'll be back on track before you know it.”

Back on track is where the pastor wanted to be. Three minutes to showtime, and his body was still fused to his spirit. His feet weren't the only thing sweating. Even his tongue felt coated and thick.

“Excellent, excellent. But I was hoping you could talk to Fitch.”

Winslow showed no signs of leaving, so the pastor said, “Call me tomorrow. We can talk about it then.” Panic was gathering in his bowels in spite of the fact that another thing he was known for was what Tiffany called his grace under fire.