Pocketful of Pearls (31 page)

“What does?” Was he talking about Phinehas’s fatherhood or her daring to get custody of Tamsen?

“Please don’t play games with me. This is serious.”

“I honestly don’t understand, Melchizedek. What is wrong with me trying to get some kind of legal status for my niece?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is the name on the document. Philip Leslie.”

Oh. Any hopes that this might have been done quietly and with the least amount of pain evaporated with those two words. Her
one hold over Phinehas vanished when he’d allowed Melchizedek to read the document. She should have known this would happen.
She should have predicted that Phinehas would find some way to turn his sin back on her.

“How could you do it, Dinah? How could you name a godly man, a Shepherd who leads a flock of hundreds, who has sworn himself
to celibacy for the gospel’s sake, as the father of this child?” His voice broke.

“I didn’t name him,” she said as steadily as she could. “It was on the birth certificate.”

“A lie,” he said in a voice so hushed it was almost a whisper. “By a girl whose sins led this congregation to Silence her.
A girl who is not worthy to serve the Shepherd even a cup of cold water.”

“That girl is my sister, Melchizedek. Be careful what you say.”

“Threats and accusations,” he retorted. “But I am armed against the darts of the wicked. Dinah, I must tell you the purpose
of this call.”

There was a purpose? “Yes?”

“My first reaction when I saw what you had done was to ask Phinehas if we should call the Testimony of Two Men.”

The bottom dropped out of Dinah’s stomach. The Testimony was only called when someone was to be Silenced. When it happened
to Tamara, it had begun the nasty work in their father that the cancer had put an end to.

“You’re going to have me Silenced?” she whispered. “But I haven’t done anything.”

“You are very fortunate in the loving heart of Phinehas, Dinah,” Melchizedek told her. “He held me back from picking up the
phone and calling it for this very evening. As it is, I’m going to be spending a good long time on my knees asking God to
take this anger out of my heart. It grieves me that one of our Shepherd’s own flock should turn on him this way.”

“But I—he—”

“In the spirit of truth, he left me a message to give you.”

Here it came. The final lightning bolt. Maybe she wouldn’t be Silenced, but the sick, rolling feeling in her stomach told
her that Phinehas wouldn’t let this go without a fight. “What’s that?”

“He believes you’re in danger, Dinah. His first care is for your welfare.”

“In danger from what?”

“Not what. Who. That hired man you have. Information has come to light that he’s more than a university professor, Dinah.
He’s a predator. An animal.”

“What are you talking about?” Dinah’s voice had risen in trepidation. Her gaze locked on Matthew, who was busy with bucket
and rake under the roosts.

“Phinehas believes that the truth will set you free,” Melchizedek said with all the authority of the law and the prophets.
“This Matthew Nicholas that you’ve given a home to was arrested just a few months ago for the sexual abuse of one of his female
students. That’s why he’s no longer a teacher. He can’t get a job anywhere in California.”

T
HAT’S NOT TRUE,”
Dinah retorted in a voice so harsh it was almost a whisper. “Phinehas is l—is misinformed.”

“I’m afraid it is true,” Melchizedek said. “I have the newspaper clipping here in front of me. ‘Prof Arrested in Sex Scandal,’
it says, naming Matthew Nicholas, professor of English literature, who abused a student in his office under the pretext of
prepping her for her exams.”

“Where did it come from?” The notice had only been served this morning. How on earth had Phinehas dug up this information?
She leaned against the barn wall, hoping it would hold her up. In the chickens’ area, Matthew murmured to a group of curious
birds who were hoping he’d share some corn while he was raking up droppings.

Pain needled under her breastbone, and she turned away.

“Sometimes we have to use the tools of the Devil in order to beat him at his own game,” Melchizedek informed her. “Phinehas
went to the library and in minutes Satan presented him with evidence of his work.”

Any other time Dinah would have been amused at the thought of Phinehas, who preached fire and brimstone against television,
music, and the Internet, being reduced to hunching over the little terminal with its thirty-minute limit in the Hamilton Falls
Public Library and trying to figure it out. But at the moment all she could do was marvel at the lengths to which he would
go to destroy her life.

“Good-bye, Melchizedek,” she said.

“Wait, I have more.”

What more could there possibly be? Phinehas had taken Sheba. He had taken Matthew. The only thing left was Tamsen, and he
would probably contest the notice and take her, too.

“What is Phinehas going to do about the notice, do you know?”

“Do? What is there for him to do but pray that you are forgiven for your malice?”

“But is he going to contest it?”

“Why would he? The child’s future has nothing to do with him. His care is for souls.”

Thank you, Lord.
“What more did you have to tell me, then?”

“Only this. Phinehas charged me to advise you that he will not call the Testimony if you make three sacrifices. You must cleanse
your home of this criminal so that the women of our congregation will be safe. You must promise that only the three of us
will ever know about the document he received. And you must restore freedom of spirit in your home.”

“Consider the first two done.” She glanced at Matthew again, and winced at the spurt of fresh pain. “But the third is up to
him.”

“I understand that for his freedom of spirit to be restored, you must be willing to sacrifice your own self-will. In his words,
to render again the service of love as you once did.”

No. No. I’d rather be Silenced. I will never, never—

“Dinah, are you all right?” Matthew laid down the bucket and rake and walked over to her. “You’re as white as your rooster
over there.”

Pain lanced through her knees and arrowed up through the muscles of her thighs. She hung up on Melchizedek in midsentence
before she dropped the receiver altogether and pressed both hands flat against the smooth Sheetrock of the barn wall.

“How could you not tell me?” she breathed. “Me, of all people?”

“Tell you what? Dinah, please sit down. You’re about to drop. What did he say to you?”

“‘Prof Arrested in Sex Scandal.’” She threw the headline bitterly into his dear, worried face. “No wonder you know so much
about sexual abusers, Matthew. Just when were you planning to tell me that’s exactly what you are?”

“SOMEONE’S BEEN DOING
a bit of detective work, have they?”

Matthew tried to slip an arm around her, but Dinah spun away from him. “Of all people to tell me, it had to be them, Melchizedek
and Phinehas. Tell me they’re lying, Matthew. Tell me it was some other guy in the paper.”

He’d wondered if this day would ever come. Wondered how he would bring it up, because of course he had to do so if they were
going to move on to the kind of relationship he hoped for. But the longer he had let it go, the more she learned to trust
him, and the more impossible it became for him to risk saying the words.

“Yes,” he said at last. “It’s true I was arrested.”

“Oh, lovely. Maybe you’d like to explain, before I write your last check and you go.”

He had a little money now, enough to get back to California. The very last place he wanted to be.

“I was arrested, but it turned out the girl had a history of abuse, and of making such accusations in order to get attention.”

“Once again, we blame the victim,” Dinah snapped. “You told me yourself that’s what abusers do.”

“I’m not an abuser, Dinah. I’m just a little shortsighted. I didn’t see it coming. I sincerely thought she wanted tutoring
for a paper about the plays of Aphra Behn.”

She snorted in disbelief.

“Yes, the police agreed with you. At first. But I was completely cleared. I see that Phinehas neglected to search the newspaper
archives for the articles that reported on my exoneration.”

She turned away and opened the barn door. “I’ll go write your check. Feel free to take my dad’s—Morton’s—clothes if you want.
I certainly don’t need them.”

“Dinah, please.” He reached for her arm, but she jerked away.

“You could have told me,” she choked. Her face was twisted with distress. “You could have explained. But oh no, you let me
go on and on about my own problems and completely shut me out of yours.”

“Why would I burden you with all that ugliness?” The words burst out of him. “You had enough to bear.”

“Let me be the judge of how much I can bear, Matthew. Let me do the thinking for myself.”

“And what would have happened? Exactly this. You getting upset and asking me to go.”

“Maybe. But maybe on those long nights when I was crying on your shoulder, you could have shared a little. Could have talked
things out with me.”

He gazed at her, completely at a loss as to why she would want such a thing. “I don’t understand. What happened in California
is irrelevant to us now. I was innocent. I’m still innocent. Don’t let that mistake come between us, Dinah. Please.”

“It’s not that.” Her voice shook. “It’s the fact that I gave you everything and you gave me nothing. You know everything there
is to know about me and what do I know about you? Friends, family, education, history? Next to nothing.”

“I can tell you all that. I thought we had time.”

She made a sound of frustration. “It’s not the facts that make the difference, Matthew. It’s the willingness to share them.
To exchange pieces of ourselves, don’t you see? It’s happened to me again. I give my pearls away and I get nothing back. I
suppose I should thank you for not throwing them on the ground, at least.”

He had no idea what she meant.

She opened the door and jerked her chin in the direction of the hired man’s suite. Her face was set, with fear stamped on
it the way it had been when he’d first arrived. “Go on. Pack your things and I’ll drive you to the bus station. And make sure
you close the door behind you. On top of everything else, I’m going to have to break Schatzi of the urge to visit you now.”

With that she marched outside and swung the door shut. The chickens, seeing him as their last hope, gathered around his feet
and looked up at him, murmuring encouragement.

“What am I going to do, my little friends?” he asked them, his voice thick with despair. “How am I going to make her see?”

The chickens had no reply. But there was One he could turn to when the waters of loss threatened to overwhelm his soul.

Lord, you’ve brought me to this place and to this woman for a reason. Give me wisdom. Give me guidance, please, Lord. Help
me know what your will is, and oh Lord, give me the strength to do it.

Shortsightedness had been the least of his mistakes. He had blithely told his friend Paolo that he thought he could help Dinah
by listening. So he’d just sat there like the God she had once believed in, accepting everything she brought to him and giving
nothing back. It had never occurred to him that he might have allowed her to listen, that in sharing his pain she might be
able to alleviate it. Instead, he’d been all wisdom and benevolence, dishing out advice as though it were his place to do
so, setting himself up as another selfish father figure in the long line she’d already had to deal with.

Oh, Father, forgive me. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Outside, the door slammed on the family’s Oldsmobile, and someone started it up and backed out of the yard. On the other side
of the barn, he heard the doors slide open and then the truck engine fire up. Everyone, it seemed, had somewhere to go today.
Meantime, he had not done what she’d asked him to.

It took only a few seconds to pull his few shirts off their hangers and to roll up the pair of pants that had belonged to
Morton. His books went into the pockets in his backpack they had become used to, and his toothbrush and comb into a plastic
bag.

When he took a last look around the cozy kitchen and living room he’d begun to think of as his little harbor of peace in the
wilderness of the world, he saw that Schatzi had followed him in the open door from the barn.

A lump formed in his throat as he knelt down to stroke the soft golden feathers. “Good-bye, little friend,” he said softly.
“Take care of her for me as best you can.”

Then, mindful of what Dinah had said, he slung the pack over one shoulder and picked the bird up. He closed the door carefully
behind him with one hand, which put Schatzi off balance. Her normal contented bubbling sound became a squawk of distrust and
she leaped from his arm, flapping to a landing on the floor of the dark passageway. Then she took off at a run for the rest
of her flock, who were milling around the feeder on the other side of the barn.