The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love (31 page)

Eugenie admonished herself for the uncharitable thought and smiled as much as possible when she returned Cora Lee’s wave. She opened the glass door and entered the office area.

“Hey Eugenie.” Cora Lee’s bright red lips dominated her face beneath a shock of bleached blond hair. No one knew Cora Lee’s age for certain. She’d hopped from job to job in Sweetgum for as long as Eugenie could remember. When Ruthie left last year, Cora Lee had landed in her chair before anyone could say anything. Paul never complained about her, though, so Eugenie supposed she must be a good worker.

“Good morning, Cora Lee. Is my husband in?”

“He’ll be out in a tick. He’s got Hazel Emerson in there.”
Cora Lee made a face. Eugenie had to school herself not to let her response to that bit of information show in her own expression.

“I don’t mind waiting.”

She didn’t have to linger long. A few minutes later, after she and Cora Lee had chatted about the weather and the new specials at Tallulah’s Café, Hazel and Paul emerged from the pastor’s study.

“Your wife’s here,” Cora Lee said unnecessarily. Paul’s face had lit up at the sight of Eugenie, even as Hazel’s darkened.

“I don’t want to disturb you,” Eugenie began, but Paul waved her words away.

“I’m free. Let me just see Hazel to the door.”

Hazel looked offended at the suggestion that she might need to be shown the door, but Eugenie recognized Paul’s strategy. She’d often employed it herself with problematic library patrons. Under the guise of politeness, you could nudge your problems right out the door.

“Just remember what I said, Preacher,” Hazel said, wagging a finger at Paul. “It’s not too late.”

“I’ll consider it,” was Paul’s only response, and Eugenie couldn’t tell what they’d been discussing. She was eager to know, though. Hazel certainly worked diligently to spread her poison around Sweetgum and its environs.

“Go on in and have a seat, Eugenie,” Paul instructed her as he moved away with Hazel.

Eugenie did just that, closing the door to the pastor’s study
behind her so she wouldn’t have to continue her conversation with Cora Lee. She needed a minute to gather her thoughts.

A moment later he was back. He took her in his arms and kissed her. Eugenie especially liked that part of marriage and could only regret all the years she’d missed out on such simple but enjoyable displays of affection.

“So what’s on your mind?” Paul asked when he released her. He waved toward one of the chairs across from his desk. Eugenie sat down, and Paul lowered himself into the one next to her. “Must be important if you’re here in the middle of the day.”

His comment stung. It wasn’t intentional, she knew, but was he implying, as Hazel Emerson had more than boldly stated, that her job was more important to her than her new husband?

“I wanted to talk to you about your decision to go part time.”

He’d told her about it weeks ago, as part of a very brief, very casual conversation. She hadn’t reacted then. Now, though, she didn’t feel as if she had any choice in the matter. They might not be young and fragile, but their marriage was. Eugenie had kept her feelings for Paul a secret for forty years, from the moment they’d gone their separate ways after an early courtship. She didn’t want to keep secrets anymore.

“I should have said something sooner.” She tried to focus her thoughts so she could present a logical argument. “I guess I didn’t realize the implications. Didn’t
want
to realize them.”

Paul arched an eyebrow in surprise. “What’s bothering you about my decision?”

Eugenie took a deep breath. “I feel as if it’s my fault.”

“Your fault?” He looked even more surprised.

“The budget problems. They’re because of me.”

Paul looked at her as if she’d just sprouted a second head. “You think this is about you?”

“Hazel Emerson approached me last fall. She told me that many of the members don’t believe I’m a Christian. She said it made the budget problems worse.”

Paul was silent for a long moment, long enough to make Eugenie nervous. She’d hoped he would wave her worries away and assure her that Hazel was completely off base. Instead, he looked at his hands, clasped between his knees. Anywhere but at her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Eugenie’s question came out as a bark.

“Your faith is your business, Eugenie, and no one else’s.”

“Hazel says I need to prove I’m a believer.”

Paul laughed. “Is that why you’ve been volunteering for everything in sight?” He shook his head. “Your relationship to the church, to God, isn’t about me. It shouldn’t be, anyway.”

“But—”

“Look, Eugenie, I’ve dealt with far more difficult problems over the course of my career. I’ll get through this.”

“Yes, I’m sure you will, but it shouldn’t be just you getting through this. I’m your wife. We’re supposed to be a team now.”

“So what should I have done? Told you that you had to stand up in worship and make a statement of faith?”

Eugenie pursed her lips. “Of course not. But you had to have known how people felt. We could have at least discussed it.”

“There’s nothing to discuss.” As quick as a wink, his eyes went blank, as if he’d pulled a set of window blinds closed. Eugenie had never seen him do that before.

“Paul? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“Then why do you look like that? Sound like that?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He turned away to shuffle some papers on his desk.

“You sound like I’m not allowed to know what you’re thinking. To be part of your decision. Your life.”

At that his face crumpled, as if a giant hand had wadded him up like a sheet of paper. “Eugenie—”

Just her name, but filled with anguish.

“Paul—” She reached for him, grabbing his clasped hands in hers. “Tell me.”

He shook his head, and then his shoulders began to shake as well. Eugenie, for the first time in decades, knew pure fear.

“Paul, you have to tell me. What is it?”

He raised his watery gaze to hers. “It was my fault.”

“What was your fault?”

“Helen’s death. Helen’s death was my fault.”

Eugenie’s head snapped back, as if he’d delivered a physical blow. “Your wife died of cancer.” She gripped his hands more tightly. “How in the world could that be your fault?”

“I pushed her too hard, wanting her to meet everyone’s expectations. The older I got, the more I tried to dictate to her.”

Eugenie couldn’t imagine Paul being dictatorial to anyone. “That’s just survivor’s guilt talking. I’m sure you did no such thing.”

Paul laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. Only pain and loss. “I did. And eventually it killed her.”

“So your solution is to not ask anything of me? Even if what you’re saying is true, isn’t that jumping out of the frying pan into the fire?” She paused. “Besides, I’ve heard you talk about Helen. She doesn’t seem like a pushover from the way you describe her.”

“She started to get tired, but I ignored it. Just kept encouraging her to play the piano for the children’s choir, organize the fund-raising walk for steeple repairs.” He freed his hands from her grasp. “None of which was a matter of life-and-death.”

“People get sick, Paul. You can’t control that.”

“But I made her worse. Made it worse.”

“How do you know that?”

And then, though she’d been afraid before, terror rose in her as she looked into his eyes, no longer blank but instead filled with anguish.

“I pushed her when she was sick, and she died. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

All her life Eugenie had thought preachers were a cut above regular people. She’d believed they had some special connection to God that insulated them from the vagaries of human existence.
But since she and Paul had reconnected, she’d begun to see a new, clearer picture of the life of a minister. Now that Paul had revealed his secret fear to her, she could interpret his insistence that she not conform to the church’s expectations in a whole new light. He wasn’t being generous or tolerant or supportive. He was afraid.

“Paul, I’m not going to die just because I do a few things for the church. Or because Hazel Emerson and her ilk question my faith.”

He shook his head. “I know that.”

“But do you? Do you really? Or do you just know it without believing it?”

He looked at her. She could see that thought hadn’t occurred to him before. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. And it’s not your job to sacrifice yourself at my expense.”

“Eugenie—”

“That’s why,” she said, the words spilling out before she’d consciously formed them, “I’ve decided to stand up next Sunday and give my testimony.”

Esther wasn’t sure how it had happened, how she and Brody McCullough had come to eat dinner together numerous times over the course of several weeks. They certainly weren’t dating, of that much she was sure. He was simply her friend.

Since Esther had left college to marry Frank and have her first child, she hadn’t made many friends. She had her bridge club, her garden club, and the social committee at the country club. Funny how all those things had the word
club
in the name, but none of them had the word
friend.

Sometimes she and Brody ate at Tallulah’s Café after he finished at the veterinary clinic for the day. If anyone from her various clubs asked about him, she told them he was giving her advice on Ranger. Other times she cooked him dinner at her home. The house still languished on the market. The problem with owning one of the grandest homes in Sweetgum was that no one else could afford it.

During the second week in February, on a Friday evening, Brody appeared on her doorstep with a package wrapped in white paper. Steaks. Filets to be exact. Esther’s favorite.

“We can grill them,” he said, a twinkle in his eye that she was coming to recognize as a sign he was particularly pleased with himself. He must have had a good day at the clinic.

“I don’t know if there’s any gas in the tank for the grill,” she said in mild protest. Grilling in February? Funny how Brody could suggest something and get her to go along with it in a way Frank never could.

Of course, she and Frank had shared a vested interest in maintaining their facade of perfection. With Brody, she was finding, she could just be herself. He never asked about her money problems, never hinted that he knew, but he invariably turned up with some sort of treat. Tonight it was steaks. On New Year’s Eve it had been a bottle of French champagne. Even Ranger had shared in the bounty, as Brody brought several bags of the prescription dog food Ranger needed. It had turned out, of course, that the dog had an especially sensitive stomach. Esther was sure it came from eating so many of her hydrangeas.

“I can run to the hardware store for another tank of propane if we need it.” He handed her the package and rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see if we can fire that bad boy up.”

Just last week he’d been eyeing Frank’s massive outdoor grill. All Esther could do was laugh. That monstrosity was the dream of every man who’d ever gripped a barbecue fork. They might as
well enjoy that ridiculous grill as long as they could. Surely the house would sell before spring.

After the proverbial dust had settled, Esther discovered that while her finances were bleak, she was not without hope. The sale of the house, when it finally happened, would provide her with a tidy nest egg. The hard part, of course, had been changing the financial habits of a lifetime.

She’d studiously avoided Maxine’s Dress Shop and could only hope Camille wasn’t offended. Esther knew she’d always been the store’s best customer. She hadn’t been to Nashville or Memphis in months—another way to save money. She wasn’t exactly searching under sofa cushions for spare change to buy bread and milk, but now she had to think through every expenditure. On one occasion, at Vanderpool’s Groceries, she’d even put an item back on the shelf rather than go over her self-imposed spending limit. Strangely enough, she’d found the whole episode empowering.

“Any word from your real estate agent?” Brody asked when they settled into their chairs in the breakfast room. Other than Christmas Eve dinner, they’d eaten more informally, just off the kitchen. The breakfast room’s bay window boasted an expansive view of Esther’s yard and garden.