“I shouldn’t think you would want to. Maybe now you’ll be free to become the pastor God intended you to be.”
Paul clasped his hands between his knees. “I’d hoped . . . ” He cried. Hoped for what? To hear the words I’m proud of you, Son?
His mother came to him and cupped his face as she had when he was a boy. She kissed him. Her gaze was fierce and tear-soaked. “Only one thing is needed, Paul. In the midst of your grief, remember whom you serve.”
Alone in the den, Paul wondered why his mother had felt the need to remind him. Her words were like salt in his wounds.
He was a pastor. If anyone should know more was expected of him, he did.
Eunice didn’t try to convince Paul to stay in Southern California. Why plead when he wouldn’t listen? She simply announced her own plans. “I’m going to stay with your mother for a few days longer. I already made some calls and lined up a few women to substitute for me at the church while I’m gone.”
“Nice of you to let me know.”
“It’ll be easier on Mom if we don’t all leave at once, Paul. I thought you’d be pleased, and I thought it might be good if you took Tim home with you. It’s a long drive. The two of you will have some time alone together to talk.”
He dropped one of his father’s books into a box. Three others were already taped shut. “Don’t make plans for me, Eunice. Tim hasn’t said five words to me in the last four days. The thought of being cooped up in a car with him for five hours is less than appealing.”
“You haven’t sought him out either. You’ve spent most of the time up here in your father’s office.”
He threw another book into the box. “What do you expect me to do? Go out and sit by the pool with him? I’m not a kid with time to waste. Mom said I could take whatever I wanted from Dad’s library.” He waved his arm. “As you can see, I have a lot to do.”
How do I reach him, Lord? How do I break through the walls he’s building around himself ? Eunice looked around the room. On a display table was the model of David Hudson’s church. She walked over and looked at it and then looked up at the wall of photographs. David Hudson shaking hands with President Clinton. David Hudson with a movie star known for his martial arts, another for her body. David Hudson shaking hands with an ambassador from China. David at the front door of his church, his hands together as he bowed welcome to a visiting guru. The same guru who had attended the memorial service the other day and said David Hudson was one of the most enlightened pastors of the twentieth century, a true man of peace and love. All the photographs were expensively matted and framed. David Hudson’s trophy wall.
Disturbed, she looked around the room slowly, carefully, searching. No-where in the room was there a picture of David Hudson’s wife, David Hudson’s only son, David Hudson’s only grandson. Or of Jesus.
“You can stand there all day, Eunice, but I’m not going to change my mind. And you can’t make me feel guilty about it, either. I haven’t got time to police Tim. I can’t be driving him to and from school and then keeping track of where he is when I’m not there.”
“That’s a mother’s job. Right?” One he liked to remind her she hadn’t done right from day one.
“I have too much on my plate already.” He selected another book to add to his personal library and dropped it on top of the others. When was he going to have time to read all those books? Eunice wondered. “I’ve been gone for four days,” he said, his back to her. “You know as well as I do that I’ll have a pile of messages to go through.” He perused the bookshelf, looking for treasures. “And I have to meet with the building committee again and make sure they followed up on a few things. Stephen Decker wants his money. You’d think he could wait a few weeks.” He yanked another book off the shelf and tucked it into the box. “It’s not like all I have to do is play a couple of songs on Sunday morning and chat on the telephone for the rest of the week.”
Another barb aimed at her heart. “If you prefer I not counsel women in your congregation, just tell me, Paul, and I will refer them to whomever you like.”
“Have I struck a nerve?”
She could see she wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. “Since I have so little of importance to do, you and the church won’t miss me if I decide to stay a week instead of a few days.”
“Stay a month if you want!”
Who was the fool who said sticks and stones could break bones, but words could never hurt you?
“Look. I’m sorry.” He sounded more frustrated than apologetic. “I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t mean it.”
“No, I don’t know that, Paul. I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know you anymore!”
“I said I was sorry. What more do you want from me?”
“Sincerity would do. Sorry is just a word, Paul. It doesn’t make everything better.”
He caught her before she could walk out the door. Pulling her back against himself, he locked his arms around her waist and held her close. “I lost my father a few days ago. I’m not myself.”
More excuses.
“Forgive me.”
She fought the urge to dig her fingernails into his arm to gain her freedom. Seventy times seven, the Lord said. Seventy times seven. “I forgive you.”
His arms loosened. “You can’t understand how much the last few years have meant to me. For the first time in my life, I felt I had a relationship with my father. And now he’s gone.” He let go of her. “You know what depresses me most? He’s never going to see Valley New Life Center completed.”
Why did everything always come back to that?
Paul was already back at the bookshelf, back to work. He glanced from book to book, pulled one out, flipped through it, weighing its usefulness. He slipped it back into place on the shelf. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to forgive. Was he even repentant? If not for You, Lord . . .
“Why don’t you go downstairs and visit with Mom?”
He was brushing her off again. It had become a habit. “What do you see when you look around your father’s office, Paul?”
He didn’t attempt to hide his impatience this time. “Would you let me get to my work? I’ll be down later, Eunice.”
“Tell me what you see, Paul, and I’ll go.”
“A lifetime of achievement. Fame. Respect. The world took notice of David Hudson. That’s what I see reflected in this room. Why, what do you see?”
“I see what’s missing, Paul. I see what he cast aside.” Worse, she had never seen any evidence that David Hudson regretted throwing aside those who loved him most—his wife and son.
She went downstairs and out the sliding doors to the backyard. Lois sat beneath the umbrella, her Bible open in her lap. Shouting like a banshee, Tim took two big steps, bounced, and made a cannonball into the pool. “It’s nice having a boy around again. I’m sorry Paul and Tim have to leave so soon.”
“I’ve decided Tim is staying with me.”
Lois put the ribbon marker back in her Bible, closed it, and placed it on the patio table. They watched Tim go off the diving board again. “He gets to be more like his father every day.”
“Paul? Or Tim?”
Lois smiled ruefully. “Both.”
Eunice got up with Paul the next morning. He had already loaded the boxes of books into the trunk of his Buick. She started breakfast for him while he packed his clothes and shaving kit. Lois came into the kitchen wearing her bathrobe. The shadows beneath her eyes were more pronounced. Opening the cabinet, Eunice took down another cup and saucer and poured coffee for her.
“Thanks, honey. I just came down to wish my son a safe trip.”
Eunice cracked an extra two eggs into the frying pan.
“Did Paul take all the books he wanted?”
“Six boxes full.”
“Any files?”
Paul entered the kitchen. “No time to go through the files this time, Mom.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat at the nook table. “Besides, I thought someo
ne in the church may want to read through them, use them to write his biography.”
Lois put her cup into the saucer. “Dennis Nott suggested the same thing.”
“I was going to ask you about him. Who is Nott, anyway? He left a couple of cryptic notes in Dad’s office. Was he Dad’s secretary or what?”
“He was your father’s ghostwriter.”
Paul held his coffee cup suspended. “Ghostwriter?”
“He wrote your father’s book.”
Eunice divided the eggs onto three plates and put the frying pan into the sink to wash later. She served Lois first, then Paul. He looked pensive. Eunice hoped he was thinking about his father’s lack of ethics. Was he wondering if David Hudson was capable of other kinds of deceit, if he could allow the public to believe he had written a book someone else had written for him?
“I wish you could stay a few days longer, Paul,” Lois said. “There are a lot of things I wanted to talk over with you.”
“I wish I could, Mom, but I have a couple fires to put out at VNLC.”
“Trouble?”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed when I get there. The general contractor is turning into a royal headache.” He stood. “I’d better get a move on. I’ve got a long drive ahead of me.” He leaned down and gave his mother a kiss. “You know if you need anything, you only have to ask.” He straightened. “Walk with me to the car, would you, Eunice?”
She went out with him, praying for words of reconciliation.
“Tell Tim good-bye for me.” He gave her a perfunctory kiss and slid into his Buick. “Keep a tight rein on him. I don’t want him getting into more trouble down here. Mom doesn’t need it. And don’t stay longer than a week. You can’t leave your responsibilities to others, whatever you’d like to do.”
Heart sinking, she watched him back down the driveway. He couldn’t wait to get back to his mistress, the church.
Lois was still in the kitchen. “He’s still annoyed that he didn’t get his face in the news, isn’t he?”
Eunice took her seat again. “He just has a lot on his mind.” She tried to raise enough appetite to eat her scrambled eggs. Lois rose and poured herself more coffee, sat again, and remained silent for a long time. Giving up all pretenses, Eunice got up and dumped her eggs into the garbage disposal and put the dishes in the washer.
“It would seem neither of us has an appetite.” Lois stretched out and put her hand over Eunice’s. “Don’t stay away from home too long, honey.”
“I was only kidding about a month, Mom.”
“I know that, but there are times in a man’s life when he is particularly vulnerable. This is one for Paul. He’s very confused. There was a lot of unfinished business between him and David.” She squeezed Euny’s hand and leaned back in her seat again. She turned her cup around in the saucer. “I keep hoping God will open Paul’s eyes. I thought going through his father’s things might jog his memory about the past.”
“He saw what he wanted to see, Mom.” Saying even that much made her feel guilty. It wasn’t her right to speak against David Hudson. Lois had made her privy to information the public would never know. And it would be up to Lois to tell Paul, if she ever decided to do so. To know more of her father-in-law’s sins would only add to the temptation of exposing him. And all that would accomplish was an annihilation of her already-crumbling marriage.
Who would ever guess that a pastor’s wife could feel so trapped in despair?
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do about finances,” Lois said.
“The church didn’t give Dad a pension?”
“Oh, of course. He received a generous retirement. Unfortunately, it won’t extend to me.”
“Oh, Mom.”
“I’ll manage. I have Social Security. I’m not counting royalties on David’s book. I’m keeping only enough of it to pay the taxes on the income. I’ve arranged for Dennis Nott to receive 25 percent, and the rest is going to missions.”
Eunice wished Lois had said all this to Paul.
“Sometimes I think I should tell Paul everything.” Lois sipped her coffee. “I’ve thought about it so many times. But every time I think it’s time to lay everything out on the table, something stops me. I end up examining my own motives and realizing they’re less than pure. All those years of hurt, the years of watching David play at work. I don’t want to use truth as a weapon of revenge, Euny.” Her voice broke. She looked out the window for a long time before speaking again. “I kept hoping God would get through to David and he would repent. The Bible says, ‘God gave them over to shameful lusts.’ I saw that happen from up close. Too close. God kept reminding me that a man may be won over by his wife’s submission.” She looked at Eunice. “I left David once and took Paul with me. Has he ever told you about that?”
“No.”
“Maybe he doesn’t remember. He was just a little boy and we weren’t gone long.”
“Where did you go?”
“Morro Bay. I couldn’t afford a motel room, so we slept in the car. It was in my head to keep following Highway 1 up the coast all the way to Canada, but I headed home the next day. It was Saturday. Everyone would’ve been asking questions if I wasn’t seen sitting in the front-row pew on Sunday morning.”
At least Eunice would be saved those speculations. She had the ready excuse of a death in the family.
Lois pushed her cup and saucer away. “Enough whining about the past. I’m going to make some changes in my life. First thing tomorrow, I’m going to call a Realtor and put this house on the market.” She looked around the kitchen. “One person doesn’t need a place this big.”
Eunice leaned over and touched Lois’s arm. “You can come stay with us for a while.”
“I don’t think so, Euny. I don’t think I could stand to watch . . . ” Lois shook her head. “A pastor’s life is difficult. It would bring back too many memories.”
“Maybe you should wait on making any decisions.”
“No. I need to unload this house. I need to unload a lot of things. No more reflected glory for me.” She looked fragile and broken. “You know what hurts most, Euny? I can’t seem to hear the Lord’s voice anymore. It used to be so clear that it was like a trumpet call—like the shofar of ancient Israel. But I can’t hear Him anymore. Not even the still, small voice. And I want that more than anything.” She took Eunice’s hand, her eyes filled with anguish. “Don’t let it happen to you, honey. Please, don’t let it happen.”
CHAPTER 13
STEPHEN DECKER knew how the wind was blowing the minute he opened his church newsletter and read the headline: “Building Stones for New Life.” He had said everything he could to dissuade Paul from agreeing to Gerald Boham’s latest fund-raising scheme—a program designed to give special recognition to all those members who gave a thousand dollars or more to the building fund. Designated gifts would also receive recognition. If you paid for a pew, a small brass plaque with your name would be attached. Give a stained-glass window and your name would be etched on it. Names of those donating smaller amounts would be posted each Sunday. Courtyard paving stones would be marketed between the sanctuary and the education complex.
Father, forgive us. Crumpling the newsletter, Stephen slam-dunked the wad into his wastebasket. They would need Jesus and His whip to clean out the new temple. Stephen reached for the telephone and punched the speed-dial for VNLC. The answering machine picked up. Everyone was busy, but someone would be with him soon. Then a recording clicked on, advertising the upcoming events at the church. Stephen banged the phone back onto its cradle. What he had to say was best said in person.
Reka’s eyes widened when he walked in the door. “You want me to buzz Pastor Paul?”
“Don’t bother.”
“Stephen, he’s counseling—”
Stephen was too mad to care. He rapped twice on the door and opened it. Sheila Atherton sat on the couch, eyes wide. “You scared the life out of me, Stephen.”
Stephen knew that look. “Wh
y? Did you think I was Rob?” She was dressed to kill.
Pastor Paul was on his feet. “Who do you think you are barging into my office like this? I’m in the middle of a counseling session.”
Pastor Paul was pretty quick to her defense. Sheila noticed, too, and looked smug. Was Paul naïve or just plain stupid? “Five minutes is all I need, and then you can get back to business as usual.”
Sheila smirked as she picked up her purse. “Jealous?” She mouthed the word, her back to Paul.
“You don’t have to leave, Sheila. Stephen is the one leaving.” He was so solicitous, so careful of her feelings. A goldfish courting a piranha.
“It’s all right, Pastor Paul. I don’t think Stephen would behave in such an unseemly manner if it weren’t important.” She closed the door behind her.
Paul’s face was red. “It better be good, Stephen.”
Stephen thought of Eunice, loving and faithful, and turned his head, staring into Paul’s eyes. “You’d better be good.” If he saw so much as a flicker of guilt, he was going to smash his jaw.
“What’re you talking about?”
Pastor Paul didn’t have a clue. Stephen let it go and got to the point of his visit instead. “Building Stones for New Life?”
Paul sat. “You said you needed more money. We’re getting you more money.”
“Don’t you dare lay this at my feet! I said we need more time!”
“We won’t need more time if we have more money, and it’s been pouring in since that newsletter went out. Ten thousand dollars came in just this morning.”
“For what? The cross? Whose name are you going to carve on that, Paul?”
“You’re out of line!”
“And seeing the light.” He shook his head. “You’re way off track, my friend.”
Paul made a noticeable effort to rein in his temper. “You have no idea the pressure I’m under. If we hadn’t finally sold that old church building, we’d be drowning in debt.”
Stephen had warned him. “Pressure from whom? Pressure from what? You’re the one pushing every Sunday, browbeating the congregation into giving more and more. You’re using coercion, Paul. What’s next? Are you and General Gerald going to start selling shares in the church? You going along with that idea, too?”