Temperance Unraveling - Chapter 2
Resistance
Behind White Falls Baptist Church a shelf of lawn stretched for twenty yards before stumbling into a ragged decline of hill that sloped toward the church’s cemetery. The hill served as a continual source of consternation for the adolescent males who played touch football on the lawn after Wednesday Night Youth Group, as an errant pass along the lawn’s west bank meant one of the boys had to negotiate the hill’s rocky, weed-infested terrain to recover the ball, or, if the pass had been thrown with enough force, walk all the way down to the cemetery to retrieve the pigskin. Recovering the football was such a time-consuming nuisance that the boys invariably ran a preponderance of pass routes along the church’s back wall, a risky endeavor itself on account of the fact that a trip or an accidental tackle near the wall commonly resulted in the gory meeting of flesh and brick veneer. Still, the likelihood of injury occurring on any given play was slim, so the boys stayed committed to their routes, each one steadfast in his belief that he would avoid harm.
Only one member of the church’s congregation ever chided the boys for running plays so close to the wall, and that was Meredith Baker. Meredith had kept a routine of visiting her father’s grave after every Wednesday night service since her father died, and given that the cemetery could only be reached by way of the back lawn, her habit made her an involuntary spectator of the boys’ weekly games. A creature of arresting beauty, Meredith’s presence never failed to distract the boys from their play. They would half-heartedly run through their routes while she was passing by, their adolescent eyes quick to peel back to the edge of the lawn to catch a glimpse of her. As for Meredith, the sight of the boys playing football so near the church worried her, and she never failed to leave the field without delivering a warning. “You boys be careful running plays so close to the wall,” she would caution in her feathery, light-as-a-marshmallow southern register. “We don’t need anyone tripping and cracking open their head.”
The combination of Meredith’s attractiveness and her words of caution always brought a temporary halt to the proceedings. The boys would murmur back shallow-breathed “Yes ma’ams” in response to her admonitions, and for a time would be divested of their interest in continuing their play. Soon thereafter, however, Meredith would walk away from the playing field and toward the cemetery, at which point the spell of her beauty and the threat of her warnings would lose their hold over the boys, and they would resume their game.
Meredith only visited her father’s grave on Wednesdays. Sundays were too hectic; Cleveland Baker, Meredith’s father-in-law and White Falls’s pastor, insisted that the entire Baker clan line up to shake hands with the parishioners as they exited church, and by the time the line was depleted Meredith’s children were too grumpy and hungry to wait while Mom walked down to the cemetery. So Sundays she let slip, despite the guilt she felt over the matter. But Wednesdays—Wednesdays were reserved for Pop.
Meredith’s father, Paul Masters, had been known as Big Paul to his friends when he was alive, but to Meredith he was always Pop. Where the paternal pet name had come from she couldn’t remember, but she had always called him that, never Dad or Daddy like the other girls called their fathers. Just Pop. Always Pop. Motherless since the age of two, Meredith grew up exceptionally close to her father, and when he unexpectedly passed away after a single-car accident at the age of fifty-four, she was devastated. Only recently a mother for the second time, the thought of her children growing up without knowing their maternal grandfather was almost more painful than she could bear.
Occasionally Meredith’s four-year-old daughter, Hailey, accompanied her on her Wednesday night walks. Although Meredith preferred the reflective solitude of visiting her father’s grave alone, she never passed up the opportunity to share with her daughter the details of her deceased father’s life. Excessively inquisitive at such a young age, Hailey was always loaded with questions concerning her departed grandfather. “Is this where Papaw Paul is buried?” Hailey would ask with innocent, uplifted eyes once they had reached the tombstone. “Yes. Yes it is,” Meredith would answer, happy to see that she had successfully drilled the memory of her father’s existence into her young daughter’s mind. “Papaw Paul was your daddy, right?” “That’s right, he was.” The question and answer session continued in this manner until Hailey’s appetite for information had been sufficiently sated, at which point she would press her young mother to leave. “Let’s go,” she would insist long before Meredith had had a chance to sufficiently pay her respects, and unless Meredith could convince Hailey to explore nearby areas of the graveyard, the four-year-old always got her way.
Hailey was Meredith’s eldest child. Her youngest, Joshua Brian, was a little older than one and the spitting image of his father, Michael. Joshua Brian never accompanied his mother to her father’s gravesite. Instead he remained contentedly perched in the crook of Michael’s arm after every Wednesday night service, the rare one-year-old who showed no preference for his mother’s embrace over his dad’s. Or, for that matter, his father’s embrace over anyone else’s, a quality which made him a sensation among the baby-adoring parishioners of White Falls. An equal-opportunity arm sitter, Joshua Brian willingly went from one pair of limbs to the next, indifferent to the face belonging to the arms so long as the crook provided kept him aloft. At times it worried Meredith that her son was so unconcerned with the identity of his caregiver of the moment, but then she was also grateful for the freedom his insouciance afforded her, so she tried not to fret about it too much.
A half-year of Wednesdays passed this way, boys beating a path to the back lawn to play football once Youth Group let out, Meredith paying weekly respects to her father at his resting place, Michael keeping tabs on Joshua Brian as he passed between church members like a hot potato, and Hailey occasionally escorting her mother to the graveyard but usually opting to play with the other children in the church parking lot … until one early October evening when Cleveland Baker delivered a sermon on the evils of alcohol that brought an end to all these things. The sermon was entirely unexpected, as it was a departure from Cleveland’s series of Wednesday night orations on the book of Job, and the subject caught those in attendance so off-guard that most left the church wondering what had been the impetus behind the pastor’s change in topics.
One person, however, knew why Cleveland had made the switch.
Meredith.
*
Hailey gave Meredith a preview of what was to come before the service had even begun.
“Papaw says I can’t have gum no more,” the four-year-old whined to her mother as the Baker family made their way to their pew at the start of the service. Meredith, deep in conversation with Krissy Oglethorpe about the merits of adding DVR to the Baker family’s existing satellite service, ignored her daughter’s gripe.
“Mama!” Hailey tried again, tugging at the back pocket of her mother’s Diesel jeans. “Grandpa said I can’t have any more chewing gum! Ever! And he was really mean when he told me!”
“Excuse me, Krissy,” Meredith said, turning away from her friend. Accustomed to Hailey’s histrionics, Meredith had little reason to believe this newest drama was of any particular importance. She faced her daughter, her voice betraying her frustration. “Well, what is it?”
Hailey was not deterred by her mother’s show of annoyance. “It’s Papaw Cleve! He said …” she began, breaking into tears to convey the genuineness of her frustration, “ … that I can’t have chewing gum no more! No Big Red, no Juicy Fruit, no Fruity Stripes, nothing!”
Though not yet sold as to the degree of displeasure her daughter wished to convey, there was an authenticity to Hailey’s voice that commanded Meredith’s attention. “Are you sure about that, honey? I don’t believe Grandpa would say that you could never have chewing gum again.”
“But he did,” Hailey insisted. “He said no more gum! And then he took away my Fruity Stripes!”
Hailey’s teary, imploring eyes fixed to her mother’s face with an expression so self-evidently genuine it dared defiance. Still, Meredith knew her daughter was prone to exaggeration. She took a stab at a more logical explanation.
“Grandpa said no more gum, huh? Did he mean no more gum in church?”
Hailey didn’t miss a beat. “Yes! Like I said. Papaw said no more gum in church.”
This made more sense. Meredith took a quick glance around the church for Cleveland. She didn’t spot him. He was still greeting latecomers, most likely.
“Well, your Grandpa’s not in here right now, so I can’t talk to him. But he probably just doesn’t want you chewing gum while he’s preaching, which might not be a bad idea.”
“But Mommy,” Hailey wailed. “He was mean. He took my Fruity Stripes away …” and here she demonstrated, grabbing at her mother’s hand with a violent thrust of her arm, “ … like that!”
A surge of adrenaline rushed through Meredith. How dare he! She knew from experience that Hailey wasn’t lying. Jerking gum from a young child’s hand was exactly the sort of impulsive, punitive action Meredith had come to expect from her father-in-law. She could count on that type of behavior about as readily as she could expect him to bypass her input in all matters involving her family. There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d have asked for her help in dealing with Hailey, not after all the arguments they’d had. But, by God, he was going to listen to her now. Once she had his ear …
“Is everything okay, Meredith?”
Krissy. The sound of her friend’s voice quieted the indignant hormones racing through Meredith’s bloodstream. Now wasn’t the time to get upset. Not at church, before the service. Not with … everyone watching.
“No, nothing’s wrong. Hailey’s a little upset because her grandpa made her spit out her gum.”
“Mommy!”
Meredith didn’t have the time to go another round. “Not now, Hailey. We’ll talk about this after church.”
Hailey was about to begin with the waterworks again, but the pianist started to play, cuing the parishioners to their seats. For all her childish ways, Hailey knew better than to cause a scene once service had begun. She clamped her lips shut and, following her mother to the pew where her father and brother were seated, morosely sat down.
Moments later Cleveland made his way down the aisle. Striding purposefully in his customary preaching attire—wool trousers paired with a pressed white dress shirt and a striped red-and-gray tie—Cleveland looked every bit the rural, no-nonsense pastor he professed himself to be. A sturdy, barrel-chested man of above-average height, Cleveland cut an intimidating figure, his spectacles and bald head notwithstanding. Although recently turned sixty, Cleveland’s strength seemed to be growing rather than waning with the years. His recent sermons were testaments to his burgeoning might, powerful orations delivered with a booming voice. The parishioners of White Falls had never found their pastor more authoritative or compelling.
Meredith grimaced as Cleveland took his seat on the first pew. She knew what the others thought of him, but to Meredith her father-in-law was nothing more than a schoolyard bully, a manipulative malcontent forever intent on meddling in the affairs of others. She was ashamed they were related.
She hadn’t always felt that way about the pastor. Not when she first began dating Michael. Back then, when she was eighteen and finishing high school, Cleveland had seemed like a man on par with her own father. First, there was the physical resemblance. Burly, tall, and tough-looking, Cleveland Baker could have been mistaken for Paul Masters’s older brother. Based on the similarity of their physical appearances Meredith took the liberty of assuming aspects of their personality were alike as well. When Pastor Baker practically ignored her the first year of her relationship with Michael, she wasn’t bothered in the least. She merely reasoned that Cleveland, like her own father, was an introvert. Not once did she imagine that his chilly exterior was an indicator of a similarly cold heart.
The first sign that Pastor Baker wasn’t the man she believed him to be came about a year into her relationship with Michael. A lifelong Methodist, Meredith thought little of her and Michael’s differing denominational backgrounds. That was, until Cleveland started harassing her to switch sects. “When are you going to become a Baptist, girl? Get dunked? No son of mine’s gonna marry someone who’s just been sprinkled,” and “Got to get you right, girl. Get you away from those robe-wearing, almost-Catholic priests you Methodists like to call preachers. We’ve got to get you into White Falls.” At first Meredith thought Cleveland was merely joking, but the more familiar she became with his personality the more she realized the pastor meant every word he said. He intended to convert her. At whatever cost necessary. It wasn’t long before his comedic stylings on the subject of her Methodist upbringing transformed into blunt directives concerning the direction he expected her life to take. “I won’t let my boy marry you, Meredith. Not unless you’re in the church,” he would state unequivocally on the rare occasions he acknowledged her presence. The church, of course, meant his church, and despite her weekly presence at White Falls with Michael it was clear that nothing less than a transfer of membership from Ridge City Methodist would appease Cleveland.
She appealed to Michael to intervene, but he refused. For all the noble characteristics Michael exhibited as a boyfriend—he was gentlemanly in manner, dependably loyal, and unfailingly affectionate—he refused to defy his father. “I don’t mean to sound like I agree with my dad, but I do believe that what he says comes from the heart. He’s trying to make sure, before we get married, that we’re on the same page in our spiritual lives. And frankly, I can’t say I blame him. Eventually we’re going to have to make a choice. Either Baptist or Methodist. And you know I can’t leave my dad’s church.” Michael’s dispassionate tone was a much easier pill to swallow than the pastor’s snide, vaguely threatening tenor, but it didn’t alter the fact that Meredith felt she was being manipulated into changing denominations.
The issue troubled her so that she considered ending the relationship. Not because her feelings for Michael had diminished—no, she still loved him, despite his fealty to his father—but rather because she didn’t want to establish a precedent of kowtowing to the elder Baker’s wishes. The thought of spending a lifetime acquiescing to that rigid man’s demands made her sick. She would not, could not, give in.
It was at this stage, when Meredith was at her lowest, that her Pop stepped in. “What’s bothering you, Mer?” he queried her one afternoon after weeks spent observing her deteriorating disposition. “Nothing’s wrong,” she lied, but even as the words left her mouth, tears were streaming down her cheeks, and suddenly she was in his embrace, daddy’s little girl all over again, crying uncontrollably, inconsolably, until at last her tears transformed into a blubbering account of her tribulations.
Paul didn’t take the story well. Meredith saw a flash of brute anger in his eyes, and for a moment she was worried he would do something rash. He had a reputation, mostly derived from his early days in the paving business, for exploding in the occasional firestorm of rage, and though it had been years since his last outburst, she assumed that with the right motivation he could still be provoked. Fortunately, nothing of the sort occurred. Instead, once his fury had subsided, he calmly asked Meredith if she could set up a meal with Michael and his parents.
The meal, magically, worked. Paul met Cleveland at the entrance to Ryan’s Steakhouse and, with a firm handshake and a stifled smile, immediately established dominance over the pastor. It seemed simple and ridiculously primal, but within the span of that brief interaction Meredith sensed that Cleveland would never bully her again. Once the two families sat down to eat the conversation centered on the usual platitudes, but there was a halting quality to the dialogue, as if the chit-chat were simply a prelude to the real discussion to come. Finally Paul suggested that he and Cleveland make their way to the salad bar. Stealing glances from her seat at the other end of the restaurant, Meredith watched as the two men started what appeared to be a heated conversation at the lettuce bin, but quickly evolved into a one-sided harangue by the time they reached the dressing vats. The pastor, to Meredith’s astonishment, took her father’s tongue-lashing in silence. Hands foraging the salad bar, Cleveland didn’t so much ignore Paul’s invective as work through it. By the time his salad was comprised, however, it was clear that the message had gotten through. The pastor gave Paul a docile nod of the head and, without a word, headed back to the table.
Six months after the showdown at the restaurant, Michael proposed. Meredith accepted, and within the year they were married. Her Pop, for all the guarded contempt he held for Pastor Baker, couldn’t have been more pleased that his daughter had married a preacher’s boy. He always said, when referring to Michael, that he was “a good boy, likely to be a good man,” and on the day of the wedding ceremony he beamed like a gilded flower, forgoing his customary dour face for that of a proud papa’s. He couldn’t hide his delight. Meredith understood why, too. Her marriage was a testament to the work he’d put in to raising his daughter correctly, not a task many thought he’d accomplish all those years ago when Meredith’s mother had left. But now that Meredith was married, it spoke volumes. Big Paul had done his little girl right. And, as Meredith knew, would continue to do right by her should she ever need his help. This was what made her decision to transfer her church membership ultimately possible. The choice was her own, not a coerced concession forced on her by Cleveland. As long as her Pop was around Meredith wasn’t frightened at the prospect of dealing with her father-in-law. She knew Cleveland Baker wouldn’t dare interfere with her marriage with Big Paul in the picture.
Unfortunately, five years later Paul Masters was no longer alive, and Meredith was faced with the daunting task of dealing with her father-in-law alone.
The pianist stopped playing. White Falls’s music director, Zeke Bradford, rose from his seat in the pew opposite the pastor and faced the congregation. Abnormally tall, rail-thin, and dangerously old, Zeke teetered from side to side like a cornstalk bowing to the pressures of a swirling breeze. His spindly fingers, however, fought against the zephyr, rifling through the pages of his hymnbook until they had settled on a page. He announced his selection with a voice that defied his weakly frame. “Page 292 in your hymnbooks,” he said. The congregation dutifully did as they were told.
Zeke’s song selection was “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.” Meredith thought the hymn a strange choice for a Wednesday evening, as it was usually sung on Communion Sundays, but whatever the reason for the selection, the congregation sang it with supernormal gusto, seemingly drawing inspiration from the song’s message of fellowship. “Blest be the tie that binds; our hearts in Christian love.” Meredith was not immune to the song’s vibe. The hymn reminded her that in spite of the problems she had with Cleveland, White Falls was her home, a place of refuge and comfort. Looking around the church Meredith could see a host of friends, people who had been there to support her and Michael during their first years of marriage and, more important, who had reached out to her when her father had passed away. They were the lifeblood of White Falls, this Wednesday night crowd, the ones who showed up at funeral homes and brought meals to the sick and volunteered to work Bible School, the people who, in short, practiced what they preached. Meredith hadn’t been exposed to this side of the church when she was a girl—Pop had strictly been a Sunday-morning Christian—but ever since she had married Michael she had come to understand that being a church member was about more than attending the weekly 11:00 a.m. service. It was about having a family, a Christian family, and about being there for one another when life turned tough. To Meredith, the benefits of being a part of this family far outweighed the negative aspects of attending a church where Cleveland was the preacher. She merely had to glance at the friends around her to remember that a church consisted of more than the man behind the pulpit.
The hymn came to its end. The congregation, flushed with contentment, settled back into their pews like diners pushing away from the table after an especially satisfying meal. Wednesdays at White Falls were like this, the atmosphere relaxed, the congregants comfortable, and the sermons soft. Unlike Sunday mornings and Sunday nights, when Cleveland almost always selected a sermon from his extensive collection of fire-and-brimstone homilies, Pastor Baker chose Wednesday to delve into the less evangelical parts of the Bible. Wednesdays were a time to explore the metaphors of Psalms, the finer points of Paul’s letters to the Apostles, and yes, even the erotica of Song of Solomon. Lately the focus had been on Job. As Pastor Baker took his spot behind the pulpit, everyone expected him to pick up where he had left off last Wednesday, with Job covered in sores and cursing the day he was born. It was somewhat of a shock then, when instead he read from a passage in Proverbs.
“Proverbs, chapter twenty, verse one.” The words sounded off Pastor Baker’s tongue like a roll of thunder. He had developed the ability, over the years, of striking a cadence that he knew would command the congregation’s attention. This was it. All around the church ears pricked up.
“Proverbs, chapter twenty, verse one,” he repeated for effect. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosever is deceived thereby is not wise.”
For a brief moment after reading the verse, Cleveland let his eyes wander over to where his daughter-in-law was seated. His stare was as hard as stone.
Cleveland continued. “Romans 6:23. For the wages of sin is death! Death! Proverbs, chapter twenty, verse one, and I repeat: Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is deceived thereby is not wise! God doesn’t make it any clearer, folks! Drinking is a sin, and the wages of sin is death!”
Meredith sat immobile in her seat, stunned by the paroxysm. The rest of the congregation shuffled uneasily in their pews, uncertain why the pastor had jettisoned Job for the subject of alcohol. And why he was preaching using his Sunday morning voice. And why he had jumped straight into the heart of the sermon, with no buildup. It was unsettling for the parishioners of White Falls to have their pastor upend the Wednesday night routine. Sundays were different—they expected a touch of fire and brimstone on Sundays, a dash of old-time religion, a sprinkling of guilt. But not on Wednesdays. Wednesdays were a time for study and spiritual nourishment. Still, most assumed that since Pastor Baker had broken from custom, he must have a good reason. They just didn’t know what it was.
Meredith knew, though. She knew exactly what her father-in-law was up to.
*
It had started two days earlier when Cleveland and Henrietta came over for dinner.
After the meal Henrietta and Meredith were going about their normal routine of cleaning up the kitchen, when Henrietta asked Meredith if she had seen Bridgett Honeycutt recently. Bridgett was one of Meredith’s best friends from high school and had been a bridesmaid in Meredith’s wedding. Henrietta had been fascinated with Bridgett ever since making her acquaintance at the wedding. Meredith suspected it had something to do with Bridgett’s tiny build—Henrietta was enamored with all things miniature, as attested to by the sprawling collection of ceramic Nativity figurines she prominently displayed in her house at Christmas—and often asked Meredith for updates on her friend. When Henrietta asked Meredith if she had seen Bridgett, Meredith was pleased to answer that she had. Talking about Bridgett was one of the few topics the two of them could easily discuss.
“Yes, actually. I went out to dinner with her and a few of my other friends last Friday night.”
“Really?” Henrietta responded. “Who else went? Was it a big group? Where did you go?”
Meredith could hear the excitement in her mother-in-law’s voice. It made her feel like a star, in some strange way, talking to Henrietta. Meredith’s life, as simple as it was, burned bright in comparison to Henrietta’s bland existence.
“Oh, it was just me, Bridgett, Cory, and Krissy. Girlfriends from my graduating class. We drove up to the Olive Garden in Greensboro.”
“That must have been nice,” Henrietta responded, a smile as big as a Moon Pie on her face. “Cleveland took me to the Olive Garden two years ago for our anniversary. I had the Pasta Primavera. And that delicious salad they bring out in the big bowls. And gobs of bread. I absolutely love their bread.” Henrietta floated in a sea of blissful memories. “What did you have, dear?”
Meredith felt a sudden tenderness toward her mother-in-law. Usually they struggled to talk, but this time Meredith perceived that Henrietta was opening up to her. Meredith had always sensed this side of her mother-in-law; it was there beneath the surface, a thinly veiled desire to be girlish and light-hearted, but it never fully emerged. Instead, like most aspects of Henrietta’s personality, it cowered in the darkness of Cleveland’s long shadow. Meredith had been convinced for years that Cleveland was the reason she and Henrietta had never been close. Her mother-in-law had always been civil to her, cordial even, but Meredith felt that she kept a certain distance out of deference to the pastor. But here at last was an inroad, an opportunity to make headway with Henrietta and perhaps even strike a chink in the Baker family armor. She was almost giddy with delight.
“I had the Tour of Italy. It’s like three plates in one. They give you chicken parmesan, lasagna, and fettuccine Alfredo, along with salad and bread. It was soooo much. I had to take most of it home. But it was delicious.”
“Oh, it sounds good,” Henrietta cooed. “What did the other girls have?”
Meredith gladly indulged Henrietta’s wanton vicariousness.
“Cory had the shrimp Alfredo, while Bridgett ordered some type of pasta. Krissy had spaghetti.”
“Spaghetti?” Henrietta said, incredulous. “At a place like Olive Garden? When there’s so much on the menu?”
Meredith laughed. A wave of joy swept over her. She really was making a connection with her mother-in-law. “That’s the way Krissy is. She’s very picky about what she eats. And drinks. She wouldn’t even touch the wine.”
The words had no more than left Meredith’s mouth when she knew that she had made a terrible mistake. Until that moment Meredith had been careful to keep her infrequent and moderate enjoyment of alcohol a secret from her in-laws (Meredith only took a drink when the situation presented itself—when she was out with friends and Michael and the children weren’t around—and even then, she never had more than one drink, or two at the most), but in her desperate desire to forge a bond with her mother-in-law she had slipped. She wasn’t immediately sure what the fallout would be, but she feared that it would be devastating. She couldn’t imagine Henrietta keeping what she had said a secret.
Meredith looked at Henrietta for a reaction. Her mother-in-law offered pursed lips and a blank stare.
“I only had one glass, Henrietta,” Meredith stated, broaching the silence.
Her words hung in the air like a hummingbird treading wind. Henrietta, unresponsive, wiped water off the plates with a dish towel.
Meredith fired another volley of words. “It’s not a big deal. The only time I ever have a drink is when I’m out with friends. And even then I’ll only have one. Really, Henrietta, it’s nothing.”
Henrietta had the uneasy look of a novice poker player attempting to bluff a bad hand. “Yes. Well.”
Two words. No more. Just the now-deafening sound of Henrietta’s dish towel frantically drying tableware.
The kitchen was clean in record time. Milliseconds after putting away the last dish, Henrietta bolted out of the kitchen and into the living room where Cleveland, Michael, and the kids were watching Wheel of Fortune. Meredith followed behind, feeling like the proverbial lamb being led to slaughter. Once they were in the living room Henrietta took her customary seat on the wicker rocker opposite Cleveland (who was sitting in Michael’s La-Z-Boy) while Meredith sat down beside Michael on the couch. Meredith kept her eyes on Henrietta, who sat with her back straight and her hands on her lap. Meredith thought she looked like a prim and proper schoolgirl ready to report Meredith’s terrible misdeed to the headmaster.
Meredith couldn’t bear to wait and hear what she would say.
“I was just talking with Henrietta in the kitchen,” Meredith announced.
Michael, detecting an alien inflection in his wife’s voice, cast a sideways glance at her from the opposite end of the couch.
Meredith avoided her husband’s eyes. “And I told her,” Meredith said, plowing ahead, “about how I went out to eat last Friday night with some of my girlfriends from high school. At the Olive Garden. With Bridgett, Krissy, and Corey. I told her how I had the Tour of Italy and Corey had the shrimp Alfredo and Bridgett had pasta and Krissy had spaghetti and we all shared a bottle of wine. And how we all had a great time.”
Meredith’s adrenaline was running so high by the time she finished speaking that her skin was covered with a thin film of sweat. She knew that with the one little line, “we all shared a bottle of wine,” she had issued a challenge to her father-in-law. Thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak, brashly admitted to alcohol use and dared him to call attention to it. Henrietta had left her with little choice, of course, but now she was glad her mother-in-law had forced the issue when she did. It was long past time Pastor Baker understood that she, like her father, couldn’t be pushed around.
Michael gathered Hailey and Joshua Brian in his arms and took them to their bedrooms. Meredith expected as much. Long ago she had come to understand that if she wanted to argue with Cleveland, she would be doing so on her own. Michael treated the contentious relationship between his wife and his father the way a Buddhist monk deep in meditation might treat a buzzing fly—he ignored it at all costs. Whenever Meredith raised the subject with Michael, he responded to her with meaningless platitudes like “Dad just wants what’s best for you” and “I know you two don’t agree on much, but you have to understand where he’s coming from.” When they were first married Meredith thought Michael was frightened of his father, but lately she’d come to a different conclusion—Michael was too self-involved to come to her defense.
The pastor peeled his eyes away from Pat Sajak and let his gaze fall on Meredith.
“You drink?”
Cleveland’s words were clipped and colored with a pronounced southern accent. This was the language he used away from the pulpit—sparse, homegrown diction, an authoritarian vernacular. In front of the church he employed a more flowery style, but even then he made certain to pepper his sermons with a sufficient number of two- and three-word sentences. He loved to grab a congregation’s attention by pairing an ornate sentence with a shotgun blast of a statement. At home, however, he used simpler, more direct speech. The language of an edict-decreeing tyrant.
Meredith hated Cleveland’s oratorical style. Conversing with the pastor always made her feel like she was a little girl, no matter the topic of conversation. Even when she was prepared for one of their discussions it was near impossible to emerge feeling like she had held her own; somehow, someway, he always managed to dictate the emotional fallout of their dialogues.
“Not often. Not much. Just time to time when I’m out with friends.”
“Humph,” Cleveland snorted. He broke his stare off from Meredith and turned his attention back to the television screen. “Well, I guess I know where you stand on the subject now, don’t I?”
Meredith was stunned. Was that it? Was it over? In all their previous arguments her father-in-law had never let her off so easy. Usually their spats were wild affairs—it wasn’t uncommon for Meredith to break down in tears while Cleveland read from the Bible to make his point—but this time the pastor seemed content to let the matter die. And on the subject of alcohol, no less. Meredith knew that of all the lifestyle choices her father-in-law might take issue with, alcohol consumption was at the top of the list. But he had let the matter slide while showing only a hint of disapproval.
Meredith didn’t know what to think.
Michael returned to the living room with the children a few minutes later. True to form, he didn’t cast so much as a questioning glance at Meredith upon reassuming his place on the couch. Whatever had transpired while he was gone, he didn’t want to know. Within moments the children had resumed playing with their toys on the living room floor while the adults fell into a hypnotic state watching Fortune’s spinning wheel. It was as if the revelation of Meredith’s imbibing had never taken place.
Meredith fretted in the mind-space of an uneasy calm the rest of the night. She wanted to believe that the matter was over, that the pastor had simply accepted the fact that she enjoyed the occasional cocktail, but in spite of her relief she couldn’t convince herself that the issue was settled. In fact, a part of her was more unsettled by the pastor’s silence than would have been had he reacted in his usual way. She was acclimated to dealing with Cleveland the browbeater, familiar with handling Pastor Baker the proselytizer, accustomed to negotiating with her father-in-law the self-appointed arbiter of all things moral, but what she wasn’t used to was confronting the pastor head-on about a subject as contentious as alcohol and being met with silence. His dearth of a response unnerved her; she wondered if, like a deadly scorpion lying in wait, he might strike at a later date.
The night ended without further incident. Cleveland and Henrietta retired to their residence at around eight thirty, with no additional mention of Meredith’s confession.
Neither did the pastor broach the subject with Meredith over the course of the next two days. By the time Wednesday’s sermon began, the matter had almost slipped Meredith’s mind. Her fears returned, however, the moment Pastor Baker read the passage from Proverbs. She knew then that her father-in-law had not decided to overlook the issue; he had merely devised a different plan of attack.
*
From up high on the pulpit, Cleveland continued with his sermon. “Now, I imagine most of you are wonderin why I’m up here talking about drinkin. You’re thinkin to yourself ‘What in the world is that preacher up to now? Wasn’t he just talking about Job last week? And aren’t Wednesday nights supposed to be a little different from Sundays? I thought Sundays were for the hollerin and Wednesdays were for the teachin!”
This brought an involuntary chuckle from the congregation. Like all Southern Baptist ministers worth their salt, Cleveland had a comedian’s sense of timing.
“Well, I’ll tell you why, brothers and sisters. Because the good Lord laid it on my heart, that’s why. And when the good Lord tells you to preach something, you don’t ask why! You preach it!”
A robust “Amen!” sounded from the third pew on Cleveland’s right. It came from William Martin, chief foreman of White Falls’s “Amen Corner.” He usually reserved his best work for Sundays, but it was obvious from the tone in Pastor Baker’s voice that this Wednesday was special. Pastor Baker acknowledged William’s shout.
“Thank you Brother Martin.”
William Martin’s “amen” seemed to release something in the crowd. It broke the parishioners from their state of shock and helped them make the transformation to a different sort of service. Sure, what was happening was unorthodox, but they could handle it. They had traveled down unexpected roads with their pastor before.
Meredith continued to sit terrified in her pew. She wondered how far Cleveland would go to humiliate her for the argument they had had earlier that week. In her freaked-out state it crossed her mind that he might divulge the contents of their conversation. Reference specific dialogue from their spat. Maybe even identify her by name. Meredith thought she was going to be sick.
From the pulpit Cleveland continued his assault on his daughter-in-law’s senses.
“We are fortunate here in Ridge City. Fortunate that there are good God-fearing men on the city council who continue to keep the permissible sale of alcoholic beverages off the political agenda. Fortunate that we can drive the streets at night without having to unduly fear the prospect of encountering a drunk driver. Fortunate that we can dine at Ridge City restaurants without having to worry whether Johnny Moonshine or Billy Boozer will disturb our meals with their drunken antics. God has blessed Ridge City for its diligence in keeping alcohol at bay, and will continue to do so as long we persist in our efforts.”
A feeling of collective pride spread throughout the congregation. Everyone—even those members who enjoyed the occasional cocktail—derived a sense of satisfaction from living in such an upstanding place. Ridge City was that rare southern city that did more than claim to be morally upright; it backed up its assertions with laws and regulations.
Cleveland, however, had no intention of letting his parishioners wallow in self-righteous self-congratulation. He had a larger point to make.
“Still, in spite of the measures we have taken to limit the scope of alcohol’s influence in this city, it manages to pry its way into our lives.”
In her pew, Meredith gulped.
“I dare say that even in this congregation there are those who succumb to its temptation on a regular basis.” Cleveland paused and looked around the church as if he were taking stock of his flock’s reaction. “Now I know what many of you are thinkin. You’re thinkin, hold on preacher man! Just because I have myself a cocktail from time to time doesn’t mean that I’m a drunkard. Just because I stop by the ABC store in Ellington and pick me up a fifth of cooking whiskey doesn’t mean that I’m a sinner. Let me ask you this. How many times has that one cocktail turned into two or three? How many times, when you’re using that cooking whiskey, have you poured yourself a round or two? Ah preacher, that’s not so bad, you say. Well, guess what? That’s not what the Good Book says. It says ‘wine is a mocker.’ It says ‘strong drink is a brawler.’ Like everything else in the Bible, it does not equivocate. It says what it means.”
William Martin shouted ‘Amen’ again. Someone sitting farther back in the church seconded his cry. The rest of the congregation sat still, thinking private thoughts. Taking inventory of their alcoholic transgressions, or speculating on the abstemious shortcomings of their neighbors. Wondering how far Pastor Baker would go with his sermon. Hoping that a member of the congregation would feel the Lord’s conviction and confess.
Meredith took one deep breath and then another. Her initial wave of nausea had passed. She concentrated on righting herself and formulating a plan for whatever might happen next. She glanced down the pew at Michael to get a gauge on his reaction. As she expected, he was staring stone-faced ahead, refusing to betray any sign of surprise at his father’s words. There wasn’t a hint of self-consciousness in his face; it was as if he truly believed his father was preaching the most commonplace sermon of his career. Meredith turned away from her husband. There was no point in looking to him for help. She tried to focus instead on maintaining a steady demeanor.
“Now most of you don’t know this, but I have a personal reason for preaching against the sin of alcohol abuse. A family reason.”
Cleveland paused and took a panoramic view of the congregation. The revolution of his head stopped once his eyes found Meredith. Meredith’s heart became a bass drum, beating loudly against her breastbone. Its thunderous pulse encouraged her to bolt for the door.
“My granddaddy,” Cleveland said while looking at Meredith with suddenly heartfelt eyes, “my mother’s father, that is, was a drunk.”
Meredith couldn’t hear the pastor for the sound of the blood rushing to her ears. She wasn’t sure for the moment whether her good reputation was still intact.
“My momma was a good woman,” Cleveland uttered wistfully, his voice assuming a plaintive, possessed quality.
Meredith, hearing clearly now and somewhat confused, attempted to follow the story’s thread.
“She made a conscious decision early on in her life, in her teenage years, to follow the example set by her godly mother rather than adopt her father’s sinful ways. But that did not mean she was unaffected by her father’s legacy of alcohol abuse. From the early years of my childhood until that fateful April day in 1993 when the good Lord called Momma home, I was witness to many an example of the devastating effects my grandpappy’s drinking had on her. Momma was a tireless worker, but her work ethic was rooted in a history of fear, a fear that no matter how much she toiled, no matter how much money she made for her family, it would all disappear down her father’s greedy, liquor-lovin’ gullet. You see, being the eldest of five girls, it was Momma’s responsibility to make sure food was on the table when her father failed to provide. Her mother, my grandmother Farrow, was crippled with severe arthritis and had to quit her job at the mill at an early age, so the task fell to Momma to generate enough income to offset the cost of Grandpa’s drinking. She dropped out of high school at sixteen and, following in her mother’s footsteps, took a job at the mill. While other girls her age were finishing up their school years at Ridge City High, Momma was working long hours to ensure that her four sisters didn’t go to bed hungry. The strain of the pressure might have killed a lesser person, but Momma had learned early on in life to put her faith in a higher power. She told me in her later years that prayer was her life preserver during those times, that, just as she had watched her own mother pray for her family’s safety when times were tough, she likewise learned to lean on God for support and protection during her years at the mill. Still, one can only imagine the pain Mother might have been spared had her father been a temperate man. The memory of his drinking haunted her till her dying day. She never went into explicit detail about Grandpa Farrow’s alcoholism, but the damage he caused was more than evident in the lectures she gave while I was growing up. ‘Don’t ever let me catch you with a beer, boy,’ she’d sternly warn me each and every time I went out the door as a teenager. ‘It’s not much of a man who grows up to love alcohol more than his family. And God doesn’t approve of it, either. Read Proverbs, chapter twenty, if you don’t believe me.’ And boy, if her words didn’t stick. Why? Because I saw the hurt in her eyes, a palpable devastation each and every time she mentioned the past, and I swore then that I’d live an alcohol-free life, because I never wanted to hurt anyone the way Grandpa Farrow had hurt my momma.”
The congregation, respectfully sober, silently digested Pastor Baker’s words. It was rare that the pastor mentioned anything from his personal life. To most of the church Cleveland was something of an enigma, a preacher who, in spite of his cache of down-home charisma, wasn’t easy to know. This story, however, went a long way in changing that. After years of keeping his cards close to his vest, Pastor Baker had shared his human side.
At the front of the church Cleveland entertained a long and thoughtful pause. A segue silence, pregnant with words to come.
“Yes, I’ve been thinkin about my momma a lot this week,” Cleveland continued at last, his voice nostalgic. “She’s weighed heavy on my heart. Heavy. Heavy.” Dramatically, he lifted his right hand and lightly touched the skin above his breastplate. “I’ve been tryin to listen to God too, tryin to understand why it is that he’s put Momma on my mind. Because I know he put her there for a reason. I know he’s been tryin to tell me something.”
The congregation leaned forward ever so slightly, an imperceptible mass movement toward the lectern.
“And what I’ve come to believe is that God wants me to honor my mother in some way. Do more than pay lip service to the life she led. And I intend to do that. I intend to follow God’s word.”
The church entered into an eager quiet following Cleveland’s last word, like a cavalry amassed and waiting for the order to charge. They watched intently as Cleveland took one long, deep breath, and then, in a manner akin to a hiker taking the first step of an arduous journey, stepped down from the pulpit and headed up the aisle. Perplexed, the congregation followed his movement with turned heads. About halfway up the aisle, and without breaking stride, Cleveland made a simple request.
“Please follow me.”
One by one the parishioners filtered out of the church. They kept a straight line behind their pastor, like well-trained first-graders following the teacher to the lunchroom. Meredith took her place in the queue with the rest of her family, about thirty feet behind Cleveland. Upon exiting the church the pastor made a U-turn. The congregation, like a millipede’s body chasing its erratic head, followed suit.
Meredith took hold of Hailey’s hand. Ahead of Meredith and Hailey, Michael carried Joshua Brian, who was asleep in his father’s arms. Hailey was excited at the change of routine. She had completely forgotten about her earlier spat with her grandfather.
“Where are we going, Mommy?”
“I don’t know, sweetie,” Meredith replied. “Papaw Cleve is leading us somewhere.”
“Oh,” Hailey replied, content with the answer. Ecstatic to be outside, Hailey swung her mother’s arm like they were playmates. “I bet I know where we’re going,” she said a few steps later.
“Where’s that?” Meredith asked.
“I bet we’re going to go see Papaw Paul.”
Meredith jerked her head up in time to see Cleveland disappear below the hill behind the church. Hailey was right. They were heading toward the cemetery.
*
The first few years of Meredith’s marriage to Michael were the stuff of Meredith’s girlhood dreams. Hailey was born on the day of her one-year wedding anniversary, a pink and squirmy, life-affirming gift from above, and in the maternity ward after Hailey’s birth Meredith was enraptured in a connubial, maternal bliss. She was certain, lying in the hospital bed with Hailey in her arms and Michael at her side, that nothing in life was more important than being a mother and a wife. Holding fast to that sensation, she stormed into young motherhood, nurturing, tending, and caring for her offspring with all the passion she could muster, and with what leftover ardor she had she heaped it on her husband, showering him with love and physical affection. Nothing mattered more to Meredith than life at home. It meant something to be a mother, to be a wife; she understood this now even more than when she had been a child and without her own mom, because she could see the damage that would be done if she abandoned Hailey, the harm that would come to Michael if she left him alone with their daughter to face the perils of the world. They, Hailey and Michael, and this, motherhood and marriage, were everything. All else was illusory.
She grew closer to her father during this time. Not because he was a help with Hailey—if anything, he was hopelessly awkward with his granddaughter, holding her in his arms like a sack of potatoes and talking to her with the same crusty, monotone voice he used with everyone else—but rather because Meredith now understood how difficult fatherhood must have been for him when she was a child. What she had taken for granted as a youngster—her father’s willingness to drive her to Mary’s Dance Studio once a week for ballet lessons, the volunteer work he put in with her Girl Scout Troup, the painstaking care he put into constructing her childhood dollhouse—she now realized how contrary such behavior was to his nature, but he never once uttered a word in complaint, never did anything except love his little girl and do his best to provide everything she needed and quite a bit of what she wanted too. And now that she could watch her Pop with Hailey and see what her childhood must have been like for him, well, it made her heart go out to him, and made her all the more thankful for the sacrifices he had made.
By Hailey’s third birthday Meredith’s zeal for motherhood and marriage had tempered. Not lessened, she liked to think, only evolved into more of a long-term disposition, the natural maturation process for a mother/wife no longer in the throes of young love and young motherhood. She still loved Michael and Hailey—loved them more than life itself—but now the depth of emotion she felt for her husband and daughter was founded in the reality of what it truly meant to be a wife and a mother. Marriage was rewarding, but difficult. Michael had indeed, as her Pop predicted, turned out to be a good husband, but that didn’t mean he still couldn’t frustrate Meredith with his utter aversion to all things domestic. Cooking, cleaning, laundry—Michael saw these as Meredith’s domain—and despite her petitions for assistance he was too strong-willed to change. She understood why, too. Henrietta had spent a lifetime doting on her son, and the example she had set had led Michael to believe a certain level of female servitude was part of the marriage package. Not that he didn’t pull his weight in other arenas—yard work and trash removal were foremost among his strengths—but he was adamant in his refusal to assist Meredith with the more “womanly” duties. Eventually, for the sake of the marriage, Meredith dropped the issue. She could have spent a lifetime harping on the matter, but once it was evident no amount of nagging was ever going to make a difference, she decided it’d be best to focus her energies on other things. Like the upbringing of her strong-willed daughter.
Hailey was born with an indomitable resolve, emerging from the womb with a will not unlike that of a wild animal’s. For the first six months of life she shrieked, yelped, and wailed away in her crib as though being alive were a contest in expending energy, devoting every waking moment (of which there were many—who knew a baby could survive with so little sleep) to vocal affirmations of her existence. Hailey’s yowls were the stuff of banshee operas, cacophonic serenades that pushed Meredith to the brink of sanity. When at last, at a half-year-old the screaming finally stopped, the willful behavior began. Between the ages of six months and three years old Hailey engaged in a variety of misbehaviors, from nipple-biting (forcing Meredith, a staunch believer in the benefits of breast feeding, to wean her daughter months earlier than she had planned) to food-tossing (edibles were javelins and shot puts in baby Hailey’s hands) to tantrum-throwing (in public and in private, always with gusto) to post-potty-training pant-soiling (two and a half months without an accident was followed by a full season of poopy pants) to toy-hoarding (the church nursery was the battleground where Hailey defended the ownership of her hard-won toys) to hair-pulling (in clumps, from the roots) to toddler-gnawing (Michael once joked that his young daughter teethed primarily on the flesh of her nursery-school playmates). Mothering the child was a waking nightmare. But instead of buckling under the pressure, Meredith discovered her own reservoir of fortitude, a wealth of will that, while not equal to the copious supply her daughter possessed, was enough to keep her in the motherhood game. She was inspired, in part, by Hailey herself. To see in her offspring the manifestation of such strength, such willpower, such bullheadedness, aroused in Meredith a curiosity as to the potency of her own resolve, and motivated her to match her daughter’s verve. The more she committed herself to the task of raising her daughter, the more she took a perverse delight in the great clash of wills, excitedly wondering, once she had broken Hailey of one headstrong habit, what challenge her daughter had in store for her next. What made the process even more thrilling were the changes she witnessed in her daughter’s behavior. Over time Meredith recognized in Hailey subtle inflections of will that seemed to speak of a potential for future greatness. Meredith dreamed of what her daughter might become.
Meredith’s second pregnancy was set against the backdrop of a growing matrimonial accord. Michael, for all his deficiencies in the department of domesticity, had proven an able provider, and Meredith, excited by their growing bank accounts, had forgiven him for his shortcomings at home. Likewise, Michael had learned to appreciate Meredith’s skills as a mother—he was well aware that he lacked his wife’s deft touch with their iron-willed daughter. It was this blossoming admiration for one another’s talents that characterized the mood at Joshua Brian’s birth. Meredith especially was delighted at Michael’s knack for earning a buck. Only twenty-seven years old but already a top-tier Ashcroft County real estate agent, Michael attracted buyers and sellers with the ease of a catcher’s mitt gobbling up strikes. His prowess at his job never ceased to amaze Meredith, who, when she first learned of her then-fiancé’s plan to make a living at real estate, worried that he had neither the personality nor the drive to excel at the profession. She had always pictured Michael as more of a salt-of-the-earth-type of worker, a landscaper perhaps, or a contractor. His high-school resume certainly testified to an interest in the manual life: Ag and Shop heavy. So Meredith had supposed a menial lifestyle was in the cards when she accepted Michael’s marriage proposal. This proved not to be the case. Secretly ambitious, Michael used real estate to make his mark on Ashcroft County, building in four years the sort of professional reputation it had taken his father a lifetime to construct. Though he had no desire to become a pastor, Michael desired the sort of local respect his father commanded, and when the dough started rolling in from his job it appeared that he was well on his way to making this happen. As for Meredith, watching Michael scale the heights of vocational success made her attracted to him in a whole new way. She loved the way it felt, being married to a successful man. In her wildest dreams Meredith never imagined marriage would offer more than the opportunity at a stable, blue-collar life. Now, with Michael bringing in cash by the bucketfuls, anything seemed possible.
The news that upended Meredith’s idyllic life came over the telephone from her aunt Susanna, on a crisp, clear April day only a half-year after Joshua Brian was born. In a police mix-up that identified Paul Masters’s sister, Susanna, as Paul’s next of kin, Susanna was the first to learn that Paul had wrecked his 1992 Dodge Ram pickup truck head-on into a tree after swerving off the road, presumably to avoid hitting an animal. Rather than overcorrecting the truck, a mistake Paul had once warned his daughter of making should she ever be forced off the highway, Paul had eased up on the accelerator, but unfortunately the roadside terrain was such that it took control of his Dodge and set it on a collision course with a fully mature oak. He died at impact.
Susanna relayed the police report to Meredith over the telephone in somber, elegiac tones, trying her best to capture the mournful but motherly tone she thought her niece needed to hear. Meredith, standing dumbstruck in her kitchen, listened to her aunt in a tearful silence. The moment Susanna hung up the phone, however, Meredith loosed a bellow so anguished and powerful that a nearby Hailey urinated in her pants. In the course of the half-hour before Michael was able to reach the house Meredith wept uncontrollably on the living room couch while Hailey, overwhelmed by the magnitude of her mother’s emotions, snuck into her bedroom and hid under the covers. Joshua Brian, amazingly, did not wake from his afternoon nap during this time. In the weeks and months that were to follow, neither mother nor daughter ever mentioned the events of that half-hour to each other or to anyone else. The one time Michael attempted to broach the subject with his daughter she simply looked him in the eye and said, “I don’t remember, Daddy.” Adhering to good judgment, Michael decided it best not to mention it again.
Two weeks to the day after Paul Masters’s fatal car wreck, Meredith had an epiphany. She had stumbled through the initial period after her Pop’s death in a numb, disbelieving haze … offering limp, cod-like handshakes to the mourners at the funeral home, sitting stunned and with downcast eyes as Paul’s best friend and paving business associate, Larry Hanker, delivered the eulogy at the funeral, and waking close to noon most days once “normal” life had resumed. But on the fourteenth day of mourning she broke free from her cloud. A short soliloquy at the dinner table put to rest any concerns over whether she would ultimately recover from her Pop’s passing.
“Pop wouldn’t want me being this way,” she announced matter-of-factly moments after she and Michael had sat down at the dinner table to eat.
The children weren’t around to witness their mother’s transformation. Michael had shipped them off to his parents’ while Meredith recovered.
“He would understand that I’d be sad,” she said without looking at Michael, her words directed more at herself than at him, “but he would want there to be a limit to it. He’d want me to get on with my life.”
And with those words, Meredith’s recovery began. She tried to stop thinking of her Pop in terms of being gone and instead tried to focus on the way she believed he would want her to live life without him. There was no better way to memorialize him, she thought, than attacking life with the same hardy constitution that he had. She pledged to remember him in this way.
Weeks passed. Meredith grew into life without her Pop the way the late May days were growing into the night. She appropriated little spaces of time to pay him honor—visiting his grave Wednesdays after church, quick morning prayers in his name—but mostly she plunged headfirst into the aftermath, cooking, cleaning, washing and drying clothes, tending for her little ones, everything the same as it was before.
Gradually, the framework of Meredith’s new life came into place. Friends, both churchgoing and non, stepped in to fill the hole left by her father’s passing. Meredith was especially touched by the efforts of her White Falls family to comfort her during this period. Delectable homemade meals, courtesy of White Falls’s female congregation, continued to arrive at the Baker house long past the customary time period that food is prepared for mourners. Warm-hearted house calls, with one church member after the other showing up at Meredith’s front door to express their condolences and lend a sympathetic ear, became the norm. Gifts of assistance were tendered. Baby-sitting duties especially were proffered in abundance. And though Meredith rejected the vast majority of these offers, she still appreciated the sentiment expressed in their tendering. It made her feel like she had a second family.
Her primary family, however, was a different matter altogether. Michael faithfully upheld the duties expected of the husband of a grieving wife, but there was a detached quality to his actions, as though he were simply going through the motions rather than trying to understand Meredith’s pain. Despite his assertions that he was there for her Meredith felt that in reality Michael was someplace else, a man not ready to relinquish his hold on the way things had been before. She sensed that in the dark recesses of his heart he secretly resented her for the upheaval her father’s death had caused.
Her problems with her husband, however, paled in comparison to her difficulties with Cleveland. Within weeks of her father’s funeral she detected a sea change in the pastor’s attitude toward her. It was as if, like an ill-tempered dog loosed from its chain, he was at last free to attack. There wasn’t an aspect of her life he didn’t criticize. He took umbrage with her dress (he thought the jeans she wore to Wednesday night service were too tight), her gym membership (he considered Meredith’s preoccupation with exercise unbecoming of a Christian mother), her TV-viewing habits (he insisted on knowing how Meredith reconciled her Christian values with the loose mores exhibited by the characters on her favorite TV show, Friends), and most of all, her child-rearing techniques (he loved to expound on the subtle yet significant ways Meredith was leading Hailey and Joshua Brian down the path to godlessness). It was obvious to Meredith that her father-in-law intended to break her spirit. Looking to Michael for assistance was pointless. The problem, as it had been before her Pop intervened years ago, was Meredith’s alone.
In private, Meredith believed she was equal to the task. It was only in the midst of a confrontation with the pastor that she found herself unable to face him down. Arguing with the pastor was like grappling with a snake; no matter how quick you were, no matter how elusive, the snake was always one step ahead, positioned to strike.
Their warring continued for months. Meredith, despite her litany of losses, stayed determined to hold her ground. When Hailey came crying to Meredith concerning the abuse her grandpa had heaped on her for chewing gum, Meredith was primed for the fight. Buoyed by what she thought had been a victory in their argument over alcohol two nights before, Meredith believed she was at last on the path to claiming her independence.
That, of course, was before Cleveland’s sermon on alcohol. By the time the Baker family had walked down to the graveyard Meredith was too stunned and out of sorts to even contemplate what might happen next.
*
Tombstones covered the Earth’s surface like a tabletop of randomly placed dominoes. Family names—Mitchell, Alexander, Baucom, Barnhardt—graced the grave markers, most if not all corresponding with the surnames of current church members. Meredith scanned the east end of the cemetery until she spotted her maiden name in prominent lettering. Her father’s grave. Masters.
The events surrounding the decision to bury Paul Masters in the White Falls cemetery were unknown to Meredith. While she mourned, others made decisions for her. In fact, it wasn’t until weeks after the funeral that Meredith fully processed that someone had made the call to have her father interred at White Falls. She was fine with the judgment; over time she found it convenient to have her father’s grave so close; but she often wondered who had been the person to make the decision. She supposed it was either Cleveland or Michael. She never sought a definitive answer.
The snaking body of parishioners advanced in a direction opposite the east end of the cemetery, away from Paul Masters’s grave. Walking past her Pop’s grave on a Wednesday night made Meredith feel as though she were betraying him. She craned her neck toward his tombstone as she passed by.
“Well,” Hailey piped cheerfully as they passed the east end of the cemetery, “I guess we’re not going to see Papaw Paul.”
The front of the line stopped moving. Pastor Baker took two steps forward and turned to face the crowd. The congregation fanned out until it had formed a crescent around where Cleveland was standing. Meredith and Hailey took their places two people deep in the thick curve of the moon. Meredith noted the name on the tombstone beside which Cleveland stood. Baker.
“This,” Cleveland intoned once the parishioners were assembled, “is Momma’s grave.”
An appropriate period of silence followed. Birds chirped lazily in the tree line surrounding the cemetery. Singing their sunset songs. Readying for sleep.
“The Lord has been in my ear all week,” Pastor Baker proclaimed, breaking the quiet. “He’s been trying to tell me something of great importance. And I’ve been listening. Listening to what he has to say. Sometimes God wants us to do more than merely go along with the status quo. Sometimes, even when it seems unnecessary, God wants us to take a stand.”
Everyone knew that a charge was coming. An edict from God, straight from the mouth of Cleveland Baker.
“This past week while I was thinkin back to the detrimental impact my grandpappy’s drinkin had on my momma’s life, I couldn’t help but wonder how God would want us to respond to a similar sort of situation in the church. How, if we knew one of our brothers or sisters in Christ were under alcohol’s influence, God would want us to act. And the more I pondered this question the more certain I became that he would want the people of the church to band together to fight this great evil. He would want us to put a stop to it.”
A familiar nausea took a repeat tour of Meredith’s stomach. She faltered ever so slightly at the knees.
Hailey, ever observant, noticed her mother’s crumpling. “What’s wrong, Mommy?”
Meredith whispered her reply. “Nothing, honey, I’m—”
“That’s why,” Cleveland’s voice boomed across the cemetery, “I’ve decided to start an anti-alcohol pledge group here at White Falls. In my mother’s honor. I want every member of White Falls Baptist Church to pledge from this day forward that they will never touch a drink of alcohol. I’ve made pledge cards …” and here Cleveland reached into his shirt pocket, extricating a laminated card and holding it aloft, “ … with a written pledge to abstain from drinking alcohol at the top, a place for a signature in the middle, and Proverbs, chapter twenty, verse one written at the bottom. I have a whole boxful of these cards back in the church. Enough for everyone to sign. If we sign them tonight I can have them laminated and returned by next week. That’s not all. During Sunday’s service I plan to …”
“Whoooooooooooooooo!”
What sounded like a war cry came from the top of the hill above the cemetery, stopping the pastor’s speech cold. Meredith looked up from her semi-crouch and eyed the direction from where the noise had come. A few church members involuntarily shuddered. Everyone turned their heads in the direction of the sound.
A befuddled Pastor Baker spoke for the masses. “What in the world was that?”
A voice to the pastor’s left spoke up. It belonged to Randy Marshall, the church’s youngest deacon. “It’s the … youth group. I think they’re playing football. The boys, anyway. They always do that … play football, I mean … once they’re out of Youth Group. They’re just excited, I guess.”
Everyone went quiet again, training their ears for evidence of Randy’s hypothesis. A murmur of voices confirmed what he had said.
“Alright, alright, let’s pick up.”
“Sam, throw the ball!”
“Get in line, Joey, we’ve gotta choose sides.”
“Jake Delhomme, back in the pocket!”
“You first, William.”
“I’ll take Walt.”
Slowly, the parishioners’ attention returned to the pastor. Pastor Baker wore a perturbed look on his face. His countenance bore a resemblance to a castle-guarding gargoyle.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” he continued, doing his unsuccessful best to appear unruffled, “I have a whole box of these cards back up in the—”
“SET! SET! HUT!”
The snap count cut through the pastor’s words like a sickle through wheat. His gargoyle face grew even more twisted in appearance.
“Alright, that’s enough. Randy, why don’t you run up the hill and tell those boys to come down here. The girls too. They need to hear this anyway. I shouldn’t have forgotten to exclude them in the first place. I want the whole church involved in what we’re trying to do.”
“Okay,” Randy stammered, surprised to have been drafted into action. Awkwardly, like a newborn foal attempting its first steps or a drunk standing up from a bar stool, he stumbled away from the cemetery.
The congregation waited patiently while Randy made the trip up the hill. From her spot in the crowd, Meredith watched as Cleveland used the break to try and rein in his emotions. He attempted a smile in the general direction of his congregation. Some of the church members smiled back.
Cleveland proceeded to supplement his grin with a few choice words. “Boys will be boys, I suppose.”
A crackle of laughter surged through the crowd.
Meredith stole surreptitious glances at Cleveland, being careful to avoid his gaze. She knew that at the moment she couldn’t handle looking him in the eye. She was too traumatized, too shell-shocked, too caught off-guard by his maneuvering to do anything more than simply try and survive the rest of the night. She supposed that if he presented her with a pledge card she would have to sign. She didn’t know what else she could do.
Cleveland appeared to have recovered from the interruption. He stood beside his mother’s grave, smiling confidently, looking relaxed, a king holding court in his realm. Hiccups were inevitable—no initiative ever went off without a hitch—but at the end of the day the congregation would follow the path set by their pastor. Cleveland knew this better than anyone. The anti-alcohol pledge drive was as good as done.
Except ...
“Aaaaaaaaaaargh!”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Bloodcurdling screams, twin strains, the sound of tormented voices harmonizing in agony, drifted down from the highlands of the church’s back lawn and pierced the parishioners’ ears. A sound to end sermons. A sound to summon ambulances. The sound of broken boys.
“Help! Help!” Randy Marshall’s voice floated down from the summit, finding a pocket among the cries.
Like a herd of cattle spooked by thunder, the church moved en masse. Men and women with sons of a certain age sprinted up the hill, followed by other able-bodied adults and then the elderly. Meredith and Hailey marched in the middle. By the time they reached the top of the hill, a crowd had gathered around the injured boys.
One of the boys, James Pumperton, lay collapsed in a heap, his dirty-blonde hair swamped in sticky blood. His father had knelt down beside him and was gently trying to elevate James’s head onto his knee. The other boy, Walt Jenkins, was surrounded by hovering adults who blocked Meredith’s view. She peeked between rapidly moving legs in an attempt to see the damage. Finally a vantage point emerged. What she saw was horrifying. Walt’s left leg was mangled, with bones emerging from at least two different angles. His face had gone white, blank with shock.
Cell phones appeared like concealed weapons from church members’ pockets. Fingers everywhere dialed 911.
Boys’ voices floated above the din, trying desperately to explain the course of events to questioning adults.
“They were just going after a pass when Jake accidentally tripped Walt from behind. Jake fell into the church wall and hit his head while Walt got tangled up weird and hit the ground. It happened so fast. We’re sorry. We didn’t mean …”
In the middle of the commotion, Hailey started to cry. Meredith glanced down at her daughter to see what the problem was. The answer was obvious. Hailey’s eyes were staring straight at Walt. She had caught a glimpse of the carnage.
Meredith knelt down beside her daughter and redirected her daughter’s transfixed eyes toward her own. Hailey looked at her mother for a moment, and then, still crying, buried her face in her mother’s bosom.
Michael touched Meredith on the shoulder from behind and said, “What’s wrong?”
“She saw …” Meredith said, and then went silent and cut her eyes toward the scene of the accident.
Michael nodded. “Why don’t you take her home? And Joshua Brian too. I’ll stay for a while to see if there’s any way I can help. I’ll get Dad to drive me home later.”
For a moment Meredith looked at her husband in silence, surprised that she had been presented with an opportunity to escape. Then, as though fearful he might change his mind, she hastily agreed. “Okay. Yeah. That would be smart.”
Within seconds Meredith had lifted a sleeping Joshua Brian out of his father’s arms and placed him in her own. Then, holding her son in one arm and leading Hailey with her hand, she set off toward the parking lot.
Halfway to her car Meredith felt far enough away to steal one last look at the scene. She immediately spotted Cleveland standing at the edge of the lawn, a helpless bystander to the proceedings. For once he looked his age, a doddering old man out of sorts in the midst of a crisis. As she stared at him, his head slowly began to turn in her direction. She quickly jerked her head away before his gaze could meet her own.