Authors: Nancy Thayer
In the past few months, as Peter realized he was approaching his fiftieth birthday, he had come to view his marriage, when he stopped to think of it at all, as a finished thing, a fine accomplishment, almost a tangible object that he and Patricia had built together. Something, say, as useful and well matched and necessary to their lives and their children’s lives as their walnut dining-room table and chairs. Now he saw that they were not finished, not set in any limits. No. He had seen Patricia through fresh eyes last night, or she had been a new person, or both: she had been a subtle, glowing temptress, and he had been an ardent lover, with a passion both renewed and new. How grateful he was for the variety and complexity of people’s lives. And he hoped he could manage to extend to his elder son, and to his other children, this new generosity of understanding.
He wanted to be brave enough to give them freedom, to let them be whatever they wished to be.
But now he sang the last stanza of the hymn, and although he saw Patricia, standing there, he also saw Michael, whose face was set, whose handsome eyes were fixed with their Stuffed Animal Stare. Immovable, sullen son! Peter had to look away. Michael might be one of the most important people in his charge, but he was not the only one, and if he were to allow Michael the freedom he desired, then he, Peter, would have to allow himself an equal freedom of thought. After all, his furious concern was doing little good.
So Peter let his eyes rest on Patricia until the anger subsided and the joy returned.
Then he turned his gaze to the other people in the church, his congregation.
Something was wrong with Wilbur Wilson. All the other members of the church were standing, singing this final hymn, but Wilbur had stayed seated in the pew, his head bowed—in prayer? illness?—his body curved. Beside him Norma Wilson stood turned sideways, holding her hymnal dutifully in her hands, but her eyes were cast downward, as if she did not dare stop her vigilance for a moment. Then Wilbur looked up at Norma, and nodded, and Peter breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps he was only sick, perhaps he had a touch of flu.
In another pew, Suzanna Blair stood with her hymnal in one hand, and with her other hand, she was buttoning her jacket around her. She had put the first button in the wrong buttonhole, so the jacket hung crookedly. She seemed to be awkward now, ill at ease. Peter renewed his resolve to ask Judy Bennett to speak with Suzanna, to offer help.
Judy Bennett stood in the front pew, her head held high as she sang the closing lines of the hymn. On either side of her stood her husband and son, like a pair of tall male bookends, but Peter suspected it was she who supported them rather than the other way around. Peter admired the symmetry of the trio as they stood there, such healthy, clear-eyed people, and he felt a twinge of envy that the Bennetts’ son had fit himself into their lives so well. He wondered what it was they had done
right
where he as a father had gone wrong. How had they managed to raise a son who stood at their side with such content?
Liza Howard had already put her hymnal in its wooden rack in front of her, and now she stood with her hands raised, holding the collar of her mink coat up against her neck and face. She was staring, dreamy-eyed, at Johnny Bennett, and a sleek fat-cat smile played on her lips. Slowly she rubbed her chin into the silky collar of her fur coat.
Steadily she gazed at Johnny Bennett, with slightly lowered eyelids: a sinister, compelling look. My God, she is bewitching, Peter thought, and just then Johnny Bennett, pretending to bend to put his hymnal in the rack, turned slightly and looked back at Liza. Peter could not see Johnny’s expression, but he could see Liza’s: her eyes flashed in recognition and she slowly opened her mouth and touched the tip of her pink tongue to her soft pink upper lip. Her smile widened. Johnny turned back to face the front. He had been turned toward Liza for only a few seconds. But Peter could see from his vantage point how Liza stood now, eyes glittering. She and Johnny were conspirators; there could be no doubt. But what could Peter do about it? What
should
he do? For now, he tried to focus on the rest of the congregation while his thoughts cleared.
Leigh Findly was sharing a hymnal with her daughter Mandy, but neither woman was singing. Mandy was half turned to look toward the back of the church, her body tense, and Peter could see enough of her face to tell that she was biting her lip. She was searching out someone—who? Beside her, Leigh looked down at her daughter with smiling curiosity, then, as the last word of the hymn was sung, nudged her. Mandy started, looked up at her mother, and the two women shared a quick affectionate glance before turning to the front and staring up at Peter with expectation. He could sense from their attitude of forced composure that the moment the service was over they would lean into each other and laugh.
Behind him, Reynolds’s voice swelled powerfully and held the last note of the hymn. That man had the breath and stamina to outlast the organ, Peter thought. He was grateful for Reynolds’s presence in the church, and in fact he always kept Reynolds and his knowledge and critical intelligence in mind when he wrote his sermons. It kept him from getting sloppy. Peter couldn’t imagine why Reynolds needed to talk to him today, but it pleased him to think that he might be able to be of some help to this solitary man. “A matter of grave concern,” Reynolds had said when he asked Peter if they could talk after church. Well, Peter was not worried. Reynolds was a grave man, his problem was probably intellectual.
The hymn ended. The organ music swelled, faded, died. The members of Peter’s congregation looked up at him for one brief moment, then bowed their heads as he raised his arm to give the benediction. Peter saw them all then, old and young, rich and poor, glad and worried, and he loved them. Suddenly a longing flared up inside him, and he wanted to tell them that they were beautiful, that as they stood before him, they seemed
ensconced within the church like precious vessels, and that all the objects man holds dear—velvets, jewels, perfumes, silks, silver, gold, houses, and even land—were thin and meager substances compared to their own persons. It was a miracle that the vast electric energy of their minds and hearts could be contained within a fabric so smooth and complete as skin. They really were true miracles, each one of them, and in his mind, he bowed down before them all. He loved them, these members of his congregation, he loved them, body and soul. He wished he could keep them just as they were at this moment. He wished he could keep them safe and happy forever.
Instead, he lifted his hand high in blessing and spoke the usual ceremonial words: “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us now and forevermore. Amen.”
In their loft, gathered around the organist, the choir very softly sang the choral amen. Mrs. Pritchard’s plump fingers began to press out a gentle postlude, Handel’s
Allegro
. Peter Taylor walked down the five steps from the chancel and passed down the red-carpeted center aisle of the church, to be at the door to greet the congregation when they filed out. The members of the First Congregational Church of Londonton raised their bowed heads slowly, as if awakening from a dream, and moved politely from their pews out into the day.
Part Two
Sunday afternoon and evening
October 18, 1981
The last notes of the
Allegro
resonated through the sanctuary. Peter Taylor reached the central doors which opened onto the narthex, and waited there to greet the members of his congregation. Gary Moyer, who had been ushering, pushed the high brass-trimmed main doors open to the outside world. The chilly October air entered, making the hem of Peter’s black robe tremble.
While his father was occupied greeting his parishioners, Michael Taylor managed to slip out the door, past the knot of handshakers.
Pam Moyer also slipped out onto the narthex without greeting Peter; she wanted to be sure that the bulletin board in Friendship Hall was ready.
Liza Howard passed through the line, then stood slightly to the left of the main doors, ostensibly easing her brown kid gloves over her hands. It was a difficult task; she had so many large rings. Her expression and posture were those of a person relaxed to the point of boredom, but she was alert. She was watching for Johnny Bennett to come, shake hands with the minister, greet other members of the congregation, and then to set eyes on Liza. They would look at each other briefly, and smile. Just those few seconds of recognition and conspiracy, just that one electric pinpoint of contact, that rush of lust—that was what Liza wanted for a little snack right now before leaving church and going out into her day.
The sanctuary emptied; the entrance hall filled. People moved in and out of the various doors leading from the narthex to the basement, which held Friendship Hall, or to the nursery, or to the Sunday school rooms and bathrooms. Friends searched out friends, parents looked for children, children raced up the choir-loft stairs to hide from parents and giggle with friends; people shook Peter’s hand and went out the front doors, then came back in again, having remembered a message they wanted to give someone, and went through the door leading to Friendship Hall.
Wilbur Wilson said to Norma after they had greeted Peter, “I don’t feel very good. I think we’d better forget the coffee hour and go on home.”
“Oh,” Norma said. “All right. Just wait one moment, though. I have to ask Flora about the auxiliary meeting. Okay?”
“Okay,” Wilbur said. “I’ll wait here.” He leaned up against a wall and watched people come out of the sanctuary.
The Bennett family approached Peter Taylor. They had been sitting at the front of
the church, and were among the last to leave. The sanctuary was nearly empty now, and the entrance hall was crowded. Voices echoed; people said, “Excuse me, please,” and squeezed past one another.
Reynolds Houston shook hands with Peter, said, “I’ll talk with you after coffee hour,” and walked toward the door leading to Friendship Hall. It was then that he felt someone rudely nudge him in the back—in fact, it was actually quite a hard shove. He moved aside, turning to see just who it was that had affronted him. In the very act of turning, something in the air alerted him: something more significant than rudeness had just happened. He turned quickly enough to see Wilbur Wilson buckle and crumple to the floor.
“Norma,” Wilbur said, and his knees came up to his chest with pain. The tiles were cold and he was surrounded by legs and shoes.
“Oh,
my
!” someone said, and the room around Wilbur went still for a moment with shock, while people at opposite ends of the entrance hall began to call, “What’s happened? What’s going on?”
Reynolds squatted down so that Wilbur could see his face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“My chest hurts,” Wilbur said. “Oh, God, I think I’m having a heart attack.”
“You’ll be all right,” Reynolds said. “We’ll get help.” But Wilbur’s eyes closed—he had passed out. Reynolds rocked back on his heels, frightened at the sight of someone so startlingly out of control, then he put his hands on the floor and pushed himself up. “I think Wilbur Wilson’s had a heart attack,” he announced.
“Wilbur!” Norma cried. “Please let me through!” She began to claw her way from the end of the room to the center where Wilbur lay.
“Is there a doctor here?” Peter called, knowing as he spoke that there wasn’t. Many doctors were official members of the church but few of them came regularly. “Call an ambulance,” Peter said. He looked to see who was standing closest to the door leading to the upstairs offices. “Pam,” he called. “Hurry. Call an ambulance.”
The hallway surged with action. Pam Moyer raced up the stairs and everyone else turned toward the spot where Wilbur lay. Many of them tried to push forward to see him, as if it could not be true until they had actually set eyes on the man.
Judy Bennett moved through the crowd, looked down at Wilbur’s inert body, and said with authority, “Stand back. Someone give me a coat; he needs to be covered up.
Everybody stand back. He needs air.”
“Coats! Air!
Christ
!” Liza Howard said. “He needs CPR. Doesn’t anyone here know CPR?” She glanced around quickly, her expression indicating clearly that it was only too obvious that the fools gathered around her had no knowledge of CPR. Then she sank to her knees, so swiftly that the sides of her coat flew upward like the wings of a bird. She tore her gloves from her hands and dropped them, then quickly loosened Wilbur’s tie and collar and shirt. She placed her ear against his chest, and at the same time grasped his wrist, but quickly and unceremoniously dropped it. She took Wilbur’s head in her hands and gently flexed it backward, then she pinched his nostrils together and put her mouth to his. She took her mouth away, and in what seemed to the onlookers an obscene gesture, she brought her right leg over Wilbur’s body so that she straddled his hips with her knees, careful not to let the weight of her body touch his. She pushed both hands down hard at the center of his lower chest, and pushed again, and again, and again, and again, then brought her mouth down over Wilbur’s once more.
The room buzzed with whispers.
“What’s she doing?”
“CPR.”
“What’s that?”
“Cardiopulmonary respiration.”
“Resuscitation.”
“Look how gray he is!”
“How old is he?”
“I called the ambulance,” Pam Moyer called from a doorway. “They’re on their way.”
“Let Norma through,” someone said.
Norma dropped on her knees next to her husband and took his hand, but carefully kept out of Liza’s way.
“Is he breathing?”
“Is he okay?”
“Is he dead?”
Liza worked on, oblivious to the questions, intent on the rhythm of counting as she pushed Wilbur’s chest and breathed into his mouth.
Several children came clattering down the choir-loft stairs or up from the
basement. “What’s happening?” they asked in shrill voices, and were shunted off down the stairs to Friendship Hall by adults who had suddenly gone stern, as if solemnity were necessary to save Wilbur’s life. Everyone else stood still, helpless witnesses to the scene, and if there was ever a time in the history of this congregation when the members thought as one, it was now. “Oh, God, help him, let him live,” they prayed, in that silent, individual way that people pray at points of crisis. Occasionally Norma Wilson’s voice broke the silence: “Oh, God, oh, God,” she cried.