Pocketful of Pearls (33 page)

He closed the Bible. “You are brought before us because of your actions toward the senior Shepherd of Washington State. You
have railed on him, implicating him in a legal matter by naming him the father of your sister’s illegitimate child.”

Owen looked up and his sandy lashes flickered in surprise. Dinah saw his jaw clench, as if he were biting back an exclamation.

“You have professed yourself to be unwilling to serve the Shepherd with the love and care appropriate for a sheep of the flock.
As a result he and the Elect have no freedom of spirit in your home, damaging the possibility of your family, the first fruits
of this pasture, having Gathering here again. How do you answer these charges?”

“Phinehas
is
the father of my sister’s child,” she said. “It says so on her birth certificate.”

“Danny Bell is the father of her child.” Owen seemed to force the words out. “It’s all over town.”

“I’m afraid not.” Dinah smiled at Owen, whom she’d always liked. “Phinehas has been raping both her and me since we turned
fourteen. And our mother before that.”

Owen turned as white as the pages of the Bible in Melchizedek’s hands, and glanced at Phinehas in appeal. “I can’t hear this,”
he said.

An expression of patient grief for what Dinah assumed were her dreadful delusions crossed Phinehas’s face. “For the sake of
our brother’s spirit, Melchizedek, we should make this as speedy as possible.”

“Oh, but I’m not finished yet,” Dinah said. Her heart began to pound at her own temerity, yet something in her chest, some
urgency, was forcing her to speak at last.

“Yes, I’m afraid you are.” Melchizedek raised a hand to stop her, but Dinah disobeyed the gesture and plowed on.

“Tamsen isn’t Phinehas’s only child. I am the product of his rape of my mother. I am Phinehas’s daughter, too, though Morton
Traynell’s name is on my birth certificate. A simple blood test will prove it.”

Owen, who had never been anything but urbane and kind, was looking at her as if she were a slimy thing that had crawled out
from under the couch.

She opened her mouth to say more, but at that moment the tires of a car crunched on the gravel outside.

“Dinah,” Phinehas said, enunciating her name as though it made his mouth dirty, “please see who it is and tell them to come
back another time.”

Personally, she was glad for the interruption. It would give her five more minutes as a member of the Elect. She had a feeling
they were going to do more than Silence her. They were going to cast her Out altogether. They could not suffer her to be in
the congregation now, with what she knew and was prepared to say. But once she was Out, anything she said would be discounted
as the mutterings of a lost and bitter soul, and no one would pay any attention.

She opened the front door and found a stranger standing on the porch under the light.

“Dinah Traynell?”

“Yes. I’m afraid there’s a meeting going on here at the moment. Would you care to come back tomorrow?”

“No, that’s not possible.”

The man was young, in his early thirties. He wore a polo shirt under his denim jacket, and black jeans. His hair was a little
on the long side, brown and wavy over the ears and on the nape of his neck. Was he selling something?

“My name is Raymond Harper. I’m an investigator with the Organized Crime Task Force based in Seattle. I understand that one
Philip Leslie is currently at this address?”

“Yes.” Ray Harper? The name niggled in her brain and she finally unearthed where she’d heard it before. “Are you Ross Malcolm’s
partner?”

“I am. May I come in?”

She couldn’t imagine what he was there for, but neither was she about to refuse a law enforcement officer. She stood back
and Harper stepped into the living room.

Ray Harper. The one Claire had said was the kind of man you wouldn’t want coming after you.

His gaze went to the three men sitting motionless on the row of her mother’s dining room chairs. “Which of you is Philip Leslie?”

“There is no one here by that name,” Melchizedek replied. “As the young lady said, we’re having a meet—”

Harper pulled a notebook out of his back pocket and consulted it. “All right. Which of you goes by the name of Phinehas?”

Phinehas stood with dignity. “I do. I am the senior Shepherd of this congregation. How can I help you, Investigator?”

“I doubt you’ll be in a position to give anybody any help, Mr. Leslie. I’m arresting you for the sexual assault and rape of
Tamara Traynell, formerly of this address. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against
you in a court of law . . .”

E
LSIE PUT HER
Bible case on the table and sat in one of the kitchen chairs to put her shoes on. “I’m beginning to sound like a broken record,
but are you sure you’re not coming to Gathering?”

Dinah slipped another spoonful of baby food into Tamsen’s mouth and shook her head. “They never got around to Silencing me,
but the intent was the same.” And outside of Elsie, only Owen Blanchard and herself knew it. “With Melchizedek sick, who do
you suppose will lead?”

“Owen, I imagine,” her mother said thoughtfully. “Though his mother-in-law says he’s not doing too well either. I have to
say, Dinah, you’ve really put the dog among the chickens, haven’t you?”

Dinah wondered if Owen would speak or shake hands the next time she saw him, or if he would uphold Silence. “Mom, you know
as well as I do that the dog has been preying on the chickens for thirty years.” Tamsen swallowed another spoonful of food
and beat joyfully on her knees for more. “I’m just glad the truth has finally come out.”

“I am, too, in spite of everything. So maybe I’ll get a few of the mud balls now that I would have fielded had I spoken out
back then. Alma Woods will no doubt have a stockpile of them. But what worries me most is what we’re all going to do now.
Spiritually, I mean.”

“God is still leading,” Dinah suggested.

“Well, yes, but everyone is used to him leading through the Shepherds.”

“Mom, I think the Shepherds were all too happy to let people believe that. Maybe God is doing a bit of housecleaning so people
will look to him instead of ordinary men. As we know all too well, it’s not healthy when people do that.”

Elsie’s gaze was fond and a little admiring. “How you’ve changed, my Dinah.”

“I hope so. This whole house has changed. You, too.”

“I just wish Tamara were here.” Pain flickered across Elsie’s eyes. “She might find it easier to live with us now.”

“All we can do is pray for her,” Dinah said. “And that’s everything.”

She finished up the baby food and put a towel over her shoulder so Tamsen could spit up on it.

Elsie lifted the baby up and gave her to Dinah. “And what about this little one? No one is going to contest the notice and
your Mr. Chang seems to be on your side as far as convincing the judge this is the place she should be.”

Dinah nodded. “I’m not her mother. And I’m only half her aunt. We’re half-sisters, so that’s how I’m going to bring her up.”
She glanced at the clock. “You’d better get going. It’s already five past.”

When the Oldsmobile purred out of the drive and down the highway, Dinah went out to the barn. After all that had happened,
there was no reason she couldn’t have the laptop in the house. She was no longer a member of the Elect in name or spirit,
so why should she trap herself inside its structure? Maybe she’d even go to town and buy something outrageous, like the beautiful
bronzy-brown tunic sweater she’d seen in the dress shop’s window.

But for now, she’d start with the laptop. She had something important to do.

She let the chickens out onto the lawn, since it was such a beautiful spring day, and went into the hired man’s suite. It
was as dim and antiseptic as it had always been, now that Matthew’s gentle presence was no longer there to make a haven out
of it. The laptop sat on the kitchen table. She picked it up and brought it into the main house, and when it booted up and
she logged on to the Internet, she gazed in surprise at the home page.

What on earth was www.firstfruits.com?

In a couple of seconds she had her answer. There was Tamsen in the apple-green rompers, in a pair that made her look like
a peach, in a white set with pockets that clearly looked like crocuses. There was ordering and pricing and a PayPal account.
Matthew had designed a beautiful Web site for Elsie’s clandestine business, Dinah had to admit. Love and color and humor were
there on every page.

Shaking her head in amazement, Dinah opened her e-mail account and scanned the incoming mail. With a gasp, she saw a familiar
name, and a date of two days before.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: what’s happening

Hi Dinah,

You probably haven’t forgiven me yet, so I’ll skip all that and cut to the chase. You should expect a guy named Ray Harper
to show up. He’s Ross Malcolm’s partner, and I’ve told them everything. Sorry I didn’t let you know where I was before. I’m
in Seattle, working part time and going to the U. I stayed with Ross and Julia at first but now I’m in the dorms. Ross’s church
has a program for abused women called Beauty for Ashes, so I’m going to that, too. It seems to be helping. I think social
work is the place for me. The weirdness that is my life has to have some kind of point.

Hope you’re well. Kiss Tamsen for me and tell her I love her, even if you don’t believe me.

Love, Tamara

Dinah sat back with a sigh. The mystery of Ray Harper’s sudden appearance on her doorstep was solved. Tamara had spoken out,
just as Dinah had done, and between the two of them they’d seen to the downfall of Phinehas, just as if they’d been working
together.

Matthew had told her once that he thought God had been weaving a strange and wonderful design to bring him to the ranch. At
the time Dinah had thought he was just grasping at straws in order to make some meaning out of his life. But now she, too,
saw the beauty of the pattern. She and Tamara and Julia had been able to speak at last. All the threads had woven together
and Phinehas had been enmeshed in them, as unable to escape God’s plan as they had been unable to prevent it, even if they
had wanted to.

Father in heaven, your power and wisdom amaze me. Thank you for using us all. Thank you for working in my heart. Father, you
know what I want most of all. If you’re weaving this grand and lovely design, Lord, you wouldn’t want to leave these last
threads hanging, would you?

God, she hoped, could take a hint.

She closed out of Tamara’s message and when the mail screen had refreshed, saw that another one had come in.

The address wasn’t familiar. Despite the risk of spam, curiosity made her open it.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: home

Hello, Dinah. I’m back in California, staying temporarily with a friend, Paolo, who is letting me use his e-mail account.
I’ve done a lot of thinking lately, and praying, and feeling sorry for myself, and praying some more. The thing is I’m not
going to let you chase me away. We’ve been through too much, both separately and together, to allow pride and selfishness
to separate us. I’m speaking of my own, of course.

I should have told you about Torrie Parker. I should have counted on your generosity of spirit to give me the same comfort
I have been able to give you. I was wrong to think that I was some kind of infallible counselor. There is only One who is
that, and I pray he will be able to work in both our hearts so that together we can glorify him. Yes, together.

This is my dream, Dinah. An e-mail is a poor way to express it, particularly when I know you don’t check it all that often,
but like me, this message will be waiting for you if you decide to respond.

My love and admiration always,

Matthew

Dinah bit her trembling lip and blinked several times. The Lord certainly
could
take a hint. And he’d made it clear it was up to her to knot her own threads and finish the design herself.

Upstairs, Tamsen’s fire-engine noise began, telling the world that naptime was over. Dinah climbed the stairs and lifted her
out of the crib.

“What do you say we make like the chickens and go outside for a bit?”

She couldn’t reply to either Matthew or Tamara right now. Her heart was too full and her throat ached with the need to either
cry or sing. So she dressed the baby in a pair of warm overalls and her coat, pulled on her own barn jacket, and walked down
the slope and across the road to the river.

The sun fell on a curve of sand and grassy hillocks that the river had carved out of the bank this past winter. The sand was
dry and warm to the touch, so Dinah put Tamsen down on it and sat next to her.

She was neither mother nor wife, she thought, as she watched the clear water roll past with a chuckling sound. She was aunt
and sister and daughter . . . and now, beloved. But most of all, she was herself, a self she was still getting acquainted
with as she learned to walk in newness of life.

At her feet, a wavelet purled up on the sand, forming ribbons of foam like a necklace of pearls. In seconds, another wave
had overtaken it and washed them away, throwing up new strands of glistening bubbles. They never really went away. They were
renewed moment by moment, over and over, as long as the river was there to replenish them and the sun to give them beauty.

Sitting in the sand, the baby kicking happily by her side, Dinah smiled at the rush of water and decided that, all things
considered, she would rather sing than cry.

And then she’d go back up to the house and send Matthew his answer.

1. Matthew 7:6 (“Neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend
you”) has a lot of meaning for the heroine, Dinah. What do you think it means to her? To the theme of the book? To Christian
women in the larger sense? What does it mean to you personally?