Authors: Deborah Bedford
I don’t know how to get from where I am to where I was. I don’t know how to escape from this dry place.
Inside the church’s foyer a stainless-steel coffeepot crouched on a table beside Styrofoam cups. A tall spray of red carnations
and baby’s breath and leather-leaf fern, as widespread as a ballerina’s arms, decorated the table. The place smelled like
Starbuck’s in Springfield and sounded every bit as lively. No, take that back. With the pounding of the organ, it reminded
Lydia more of Busch Stadium before a Cardinals game.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” someone asked as she stepped forward, looking for the right place to sit. “Do you mind moving as close
toward the front of the sanctuary as possible? And moving toward the center of the row?”
“No. No, that’s fine,” she said, feeling dismayed. She had hoped to hide in the back.
“Forgive us for moving everybody forward. We’re expecting a large crowd today.”
Blindly she found herself a space and sat. Her knees bonked the wooden pew box when she did, which jostled a row of Baptist
hymnals, a stack of welcome cards, and a multitude of those short, stubby yellow pencils that plunked on the floor and rolled
everywhere. She waved at Uncle Cy and Jane across the way. She settled herself, yanking her skirt straight so it covered her
stockings, glancing around as if she couldn’t figure out who on earth had dropped all those pencils.
Lydia couldn’t help overhearing the whispered conversation of the two little ladies on her left. “Can you move over, Trudy?
It’s so tight in here, I’m having trouble reaching my pocketbook.”
“Pastor Joe wouldn’t like that one bit.”
“It’s homecoming weekend. We don’t have enough seats for all these extra people.”
“Well, I don’t like it one bit. I always sit in the second pew over there.”
“I know. Somebody’s sitting in my place too.”
“It’s more than that and you know it. You read the newspaper this morning. Small town, big trauma. Everybody heads to the
nearest pew.”
Lydia glanced up and saw Charlie walking up the aisle toward her. She knew he saw her, too, before her eyes dodged away. She
turned forward again, waiting for him, her hand on the pew, her heart pounding.
As he came close, her gaze rose to him. Charlie was very tall. The broad shoulders of his dress suit, his pendulous tie, the
questions in his eyes, loomed over her head.
The crisp October morning striking in through the open door, the smell of cured grass and sweet leaves, and the immense crash
of the organ playing “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine!” The entire town was watching. And you can never plan the things you’ll
say.
Her words rushed out before either of them had the chance to fling up walls. Before either of them had the chance to measure
what they’d said before, what they’d thought, how they’d hurt each other.
“How are you?” her heart rushing forward with her words. “How are you holding out?”
“What about you, Lyddie?”
In the few odd seconds while they stared at each other, neither of them realized they had only asked questions, they hadn’t
answered them.
Over the scent of the wax-polished pews, Lydia could smell mint, soap, cool skin, a Luden’s cough drop. “I didn’t know you
were coming today, Charlie.” She cringed at her own voice. She made it sound like she was questioning whether he belonged.
He moved the Luden’s from one side of his mouth to the other. She saw his tongue, dyed cough-drop orange. She saw his eyes
go dark against her question that spoke of blame. But all of her questions, all of her thoughts, spoke of blame these days.
The pain surged between them like an electrical charge. “The new boat,” he said, and maybe he was partially honest about this
or maybe he wasn’t. “I needed to be here today to thank somebody for the boat.”
“Oh.”
He began to finger his tie. “Lydia?” And the entire length of his sentence, she fought herself to keep from shaking her head.
No. No. Don’t ask it, Charlie. Please.
“You can’t sit here,” she said, stopping him. “I promised I’d sit with Shelby.”
Embarrassed, he looked around the sanctuary over her head, fast, as if he realized he had no right to be with her. She reached
to touch his coat sleeve but he jerked it away. She wanted to cry out to him, but she couldn’t.
This isn’t the place where anyone ought to be taking any stands.
“I’m sorry.” And words alone could never have said how sorry she was.
Charlie had friends who were gesturing to him from the opposite row.
Come over and sit with us.
Patting the seat to make him feel welcome.
“I’ll just—” He clapped one fist awkwardly against his hand, snapped his fingers. He backed up, pointed in his friend’s general
vicinity. “I guess I’ll just sit over there.”
The choir had begun to file in. The conversations, which moments ago had been buzzing around her, stopped. Suddenly Lydia
had room to breathe. Since Charlie had paused to speak to her, it seemed that everyone else had scooted three inches away.
At the front of the sanctuary, the choir members began to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” with lifted voices and outspread hands.
During the entire length of their Call To Worship, Lydia didn’t hear any of the words to the song at all. She was only aware
of the man who sat four rows in front of her and to the right, his hair barely touching his shirt collar, his shoulders held
self-consciously square. She watched until he stood suddenly to speak to an usher. She jerked her attention to the creases
in her hand.
Charlie must have forgotten to pick up a church bulletin in the foyer. When he stepped out to get one, he came face to face
with Tom and Tamara Olin, who were entering with Shelby.
Tamara gasped and yanked Shelby low against her chest, covering her child’s head with her arms.
Tom Olin wrenched sideways, wagging his finger. “You! How could
you
be in a church today? After what you’ve done to my stepdaughter?”
His voice measured, Charlie said, “I did not do what she says I did.”
“Tom.” Tamara gripped his arm. “Stop. Don’t do this here.”
“I ought to haul off and punch you out right now.”
“Charlie.” Somebody gripped him by the arm. “The service has started.”
“Tom,” one of the deacons said, “this isn’t going to do any good.”
Someone pulled Charlie down.
Someone pulled Tom down.
Probably a hundred and twenty-some-odd hearts were pounding as Shelby searched the pews for her counselor and plastered herself
against Lydia’s side.
After that, Charlie sat still as a post. The tops of his ears, which curled over like the tops of snapdragon blossoms, flushed
bright red. Once, he reached to scratch the nape of his neck between his hair and his shirt collar. A thin, oblong slash of
sun fell across his shoulders like a bandage.
Lydia made herself turn away.
The Brownbranch glinted toward the east in the view out the window. The only thing that stretched further and fiercer than
the sky was the emptiness inside her soul.
The sermon passed in a blur. When she noticed Pastor Joe kept glancing in her direction, Lydia edged the other way, out of
his line of sight. Still the pastor’s voice boomed toward her, quoting words that she might have once believed, that she might
have once clung to.
And, in spite of the heated sermon, the powerful words, the promise of courage, churchgoers’ whispers came in quick succession
behind her. “. . . Mathis isn’t in his usual place… neither is Mo Eden’s family… how about the Bakers?… What
are you doing sitting over here?”
Be quiet,
she wanted to cry out.
Can’t you just listen and not care so much about everybody else’s business?
“. . . isn’t like a wedding where you sit behind the bride or the groom.… of course it isn’t.… much more important
than that.”
When Lydia began to follow their conversation, she recognized two or three childhood friends of Charlie’s sitting to the left
of the aisle.
She recognized business associates of Tamara Olin’s sitting to the right.
Charlie’s great aunt sat folding a lace handkerchief over one knee, happily occupying space to the left of the aisle.
Tommy Ballard and his mother had been seated to the right.
Addy Michaels and her grandson had been seated to the left.
Barbara Krug, Tom Olin’s Place-Perfect Real Estate secretary, spritzed cologne lightly on both wrists, sending up a cloud
of
Emeraude
from the right.
Lydia’s whole self began trembling with anger. Even before Charlie and Shelby had arrived, people must have started sitting
beside people they agreed with. People were sitting on separate
sides.
Lydia had her hands on the back of the pew to rise, pressing herself up off of the seat to go she-didn’t-know-where.
Maybe just to stand in the middle. Maybe just to stand right smack dab in the center of the aisle.
Her anger and her sense of injustice propelled her to stand.
Just walk away, Lydia. Keep your head down. Just step sideways past everybody’s knees and don’t tread on anybody’s feet.
She stumbled over Tamara’s purse and felt Tom catch her elbow to steady her.
“Miss P,” Shelby whispered. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, Shelby,” she whispered back. “I just have to get out of this place.”
By this time, Joe Douglas had stepped away from the pulpit and stood at the altar with loving, outstretched arms, his sleeves
billowing out like the wings of a crow. The choir members, with upraised chests and pursed mouths, were humming “Just As I
Am.” One-hundred-and-twenty-some-odd heads were already ducking and peeking to see if someone might be accepting Jesus Christ
as Lord, opening a place for Him in their hearts. The music director had already taken them through the a cappella hymn three
times.
All those people looking, waiting, expecting someone to stand and walk forward to accept.
Lydia had done that a long time ago. When she’d been a little girl. When she’d thought He’d be big enough to make things work
out the way they were supposed to. When she’d thought that to believe in Him dying on the cross meant happy endings. Fairy
tales.
When Lydia reached the aisle, she didn’t start toward the pulpit, as many people had expected, or stand in the middle of the
sanctuary which, in her anger, she had thought she might do.
This is all we are, Lord. We’re people; we walk around screwing things up.
With Charlie Stains and Shelby Tatum and Uncle Cy and everybody else in Shadrach wondering what she was doing, Lydia turned
and left through the front door.
Two dusty blue Caprice Classics with the Shadrach city crest on their sides drove up to Charlie Stains’s small house Monday
morning, and parked. Blue flashers turned lethargically, the color bending across lower tree limbs even in the brightest Shadrach
sun. Doors opened. Uniformed men unfolded and climbed out. They left their doors open, radios crackling.
Addy Michael, who had been raking maple leaves into a pile in her front yard, paused with the rake handle gripped in both
hands. Raymond Ashby, who kept three dried corncobs hanging from a limb to feed the squirrels, picked that moment to step
out into his yard and replenish the supply. On the sidewalk where George Nagle and Red Christensen’s discussion of the church
sermon yesterday had quickly become skewed into a discussion of the fishing weather, both men stopped and stared.
Politely but purposefully, their insignia gleaming, their belts creaking, their shoes making castanet snaps on the pavement,
the four officers walked forward and waited for Charlie to answer the door.
“Hello?”
“Would you step outside, please, Mr. Stains?”
Soundlessly, he did so.
“Mr. Charles Frederick Stains,” one of the officers recited in a practiced monotone. “Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“I have a warrant for your arrest on both felony and misdemeanor counts of alleged criminal sexual misconduct.”
They rocked him to one side and secured his hands behind his back.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right at this
time to an attorney of your own choosing and to have them present before and during questioning and the making of any statement.”
“You’re arresting me? Because of Shelby Tatum?”
“If you cannot afford an attorney, you are entitled to have an attorney appointed for you by a court and to have them present
before and during questioning and the making of any statement. You have the right to exercise any of the above rights at any
time during any questioning and the making of any statement. Do you understand each of these rights I’ve explained to you?”
Dumbfounded, Charlie nodded.
As neighbors watched from their lawns and curtains were lifted or pulled aside in just about every front window on the street,
one of the officers took him by the elbow and led him down the walk. Another officer opened the rear cruiser door, the one
with no handle inside.
The city crest on the side of the door said, “The Welfare of the People Shall Be The Supreme Law.”
“Get in the car. Please, Mr. Stains.”
After he climbed in, the neighbors craned their necks to see him through the metal grate in the squad car. The Caprice pivoted,
slewing dust in every direction. The two heads inside passed by in a flash. They caught only a glimpse of the officer with
his cap cocked low over his eyes. But behind him they saw a stranger’s face, Charlie’s mouth set in a grim line, his eyes
riveted to the rearview mirror.
LYDIA HEARD THE NEWS
after third period on Monday.
During the morning break, she had conducted a meeting with Whitney Allen concerning the girl’s behavior at the dance Saturday
night. She and L.R. had decided, if Shelby was willing, that they would bring in one of their honor students, a volunteer
peer mediator, to oversee the differences between the two girls.
L.R. had been busy for hours in Mayhem Central, fending off the press. The police had been at the school early, asking questions.
Now that an arrest had been made, the school was getting calls from as far away as California and Texas.