The Color of Ordinary Time (7 page)

John did not get to bodily throw Porter out of the Brandt’s. When the meal was over Linus firmly asked Porter to go, and Porter complied. I’ll give Porter this: he knows when he has made himself unwelcome. Many times since that night he has proven that he betters my father in this respect. Walton Taylor never knew when to leave a room.

After Porter got in his car and drove away, Linus pointed to Mark and Lem. “You two are on dishes.”

Mark started in, “Aw Dad —.”

“Everyone else has pitched in on the meals, but you two. Dishes.”

Mark and Lem cleared the table without further complaint. John looked at me. “Walk?

“Sure.”

“Can I come too?” asked Ivy.

Linus rose as we got up, and began to put together a tray of food for Dory. John, Ivy, and I took to the byways. Out on the front lawn John looked toward town and then toward Hiram’s Hill.

“Direction?” he asked.

Ivy obviously knew about the Hiram’s Hill project, as she too looked at me for direction.

“Toward the Hill is fine,” I said.

They nodded, and we started out, three abreast, down the dirt road. John on my left, Ivy on my right. It was turning into a pleasant evening. While the sun was not yet set, the day was cooling, and a breeze came in from the west.

“So what’s up with you and Dory?” I asked Ivy.

“I wish I knew. I did like you said. I mentioned Dylan Morris, and she snapped up and looked at me like I had grown another head. Then she stormed off into the house and hasn’t spoken to me since. I didn’t even get a chance to mention the conversation I had with him, or the stalking. I think it must be true,” said Ivy.

“What must be true?” asked John who was still out of the loop.

“I’m not Dad’s child. I think I’m Dylan Morris’ daughter,” said Ivy.

“Sorry to say this, Sis, but I’m not that surprised,” said John.

“What? Why?” asked Ivy.

“A confirmed bachelor in his forties marries a young woman half his age that he’s known for less than six months, and never dated. Seven months later they have a daughter. That never seemed suspect to you?”

“Coming from somebody else, maybe, but not our parents. Besides, they dated.”

“When did they date? What date have they told you about?” asked John.

Ivy was quiet for a minute. “Well they must have dated,” she said.

“Must they?” asked John.

Ivy went quiet, and the topic dropped and dragged along in the dust behind us. After a moment, Ivy turned her full attention to me. “As for
you
, young lady, who was that strapping young man at dinner? And just what happened in Kentucky?”

“The long and short of it is... I met an uncle and a grandmother I didn’t know I had, all after bailing my father out of jail. That
strapping young man
is my father’s new ministry partner, who until recently I had reason to suspect was intended for Susan.”

“Hold it. You didn’t tell me about more family,”said John.

“Wasn’t up to discussing it. Sorry,” I said.

John looked mildly hurt, but nodded as if he understood. Ivy just watched my face. “Well.”

“My father tried to bust up a Catholic Mass. That was why he was in jail. The Priest at the Mass was my unknown-until-later Uncle Felix. He brought my grandmother, my mother’s mother, to the police station on the morning I bailed Walton out, and they confronted him and me with the facts. Also I apparently had a brother named Josh who died when I was very young, but before Mom passed. After I bailed him out, Walton had me drive Susan, Porter and himself to their crusade, where I now think I just barely missed being shanghaied into a sales pitch about how I should marry Porter, and join their religious community out on Hiram’s Hill. “

Ivy looked at me stunned into silence. John started to laugh. I slapped his shoulder playfully. “It’s not funny!”

Ivy broke in, laughing, “No, it is. Here we are slamming doors, avoiding each other over something that happened twenty-five years ago, and the person with real problems is quietly cooking supper.
Awgh.
We’re pathetic.”

“Sorry, Kay,” said John, tossing a friendly arm around my shoulders, and giving me a little squeeze. “Just promise us you aren’t going to marry that yahoo.”

“As if I would consider it.”

Their laughter died down into a uncomfortable pause until Ivy spoke. “Of course... you
would
consider it. You’re considering it now. But you can’t marry a man just to make your father happy. It would be wrong.”

And
of course
there was no more to say, so we walked on silently. Because
of course
Ivy was right. I was considering it.

*

I didn’t sleep well that night, as my mind kept going back to that day. The day of the big fight. Around and around, my mind chased after what I should have said, instead of what I did say. Always, I look for the things that would have changed the outcome. Was the tilt of my shoulders wrong when I told him I was leaving for college? Was I holding myself too proudly? Or, was it my words that drove the wedge between us so permanently?

This is a useless exercise. I do realize that. Every one of the millions of times I have gone over it I have realized that. All the things that led to that fight had happened years, months, weeks,
days
before. My lies, small and big. His bullying, and uncompromising drive to shape me. Not one of them could be changed. Most of them I still don’t want to change. We are, essentially, incompatible. He should have had a different daughter. He should have had Susan.

Had I been home I would have paced the floor and had a cup of tea. Instead, not wishing to wake anyone, I lay awake, still and tense. Eventually my mind skipped it’s well worn path, and I thought of the days after the fight. I had been woefully unprepared for college.

The most obvious signs I was unready for the wider world were easy to fix. Ivy took me to a second-hand store. There we replaced the three ankle-length gray dresses (one to wash, one to wear, one for Sunday) with jeans worn in by someone else, and some just-rough-enough-around-the-edges jackets and sweaters. Then it was off to the department store for a pair of canvas oxfords, a pair of black ballet flats, a pair of brown loafers, and a rainbow of t-shirts. Some so large and loose I could worn them for dresses, some so small and tight they made me blush in the mirror. Seems I
had
hit puberty after all.

Ivy finally took me up the bathroom at the Brandt’s, and had me let down my tight bun. My hair, while cut regularly by Jody Kline, was still long enough I could have sat on it, were it not always up. Ivy looked over my locks and smiled at me in the mirror over the sink.

“Well, we could keep it longish, and you could wear it in a pony tail, and I’d teach you to braid it or...”

“Or?”

“Or you could be brave and let me make it easy to care for,” said Ivy, the blue handled scissors Dory used to cut the boys’ hair flashing in her hand.

I was scared silly. It felt like I would never be able to go back after taking that step, though I knew that hair grows back. But I was now a rebel. “Cut it,” I said, closing my eyes.

That night at the Brandt’s dinner table, because — of course — the Brandt’s were the only place I had to go, Dory admired my shoulder length bob. It let my hair fall in natural waves, framed my face, and made me look pretty instead of pinched. Ivy was still not totally satisfied.

“Those clothes are a great start, but they aren’t distinctive. Maybe we should have gotten you some combat boots.”

“I’ll work on it as I go.” I knew I was going to look like every other college freshman, and that was fine with me. I’d spent my life sticking out. Being strange and separate. It felt good to blend. Such an odd place to find rebellion, in the normal.

The finishing touch on my transformation was provided by Dory before she left my dorm room two days later. She and Linus were kind enough to drop me off, promising to pick me up for winter break. With Ivy and I both at Champagne on purpose, it wouldn’t even be extra time on the road for them. As they said goodbye to me, Dory slipped two tubes of lip gloss into my hand.

“Ditch the lipstick. Go with the gloss. Your features are delicate. You should play it up, not put heavy makeup over them. Plus — cherry vanilla and strawberry. Much tastier to kiss than lipstick.”

I did take Dory’s advice, but never dated anyone enough to be comfortable kissing them.

Over the next several years, Ivy and I developed many friends. Some shared; some not. David Sexton, and his future wife Honey Trenton were among them. Ivy became a serious flirt and a compound dater for a while, in a way her parents would not have approved of. I, meanwhile, became a consumer of pop culture and a junk food addict in a way my father would not have approved of.

I learned so much more in those four years than what I needed to graduate. Not just about television, or better social skills. I had a whole library at my disposal. History, art, music, psychology, and a host of other subjects once largely forbidden to me were now mine to explore. And more. I’d always been a reader — with my father’s intense supervision. In college I read everything, anything, that seemed interesting. Haggard and Marquez, L.M. Montgomery and Jude Deveraux, I had no filter, and I loved it all.

I eventually moved fully into the modern world. I got a driver’s license, and a car with the money I earned at school-year part time jobs, and at summer temp jobs. I still drive that little brown hatchback. I bought a laptop computer. It wasn’t the top of the line, but I needed it for the workload.

Still, the old life would come creeping in at odd times, and bring me up short. Going into a club I would pull back my hand for an instant before the man at the door stamped it, for fear that stamp was the mark of the beast. A guy would glance my way, maybe stop to flirt with me and I would blush, worrying I was leading him to sin by making him lust after me. Most troubling of all, late at night, I could still hear my father’s voice counting up my sins, then assuring me I was headed for hell.

My senior year I set to my most rebellious act ever. I read the Bible. Just sat down and read it, every night, for an hour. Cover to cover. The dull parts, the bloody parts, the interesting parts, the parts my father had glossed over, and the parts he had driven into me so hard I could say them in my sleep. Every word. I know it sounds innocent.

Among the Unbridled Holiness, only adult baptized members were allowed to read and study the Bible on their own. All other members are supervised by Walton Taylor, studied with Walton Taylor, and are preached at by Walton Taylor. I had never been baptized Unbridled Holiness, and so had never studied the bible on my own, except with Pastor Fritz before my baptism and confirmation in the Lutheran Church. I found so much more than I ever suspected was there. Enough to silence the voice of my father, even in the night. Most of the time.

The next morning I hauled myself downstairs early, very much looking forward to a quiet cup of coffee and making a pancake breakfast for everyone. Instead of an empty kitchen I found a chirpy Dory churning out enough breakfast for a battalion. I was in no place to deal with her sarcastic pancakes and seething muffins.

Linus had, apparently, put his foot down. There would be no more hiding up in her room instead of dealing with her daughter. Dory’s every movement showed her displeasure. This was a family matter requiring privacy. So I grabbed a cup of enraged coffee, and left for a trip to the fabric store, with breakfast in town maybe following.

Out front I found the second person I had not planned on dealing with that morning. After closing the front door, I got down three of the porch stairs before I saw him. Too late to turn back. For Porter stood next to a dark blue, late model sedan, which he had parked on the road. I decided I would meet him head-on. I tried to walk out to him looking confident and busy.

“Good morning. Did you need something?”

“I was hoping I could get you to come out to the new church building with me. I’d like to show you around and tell you about our plans.”

“I’ve seen it.”

Porter noticeably straitened his stance. “Still... I think it would be a good thing for you to see what we have planned. A guided tour, with an informed tour guide.”

“Thank you, no. I’m as informed as I wish to be on the matter.”

“I find that hard to believe. Walking over the site would hardly inform you of our plans and hopes. Listening to the local gossip would hardly give you a full picture. It only seems fair of you to give us a hearing.”

“Fair? Gracious is the word you are looking for. It would be gracious of me to give you my time. Unfortunately for you, I’m not feeling that gracious today.”

“Gracious? To honor your father by bending to his wishes? To continue in the faith which you were raised in? To follow the leadings and wishes of your spiritual head? Right and proper, Keziah, is what I would call it.”

I would like to be able to say that at this point I drew myself up and walked away with my dignity. Perhaps got in the car and went to run my errand. I instead stood there on the Brandt’s lawn, arguing with a fool. I don’t exactly remember what was said. I
am
left with the impression that we canvassed all the topics my father and I were used to hitting. However, it
is
possible that I am being unfair to Porter. Likely even, that I heard what he had to say only in the light of what my father had said to me so often before.

We couldn’t have stood there for long. The juggernaut of my rage drove me. It also deafened me to an argument in the house, slowly growing in volume, which could have been heard plainly through an open kitchen window, if I’d been listening.

“This will not be acceptable behavior when we are married. You
will
learn to bend to my authority,” yelled Porter.

“Mother. You couldn’t have thought you could hide this,” yelled Ivy.

“We
will not ever
be getting married. Now. Leave me alone,” I yelled.

“Don’t talk to me that way! I was doing what was best for you,” yelled Dory.

Then silence — thick, hot, and heavy. I got in my car and drove away.

*

I was still running on left over adrenaline when I hit the fabric store. My discussion with Porter had sent me back into the previous night’s mental trench. Which explains how fifteen minutes later I came back to reality with a jolt. As I scowled at the thread display in
Sew and So
, someone had touched my arm and said my name.

“Keziah, are you alright?” asked a vaguely familiar voice.

“I’m fine,” I said, looking up into the concerned face of Pastor Brett. I was left with the impression he’d been trying to get my attention for several minutes.

“Good. Picking up things for the paraments?”

“Yes. What about you?”

“Buttons,” he said holding up two cards of different sized black buttons. “They keep popping off my clergy shirts. Which looks more official?”

“What size are the buttons on your shirts?”

“I don’t know. About medium, I guess.”

I snorted. “You need to know before you buy buttons. I usually just bring in the button I’m trying to replace,” I said.

“I should have thought of that.”

“If you’ve never done it before, why would you?”

“Cold hard logic?”

I chuckled, and the tightness in my chest loosened. The feeling of rage and despair letting go. “Totally overrated,” I said.

“Are you going over to the church today?”

“Nope. I’m going to grab some breakfast at Boyd’s. After that I’ve got plans with Ivy for the rest of the day. I’ll probably take care of the paraments on Thursday.”

“Haven’t eaten myself yet this morning. Mind if I join you?”

“Sure. The company would be good.”

I quickly found what I needed, while Pastor Brett put the button rack back in order. At the cash register the owner, Mrs. Sank, made odd faces at me. Lots of winking and grinning. I thought she was losing her mind until I got out on the sidewalk with Pastor Brett strolling along beside me and realized she’d been trying to offer me encouragement. Bah.

“I guess I should clear the air up front and tell you I’ve heard quite a bit about your father and his church,” said Pastor Brett plainly.

“I’m not surprised.”

“I’m sure most of what I’ve heard is exaggeration.”

“It’s not.”

Again, the transparent nature of his personality let me see the depth of his shock, but he recovered quickly. “You don’t know what I’ve heard.”

“Try me.”

I watched him mentally catalogue the stories, and suspected he decided to start in the medium range, leaving him room to work up and down. “He yelled at your kindergarten teacher for using a stamp pad to stamp the back of your hand.”

“True. He has always felt they were indoctrinating us to take the mark of the devil without question.”

“Wouldn’t let you cut your hair.”

“Mostly true. I could get it trimmed, but I had to keep it waist length and wear it up in a bun. All the women in the congregation do.”

“But why?”

“If a woman has long hair it is her glory.”

He sighed deeply. “First Corinthians.”

“And taken out of context, too.”

“Then why not have the women cover their hair?”

“You’re a pastor. If you don’t know now, you’ll soon find out, there is only so far you can push people before they rebel. My father knows how to push people right up to their limit. He’s a master at it.”

“Publicly shamed you when you left his church by following you around, calling for your repentance.”

“Still does sometimes when he gets the chance.”

“Tells people they are going to hell.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to hell, Keziah?”

“Me? Probably not. You?”

We paused outside of Boyd’s and I looked up at him. He looked sad. Deeply, deeply sad. I could have confused the look on his face with pity, if I hadn’t been looking closely.

“No, I’m not going to hell.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Interesting.”

We went inside and found a booth at the back. He sat across from me. Except for two regulars at the counter, we were the only customers. Mary Ann, the owner, approached us and took out order. Coffee, eggs over hard, hash browns, and toast for me; coffee, oatmeal, and bacon for him. I made sure to ask for separate checks. No point in sullying his reputation right out of the box.

“So, what made you leave? Or — maybe a better question — what helped you leave?” he asked, after Mary Ann left to put in our order.

“Lots of things. Most of them not at all noble.”

“Like?”

“I wanted to go to college, and he wouldn’t let me. I wanted a job, and a house, and a life. I didn’t want to wait around until he found somebody for me to marry, and then take care of three people instead of just two for the rest of my life. Besides, I was so exhausted. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Couldn’t take what anymore?”

“You don’t understand if you’ve never lived it, and it’s so hard to explain.”

“I’d really appreciate it if you tried anyway. You’d be doing me a real favor.”

I looked at him. A stranger to my land, or at least to my mental landscape, and I wondered how many people in town could have explained why I was so tired. Even Ivy would have had only the vaguest of ideas.

“Why do you want to know?”

He considered this for a moment. “Think of it like this. I am going to minister in this town for the next three to five years, at least. Not tomorrow, but eventually, there may be another person who leaves your father’s sect. How do I help them when they show up at my door? The more you tell me, the more I’ll have an idea of where to start.”

I almost told him to take a hike. That there was no way I was going to coach him on stealing my father’s sheep. I wrestled with my need to defend my father, and what I actually believed intellectually to be a reasonable request. It took a minute, but intellect won. Just barely.

“I was afraid, and I was tired of being afraid. My father always stressed that God could return at any second. So I lived my life trying to be perfect. Because if I wasn’t perfect, that would be the second that God would come back, or I would die, and I’d be sent to hell for the unrepentant sin in my life. It’s overwhelming to try and live like that. Trying to keep even a sinful thought from flitting through your brain. I wasn’t strong enough to live like that.”

“Keziah, it’s never supposed to be about what we do, it’s supposed to be about what God does.”

“I know that. I mean I know that in my head. God’s promises. Forgiveness. Our loving Father. I know all that. I could probably quote you chapter and verse. I believe it too. I do. It’s just...”

“You want your father to love and respect you,” he said.

“Well, isn’t that what we all want?”

“Probably.”

Then I saw the humor in the situation and snorted a little. “And look who I’m talking to about it.”

“What?”

“Well, look at you. You are a pastor. Your folks must be ecstatic. I bet they tell everyone they know about ‘our son the pastor.’ It’s like they hit the Christian jackpot for children. The only way you could be a better son is if you marry the perfect Lutheran girl and have at least two sons that also become pastors. You’re totally set.”

“That would be true, were my parents Lutheran.”

“They’re not?”

“No. United Brethren.”

“
Whoo.
How did they take it? Were they mad?”

“Not mad. Confused. Like robins that accidentally raised a cowbird. Like they love me, but I’m a changeling.”

A strange sense of recognition flooded over me, and I teared up. It had been so long since I’d felt like I wasn’t alone. I’d known many people who had left Christianity altogether, and become Muslims, or Buddhists, or Atheists, or nothing at all. They all had reasons, political agendas, or bad experiences. Something. But to leave the denomination you were raised in to join a more old fashioned or traditional denomination? It was like moving backwards somehow.

The arrival of our food saved me, and I hoped he hadn’t noticed that I’d teared up. The moment passed, and the conversation moved on.

“How’s Mrs. Clack?” A loaded question.

“She is as she ever was.”

I laughed.

*

When I arrived back at the Brandt’s, I found Ivy and Linus out on the back deck. They were drinking coffee, sitting quietly at the round iron patio table. Linus motioned me to the third chair, and Ivy poured me a cup from the white carafe sitting between them. Ivy had been crying.

I took a sip of my coffee. “I can go. It’s no problem. I totally understand.”

“Don’t be crazy,” said Ivy.

“We love having you here,” said Linus.

“But sometimes a family needs privacy,” I said.

“I want you here,” said Ivy. That seemed to close the subject.

After a deep silence and a long sigh, Linus looked at Ivy. “Your mother promised me when we married that if the day ever came when you had reason to suspect that she’d tell you everything. I’m sorry she’s not being more forthcoming. She really hadn’t planned for you to ever find out. I won’t make her tell you what she doesn’t want to. But if you have questions I can answer, I’ll try. I know it’s not the same.”

“It’s something,” said Ivy.

Linus nodded and sipped his coffee.

“She didn’t trap you did she? I mean you knew when you married her right?”

“About you?” asked Linus.

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“Was she seeing both of you at the same time, or was it...? I don’t know how to ask it? Did she beg you to marry her, or what?” asked Ivy.

“She was in the choir, they both were, and even then I was the director. I showed up early for a rehearsal and overheard her tell Dylan that she was pregnant. He told her to get rid of it. They fought. When I realized the next day he had simply left town, I drove straight over to her Aunt’s house and proposed to her.”

“So she never really came clean with you. You just knew what was up,” said Ivy.

“She tried to tell me. But I stopped her, and explained how I’d heard the fight. She didn’t need to tell me the rest. We were married three days later.”

“I can’t believe she’d just marry you. Did she even really know you? Did she love you? How mercenary!”

“Don’t be so hard on her. She was a just a girl alone in the world. You’re older now then she was then. Think about it. What if it had been you? What if you’d turned up pregnant your sophomore year of college?”

Ivy sighed. “I guess you guys would have helped me. You wouldn’t have been happy about it, but you would have stood by me,” she said.

“Yes. But now what if it had been Kay here who turned up pregnant at twenty?”

They both looked at me, and I felt myself go a bit pale at the thought. “I couldn’t have gone back to my father. He’d have taken me back, but it would have been no way to raise a child,” I said.

“Exactly. Dory didn’t have anyone except her Aunt Susan. I know you never really knew Susan, so you’ll have to trust me. She wasn’t a kind woman.”