A Morning Like This (19 page)

“I thought you might need some guidance.”

David picked a piece of grass and examined it. “Abby and I… well, I don’t know what we’re working toward, Nelson. She’s got
every reason to feel the way she feels. I’ve committed adultery and the verdict is in.”

Nelson stared in stunned surprise. “That’s what’s happened between you? You cheated on Abby?”

“Yes.”

The expression on Nelson’s face had slipped. He wasn’t the caring pastor anymore; he was the concerned and incredulous friend.
“C’mon, man. What were you thinking?”

Both men settled in on their bench as if they were settling into themselves. David slouched a little, shifting his weight
from one buttock to the other. Nelson leaned his chin into his left hand with elbow propped on his knee—the thinker’s pose.

David puffed out his cheeks and blew. “Well, I guess I had my reasons.”

“Which were?”

David rocked back and leaned his weight on the heels of his hands. “I was thinking I’d gotten married too fast, is what I
was thinking. All of my buddies were playing in the Montana Hot Box baseball tournament and camping by the Platte River over
the weekends and making all-night road trips to Denver for the Bronco games, and here I was with a kid on the way. And Abby
wouldn’t… I don’t know.” He stared at the sky, searching for words. “Sometimes she lived
around
me instead of
with
me. I had a wife but it often seemed like she wasn’t there.”

He waited for some response from his comrade and got none. At the corner, a START bus loaded passengers and pulled away from
the curb with a sheer billow of diesel. Behind the bus, the town stagecoach made another slow circle of the square, the horses’
hooves clattering on the pavement.

David added quickly, “But none of that is any excuse, is it?”

Nelson didn’t answer that question. “Sometimes it’s the hardest thing I have to do, being both a pastor and a friend.”

That admission made them both look at the sky again. Then David let out an uncertain chuckle. “If I had to pick between one
or the other, you know which one I’d choose.” He threw another stick. “I could find a different pastor.”

Two men sat on the rock ledge, leaning on the balls of their feet while the birds began to sing again. David clapped his hands
once, twice, three times. Nelson slapped his knees and stood up. “I only wish I didn’t have so many other people to worry
about.”

“Other people?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Nelson didn’t want to answer. David could tell by the way he fisted his hand at his side. “Well, I’m the pastor of a church.
And others know there has been strife between you and Abby.”

“What?”

“You’re in the church leadership. People have been calling.”

“They have?”

“Yes.”

“About our marriage?”

“Yes.”

David said, coloring faintly, “You know I was going to talk to you about it, Nelson. I was just waiting for the right time.”

“You waited too long.”

“Who’s calling you?” David pressed. “Who’s talking?”

Nelson scrubbed his forehead. “If I were to tell you, it would only make it worse, and you know it. But I have the health
of the church to think about. There are chasms beginning to form.”

“Who?” David asked again, even though he knew Nelson couldn’t answer. So David began running over the hit list in his head,
trying to answer for himself. Grant Fisher, Jake’s dad from baseball. Hal Carparelli, Kate’s husband from Abby’s work. Larry
Watt, his administrative assistant’s brother. In his mind, they all became suspect.

“How can people in the church know? Braden doesn’t even know. Abby and I don’t want this to be all over town.” David hated
the way everyone, including himself, thought of them as a pair.

Abby and me. Me and Abby.

“The presbytery committee is coming to meet with you, David. I asked them if I could speak to you first because we’re such
good friends.”

“Meet with me?”

“You need to be prepared. They’re going to come to you and ask you to step down. From the finance committee, too.”

His anger erupted. “What?” He leapt up, his breath coming in another heavy chuff. Nelson’s expression didn’t waver. “Fine.”

But it wasn’t fine.

Sure. I’ll quit. I don’t have to be an elder
.

He broke off a branch from the cottonwood beside them and began to snap it apart in inch-long increments.

All this time I’ve served and this is the thanks I get?

He kicked a pinecone with the toe of his Hush Puppies and watched it skitter away.

I don’t have to teach the sixth-graders either. Let them try to find somebody else who can handle Scott McComas
.

That made David smile, if a little viciously. The boy was a handful, and everybody knew it. Three weeks ago, after David had
prepared and prayed over a middle-school lesson the entire week, he’d asked the class to share ideas how they could reach
other kids for Christ. He’d called on Scott immediately, impressed by the arm high in the air and the waggling fingers. “Go
ahead, Scott. What do you want to say?”

“You know how to hypnotize a chicken?”

Eight pairs of eyeballs had locked on Scott McComas. Eight heads had scrambled to figure out if this had anything to do with
leading friends to Christ.

“My uncle was here from Iowa and he taught us to hypnotize a chicken. Hold its face close to your face and look it straight
in the eye.”

Sure, let somebody else listen to those barnyard stories. “Nelson, if they had problems with what was happening, why didn’t
they come to me? Have they had phone calls? Meetings? Have people been discussing it as a group?”

David had been in a leadership role at the church for over nine years. He’d even sat on the committee that had hired Nelson
Hull.
How could they ask me to step down as elder? How could Nelson let it happen?

“It’s wrong, how people go about it, David. They talk because they want to make sure they’re right. They win others to their
side without realizing what they’re doing.”

David felt like he’d been booted in the gut.

“It’s in 1 Timothy, the part about a church leader managing his children and his household.”

“Stop it,” David said. “Stop it. You and Abby both quoting Scripture at me. I know what the Bible says.”

“David—”

“This is the only thing I’m doing right for God anymore. And they want to take that away from me, too?”

The Dum Dum was long gone, but Nelson still wheedled the stick around in his mouth. For a long moment he didn’t say anything.
He looked at his friend with all the care of heaven in his eyes. “Are you really doing this for God, David?”

David stared him down. “That’s a ridiculous question. Of course I’m doing it for God. Who else would I be doing it for?”

“Yourself.”

“Right,” he said with no small hint of sarcasm. “I sit through meetings two nights a week during the school year and stay
past nine o’clock at night. I miss Braden’s Junior Jazz basketball games at the rec center. I miss Abby’s Chorale concert
and the night Braden gave his speech for student council at Colter. Sure, I miss all those things. And I do it for myself.”

“Or maybe you do it for your wife.”

“Right.”

“Maybe you’ve been doing all this, trying to be worthy of something from Abby.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe you’ve been trying to earn her love and trust because you know you don’t deserve them anymore.”

“You’re nuts.” David rose and jammed his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I know
exactly
what I’m doing. And I know exactly why I’m doing it. For nine years I’ve been serving the
Lord
.”

“Maybe you’re trying to be acceptable to Abby,” Nelson stayed right with him, “and maybe you’re trying to be acceptable to
God.”

Silence formed a wall between friends.

“If that’s what you want, here’s my resignation. Officially. I step down. Tell them they don’t have to come—that I’ve already
done it. Take me off the elders’ board and the finance committee. Take me off all the other lists, too. Especially sixth-grade
children’s church. I really don’t want to do that anymore.”

Nelson spread two hands in the air, helpless. “You have to resign to the presbytery committee, not to me.”

David began to walk away, his shoulders sagging.

“What you’re doing this minute might be the only thing you’re doing right for God. Being honest with yourself. Admitting to
the world where you stand.”

“God forgave me a long time ago for what I’ve done.” Why wasn’t Nelson telling him the things a pastor was
supposed
to say? “Don’t you think that?”

“Frantic servers. That’s what I call them. Trying to make up for something they won’t ever be able to make up for.”

“I’m not frantic,” David insisted, following him. “I’ve just been busy.”

As if David wasn’t already smarting enough from his conversation with Nelson Hull, when he walked into the lobby of The Jackson
State Bank, there beneath the mammoth taxidermy head of a bison that had been the bank’s logo and mascot for the past seventy-five
years sat two security guards flanking his son. One of them hefted himself from the chair, his leather belt squeaking as he
hoisted it. “Mr. Treasure? Is this your boy?”

Heaviness, rock-solid, bore down on him. What next? The other guard stood, too. Still sitting between them, Braden pursed
his bottom lip, brought his elbows close to his ribs in shame, and stared at the floor.

“Is this your son, Mr. Treasure?”

“Yes, it is.” A pause. “Braden?” Then, back to the intimidating men, “Is there some problem here?”

Two dozen pairs of magnetic eyeballs locked on them. From the personnel at the customer-service cubicles and the tellers lined
up behind the long, narrow desk to Francisco, head of maintenance, who was busy rearranging velvet ropes, everybody was watching.

“Yes, we have a problem.” Security Guard One locked his forearms across his chest. “Even though the police were not called,
Snow King management did not want this boy released to anyone except his father.”

“Released from what?”

“He’s a minor, so it hasn’t been determined which charges will be filed. But it might be reckless endangerment, Mr. Treasure.
Your boy injured someone on the Alpine Slide.”

As often happens to a parent when his child stands accused, David’s thoughts pendulumed between defense and blame. First he
thought,
Oh, good grief, sport. Why did you do that?
Second he thought,
My child would never behave that way! Who do you think you’re kidding?

But the misery on Braden’s face warned David that he’d best get the whole story before he passed judgment. “Would you both
like a Dum Dum? Here. Have one.” He lifted a jar from a customer-service desk and offered it to the guards. “Try the green.
They’re the best. Yellow is good, though, too. You might think it’s lemon, but it’s pineapple.”

They declined, one of them soundly and one of them looking like he would rather have said yes.

“Why don’t we go to my office? We can hash this out.”

They started toward the stairs with Braden in tow. As David panned the room, all gazes withdrew to their proper duties. Except
for Francisco, who accidentally knocked over a brass post in his haste to occupy himself.

Once they’d closed the door and all the pomp-and-spectacle of the guards had ended for everyone, David sat in his thick swivel
chair and motioned for Braden to join him. When his son came, he gave him a place to perch on his knee and hugged him. There
he sat, hanging on to his son for dear life, as if they were both dangling over a dangerous cliff.

“Now, who’s going tell me what happened?”

The two guards stumbled over each other to recount the details—how they’d been called from their offices by two-way radio
and how they’d found everybody so upset and how they’d seen the injured kid still breathing hard beside the picnic table.

“Braden? Is this the truth?”

Braden bit his bottom lip and nodded.

“That boy—” Guard Number Two adjusted his belt around his paunch. “—is not allowed to come back to the Alpine Slide for the
remainder of the summer.”

“Braden? Is this what happened?”

When Braden finally spoke, his voice was thin with shame. “I did it to W-wheezer, Dad. I did it. It was my fault.”

“But I—” David stopped. What had he been about to say?
I expected you to say it was an accident. I expected you to say it wasn’t your fault
. “Are you sure?”

I expected you to stand up for yourself!

Of course it was what he expected. That’s exactly what he would have said for himself.

“You did it to Wheezer on the baseball team?”

Braden nodded, tears pooling in his eyes. “He couldn’t find his inhaler and h-his lips turned blue. I d-didn’t know what to
do.”

It just came out of David’s mouth, that phrase men use with each other when they’re surprised, the same one Nelson himself
had relied on when he’d found out what was wrong. “Braden, sport. What were you thinking?” A lowered head, a prodding gesture
of the chin. “What?”