Ties That Bind (4 page)

A
bigail flipped down the visor and peered intently into the narrow mirror while she applied her lipstick. “Watch out for potholes, Margot. You're making me smear it.”

I kept driving, keeping the wheel exactly where it was, saying nothing.

“I don't see what you're so upset about,” she said, running her fingernail around the edge of her lips. “All I did was suggest that you'd be the perfect person to welcome Reverend Clarkson. You're so hospitable. Everyone knows that. Besides, you were the natural choice. Everyone else has families. They're all busy getting ready for the holidays.”

“And I suppose I'm not!”

Abigail jerked in her seat, surprised by my outburst.

“Just because I'm single doesn't mean I have nothing to do! And I do have a family! They're all coming for Christmas! So I've got plenty of things on my plate already—
especially
since I'm single! I don't have a husband to help me with the preparations. And I don't have time to be a one-woman welcome wagon! And even if I did, you only volunteered me because you're trying to set me up with the new minister.”

Abigail was quiet for a moment. “I'm sorry, Margot. That was insensitive of me. You're just as busy as the rest of us; I know that. Being single has nothing to do with it. It just seemed to me that … well, your faith is so important to you. I thought a nice, unmarried man of the cloth might be the perfect match for you. I was only trying to help.”

“I don't want that kind of help. I'm perfectly happy being single.”

Abigail put the cap back on her tube of lipstick and closed the visor. “Of course,” she said flatly. “Anyone can see that. You positively radiate joy and contentment.”

“I'm fine. I have a nice home, a good job, and
most
of my friends are lovely people. Let's just leave well enough alone, all right?”

Abigail looked shocked. “Why? I've
never
left well enough alone. Not when I saw the possibility of getting something better. And I want something better for
you,
not me. What's so terrible about that?”

“Nothing,” I said, feeling guilty for snapping at her. Abigail really does mean well, but she's so … insistent. “But I believe I'll be a lot happier if I just embrace myself and my life as it is and get over the idea that I need a man to be complete as a woman.”

“Well, of course you don't! What a silly idea. Is that how you've felt? Truly?”

I nodded sheepishly as I turned my car onto Commerce Street.

“Really,” Abigail said, in a slightly disbelieving tone. “Well, then I applaud your enlightenment—however recent it may be. That whole ‘you complete me' bunk is just that, a lot of sentimental hoo-hah invented in Hollywood. Or some such place.

“If a man alone can make you happy, then my first marriage should have made me the happiest woman on earth. Woolley Wynne was handsome, very rich, and very generous, a rare combination, and he adored me. At first. But I wasn't happy with myself. I was forever regretting my lost love, the man who'd made me truly miserable, which, for a lot of young women, seems to be an incredibly magnetic quality in a man.

“Why is that, do you suppose? Why should a young, attractive, intelligent, and interesting woman, as indeed I was at the time, scan a horizon thick with potential suitors only to say, ‘Aha! Another opportunity to suffer!' and then run headlong toward the man best equipped to ruin her life?”

“I don't know.”

“Nor do I,” Abigail said. “But that's exactly what I did. Thank heaven I'm past that stage. You couldn't
pay
me to be twenty-five again, Margot. You really couldn't.”

Abigail is so rich she doesn't need anybody to pay her to be anything, but I do understand her point. There are plenty of things bothering me about this birthday, but I truly would not wish to be younger. I like knowing what I know now, the assurance and resolve that a full log of life experience brings. I only wish I'd had this … wisdom, I suppose you might call it … back before I had closed quite so many doors and wasted so much time. Maybe everyone feels this way at forty. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. If time and breath were infinite, we wouldn't value them like we do. Looking at Abigail, beautiful and energetic and full of life in her middle sixties, a troublemaker in the best sense of the word, makes me think that there is still time for me to get it right.

“I think the reason Franklin and I are happily married,” Abigail continued after pressing her lips onto a piece of folded tissue, leaving two mauve half-moons on the white paper, “is because we were happy before we married. We were two satisfied, fully formed individuals before we fell in love. Being married has just enhanced that. Maybe that's what you need, Margot, to find a man who can be a friend first and a lover later.”

“I've had men friends, Abbie. Lots of them. Every time I develop a romantic interest in a man, he backs off and tells me that he just wants to be friends.”

“And then you never see them again?”

“Usually,” I said, thinking of Arnie. New Bern is a small town so, of course, we run into each other. But it's always awkward.

“Well, then those men weren't really your friends, were they? ‘Let's be friends' is one of those things people say to get themselves out of a relationship without looking bad. What they really meant is that they'd assessed the possibility of a romantic relationship with you, thought better of it, and decided to move on, getting as far away from you as fast as possible without breaking your heart,” Abigail said matter-of-factly.

“Which they managed to do anyway.”

Abigail patted my shoulder sympathetically. “I know. They were stupid. Complete idiots. I've so often heard you jest that you're not looking for Mr. Right anymore, that you'd be willing to settle for Mr. Good Enough. But Mr. Good Enough
isn't
good enough. Not for someone as special as you.”

“Oh, Abbie. You're sweet.”

“Ha! Well, we both know
that's
not true. But I do admire you, Margot, and I'd like to see you happy. I did have matchmaking on my mind when I volunteered you to welcome the new minister, but now I think romance may not be the best thing for you, not just now. At the moment, I think you'd be better off to find a friend. A real friend, someone whose interests and passions match your own, who understands how you think, who can offer you sound advice and take it too, is one of the greatest gifts on earth. That's what Franklin and I have. And that, more than anything, is what holds us together.”

I pulled the car into Abigail's driveway. All the lights were off.

“So,” she inquired, “do you have time to go over to the parsonage and greet Reverend Clarkson? If you're too busy with your family, I can …”

“No. That's all right. I'll do it. I don't mind.”

“Thank you.”

“You and Franklin are lucky.”

“We are. And,” she said, reaching into the depths of her purse and pulling out a blue box tied with white satin ribbon, “my birthday wish for you is that, someday, you will be just as fortunate.”

“You didn't buy me a present from Tiffany's, did you? Oh, Abbie. You shouldn't have.” I turned the key in the ignition and the engine stopped.

“Open it! You didn't suppose I'd forgotten, did you?”

Inside the box, on a bed of pale blue satin, was a necklace, a sterling silver key pendant decorated with a pink enamel heart, hung on a long silver chain. “Oh, Abigail! Oh, it's beautiful! I just love it. Thank you.”

“Take good care of that. It's the key to your heart and very precious. Mustn't be given to anybody who is anything less than your soul mate. Oh, I almost forgot. There's a card that goes with your present.” She rustled through her handbag. “Hmm. I must have left it in the house. Come inside and I'll give it to you.” She opened the car door.

“That's all right, Abbie. Give it to me at the quilt circle.”

“It's a very funny card,” she said, climbing out of the car. “I spent a lot of time picking it out. Come along, Margot. I insist.”

She started walking toward the house, not looking back because it would never occur to Abigail that anyone, particularly me, would fail to follow her instructions once she insists upon something.

I got out of the car. Abigail knows me too well.

W
e went in the side door. Abigail snapped on a light and we walked through an orderly anteroom with winter coats and hats hung on pegs and boots—garden boots, hiking boots, riding boots, snow boots—standing at the ready in tidy pairs on grooved trays designed to catch mud or melting snow. Three open cupboards on the opposite wall held an assortment of sports equipment—tennis rackets, golf clubs, and cross-country skis. Abigail is very athletic.

The kitchen was just as well organized, with gleaming copper pots hung on a rack over the stove, a long wall of cream-colored cabinets with dishes lined up like museum collectibles behind doors of beveled glass. Of course, Abigail has much more storage space than I do, and a full-time housekeeper, but I couldn't help but feel a little twinge of self-reproach when I compared Abigail's tidy kitchen to mine.

I've got to reorganize my kitchen. Soon. Maybe tonight. The last thing I need this Christmas is for my mother to come into my house and start throwing out little hints about me being messy or, worse yet, putting on an apron and starting to clean. The minute she walks into my house and starts picking up things, or pulls my vacuum out of the closet, I feel like I'm nine years old again.

I leaned against the counter, tapping my foot while Abigail opened a kitchen drawer and looked through a blue-flowered file folder for my card.

“It's not here,” she said, frowning. “Hilda must have moved it. I've told her a million times … Never mind. I'm sure it's on my desk.” She walked to the hallway.

“Abigail, it's all right. Really. Why not wait and give it to me later?”

“No. It's a birthday card and I want to give it to you on your birthday. Come on.”

I followed her down the hallway and into the dark living room, completely unsuspecting until Abigail turned on a table lamp and everyone I know and care about in New Bern—Evelyn, Charlie, Garrett, Franklin, Ivy, Virginia, Tessa and Lee, Madelyn and Jake, Dana, Wendy Perkins—jumped out and shouted, “Surprise!”

I stood frozen, utterly shocked. Evelyn came over to give me a hug. “Don't be mad. I told you that we weren't planning on giving you a surprise party at the shop. You didn't say anything about a party off-site.” She laughed and everyone joined in.

My plan for celebrating this birthday was not to. But when I saw my friends popping up from behind the furniture like jacks-in-the-box, complete with silly grins and funny paper hats, I reconsidered.

After the shouts and the hugs, the kisses and congratulations, Evelyn and Madelyn brought out a beautiful cake, shaped like a bed and draped with a fondant icing quilt in pink, green, and white patchwork squares with four tall pink and white twisted candles, like four carved bedposts on each corner of the cake.

“Oh my!” I exclaimed, leaning over and gently poking the fondant with my finger to confirm that it truly was a cake. It looked so real, like a quilt on a doll's bed. “Who thought this up?”

Virginia, who, in her eighties, is more on the ball than most women half her age, waved her hand over her head. “Guilty!” she called out. “Though it wasn't exactly my idea. I saw something similar on the Internet.” That's what I mean about Virginia; though her specialty is meticulously and exquisitely handmade quilts using heritage techniques, she is always willing to try new things. Virginia has more Facebook friends than I do.

“And Madelyn baked it,” Tessa added, beaming as proudly over her best friend's accomplishment as if it had been her own. “Isn't it amazing? You know, if Madelyn hadn't decided to become an innkeeper, she could have made her living as a baker.”

I looked up at Madelyn, who was shooting a look at Tessa. When Madelyn, widow of an infamous Wall Street financier, was living a glamorous life in New York, the paparazzi followed her everywhere. But now I've noticed that she doesn't really like being the center of attention.

“It's beautiful, Madelyn. Too beautiful to eat.”

“It better not be!” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I spent all morning baking it. Go on, Margot. Blow out the candles before the bedposts burn down.”

“Yeah,” Garrett, Evelyn's son and the Cobbled Court Quilt Shop's official “web dude,” agreed. “Get on with it, Margot. I'm starving!”

I leaned over and pursed my lips, ready to blow, but was stopped by Ivy, who cried, “Wait a minute! Don't forget to make a wish.”

I paused for a moment, wondering what to wish for. It seemed I already had so much. But then I remembered what Abigail had said about Reverend Clarkson in the car and what I'd said back: “You can never have too many friends.”

Closing my eyes, I made a silent wish about myself and friendship and Reverend Clarkson. When I was done, I leaned down again and blew out all four candles in one breath, never supposing anything would come of it.

I
have to go to the bathroom. I really, really do.

If Tim were here, he'd give me a hard time for not remembering to go before I left. But why would I? It was always his job to remind me. Well, not his job exactly, but he always did remind me and I came to depend on him for that. And so many other things. Funny the things I miss about him, even now. Funny to think I'd ever miss being teased for having a bladder the size of a thimble.

I could have gone when I stopped for gas near Sturbridge, but the line to get into the ladies' room ran out the door. Why can't people who design buildings figure out that women need twice as many toilets as men? It's all a matter of clothing complications and personal plumbing. Don't architects take anatomy in college? Anyway, I didn't stand in line and wait because I was afraid I'd be late to meet this person … what was her name?

I'd written it down on a scrap of paper and stuck it in my coat pocket before I left, but repeated groping through my pockets unearthed only an ATM receipt, a business card for my gynecologist, a used tissue, and three cherry-menthol cough drops. I have a cold.

I have to go to the bathroom and I have a cold and, for the life of me, I can't recall the name of the very first person I'll meet from my very first congregation. This does not bode well. Why can't I remember? I'm usually so good with names.

I'm nervous, that's why. Who wouldn't be? Getting your first pulpit is as good a reason as any for a case of nerves, especially under these circumstances.

What
is
that woman's name? I know it starts with an “M.” Mary? Marion? Margaret? That's it. Margaret. I think it was Margaret … or something like that. No, it was Margaret. Definitely. This is no time to start second-guessing myself.

But it's hard not to. I've been waiting for a church of my own for so long. And I don't just mean the months since I finished seminary, months spent living at my parents' house while meeting with and being rejected by various pastoral search committees. I've been waiting for this moment, or rather been drawn to it, for most of my adult life.

The calling to ministry is exactly that, a calling, a thing you respond to not because you want to but because you have to. That's how it was for me. When I was little, people always used to pat me on the head and say, “So, are you going to be a minister like your dad when you grow up? Are you going into the family business?”

I never came right out and said, “No way!”—pastors' kids tend to learn the art of diplomacy at an early age—but that's what I was thinking. I knew exactly what responding to the call to ministry entailed. As a child, I wanted nothing to do with it.

What I did want was money in the bank, a nice car, bright red with a convertible top with an enormous dog who would sit in the backseat, marriage and a family, at least two kids and preferably three, a big home with one bathroom for every bedroom plus one more for show, and my name on the deed. No more parsonages for me.

Everything started off according to plan. I received a scholarship to James Madison University, beginning in the business school because I figured that was the surest path to getting a balanced checkbook and the deed to a house, hating it, transferring to marketing, then communications before making peace with my inclination to the helping professions and landing in the department of social work.

So I wouldn't have a big bankbook or a big house, but at least I'd have a paycheck, chart my own course, and be doing something meaningful. At least I'd avoided the religion department. That had to count for something, right?

Wrong.

I liked social work, but something was missing. I tried changing jobs. If working with seniors wasn't filling my cup, then maybe helping hospital patients would, or working with kids. Each job was satisfying in its own way, but it wasn't enough. The thing that kept me up at nights was the fact that, according to various rules and policies, I was not supposed to talk to my clients about the one thing many of them needed most—God. Sometimes I did it anyway and it got me in trouble. Once it got me fired.

In my heart, I knew it was coming but, even so, when the principal, Janice DeCarlo, called me into her office and told me she had to let me go, it was a shock.

“You know I hate doing it, Phil.” Janice always called me Phil. “You're the best social worker we've ever had, but I can't keep pretending to look the other way ….”

“I know. You're right. I'll be more careful.”

Janice smiled and shook her head. “No, you won't. You were praying with Brent Ragozine right outside the library. Don't say anything. Or make promises we both know you can't keep. Your instincts are good,” she said, handing me a letter of dismissal, “but you're in the wrong place. Go do what you're
meant
to do. Be a minister.”

I took the letter, folded it in half, and laid it on my lap. “I suppose you're right.”

“I am,” she said, rising from her chair and coming around to my side of the desk. “You may not realize it, Phil, but you're actually having the best day of your life.”

Janice was right. The calling to ministry had always been in me. Finally admitting it came as a relief.

But why did the call to my first church have to come right before Christmas? And why to Bob Tucker's church? I've heard him speak. He and Dad go way back. The man can preach the paint off the wall. He'll be a hard act to follow. As the only child of Reverend Philip Clarkson, I already know all about bringing up the rear.

I wondered if the search committee knew about my dad. Probably. I've met with seven pastoral search committees since May. In each case, the first thing they said to me after “Please, sit down” was “Your father is a wonderful speaker!”

Translation? “Your father is a wonderful speaker, so we figured you must be too. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, right?”

Yes and no. There is so much I share with Dad—a love of the outdoors and good music, a tendency to tear up during sad movies, and a deep, abiding love of and desire to serve God. But I am not an apple from the Clarkson tree. I'm adopted. My parents, Philip and Joyce, look like an ad for Scandinavian Airlines—tall, blond, and Nordic—whereas I am short, dark, and Hispanic. My birth mother was Puerto Rican. Judging from the tight curls in my hair, my father may have been African American, but no one knows. Every adoptive child grows up wondering why their birth parents gave them up, but I was able to work through most of that. My career in social work helped me understand that, sometimes, the most loving and sacrificial choice a woman in dire circumstances can make is to release her child to the care of someone else. And, growing up in a caring, stable, faith-filled home helped too. My parents and I do not share even one drop of the same blood, but they love me like their own, and that has made all the difference for me.

Another thing my parents, specifically my father, do not share with me is exactly what all those search committees were looking for—an inspired gift of oratory. He has it. I don't. That's why I've been passed over for so many pulpits.

But finally, I've got a church and six months to prove myself. Dad assures me my preaching will improve with time and practice, but Dad is a very reassuring sort of guy. Very supportive. Almost too supportive, if such a thing is possible. Dad and Mom always told me that I could do anything I set my mind to. It's a totally appropriate parental response when talking to a five-year-old, but after her teens, a person is looking for a more realistic assessment of her abilities and talents. It's simply not possible for everybody to be good at everything, is it?

They're good parents. The best. I'm lucky to have them. And I'm lucky that this position opened up without time for the folks in New Bern to take me for a test run before deciding to sign on the dotted line. If I'd had to guest preach before getting the offer, would I have found myself driving south just two days before Christmas, my car-top luggage rack loaded down like Santa's sleigh, carrying everything I would need for a six-month sojourn in New Bern, Connecticut? I doubt it. God moves in mysterious ways.

But as I popped another cough drop into my mouth, I couldn't help but wonder what God had in mind, giving me a cold just before my preaching debut? Then I remembered Second Chronicles 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

I looked in the rearview mirror, caught sight of Clementine, who was half-asleep, head lolling against the backseat, and smiled, the way I always do when I look at her, the last gift Tim gave me before he died. I wonder if he knew how much she would come to mean to me? That the necessity of caring for Clementine would be the thing that would roust me out of my mourning and force me to rejoin the human race. I bet he did.

“I know what he'd say if he were here. He'd say, ‘Gee, Pippa, if God is looking for a way to display heavenly strength through human weakness, who better than you to demonstrate the principle?'” I laughed, hearing his voice in my head, and looked in the rearview mirror again. “What do you say, Clemmie? Think he's right?”

She opened her big brown eyes, yawned, and sneezed, which, in Clem-speak, means she agrees 100 percent.

 

I made good time. In fact, I arrived fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.

It was tempting to park my car downtown and stroll across the snow-covered Green and the sidewalks, peer into the shop windows of my new community and the faces of the people I had come to serve, but I decided to save that for another time. The bathroom situation was getting urgent. It was a charming little village, though—picturesque, homespun, and frosted white, a picture postcard for Christmas in New England. I was sure I was going to like it here.

I pulled up to the church, tempted to park in the spot that said “Reserved for Pastor,” but that seemed a little presumptuous, so I found a spot on the street. I pulled on the parking brake and turned off the ignition before climbing out of my red 2001 Jetta convertible, one of the few components of my original life plan that survived more or less intact. Of course, my fantasy car had sleeker lines, fewer miles on the odometer, and a more reliable heater, but I like my car.

And I like my new church!

It's a beauty, a tall and typically New England structure, simple and symmetrical and covered in white clapboard. It stands at the western end of the Green, a solid and constant presence, built to withstand age and the winter blast, inviting without being intimidating, roomy enough to admit all who care to enter, just as it should be.

I stood on the sidewalk and craned my neck so I could see all the way to the top of the steeple, then closed my eyes to offer a prayer of thanks for my journey, a plea for blessings upon my new congregation, and for strength made perfect in weakness. It was, of necessity, a short prayer. I left Clementine asleep in the backseat while I searched for a bathroom. The church doors were locked, but the parsonage was open.

No one responded when I carefully opened the door and called hello, thinking Margaret Whatever-Her-Name-Was might have arrived first. It felt strange to enter without being invited, but I was desperate.

The foyer had wide pine planks on the floor that led to a narrow hallway. The first door I opened was a coat closet, the second a guest bathroom, recently remodeled with white subway tile. After washing and drying my hands, I decided to take a quick tour of my new home.

It was as pretty inside as it was out. The kitchen was compact but serviceable, with white cabinets, black and white linoleum, and a tiled backsplash that looked original but had new white grout that made it look fresh. The paint throughout the house was pristine and the carpeting smelled new. I would have to keep a close eye on Clementine.

There was a lovely formal dining room I doubted I'd ever use. The living room was nice too, but the furniture was more casual with big overstuffed chairs and sofas upholstered in cabbage rose chintz. A little fussy for my taste, but pleasant enough. The study was lined with painted wooden shelves filled with Bibles, concordances, commentaries, lexicons, study guides, and various theological works as well as a good selection of novels, biographies, and mysteries. A desk stood near the window, dark wood with claw and ball feet and a faux-leather desk chair, the kind you get at those big office supply stores. It looked comfortable, but at odds with the antiques. Besides that, the only furniture in the study was a floor lamp, a side table, and two brown and burgundy striped club chairs placed at a conversational angle in front of a fireplace. It was a small room but cozy. This would be my refuge of choice on chilly winter evenings.

I wanted to go upstairs and see the bedrooms, but the woman from the church was due to arrive any minute. Peering out the front window, I saw Clementine's head visible in the backseat. I ran outside and unlocked the car. “Come on, Clemmie! Hop on out and have a look around. What do you think?”

She climbed out of the car, looked left and right, and then sneezed vigorously.

“I know. Pretty nice, huh? Look at this yard. Plenty of room to play out here.”

She sneezed again and started pacing back and forth across the snowy lawn, tramping down a path. I laughed. She does this every time. Just as Clementine found her spot, I heard the sound of footsteps followed by a yelp of surprise and a crash.

Turning, I spotted a tall, blond woman sprawled on the sidewalk. A splash of red against the white snow startled me, making me think she'd been seriously injured. But when I ran to her side, I saw a broken casserole dish lying on the sidewalk. The red gore was only spilled tomato sauce.

I squatted down next to the woman. “Bet that hurt. Anything broken?”

“No,” she replied and then looked down. “Nothing besides my dish. My pride is a little bruised, though.”

While the woman climbed off the ground, Clementine arrived on the scene, sniffed the ground, and began wolfing down the spilled casserole.