"But there must needs be a time of testing first," said Sister LeSueur. "That's what your dear little baby is all about."
Step felt anger well up inside. How dare she attempt to co-opt Zap's tenuous little life. "I think Zap's life is going to be about himself," said Step. "Just like any other child."
She reached out and touched his arm, beaming. "You are so right, Brother Fletcher. It must be wonderful, to be blessed with so much insight from the Spirit."
"I really have to get the shopping done and get home, so ..."
At the end of the aisle, a woman was standing, watching them. Step knew her, but he couldn't place her.
Was she somebody from Eight Bits?
"Don't you think it's time for you to bless your child?" asked Sister LeSueur.
"Don't you think that's a matter for me and DeAnne to decide?" No, the woman wasn't from Eight Bits. It was Mrs. Jones. He hadn't recognized her immediately last' time, either, when they met in the drugstore back when Zap was still in the hospital. She was so nondescript.
"The Lord expects us to act boldly and with faith, Brother Fletcher," Sister LeSueur said. "That's what I was told in my dream. The blessing is yours by right, if only you have faith enough to demand it. Like the time I was urgently needed to perform compassionate service. There had been an ice storm the night before, and yet I didn't have time to clear the ice off my car. So I told the Lord that if he wanted me to perform this service in his name, he would need to clear my windshield so I could drive. And when I came outside, mine was the only car that didn't have two inches of ice encasing it."
Mrs. Jones's gaze never wavered. She thinks I'm stalking her, thought Step. With a cart full of groceries and a list in my hand, she thinks I'm here just to pester her.
"The Spirit spake to me in a dream and told me that it's time for Brother Fletcher to claim a healing blessing from the Lord."
"We ask for blessings," said Step. "We don't demand them."
"'I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say,"' she quoted. "Bind the Lord, Brother Fletcher, bind him and heal your child. You are holding his sweet little soul hostage to your pride, saith the Lord."
Saith Dolores LeSueur, Step answered silently.
"You must bend yourself to the will of the Lord, and cease rejecting his word to you. Do you pay your tithing faithfully?"
Still Mrs. Jones stood there. If only I had the tape with me, I could throw it at her and make her stop watching every move I make. He smiled at Sister LeSueur, thinking: I'm faking a smile. Mrs. Jones is watching me like that song by The Police.
"Go unto your child, lay your hands on his head, and command him to rise up and walk!"
"That would be a miracle," he said. "He's barely two months old."
It was as if he had dashed cold water on her. "I know that," she said. "I was sure you would understand that I spoke figuratively."
I'm sure you'll understand that I speak figuratively when I tell you to go sit on a broom handle and spin.
"Sister LeSueur, I appreciate your advice. Now I need to finish my shopping." He swung his cart around to head down the aisle away from Mrs. Jones. But Sister LeSueur caught at his sleeve.
"Brother Fletcher, you cannot resist the Lord forever."
He turned to face her. "I ha ve never resisted the Lord in my life, Sister LeSueur, and I never will. But I'm not so hungry for dialogue with him that I have to make up his part as well as my own."
Her voice got a hard edge. "Beware of how the Lord will chasten you for your pride."
This would be the perfect moment for Mrs. Jones to pull a gun out of her purse and shoot me dead. Sister LeSueur could live off that one event for the rest of her life. But Mrs. Jones wasn't there anymore. She had slipped away while his back was turned.
"'I will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children," said Sis ter LeSueur.
He pushed his cart away from her. In one moment he had played out in his mind the whole scene of his death at Mrs. Jones's hand. It had been so vivid that he could now remember moments of it as if he had actually seen them. The gun coming out of her purse, pointing at his chest-he could have reached out and touched the cold metal. Was that how Stevie's imaginary friends were to him? How Sister LeSueur's visions were to her?
Never there in reality, and yet when they came back in memory, so real-seeming.
"'Unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,"' said Sister LeSueur.
He turned the corner at the end of the aisle, leaving Sister LeSueur's vengeful doctrine behind him. He quickly propelled the cart through the store, weaving among the other shoppers as if on the freeway. It took a while before he realized that he was no longer running away from Sister LeSueur, he was looking for Mrs.
Jones. Because she had been watching him. Because she had made him think of the song. He had to know.
She wasn't down any of the aisles. She wasn't in the checkout lines. Abandoning his cart, Step rushed out of the store and scanned the parking lot. There she was, walking briskly among the cars. He hurried after her.
Perhaps he should have called to her, but he was afraid that she would run away, since she already thought he was stalking her. As it was, when he caught up with her, just as she was putting her key in the door of the Pinto, she gave a little scream.
Step made sure to stay well away from her, his hands in plain sight.
"Mrs. Jones, I wasn't stalking you. I was grocery shopping."
She said nothing.
"But are you stalking me?" he asked.
Her lip curled in contempt.
"You sent me that record, didn't you?"
Her face went blank. "What record?"
"By The Police. That song about watching. Someone mailed it to our house."
"I don't even know where you live."
"We're in the book," said Step, "so don't be absurd. Just tell me if you sent it."
She smiled. "So," she said. "You don't like knowing that some body's watching, is that it?"
"I never dealt with you anonymously Mrs. Jones."
"I didn't mail you anything, Mr. Fletcher," she said, "so it must have been one of the other people yo u're blackmailing."
"Nobody else has persecuted any of my children," said Step.
"So you think it's me. You blame one more problem in your family on a woman who isn't even your son's teacher anymore."
She's enjoying this, he thought. She loves knowing that I'm really bothered by that anonymous record. Just as with Stevie, she loves to make somebody else squirm.
"Your lawyer never called me about a restraining order," said Step.
She shrugged.
"But Captain Douglas of the Steuben police thinks that the fingerprints on the envelope the record came in should be enough to make a positive identification that will stand up in court."
"Don't be stupid," she said.
"Wore gloves, huh?" he asked. "But you didn't wear gloves when you licked the stamp and pressed it onto the envelope."
The stricken look on her face would have been answer enough. Her sudden relaxation a moment later confirmed it.
"That was a relief, I see," said Step.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"Remembering that you had the guy at the post office meter it."
Her face revealed her inner struggle. Had she really let him know that she sent it, or was he bluffing?
"You never thought I was stalking you," said Step. "You've known all along that you were the one watching me. So I'm telling you now, stop it. I've already given your name to the police as a possible sender of that record. They're watching you. So it's time for you to leave me and my family alone."
"Leave you alone!" She sounded defiant, but his mention of the police had clearly bothered her.
"We've done you no harm. I could have reported what you did to the school board and sued the school district and you personally for what you did to Stevie. Your name could have been in all the papers. Instead I tried to be decent and handle it privately. Be grateful for that and stop looking to get even."