“Amen,” they replied. The sound of a hundred people getting to their feet before the Peace and the announcements-parents hissing, bulletins flapping open, hymnals thumping to the floor-was louder than any other part of the service.
“The peace of the Lord be always with you,” Clare said cheerfully, but as she turned to embrace Nathan her eyes fell on Mrs. Marshall, collected and composed in her usual place, and Clare’s mind flashed to what she had found out about Jonathon Ketchem. And suddenly she didn’t feel so peaceful.
After the service, after the coffee hour, after speaking with a hundred people, making appointments, promising phone calls, asking after ailments, sharing news from the committee meetings, commiserating about troubles and laughing at jokes, after all that, Clare liked to take a turn around the church alone.
She didn’t have to. All that needed to be done after everyone had finally left was to lock and bolt the great outer doors. Up the main aisle, down the aisle, three minutes, tops. The rest of the locking up-the parish hall and kitchen doors, setting the alarm-all of that happened outside the sanctuary. She always flew through those steps, eager to get out of the place by then, to get back home and change out of her cassock into jeans and a sweater, ready for the rest of Sunday afternoon. She frequently had an invitation to one of her parishioners’ houses, or she would go running, or curl up with the Sunday paper and then try out a new recipe for dinner. She looked forward to her afternoon away from the church. But before she left, she visited her sanctuary. Alone.
She locked the doors and closed the inner narthex doors behind her. The church was darkened. The sun was bright outside, but the light shafting through the stained-glass windows was filtered, softened, different from workaday light meant to illuminate. This light was meant to teach, and as she walked toward Jane Ketchem’s window, she was ready to learn.
Mr. Hadley had been mopping down this area regularly, but the slowly warming temperatures continued to send water streaming and dribbling around the casement and splattering against the glass. The shield-bearing angels appeared to be wading through water toward her, presenting to her their message of cool comfort. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
She had always registered the figures climbing into the radiant light as a group of children, but now she saw they were two girls and two boys. Peter. Lucy. Jack. Mary. Mrs. Marshall had said her mother never spoke of them. Clare wondered if, as a girl, their surviving sister had ever gone to their graves. With her grandmother, perhaps. Their short lives and long deaths had cast a shadow over so many people. If they had lived, Mrs. Marshall might now have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren filling up her life, instead of an empty, outdated house and vestry meetings. There would be no Jonathon Ketchem Clinic, because his memorial would be a stone in the town cemetery, next to his wife’s. Allan Rouse would have found some other way to pay for medical school, and settled far from Millers Kill. Clare would be looking at a far different window. She glanced up to where the roofers were disassembling the ceiling to expose the rotten beams. And she would be going from door to door with her begging bowl, looking for enough money to cover the bare minimum of the repair.
All that because four children weren’t inoculated with the diphtheria vaccine. No wonder Dr. Rouse had taken Debba Clow out there. The thought of Debba turned her away from the window. Whatever Allan Rouse had told her that night, it hadn’t persuaded her to go ahead and have her little girl vaccinated. If, as everyone assumed, Dr. Rouse had committed suicide, Debba would be off the hook as far as police suspicions of her involvement went. But she would still be facing a custody battle with her ex and, more significantly, an ongoing struggle with her children’s father about what was best for them. Clare couldn’t do anything to budge Debba off Russ Van Alstyne’s very short list of suspects in Rouse’s disappearance, but she could give the artist the support she needed to help make decent decisions about the future. And the first step, Clare decided, would be to find out more about the past.
Hi, Mrs. Marshall,” Clare said as the older woman opened her front door. Mrs. Marshall rearranged her look of obvious surprise into a more polite welcoming smile. “Can I come in for a sec?” Clare stepped into the foyer. “I’m sorry I didn’t call first, this idea popped into my head and I-oh! Hello, Mr. Madsen.” Norm Madsen smiled from the door to the dining room. We don’t invite ourselves over to other people’s houses, young lady, her grandmother Fergusson said. “Oh.” Clare could feel her cheeks pinking. “I’m afraid I’m intruding.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Marshall said. “We’ve just finished lunch. You can join us for coffee. Did you get your furnace repaired? You were having a problem with it earlier this week, weren’t you? You know, you should save your bill and bring it to the vestry. We would recompense you.”
If they ever want to raise money, I can take it off their hands and get a sweet price for it! “It didn’t cost enough to make it worthwhile getting the vestry involved,” Clare lied. “Hi, Mr. Madsen.”
“Great sermon this morning,” Mr. Madsen said, walking her to the round-edged table. “Lacey and I were just talking about it. We agreed you hit it spot on when you said that thing about abundance and scarcity.”
“How difficult it is to make a meaningful sacrifice when you have everything in abundance,” Mrs. Marshall clarified. The luncheon plates had been cleared away, and a tray holding a coffee service was stationed next to Mrs. Marshall’s seat. It was silver, the pieces buffed and curved like the fenders on a ’50 Cadillac. Wedding present, Clare thought. Mrs. Marshall gestured to a chair across the table from her. “Please, sit down. Coffee?”
For a moment, Clare was tempted to ask if she had any leftovers. The smell of pot roast emanating from the kitchen was making her mouth water. “Yes, please,” she said, thereby proving that there were still meaningful sacrifices to be made.
“It was a different world when we were growing up,” Mr. Madsen said, holding out his cup to be filled. “I remember when Christmas meant three toys-one from my parents and one from each set of grandparents. Plus socks or mittens and some candy.”
“And you were one of the rich kids in town,” Mrs. Marshall said. “Milk?” She passed him the pitcher.
“I guess I was, at that.” He poured a generous amount into his coffee. “The point is, when I had to give something up, it hurt. And when I got something, I really appreciated it. Every one of my toys fit into a box the size of a small suitcase when I was a boy. You should see my great-grandchildren’s rooms. They look like FAO Schwarz.”
“Milk?” Mrs. Marshall asked Clare.
“No thanks,” she said, reaching for the sugar bowl. She looked across the table to Mrs. Marshall, who was pouring her own cup. “It’s funny you should have been talking about your childhoods, because I have a question for you. If you don’t mind.”
“What is it?”
It felt wrong to start by firing a salvo into a sensitive subject, so Clare said, “I’m doing some counseling work with a woman who has doubts about vaccinating her youngest child. I wanted a better feel for what might go into that decision, and I was hoping, I wondered…”
“Whether I could tell you more about my parents’ decision?” Mrs. Marshall said.