Untelling

Brother Cole teaches the trinity, and not to sound blasphemous, but sometimes he feels like separate people—the pastor of his sheep who stands mightily at the pulpit, looking out over a wide-eyed flock, waiting for him to say just the right thing to move them, to keep them coming back week after week. Then there is the man who shuts off his alarm, grumbles when he thinks about all the people he will see, all the secrets he will hold, all this weight coming at him, the long faces full of expectation. For a few waking moments, he pretends he chose differently. That the feeling he had at Stoney Creek revival at sixteen wasn’t a calling to the pulpit but joy for believing in something so much that it consumed every part of him, made him lighter. That joy didn’t have a price: he could walk through life lost like everyone else, searching, not stuck in the knowing with people lined up to take more and more of him. He is a man (who cusses and sips bourbon just to feel it warm his body) and a little voice will tell him he’s wrong and selfish to give into the flesh. People are watching. Don’t cause your brother to stumble. Your life isn’t your own.

Once he rubs his eyes and his feet hit the shag carpet, he turns off the knowing and begins with what he does every day—dresses and heads to the kitchen where his wife sits at the table with her devotional, the coffee warm, his mug already out. He’ll sit across from her and read too and try not to think about questions that cause him to spiral but lean into verses he can use on Sunday to make people stick to the Word and not fall away like so many others. Life would be pointless, wouldn’t it?  No hope, no balance. 

But it’s the day he dreads. 

Down the long, dark hall to the kitchen, family pictures hang on both sides. Some other wives hang artwork or prints from Home Interiors, but not Wanda. Why buy something fake when the Lord has given you life, she’d once said, standing back, admiring the then growing wall. He’s learned to shut off his thoughts about them as if they are pictures of some other boy at one, five, seven, ten, thirteen, sixteen. There was a moment a few days after Benjamin had passed that he wondered if she’d yank all the pictures down, pictures of Benjamin at the beach skipping rocks, Benjamin holding up his first catch, Benjamin new in her arms. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing him all over again, but she never did. She never hung another picture either.

As he walks past, rubbing the back of his throbbing neck, a pressure forms in his head, heavy and centered. Then his face feels as if it is being pulled down to the earth, a sadness that threatens to bury him. He hears Wanda in the kitchen, mumbling, reading out loud without noticing. He stops to listen, touches the wallpaper that curls at the seam like an opening to a can.

Though he’s never had to ask, the church knows to give Wanda her space this time of year. No calls for 

her to do or plan or help. But it’s different for a man, for a father, for a pastor, so he’ll still stop by the rest home, visit the shut-ins like he does every day. A few will remember, most will not. If he’s being honest, he’s glad they don’t. Hearing Benjamin’s name brings it all back fresh as the day Sheriff Buckley rang his door. He’s preached a lot of funerals—the hardest ones are for kids. No one could have prepared him to speak at his own child’s—to see him lowered to the ground. He shudders to think of how he used to comfort grieving families by saying, “Don’t be sad. That’s just their body. They are with the Lord, rejoicing.” 

How can you think of forever when all you see is now? No one prepares you for the wait for heaven. Jesus come quickly hits differently now—he wants to see his son. Benjamin.

He peeks around the hall’s corner that feeds into the living room. She hasn’t opened the blinds yet, but she’s at the table and he hears the coffee maker percolating. The pendant light spotlights her opened Bible where she’s underlining with her favorite purple pen. Her hair is twisted up into a bun, her makeup smeared under her eyes. Though he’s never told her, he prefers her this way to the done-up woman who is usually put together by this time in the morning: hair combed back and under, reddish pink lips, shirt neatly tucked into a long skirt. She’s vulnerable in this natural state, he knows, making him rethink bringing up Benjamin. Funny how when you counsel for a living you can’t give yourself advice or do the things you know to do. He doesn’t want to keep sputtering or circling or feeling. 

“Good morning, love,” he says, noticing the fake cheeriness in his voice. He leans in to kiss the top of her head. Her shoulders tense, so he stops, midair.

“I’ve got a pot on. Shouldn’t be much longer,” she says, wiping under her eyes, touching her hair for strays, smoothing them back into place. “Water will have to do until then.” She picks up his mug and hands it to him, without looking up.

He fills it with faucet water a third of the way, enough to take his blood pressure pills. As he throws back his pills and swallows, he sees a new wall crack snaking from the window trim to where the ceiling meets the drywall. Just a few weeks ago, he told Henry, the church’s maintenance man, about cracks in the living room. Those had been mudded and painted over. “Just a little settling, that’s all,” Henry’d said.

He opens the kitchen window blinds. Outside the frost is heavy, glistens off the brown bare branches. Curled, dead leaves blanket the ground, something he never got to this fall. Raking had been Benjamin’s job. He remembers the grass, that final year, three years ago, how green and alive it was against all the grays. He taps the glass to shoo the cardinal that pecks at the feeder. He needs to buy more seed.

“Finding wisdom this morning, I see.” He points to her Bible and reaches over for his as he sits down.

She offers her determined smile, the one she wears to be polite. “His mercies never come to an end. . .” There is a catch at the word end. She looks away, thumbs through her Bible.

He wants to say sorry. Sorry for having to carry this hurt, for feeling like she must be strong and faithful and steady. But saying sorry is like saying Benjamin, and he can’t do that to her, especially not today. 

“Wanda,” he begins, but she rises quickly.

“Let me get you a cup of coffee.” Her house shoes lightly smack the linoleum with each step to the counter. Beneath her feet the pattern has faded, the path she takes from table to sink to counter.  He watches her as she fills his mug, pours a splash of oat milk, and stirs. 

Once she sets his mug in front of him, she turns it so the handle points where he can grab it. “Thank you,” he tells her as she takes her place, hunched over her Bible like it’s a fire. Her eyes dart from one line to the next like a typewriter. He wonders what she’s thinking as her pen hovers above the pages, ready to underline something not already marked. He sips his coffee, leans back into his chair. The kitchen clock ticks the seconds.

B-r-rrrring. 

They both jump. She eyes him, before using the table to push herself up to answer the landline. 

Wanda covers the receiver with her hand. “It’s for you. I don’t know who it is.”

He takes another sip of coffee, uses a napkin to wipe his lips. Clears his throat.

“This is Brother Cole,” he says into the receiver.

Wanda leans against the counter.

“Hi, are you David Cole?” A woman’s voice on the other end says.

“Uh, yes. How may I help you?”

“Do you happen to know a Regina Perry?” 

He turns away from Wanda, grips the back of the barstool.

“Yes, yes, I did at one time. Who is this?”

“I don’t know how to say this. . .” He can hear breathing in the receiver, a bird chirping in the background. “I think I might be your daughter.”

He sits down again. Wanda follows, waiting, trying to meet his eyes with her questioning ones.

“Why don’t you call me in my office?” He gives the number and tells her to call in 30 minutes, would that be alright. When he gets up to return the phone to its cradle, his hand shaking, Wanda says, “What was that all about?”

“Someone in need of counseling.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Says a friend gave her my name.”

“See? Spread that Good News and the flock comes home.” 

He returns to his open Bible, pretends to read. Regina Perry. He wills his breaths to slow. Cherry. Her lip gloss tasted and smelled like cherries.

“I think I might finish up in the office, so I can pray before the call.”

“That’s a good idea. He will give you strength and clarity.”

She grabs his jacket from behind the door to the laundry, holding it out for him to take. 

****

He flips on the vestibule’s lights, turns up the thermostat. His office is to the right.  Is it possible? A child? 

Pacing back and forth, he stares at the phone as if it could explode. Part of him wishes it would and take him from this earth.

Regina Perry.

Hot summer air. Regina tapping on his bedroom window at eleven 

o’clock, slipping through the opening. Fumbling hands. Tracing her 

lips with his finger. The scar on her right shoulder. 

Give me strength, Lord. He opens the filing cabinet to pull out his 

father’s old tobacco pouch. Unzips it and breathes it in, instantly 

feeling his body exhale.

“We can’t be doing this anymore” is what he remembers telling her the week before senior year started. She sat for a moment, a moment he just wanted to end, staring at the same spot on the floor. He thought she might cry or maybe he might, but she then pushed herself up from his floor and slipped back through the window.  He watched her disappear in the dark field beside his house, walking into the black as if she vanished into the void. There was his last taste of the world, he thought, the high of feeling out of control, but he was supposed to be a man of the Lord.  And he was, wasn’t he? He probably should have asked around about her, but the world was different then—no constant reminders of a past you’d let go. 

What will he tell Wanda?

****

The phone rings, twenty minutes too early. He lets it ring three more times before picking up.

“Hello?” he asks, sits down.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but the sump pump is beeping again,” Wanda says.

He breathes harder than he intends and worries she’ll notice.

“Is there water standing?”

“A few inches at least.”

“I’ll call Henry. Wanda?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

The water she’s running stops.

“Are you there?”

“Yes, sorry. I love you, too, David Cole.”

****

Twenty-two minutes later the phone rings again.

“Hi,” a voice says, laughing awkwardly.

“I’m sorry. I never asked your name.”

“Oh. My name is Mikayla. I’m sorry if I caught you off guard,” she pauses, and when he doesn’t say anything she adds, “I don’t need anything from you—“

“No, no. I didn’t think anything like that. I was just a little taken back, that’s all.”

“My birth mother has passed, as you probably already know, so I feel like my history is passing, too. That probably sounds so weird. I’m sorry. I’m really nervous.”

Passed, he scribbles on a notepad and underlines it.

“How do you know Regina is your, your mother?”

“How does anyone anymore?” She sighs, sounds as if she’s wiping her nose. “DNA kit. I matched a guy in his early 20s, who turns out is my brother. Not yours, though. Sorry. Anyway, we met a few weeks ago, which led to you.”

“How can you be so sure that I have anything to do with. . . this,” he says, stopping himself from saying her or you.

“I know you’re a pastor now. . .”

“Yes, that’s right. I was called to ministry while seeing Regina.”

“I know that, too. Your calling was about thirty-four years ago, no?”

He does the mental math. “Yes, that seems about right.”

“I was born in an unwed women’s home February the next year.”

February. What was he doing in February that year? Spending afternoons at the church, studying with Brother Clyde.  

“I lost a son three years ago. My only child. I’m sorry. My only child with my wife.”

“My dad died last year. I’m named after him, Michael.”

“Means ‘gift of God,’” he says, but then thinks of Wanda, his congregation.

***

He uses his elbow to press the doorbell. In his arms are three bags from Roper’s: fried chicken, milk gravy, green beans, mashed potatoes, a slice of pecan pie for each. When Wanda opens the door, she steps back.

“Heavens, what’s all this?”

“Thought you might not want to worry with food.”

She frowns. “I already got a pot of beans on.” She reaches for a bag and holds the door open as he passes through.

“They’ll keep,” he says over his shoulder. “I don’t hear the beeping. Guess that means Henry came by?”

“Yes, and I said something to him about the soft spot in the floor.”

In the kitchen, he unpacks the bags while Wanda gets plates and silverware.

“You know, you didn’t have to do this. I’m okay.”

He opens the container lids and Wanda hands him serving spoons.

“Oh, they gave us some rolls, too. ‘On the house’ Bill said.”

She turns away, using her apron to pat her eyes.

“Wanda?”

“No, I’m fine. I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“Wanda, I need you to sit down.”

The pot lid jiggles, the steam billowing up and over. The liquid gushes out, bubbling on the stove top.

“I put in too much,” she says, rushing over. “Too much.”

She turns the stove dial and sets the lid on the counter. She waits for the bubbles to fizzle out before wiping around the pot.  

He could wait until tomorrow, he thinks, he could wait forever, but there’s no lid strong enough.

“Wanda,” he begins again. Forgive me. 

She wipes her hands on her apron and moves closer. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“I would never want to hurt you.”

She steps back.

“I don’t want to know. Whatever you’re about to say,” she shakes her head no, starts for the hallway.

He grabs her arm and pulls her to him.

“I have a daughter, Wanda.” He hugs her tight, so she can’t break free. “A grown daughter. That call this morning? That’s when I found out. I promise I never knew.”

He feels her chest shake and her arms loosen before she pulls hard and away. She lifts her chin, stands tall.

“Go on, tell me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Tell me how I should be happy for you, and this is the Lord’s plan.”

“No, I—”

Her eyes are drowning, her lip quivers.

“Why do you get a child when I have nothing?”

“I don’t know, Wanda.”

“Have I not been faithful to you and the Lord? Have I not done everything asked of me?” 

She’s now hugging herself, bent like a long blade of grass, like she was on this day three years ago after the Sheriff said passed. Like she was in her hospital gown when the labor pains took over.

“He’s not punishing you.” 

“Well, it sure feels like it.” She grabs his hand with hers wet and firm and leads him to the hallway. She pulls down the last picture of Benjamin ever taken, the picture from his homecoming dance. She shoves it into his chest. Moves to the next, pulls it down. Hands it to him.

“Wanda, let’s sit down.”

She struggles with the highest picture, the picture of Benjamin in his blue Ford on his sixteenth birthday, the truck now crumpled and left to rust at Tommy’s Salvage. She’s on her 

tippy toes, pushing with her pointer finger. He leans in to help, but her 

eyes warn him to not step closer. If she had a match, she’d toss it in front 

of him, he thinks, watch the house and him burn.  

She catches the picture as it falls, and without looking, holds it out for 

him.

“You’ve erased our life. You can take it all back.”

He follows behind her, the weight in his arms getting heavier and heavier as she hands him more frames. The faces age backwards in each until there is no Benjamin, no them, just a bare wall with nails and ripped seams.