A Notion of Pelicans Read online

  Mom said, “Serena can make up her own mind, when she’s older. For now, our Sundays are wonderful.”

  To my amazement, Mom was sounding as if she were going to cry, then she started calling Uncle Bob by his given name. That seemed more like her. In my experience, it’s been an inauspicious sign.

  “Breakfast late, Robert,” she said. “ Long walks with the dog. Television and reading, Robert, and no end of time. No boring sermons, by boring old men. No sharp-tongued old bat in the next pew, praying, Robert, praying for the strength to make it through another week of chasing the neighbor kids out of her yard.”

  My father was noticeably quiet. He’d lit up a Pall Mall and was taking desperate drags from it.

  Uncle Robert’s voice became, unbelievably, lower. He said something about humanism—I filed that, too—and prejudice. He said, “You don’t like anybody, Anne.” Then he said to my father, “Why don’t you step in?”

  Pops waved the cigarette distractedly. He muttered something about an understanding, about apples, not tipping the cart.

  Uncle Bob threw his arms up. He said something I couldn’t catch, and then Mom said, “Good riddance.” She spoke the words slowly, with distinct separation. I knew she was livid. I could barely hear her at all. She said, “Drop it, Bob,” then something about my being able to take care of myself, charms and incantations worth less than shit.

  From there, things disintegrated.

  It was a night that ended with tears and chairs flung back from the table. They stopped short of throwing them. My aunt and uncle burst out the door, grabbed Terry by the arms, and dragged her off the porch. “Come on,” Uncle Bob yelled, loud enough for the neighborhood to hear. “We’re leaving.” They jumped into their car, and you could tell by the way the gears shifted, Uncle Bob was really steamed. My mother went upstairs and disappeared into the tub. Pops gave me an apologetic kiss and evaporated out the door.

  I sat at the table—surveying the half-empty cups, the cigarette butts—and fretted. But one thing comforted me. For all their differences, Mom and Uncle Bob were attached. I knew that, and I knew that no matter how mad they got, they loved one another. Next week, Terry and I would be out on the porch again. Mom and Pops and Uncle Bob and Aunt Louisa would be friends. That’s not to say they wouldn’t have at it again—they would, over some subject or other. They wouldn’t be able to help it, being people who live in their heads. But it wouldn’t be fatal.

  As I sat there replaying the scene, something became clear to me. It was like a bell ringing on a February day. Mom couldn’t keep me in a vacuum. I knew things from my friends, including things about religion, and from observing my own family, one thing seemed obvious. If we really are created in the image of God, then God is something else. I’ll let anyone who’s interested supply their own, more specific adjective. They can probably guess mine.

  My entire life, I’ve been rebellious. While I was at home, I had to bury it, and for Richard I keep it on the QT. My favorite short story is by a man named Lees, a story in which the narrator calls God the Celestial Lunatic. The idea is, God’s workings in the story’s world are crazy and unpredictable. Well, hell. The world in the story is the same as the world I know, and I went around the parsonage for a week, reading sections out loud.

  “Did you get that, Richard? Want to hear it again?”

  “I fixed it. Last week.”

  This is typical, as our conversations go. You’d think a husband could at least half listen in the interest of world peace.

  “Richard. You fixed it? I’m talking Greek, you answer in Latin.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Fixed it. Never mind, Richard. You fixed it. End of story.”

  Could you get any more oblivious? Of course, if the congregation were privy to this little scene, Richard wouldn’t be the bad seed. The simple fact is, most parishioners love him. They look to him, they need things from him, a certain way of being. Not so with me. That makes me a liability. Though it’s strained these days between the two of us, I’ve loved Richard a long time, and for his sake I tone it down, dress the way I should, and keep quiet about the things I think. When it comes to humor—don’t even go there. With a few exceptions, the butts planted in the pews aren’t there for yucks. A wrong joke can be deadly.

  Okay, I’m ragging here, and on the hand that feeds me. It’s not as bad as I’ve made out. I’ve got to give the congregation its due. Whatever their personal beliefs, the ones they don’t tell the pastor about—and we hear things, we know they’re all over the map—our group has a big heart for the world. There was a letter to the editor a while back, proclaiming Beelzebub had a pulpit in town when Richard invited a couple with a lesbian daughter to speak about their journey to supporting her. You’ve got to love letters to the editor. Some are perfect illustrations of lack of clarity. Richard showed me the paper that day and said, “So . . . who’s Beelzebub? The speakers? Or me?” It didn’t matter. Pelican turned out in force the day of the talk—all the heavy hitters were there. The show of support was gratifying.

  At Pelican, we have one parishioner who can really curdle the lutefisk. I’ve already mentioned her: Lucy Talbot. She’s pretty much a battle-axe, but she’s not unlikable. In fact, there’s a lot I admire. She’s closing in on seventy but has the pluck of someone half her age. There’s something sad about her husband, Marcus, but Lucy’s a pistol. She’s plainspoken, generous, and has a brassy charm. The Talbots are stalwarts at Pelican and, being business owners, mucky-mucks about town. They come from wealthy families somewhere down in Iowa. Lucy likes to remind people of that.

  After all these years, a couple of Sundays ago she introduced Richard to a visiting friend. “Anastasia,” she said, “I’d like you to meet our new minister, Pastor Cross. Pastor Grange retired, you know. He’s been in Tollefson’s since Mother’s Day, two years ago—his Parkinson’s got that bad.”

  Anastasia tsked and said, “It’s sad when the good ones go.” She bared her teeth sincerely at Richard and extended her hand.

  It made me sigh. If a previous pastor didn’t get run out on a rail, once they’re gone, the congregation thinks they sit at the right hand of God.

  Lucy’s a mystery. I’ve often thought she must feel like tomcats in a sack—she has so many conflicting sides. She’s a great supporter of the arts, especially theater, which confounds me, because she’s so gloriously narrow-minded, it’s hard to imagine subtle nuance meaning much to her. But she has her gifts. Last year one of our church families got hit by a lay-off and, the same week, learned their child had leukemia. Lucy went to work. She set up a benefit and phone appeal and made the hard calls herself. She had professional-quality posters printed, on her own dime, then dispatched the confirmation class to hang them around town. She sweetened the deal for the kids by footing the bill at the ice cream shop afterward. Money came in by the bucketful.

  Lucy makes things happen. But her can-do spirit is paired with must-do vigilance. A couple years ago, the church hired a new youth director. Maya was peppery with energy, offbeat in a country sort of way. But in her youthfulness, she made an error in judgment. One night, she had the youth group line-dancing behind her, singing “Boot Scootin’ Boogie.” The kids loved it— they were whooping up a storm. Our three knew that Maya would spend the rest of the evening in a church council meeting, so when they got home, Chelsey dialed her home answering machine, and they all belted out the song. It was so sweet—the boys had such crushes on Maya.

  But Lucy Talbot had also been at church. She had passed the youth room.

  Oh, Lord. Maya got home and found a message from Lucy, as well, one that sent her butt scootin’ into low-earth orbit. “Honest,” she said to Richard afterward, “I felt the wind in my hair. I saw the tops of jack pines falling away down below.” Lucy instructed her mightily as to proper tone and conduct for an employee of the church and advised her to shape up. And what was good for the lowly goose was even better for the gander. She cornered Richard in h
is office the next day for some instruction and advisement of his own.

  “Do I have to remind you, Pastor?” she said. “The Church is God’s representative on earth. Would Jesus go around jolting and caterwauling like that?”

  Richard accepts people where they are. He didn’t see that Maya was in the wrong, but he didn’t see that Lucy was, either. Well, except her tone. I had to agree. If Lucy was upset, there’d be others. We’re constantly monitoring. Yet others need to sing and dance, so it’s a struggle. Richard turned what happened into a lesson for Maya on anticipating consequences, Maya ditched the line dancing, and the activities of the Pelican Church youth group took a more properly reverent turn.

  In private, we shook our heads and laughed. A couple becomes used to such incidents when they’re in parish work. People grow attached to the man or woman they share their pains with. They consider the pastor a father or mother figure—for some, the pastor is a manifestation of their better nature. It’s humbling. I mean, who could fulfill such expectations, deserve such love? The congregation remembers our birthdays and anniversaries. They’ve come out in droves to celebrate events in the lives of our children. And in times of illness or sorrow in the house, the parsonage should have a revolving door. When Richard’s father died last year, offers of help sprang up like mushrooms and casseroles dropped by, numberless as the stars.

  There’s a negative, of course. “But we’ve never done it that way” falls from the tongue as naturally as “Amen.” If a pastor does something in a way a parishioner wouldn’t—makes a change to the order of service, schedules the children’s Christmas program for afternoon instead of evening, allows yoga on the small-group roster—woe be unto her. Or him. It’s poor Cousin Terry, dragged off the porch all over again.

  Pastor and Mrs. Cross occasionally sleep in the buff—naked, not a stitch. One evening when the kids were still at home but spending the night at friends’ houses, we indulged in some hot and loud sex. It was thunder and lightning, it washed every thought away. When Richard went to the bathroom afterward, he didn’t bother with a robe. He even went down to the kitchen that way, to get us glasses of wine.

  That’s when the phone rang. I picked up in the bedroom to hear the voice of a young man. The fellow was saying he couldn’t take it, not one thing more. I hung up, grabbed our robes, and went down to the kitchen. Richard had turned on the light next to the phone and was standing with the cord stretched across the room. Like a great featherless stork, he was balanced on one leg, straining to reach a dishtowel.

  When he caught sight of me, relief flooded into his face. He said to the caller, “Can I meet you somewhere, so we can talk?” I held up his robe, and he flailed into it. “No trouble,” he said into the phone, motioning for me to run and get him some clothes. “No, really, I wasn’t doing anything important.” While the incident completely unnerved me, he never broke his calm, caring, professional tone.

  That’s what was so attractive about Richard when we met. He was so steady, so much my opposite. The world could end this evening, and as the buildings fell, Richard would stick calmly to whatever he was doing. Not me. I’m descended from a long line of over-reactors and worriers. If worrying were an Olympic event, we’d own the gold.

  Let me tell a story about my Grandmother Capshaw.

  One hot, very dry summer in my late adolescence, Gram C. hired a crew to re-roof her house. One of the workers was a cute, charismatic boy of seventeen who inspired in me dramatically heightened concern for my grandmother. I came over early and hung around all day.

  “Gram,” I’d say, “can I get you anything?”

  “No, thank you, Rena.”

  “Let’s go sit in the yard. We learned in health class you should get a little sunshine every day.”

  “Is that what they call it nowadays?”

  The boy said hello to me, twice, and ate a cupcake I’d decorated. I knew it was mine because there was a Hershey’s Kiss on top. Gram hadn’t put any Kisses on hers. “I’m not so loose as some,” she said. Pretending not to have heard, I carried the tray to the dropped tailgate of the foreman’s pickup as if I were approaching an altar. Then I sat on the porch swing, cradling a glass of lemonade and watching the boy eat. It was the supreme test of the adolescent girl’s talent for watching young gods without actually looking at them. I’m afraid, though, I wasn’t his only acolyte. Not long after, a girl a few years ahead of me in school met him at the altar, knocked up. It was a total bummer.

  But that day, I knew nothing of that, and too soon, the roofers were done. While they’d been inspiring, the crew wasn’t especially neat. They drove away and left the yard littered with cedar shingles, with tarpaper and wood. So as not to blow my cover—I’ve always been giftedly self-delusional—I turned to Gram and said, “I’ll help clean up, if you want . . .”

  She was elbow-deep in her blue-striped bread bowl. “Sweet child,” she said. She turned the bowl upside down, gave it a whack, reinverted it, pulled dough off the sides with a rolling motion of her fingers. “Your father’s coming tomorrow after lunch. Come along—and bring those Kisses.”

  The next morning, a radio show for early risers—one of those down-home, joke-filled, “here’s what’s going on” sorts of programs—reported hams on sale at the butcher’s and a forest fire in the next county. It didn’t matter that the flames were under control. Gram had never gotten over the memory of her family’s house burning down when she was a little girl. A grass fire less than two states away would send her into a tizzy. Before the sun had the coffee pot on, she was pounding at our door.

  “Howard. Howard Capshaw. You get out of bed, and get that girl out, too. We’ve got shingles to move to the rock pile before they burn the house down.”

  Pops tried to reason with her. “Ma,” he said, “if a fire comes close enough to ignite anything in the yard, the house will be gone.”

  She wasn’t hearing him.

  “Every shingle, Rena,” she ordered, pointing an arthritic finger. “Every stick.”

  I’ve turned out a lot like Gram Capshaw—don’t know if it was learned, or in the genes. Richard’s calmer style snagged me from the first. Now, that’s not to say my husband doesn’t have any balls. In his quiet way, he holds up his side of an argument. Believe me, I know.

  When I woke up this morning—the morning that started so well—it was dark, in that decline-of-summer way, and I could hear Richard downstairs, puttering around. I could hear and smell the coffee pot doing its job. The day felt good. I lay in bed awhile and let the wiry bands that the years have wrapped around my heart unwind a little. Those moments are rare, but for an instant, I even loved perfectly. Loved life, loved myself, loved Richard and the children without expectations and without baggage.

  Richard is a good man at heart, and I believe I’m a good woman. But the man who shines in the pulpit, who dazzles in the counselor’s chair, is as aggravating at home as any other. Maybe that’s the problem—he is my husband, and I know him so well. It drives me crazy when I see women in the congregation adoring him, some of them very young, very attractive. It may be sexy and exciting to dream of slipping between silk sheets— as if we’ve ever slept on silk—with an alluring man of God, but someone ought to set them straight. I would so like to back them, one by one, into a corner and say, “If you had to launder his socks, dearie, if you had to live with him when he’s in a bad mood, you’d take your adoring ass somewhere else.”

  It’s hard to stay civil—even harder not to snipe at him. Other folks can get away with broadsides in public, but everyone expects ours is a perfect marriage. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. As if I need any more stress. I’m constantly reminding people that we don’t live the way other families do. We work weekends and take Monday off, and all the big holidays are spent with the church. If Mom and Pops and Leona, Richard’s mom, weren’t so willing to come to us, we wouldn’t have a family life. And forget friends— the pastor needs distance to do his job. It can be lonely. Some days, I feel as if the ch
urch is my rival—a doe-eyed virgin in a cashmere suit, a whore of Babylon with rainbow eyes and shimmering veils. Richard leaves early and comes home late, and many nights he disappears again after dinner. Meetings, he says.

  Okay. He really is in meetings.

  I can live with his being gone a lot, but what sends me is, he spends so much time talking to everyone about their problems, the last thing he wants when he gets home is to talk about mine, or ours. Or if I do get him to say something, he goes into counselor mode. With God as my witness! There’s nothing as maddening as a lover who talks to you outside of bed like some impartial third party.

  Sometimes I think the problem is we’re both bullheaded. That, and the fact we married so young. We were twenty-one, barely. I’d have a heart attack if my kids wanted to get married at twenty-one. I can’t help but think, it would have been better if Richard had been more . . . experienced. It’s bound to cause problems if a couple isn’t equally yoked. Sooner or later, they’ll start resenting what the partner can’t change.

  A long time ago, another life, I imagined I’d get an advanced degree, then write a few books. The books my mother had kept around had done their work, and I had visions of myself at the bottom of a large lecture hall in a short skirt and patent leather boots, packing in the undergraduate masses to glean a fraction of my brilliance. But I never finished my BA. When Richard and I got married, I dropped out to work. I said, “I’ll go back later.” But before the first frost, I was pregnant, which meant both of us had to work. I’ve taken courses as I could, writing, mostly, but with Chelsey arriving eleven months after the twins and my continuing to work all through seminary, that was as far as I got. Somewhere in my thirties, I gave the idea up.

  Richard knows perfectly well that my not making something of myself isn’t only my doing. Still, he looked at me one morning, as I was enjoying a quiet cup of coffee and meditating over the daily crossword, and said, “I wish you’d done something with your life.”

  It stung. I couldn’t believe he would say something that hurtful. I glanced up for a moment then looked back at the puzzle to decide which of the complicated, conflicting responses lining up in my head I should speak.