Pie Town - Lynne Hinton [94]
When Roger received a copy of the flier from his deputy, he was unable to verify who had made them, so he began questioning lots of people to find out who was behind the mass distribution. When no one would take responsibility, he made it clear to everyone that he refused to show up at a town meeting that was not authorized and properly organized. He refused to attend an unlawful assembly and be forced to answer questions he didn’t have to answer from people he thought had no right to ask.
On Friday, before leaving the station, he assigned Danny to handle security detail at the meeting and told him to call if things got out of hand. “Otherwise,” he told his deputy, “don’t call me. And stay out of the discussion. Don’t get involved,” he instructed.
Having decided not to attend a meeting being called for what seemed to them like vengeful and unhelpful reasons, Malene and Roger also decided not to mention it to Alex.
The boy was already so concerned about the town, about what would happen to a village without a church, about what would happen to Trina and to Father George. He wanted to talk about it to everyone, wanted the priest and Trina to work something out together, wanted his grandfather to use his authority as sheriff and order the diocese to build a new church. Alex would work himself up into a terrible frenzy, and it would take hours to calm him down.
After the fliers were distributed, Malene and Roger met Alex’s visitors at the front door and instructed them not to tell him about the meeting. They didn’t want their grandson to learn about what they considered to be a witch hunt.
“If he asks about the church or Father George, just say you don’t know anything,” they would explain. “Do not engage Alex in conversation about what is happening or what has happened in this community. It is much too troublesome for him.”
Roger had stopped by to visit Trina early Saturday morning, not having had an opportunity before then to talk to her. He walked up the stairs in hopes that she hadn’t been spooked by the flier, only to discover that she was gone. The apartment door was unlocked, the place clean and mostly empty, and as he glanced around he found two letters on the table. He sat down, noticed her packed duffel bag near the door, and read the letter addressed to him, realizing then that she was soon to be gone for good. He left the letters there, deciding that he would return to the apartment later.
When he went back to Malene’s to tell her what he had found, they decided that when Alex was a little stronger, maybe in a couple of days, they would explain that Trina had moved back to Texas to be with her family because of her pregnancy and then give him the letter addressed to him, which neither of them had read and hoped would not upset him.
And so, on that Sunday morning when everybody else was marching to church, Malene and Roger sat at the table, drinking coffee, working the crossword puzzle from the newspaper together, Malene calling out clues and Roger guessing the answers, and hoping the phone wouldn’t ring. They were talking about Oris, his trip to Gallup, and how neither of them knew what he was doing or why he had already spent two nights there. Malene decided he must be buying a new car.
When Alex, having crawled out of bed and slid into his chair, wheeled himself into the kitchen, they both jumped from the table in shock. They had not seen the boy out of bed for days. He sat in his chair in the doorway to the kitchen and made the announcement, “We have to go to church.”
At first, Malene thought the boy was delirious and thought they were supposed to be at Mass. “No, baby, we don’t have a church anymore. We can’t go to worship today.”
“We have to go to church,” Alex repeated. “It’s Sunday, and there’s a meeting. We have to be there.”
“How do you know about that?” Roger asked, turning to catch a glimpse of Malene, wondering if she had an explanation.
“I made the fliers,” he confessed. “I made