Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [89]
He covered his eyes with his hand.
In his daydreams, he walked into services one morning and found a lovely, golden-haired girl sitting in the row just ahead. She would be so intent on the sermon that she wouldn’t even look his way; she had grown up in a religion very much like this one, it turned out, and believed with all her heart. After the Benediction Ian introduced himself, and she looked shy and pleased. They had the most proper courtship, but he could tell she felt the same way he did. They would marry at Second Chance with Reverend Emmett officiating. She would love the three children as much as if they were hers and stay home forever after to tend them. The Church Maiden, Ian called her in his mind. He never entered this building without scanning the rows for the Church Maiden.
After the sermon came Amending. “Does somebody want to stand up?” Reverend Emmett asked. But standing up was for serious sins, where you confessed to the whole congregation and discussed in public all possible methods of atonement. Evidently none of them had strayed so grievously during this past week. “Well, then,” Reverend Emmett said, smiling, “we’ll amend in private,” and they bowed their heads and whispered their mistakes to themselves. Ian caught snatches of “lied to my husband” and “slapped my daughter” and “drank part of a beer with my boss.” “Thursday I stole my sister’s new bra and wore it to gym class,” Daphne said, startling Ian, but of course he should not have been listening. He averted his face from her and whispered, “I was snappish with the children three different times. Four. And I told Mr. Brant I was sick with the flu when really I just wanted a day off.”
Unlike the other denominations Ian knew of, this one had nothing against sinning in your thoughts. To think a sinful thought and not act upon it was to practice righteousness, Reverend Emmett said—almost as much righteousness as not thinking the thought in the first place. Jesus must have been misquoted on that business about committing adultery in your heart. So Ian left unspoken what troubled him the most:
I’ve been atoning and atoning, and sometimes lately I’ve hated God for taking so long to forgive me. Some days I feel I’m speaking into a dead telephone. My words are knocking against a blank wall. Nothing comes back to show I’ve been heard.
“Let it vanish now from our souls, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen,” Reverend Emmett said. He looked radiant. Whatever had weighed on his own soul (for his lips had moved with the others’, this morning) had obviously been lifted from him.
They sang “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” in a tone that struck Ian as lingering and regretful. Then Reverend Emmett gave the Benediction, and they were free to go. Daphne shot off to join a friend. Ian wove his way through the other members’ greetings. He answered several inquiries about his mother’s arthritis, and politely refused Mrs. Jordan’s offer of a ride home. (She drove like a maniac.) Near the door, Eli Everjohn stood awkwardly by in a brilliant blue suit while his wife talked with Sister Myra. “Morning, Brother Eli,” Ian said. He started to edge past him, but Eli, who must have been feeling left out, brightened and said, “Why, hey there! Hey!”
“Enjoy the service?” Ian asked.
“Oh, I’m sure your pastor means well,” Eli said. “But forbidding ordinary white sugar, and then allowing your young folks to listen to rock-and-roll music! Seems like to me he’s got his priorities mixed up. I don’t know that I hold with this Amending business, either. Awful close to Roman Catholic, if you ask me.”
“Ah, well, it’s a matter of opinion, I guess.”
“No, Brother Ian, it is not a matter of opinion. Goodness! What a notion.”
That more or less finished the conversation, Ian figured. He gave up and raised a hand amiably in farewell. But then he paused and turned back. “Brother Eli?” he said. “I wonder. Do you think you could locate a missing person for me?”
“Why, I’ll do my best,” Eli told him.
He didn’t seem at all surprised