Two Tims
FRANK DROPPED THE GIRLS OFF AROUND EIGHT O’CLOCK ON SATURDAY evening, and Ruth sensed something was up the moment they walked in the door. Normally, Maggie was bubbly and affectionate after a night away from home, eager to talk about her game and find out what her mother had done all day, while Eliza skulked in the background, rarely volunteering more than a few grudging monosyllables before disappearing into her room. Tonight, though, the dynamic was reversed.
“Mom,” Eliza said, stepping forward and greeting Ruth with a suspiciously emphatic hug. “How are you?”
“Fine.” Ruth smiled quizzically at Maggie, who was still hanging back near the doorway, clutching a plastic trash bag full of muddy soccer clothes, shin guards, and cleats. “Everything okay?”
“Great.” Eliza let go of Ruth and folded her arms across her chest in a pretty good impersonation of one adult leveling with another. “But the three of us need to talk.”
“Fine,” Ruth said, glancing again at Maggie. “Let’s talk.”
The girls dropped their backpacks on the floor and headed straight to the kitchen table, as if the Saturday night family conference were a regularly scheduled event. Ruth followed, resisting the urge to offer a snack or try to engage them in small talk. They had something serious to say, and she wanted to honor it with her full attention.
“Mom,” Eliza began, “you know how I’m going to church tomorrow with the Parks?”
Ruth had to make an effort not to roll her eyes. Going to church with the Parks was the only thing Eliza had talked about all week.
“I’m well aware of it, honey. They’re coming at eight thirty, right?”
“Right.” Eliza glanced at her sister. “Maggie wants to come, too.”
“She does?” Ruth turned to Maggie, struggling to maintain a neutral expression. “Is this true?”
“Yes,” Maggie said, and Ruth could hear the courage it took for her to utter this one simple word.
Jesus, she thought, am I that terrifying?
“Was this your sister’s idea?” Ruth spoke carefully, hoping to sound curious rather than upset.
“No way,” said Eliza.
“I asked her,” Maggie explained.
“But why? You never had any interest in church before.”
With the tip of her right index finger, Maggie carefully traced the outline of her splayed left hand on the table, like a kindergartner drawing a turkey. Her voice was barely a whisper.
“I want to know Jesus.”
“Oh, come on,” Ruth groaned. “Not you, too.”
Maggie looked up. Her voice was stronger now.
“I felt Him. After the game. When we said our prayer.”
“What?” Ruth felt like she’d been sucker punched. “Who said a prayer?”
“The team. Just like last week. Some of the Gifford players joined us.”
“Was Coach Tim part of this?”
Maggie nodded. “Coach John, too.”
Ruth couldn’t believe it. While she’d been at the refresher course, thinking tender thoughts about Tim, he’d been on the field, stabbing her in the back.
Some Christian, she thought.
“A few of the girls wouldn’t do it,” Maggie added. “Nadima and Louisa and a couple of others. They didn’t kneel down or anything.”
“They did the right thing,” Ruth told her. “You know how I feel about that praying.”
“I know,” Maggie said. “But I wanted to.”
“Why? You don’t believe in Jesus.”
“How do you know?” Eliza broke in. “Don’t tell her what she believes.”
Ruth shut her eyes. When she opened them, both girls were staring at her with fierce expressions. In a funny way, she was proud of them.
“Jeez,” she said with a dark chuckle. “Couldn’t you just get piercings like everybody else?”
“Yuck,” said Maggie.
“So can she go?” Eliza demanded.
Ruth raised her hands in a gesture of surrender.
“If she wants. I’m not gonna say no.”
“Great.” Eliza stood up. “I have to call Grace.”
Maggie and Ruth sat in silence for a few seconds after Eliza left. Ruth wanted to say something calm and encouraging, but she couldn’t think of anything.
“Mom,” Maggie said. “Do I have to wear a dress tomorrow?”
“Wear what you want,” Ruth told her. “I don’t think Jesus cares one way or the other.”
ELIZA APPARENTLY had a different opinion about the Savior’s fashion preferences, because the girls came down on Sunday morning looking like they were heading to a school dance. Not only were they both wearing skirts and tights, they’d also acquired elegant new hairstyles—Maggie’s woven into a tight French braid, Eliza’s piled high on her head, held in place by a tortoiseshell clamp. Ruth hadn’t seen them this dressed up since they were flower girls at their cousin Melissa’s wedding four years ago.
“You look pretty,” she told them.
Maggie smiled shyly and touched the back of her head.
“Eliza did my braid. You like it?”
“I love it. You should wear it like that to school sometime.”
“We wanted to do each other’s nails,” Eliza added. “But we ran out of time.”
Ruth was touched to see them bonding like this. She’d been troubled for a long time by their lack of interest in each other, so different from the intense, conspiratorial relationship she’d shared with her own sister. Ruth and Mandy had spent their adolescence hiding from their parents, listening to music in candlelit rooms, telling secrets, plotting their jailbreaks. Every transgression Ruth committed in high school, she’d understood herself to be hurrying down a glamorous trail Mandy had blazed specifically for her, trying to catch up to her big sister so that one day the two of them could walk together as equals. There was nothing like that kind of intimacy between Eliza and Maggie, who mostly treated each other with a polite indifference that occasionally flared into outright hostility. Ruth just wished they’d found something besides a visit to the Living Waters Fellowship to bring them together.
“So can I make you guys some breakfast?”
“We don’t have time,” Eliza told her. “Grace said they have donuts and stuff at the church.”
“Yum.” Maggie licked her lips and rubbed her hands together, as if trying to remind her mother that she was still just a little kid. “Donuts.”
“Let me get you some cereal, just in case. It won’t take long.”
Eliza shook her head, inspecting Ruth with an unhappy expression.
“Mom,” she said. “Could you put some real clothes on?”
Ruth was startled by this question. She was wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt—a souvenir from her first 10k race—her usual weekend loungewear.
“Why? I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re gonna meet Mr. and Mrs. Park like that?”
“Ugh,” said Ruth. “I have to meet them?”
“Grace said they wanted to say hello. They figured you might be a little nervous about this.”
Ruth would have liked to say too bad, the Parks would just have to accept her as she was, but, in reality, she had no more enthusiasm for the idea of meeting strangers dressed like this than her daughters did. She just hadn’t thought it through, hadn’t accepted the situation enough to foresee that the Parks might not just pull up in front of the house and honk the horn, the way soccer parents did when they were carpooling to practice.
“All right,” Ruth said. “Let me go change. It’ll only take a minute.”
Eliza smiled gratefully.
“Mom?” Maggie added. “Could you maybe brush your hair, too?”
RUTH GOT herself spruced up as best she could in the short time available, but ended up feeling like she shouldn’t have bothered. Grace’s mother, Esther Park, was such a stunningly attractive woman—small-boned, well dressed, effortlessly radiant—that Ruth felt instantly and hopelessly drab by comparison, as though she might just as well have been wearing soup-stained pajamas.
“Good morning,” Esther said, shaking Ruth’s suddenly enormous hand with great vigor. She wore her hair in a shoulder-length bob, one side of it falling gracefully across her cheek. “It’s such a privilege for us to take your children to worship with us. You’ve given us a wonderful gift.”
“Thank you for offering,” Ruth said. “I’m glad our kids have become such good friends.”
“I am, too.” Esther’s teardrop face crinkled with delight as she glanced at her daughter, a solidly built girl just an inch or two shorter than she was, with a bigger bust. Grace smiled back, her mouth busy with orthodontia. “We just moved here from Chicago a few months ago, and it takes a while to get acclimated.”
“Chicago,” Ruth repeated, feeling a bit foolish. Somehow she’d gotten the impression that the Parks were newly arrived from Korea. “I didn’t know you were from Chicago.”
“The Windy City,” Mr. Park said, by way of confirmation. He was a boyish-looking man with a high shiny forehead, dressed in a dark suit and an open-collared white shirt. “Ever been there?”
“Just once,” Ruth said. “Quite a while ago. I had a nice time.”
“We didn’t live in the city proper,” Esther explained. “We had a place in Evanston. That’s where Henry grew up.”
“But we like it here in Stonewood Heights,” he assured her. “It’s got a real small-town feel to it. Almost Midwestern.”
“It’s got its good points,” Ruth allowed.
“Grace says you’re a teacher.”
“That’s right,” Ruth said. “In the high school. I’m not sure it’s the brightest idea to teach in the town where you live, but that’s how it worked out.”
“What subject?”
Ruth felt her daughters watching her, silently pleading.
“Health,” she said, to their obvious relief.
Henry smiled politely but didn’t follow up.
“It must be hard,” Esther observed. “Working full-time and caring for your children.” She didn’t say without a husband, but Ruth heard the words nonetheless.
“Sometimes,” she said. “It’s not so bad now that they’re older. Besides, I always wanted to work. I’m not sure what I’d do with myself at home all day.”
“You keep busy,” Esther told her. “I used to be a biomedical researcher before Grace was born. I did a lot of work on autoimmune disorders. But once I quit I never really looked back. Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of tennis.”
Henry took an expensive-looking digital camera out of his pocket and asked Eliza and Maggie if they’d mind posing for some pictures with Grace.
“This is a momentous occasion,” he said. “I’d like to record it for posterity.”
In the first couple of photos, the three girls stood smiling in front of the couch, arms around each others’ shoulders. Grace was dressed just like Eliza and Maggie—dark skirt and tights, light-colored blouse—and seeing them all in a row like that, Ruth suddenly realized that they’d coordinated their wardrobes over the phone last night, the way she and her high-school friends used to agree to wear their tightest designer jeans on Fridays.
“Let’s get a couple of Maggie kneeling in front,” Henry suggested. “Big girls, you each put a hand on her shoulder.”
When they were finished with that series, Henry asked the girls if they’d mind heading out to the front lawn for a few more shots, considering that it was such a lovely fall day. The girls were more than happy to oblige, and Henry herded them out the front door, leaving Esther and Ruth alone in the living room. It all happened so smoothly that it took Ruth a couple of seconds to realize that she’d been set up.
“Your daughters are lovely people,” Esther observed, with an incongruous note of sadness in her voice.
“Thank you,” Ruth replied. “Grace seems sweet.”
Esther laid a nearly weightless hand on Ruth’s shoulder.
“Why don’t you come with us?” she said. “It’s good to keep the family together.”
“No thanks.” Ruth smiled over her irritation. “I think I’ll just stay here and read the paper.”
“It’s a very low-key service,” Esther informed her. “And very non-judgmental. Nobody cares if you’re single or divorced. And the sermons are really good. Thought-provoking, but not too heavy. The Reverend’s got a real sense of humor.”
“It’s nice of you to offer,” Ruth said, “but I’m not the least bit interested.”
Esther’s face betrayed a fleeting hint of distaste.
“Are you sure? Won’t it be lonely for you, all by yourself on Sunday morning?”
“I’ll be fine,” Ruth assured her. “But thanks for asking.”
THE THREE giggling girls piled into the backseat of the Parks’ Volvo wagon. Watching them drive away, Ruth couldn’t help thinking, just for a second, that maybe she should’ve accepted Esther’s invitation, because at least then she would’ve been with her kids, and not just standing here stupidly on her front porch, all by herself on Sunday morning, waving good-bye to a carload of people who weren’t even looking at her, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do until they came back.
She went inside and lay down on the couch, knowing even as she did so that it was a bad idea, that this was one of those days when the couch should be avoided at all costs. The newspaper was sitting on the coffee table, a fat slab of distraction wrapped inside a blue plastic bag, but she couldn’t seem to make herself sit up and get it.
Come on, she thought. You can’t just lie here.
She knew what she was supposed to do. She’d checked her e-mail last night, and had found messages from Arlene Zabel and Matt Friedman, informing her of what had happened at the game and offering to add their names to her letter of complaint to the Soccer Association. Both of them said they felt betrayed by Coach Tim, who had verbally assured them that there would be no more prayers on the playing field.
“I gave him the benefit of the doubt,” Matt wrote, “and he took full advantage.”
“I don’t care what my husband thinks,” Arlene declared. “This has gone far enough. It’s time to make a stand.”
On some level, Ruth understood this development as good news. She had allies now and could no longer be written off as an isolated crank. She could just print out another copy of the letter, send it off to Matt and Arlene, and then to Bill Derzarian, and wait for the war to start. But for some reason, all the fire had gone out of her. She no longer felt any anger toward Tim Mason, only a kind of wounded bewilderment.
All she really wanted was a chance to talk to him, to have him explain why he’d taken the trouble to visit her twice last week and make her like him so much—and why, for that matter, he’d looked at her so hungrily on Friday night—if all he was going to do was break his word and leave them both right back where they’d started.
As she pondered this it occurred to her that it was almost like there were Two Tims: Silky-Hair Tim and Greasy-Hair Tim. Silky-Hair Tim was charming and honest, a decent guy with a complicated history and fuck-up tendencies, who was trying his best to do right by everyone. Greasy-Hair Tim was a liar and a manipulator, a smooth talker who couldn’t be trusted and was only out for himself. This theory didn’t make sense on a literal level—his hair had been greased back on Wednesday night, when he’d behaved like his silky-haired alter ego—but it was such a good metaphor for his duplicitous behavior that she decided to call Randall and tell him about it.
She owed him a call anyway. Randall had left a message on Friday night, checking to see how her date had gone, and she still hadn’t gotten back to him. It wasn’t embarrassment that was holding her back—he was the kind of friend with whom she’d happily share an embarrassing anecdote—so much as it was uncertainty about how to tell the story. To make him understand why she’d walked out on Paul, she’d have to describe her recent interactions with Tim, and she hadn’t known how to do that in a way that would make sense to herself, let alone to Randall. But now that she’d developed the theory of the Two Tims, she thought she might be able to explain it in a way that was amusing as well as true, or at least true enough to get away with.
She was a little nervous about calling so early on Sunday morning, but Randall and Gregory were already out. Either that or they were still in bed—drinking coffee, maybe, or making love—and happily ignoring the ringing phone. Good for them, Ruth thought. Nothing brings a couple closer than ignoring a summons from the outside world.
“Hi, guys,” she told the machine. “It’s me, just checking in after my not-so-big date. Call me when you get a chance.”
Ruth thought it would probably be a good idea to put on some coffee, but instead she lay back down on the couch and closed her eyes. She wasn’t planning on napping, or even “resting her eyes,” as her father used to put it, but she must have drifted off because the next thing she knew the doorbell was ringing, and she was sitting up, blinking in confusion, and mumbling things like, “Whuh? All right. Okay. I’m coming.”
The clock on her VCR said it was only 9:37, way too early for it to be the girls, unless one of them had gotten cold feet and asked to be taken home. She trudged over to the door with a sticky mouth and that sense of muddleheaded urgency that comes with not being fully awake, and pulled it open. She felt oddly unsurprised to see Greasy-Hair Tim standing on her welcome mat, muttering about how he needed to have a word with her, and very surprised indeed by just how good it felt to slap him across the face.
“WHOA!” TIM raised both hands in front of his face in a cringing attitude of self-defense. “Take it easy!”
In reality, he didn’t mind the slap, which he thought he probably deserved. It didn’t hurt too bad—all that remained after the initial shock was a tingly sensation where her hand had been—and it seemed to take some of the edge off her anger.
“I’m sorry,” Ruth said, touching her own cheek as if in sympathy. “I shouldn’t have done that. But you lied to me.”
He nodded contritely, though he couldn’t help feeling like the word “lie” was stronger than the circumstances warranted.
“I’m sorry about the misunderstanding,” he told her.
“Misunderstanding?” She laughed bitterly. “That’s a good one. I guess I misunderstood you to be an honest person.”
Tim found himself gazing contemplatively at his fingernails. He’d done this all his life, when he was forced to account for something stupid or hurtful or selfish that he’d done.
“I meant to give you a heads-up,” he said. “That’s why I came here the other night.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“I’m not a mind reader, Tim. How could I give you a chance if I didn’t know you needed one?”
“I get your point,” he said. “I could’ve handled this a lot better.”
“Yeah. You could’ve told the truth.”
He made himself meet her eyes. Ever since he could remember, women had been looking at him with this same baffled, disappointed expression.
“Look, Ruth, I don’t blame you for being pissed, and if you want me to go, I’ll go. But if you want to talk, I’ll be happy to tell you my side of the story. I doubt it’ll make you feel any better, but at least you’ll know where I’m coming from.”
“Believe me,” she said. “I know exactly where you’re coming from.”
“All right, fine. I won’t waste your time.”
“No,” she said, opening the door wider and stepping to one side. “It’s okay. I’ve got nothing else to do.”
HE FOLLOWED her into the kitchen, steeling himself to receive his second scolding of the still-young day. At least this time he knew what was coming. The first one had been a sneak attack, sprung on him when he dropped Abby off at her mother’s.
“Morning,” Mitchell had said, greeting them in Allison’s place at the front door. He tousled Abby’s hair. “Welcome home, sport.”
She kissed his cheek and slipped into the house, which seemed quieter than usual.
“Your wife around?” Tim inquired.
Mitchell winced, as if this were a sore subject.
“She took Logan to the playground. It’s such a nice morning.”
“Oh.” Tim wasn’t quite sure what to make of this departure from protocol. Ever since Abby had started doing overnight visits, Allison had been present for the Sunday-morning handoff. “Think she’ll be back soon?”
“Why don’t we go downstairs,” Mitchell said. “We need to talk.”
“Why? Something wrong?”
“Come on, Tim. This is serious. You got yourself way out on a limb here.”
Tim had never been down to the basement before, and it was predictably impressive, a vast subterranean kingdom containing a cavernous laundry room, a carpeted play space/entertainment center for the kids with a wall-mounted wide-screen TV, and a gym equipped with a StairMaster, treadmill, stationary bike, weight bench, and sauna.
“This is something,” said Tim. “You work out down here?”
“I try,” Mitchell replied. “Allison uses it a lot more than me.”
Mitchell’s home office was smaller and funkier than Tim would have expected, with an old, clunky-looking PC hulking on a beige metal desk suitable for crawling under during a nuclear war. He was surprised to see an electric guitar propped on a stand near the three-drawer file cabinet, then taken aback to discover, upon closer inspection, that it was a vintage Telecaster.
“Jeez,” he said, squatting to examine the headstock. “This isn’t a reissue.”
“No way.” Mitchell looked pleased. “It’s the real thing—1952, mint condition, all original hardware. I got it on eBay.”
“I didn’t even know you played.”
“Just a few chords. Allison got me some lessons for my birthday, but I haven’t been able to take ‘em. Work’s been pretty hectic lately, not that I’m complaining.”
“Maybe when you retire.”
“That’s what I’m figuring.” Mitchell grinned sheepishly and strummed an air guitar. “I’ll be rocking the assisted-living facility.”
Tim wouldn’t have minded giving the Tele a test-drive—he’d never touched a ’52 before—but he could tell by the sudden improvement in Mitchell’s posture that playtime was over.
“So, uh, why don’t you have a seat?”
Adopting an expression of professional sternness that must have served him well in the courtroom—if he ever set foot in a courtroom—Mitchell sat down in the Aeron desk chair and waited for Tim to get himself settled on the couch, a big, low-slung piece of furniture upholstered in outrageously soft black leather, the kind of venue on which it was all too easy to imagine your ex-wife getting fucked on a sunny weekend afternoon.
“I know this is awkward,” Mitchell began, “but we have a problem.”
“What is it now?” Tim smiled wearily, as if he and Mitchell had been down this road numerous times, though in actual fact, nothing like this had ever happened before.
Mitchell’s face remained serious, even a bit pained. “One of the soccer parents called last night and said there’s been some religious stuff going on at the games.”
Tim smiled wanly, trying not to betray any surprise or concern. He’d expected complaints, but hadn’t figured they’d make their way so quickly to Allison, who never came to games, and wasn’t on the team e-mail or phone list.
“Just a little prayer,” he said. “Totally nondenominational.”
Mitchell nodded slowly, absorbing this information with an air of judicial impartiality.
“And you think that’s a good idea?”
“People have been praying since the beginning of time,” Tim pointed out. “If it was a bad idea, we probably would’ve stopped a long time ago.”
“Thanks for the anthropology lesson,” Mitchell told him. “But I wasn’t asking what the human race as a whole thinks about prayer. I was asking about you as an individual.”
Tim felt himself getting irritated. It wasn’t the interrogation itself, which was gentle enough, and even mildly diverting; it was the whole situation—just being here, in Mitchell’s palatial house, sitting on his wonderful sofa, not far from his amazing guitar, and having to account for himself and his child-rearing decisions to a man who was neither friend nor family, and who, on top of everything else, was wearing a T-shirt with Billy Joel’s face on the front. It didn’t help that his own gaze kept straying to a framed photograph on the wall behind the desk, an enlarged candid shot of Allison wearing a garland of flowers over a sundress, sipping a drink out of a coconut shell, and looking mighty pleased with the way things had turned out.
“It’s not about what I think,” he said. “It’s about what God thinks.”
“Come on, Tim. Don’t make this difficult. Allison’s pretty upset.”
“I figured. Why else would she sic her lawyer on me?”
Mitchell looked hurt. “That’s a cheap shot.”
“Sorry, but that’s what it feels like.”
“I’m not your enemy,” Mitchell informed him. “It may be tempting for you to think so, but if that’s the case you’re misreading the situation. I like you. I think you’re a good father to Abby.”
“Thanks,” Tim muttered, pleased in spite of himself. “I appreciate it.”
“But you know what the custody agreement says, and you know how Allison feels about that church of yours.”
On some level, Tim understood that this would be a good moment to say something conciliatory, but his self-respect wouldn’t allow it.
“If Allison’s got something to say to me about our kid, tell her to at least have the courtesy to say it to my face.”
“Believe me,” Mitchell said, “you don’t want to go there. If it was up to her, this would already be a legal matter.”
“With all due respect,” Tim told him, “this is none of your business.”
Mitchell squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his forehead.
“Don’t let this end up in court,” he said. “You don’t want to do that to Abby.”
TIM COULD’VE used a cup of coffee, but Ruth hadn’t offered, and he didn’t feel comfortable asking. It didn’t seem like that kind of visit, judging by the way she was staring at him from across the table.
“So.” She smiled frostily, interlacing her hands in the manner of an attentive schoolgirl. “You wanted to say something?”
“Where are the girls?” he asked, trying to buy himself a little time. “Still with Frank?”
“They went to church with a nice Korean family. Something called the Living Waters Fellowship?”
“It’s in Gifford,” he told her. “Supposed to be pretty loose and touchy-feely.”
“All I know is they serve donuts.”
“We do that, too. Gives people one less excuse to stay home.”
“It’s funny,” Ruth said, not sounding the least bit amused. “My older daughter had been planning to go all week, and then, out of the blue, Maggie decided to join her at the last minute. Apparently, she had some kind of religious experience at the game yesterday.”
“Listen, Ruth, I know you’re not gonna—” Tim was about to say believe me, but he stopped himself when he realized what she’d just said. “What do you mean?”
“She says she wants to know Jesus.”
“Really?”
A strange sound came out of Tim’s mouth, a kind of puzzled grunt.
“That is funny,” he said.
“Hilarious,” Ruth replied grimly. “So I guess you should give yourself a big pat on the back. You sure made a fool of me.”
Tim didn’t know what to say. Some part of him was pleased to think of Maggie in church, reaching out for something that would make her stronger than she already was. And Jesus Himself had said that He’d come to turn a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother. But this wasn’t what Tim would’ve chosen to happen—not to Ruth, and not on his account.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he said, “I tried to stop her.”
HE TOLD her how it unfolded, how he’d followed John Roper onto the field in that blinding rainstorm and stood by silently as the assistant coach sunk to his knees in the gigantic mud puddle in which the players of both teams were joyously splashing around, and called for the Stars to make a circle. A number of the Gifford girls retreated in confusion as John announced his intention of praising the Lord, but a handful remained behind, intrigued by the call to prayer. John had told them they were more than welcome to stay.
“Did you intervene?” Ruth said.
“No,” Tim admitted. “I didn’t think I had the right.”
It took a while for the prayer to begin, mainly because some of the Stars refused to kneel. They were just standing there, hovering at the edge of the circle, trying to figure out what to do. Tim could see the pain and uncertainty in their eyes, the desire to merge with the group colliding with an equally powerful urge to turn their backs on something from which they felt excluded.
“There were five holdouts,” he said. “Louisa, Hannah, Nadima, your daughter, and my daughter.”
“Your daughter?” Ruth said. “She wouldn’t pray?”
“Abby’s being raised by her mother and stepfather. They’re not interested in God.”
The girls on the ground linked hands, smiling shyly at one another, all of them soaking wet and splattered with mud. John was staring up at Tim, not with anger, but with kindness and understanding.
Coach, he said. We need you down here.
Tim couldn’t say he didn’t feel a tug. John was his friend, a man he’d brought to Jesus. And the girls who were kneeling so patiently in the mud and rain—they were his girls, even the ones he didn’t know. He took his own daughter gently by the wrist.
Come on, he told her. It’s okay.
Mom won’t like it, Abby told him. She’ll be really mad.
You ’re not a child, he reminded her. You can make your own decisions.
Abby yanked her arm from her father’s grasp.
Leave me alone! she said. This is stupid!
It’s not stupid, Tim insisted.
By this point, John had already begun praying, talking about how beautiful it was to have players from both teams kneeling on the field, giving thanks and praise to the Almighty, because Jesus doesn’t divide the world into teams or nations or anything else that separates one person from another.
We’re all one, John declared. And He loves us all.
While he was pleading with Abby, Tim noticed Maggie drifting hesitantly forward, kneeling down between Candace and a girl from Gifford.
“I tapped her on the shoulder,” Tim told Ruth. “I said, Maggie, you shouldn’t be doing this. Your mother doesn’t allow it.”
My mother’s not here, Maggie replied.
This really isn’t a good idea, he said.
It’s fine, she insisted, clasping hands with the other girls, closing the circle she had opened. I want to do this.
Not knowing what else he could do, Tim turned back to Abby, but she was already walking away with Hannah, Nadima, and Louisa, the four of them trudging off the field with their heads down, as if they’d just suffered a heartbreaking loss.
“I was alone out there,” Tim said. “I was the only one standing.”
“So what did you do?”
“I got down on my knees,” he told her.
RUTH WASN’T as impressed by this story as Tim had hoped.
“That’s it? You tapped her on the shoulder and said I didn’t approve? That’s your big heroic act?”
“What’d you want me to do? Put her in a headlock? I mean, there I am, begging my own daughter to join the prayer, and in the next breath I’m telling yours she shouldn’t. I felt like a total hypocrite.”
“Maybe we should switch kids,” Ruth suggested. “Make things a lot simpler for both of us.”
Tim tried to smile, but it didn’t feel too convincing. Ruth could joke about giving up her daughter, but he knew what that felt like for real. And he could already feel Abby slipping away from him again, regardless of whether Allison tried to limit his visitation rights. Even if everything stayed the same, it was all too easy to imagine a future where she barely acknowledged him and didn’t need him for anything important.
“I’m just curious,” he said. “What are you so afraid of? It’s just a prayer. It’s not gonna kill her.”
“I’m not afraid. I just don’t want strangers filling my kid’s head with all this religious crap.”
“I’m not a stranger, Ruth.”
“You were. Back when this started, I didn’t know you from Adam.”
“Maggie’s one of my favorite kids,” he told her. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, sounding a bit calmer. “And I know she likes you, too. But that just makes it worse.”
“She trusts you, and you took advantage of that. You used your position to proselytize my kid against my wishes.”
“I didn’t proselytize,” he said. “It’s possible that John crossed the line yesterday, but you can’t blame me for that.”
“Don’t hide behind John. You were the one who started it. And believe me, you were very effective. What’d it take to convert her? Not even two weeks. That’s pretty fast work.”
“I understand you’re upset, but maybe this is what Maggie needs right now.”
“Don’t tell me what my daughter needs,” Ruth snapped. “I’m not giving you any parenting advice.”
“I wish you would,” he told her. “I’m not doing so great on my own.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said, her expression softening a little. “You seem like a good father.”
“I try,” he said. “It’s just really hard. I only see Abby one night a week. Half the time I can barely get a word out of her.”
“It’s just the age. You shouldn’t take it personally.”
“It’s hard not to, when she stares at me like I’m the stupidest guy on the planet.”
“It can’t be easy for her,” she reminded him. “All that back and forth. I mean, Frank and I had a rotten marriage, but sometimes I wonder if we should’ve just stuck it out for the girls.”
“It’s not just Abby’s fault,” Tim conceded. “Part of it’s my wife. The whole stepmother thing’s kinda tense for everybody.”
“Are you and your wife planning on having kids of your own?” she asked, after a brief hesitation.
Tim grimaced. “That’s kind of a touchy subject.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s okay. We’re just having some problems lately.”
“Getting pregnant?”
“No.” Tim chuckled grimly. “Being married.”
Ruth averted her eyes, as though she were embarrassed on his behalf. He was a little surprised to notice that she was wearing lipstick so early on Sunday morning. She didn’t really seem the type.
“We got off track,” she said. “I think you were telling me why church is a good thing for Maggie.”
“I really can’t speak for anyone else,” he said, not quite sure if she was teasing him or taking pity on him. “But I know I could’ve used some guidance when I was her age. Say what you want about the Bible, at least it takes a clear position on right and wrong.”
“See,” Ruth told him. “This is what bugs me. The way you people talk, it’s like you’re the only ones who know how to distinguish right from wrong. Just because my moral system’s different from yours, that doesn’t mean I don’t have one. And by the way, just because something’s written down in a book that’s a couple of thousand years old, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right.”
“It does if it’s the Word of God.”
“The last I heard, the Bible wasn’t written by God. It was written by human beings. And you gotta admit, some of it’s a little nutty.”
Tim felt a familiar sensation of uneasiness, the guilty discomfort that often afflicted him when the Bible came up in conversation. As a Christian, he felt an obligation to defend the Scripture, but he was painfully aware of how ill prepared he was to do so, given how much of it he’d managed not to read (he was conscientious enough to believe that skimming didn’t count). He’d done okay with the Gospels and Psalms, but a lot of the rest of it just didn’t seem as fascinating or illuminating as he might have expected, given its divine origin. Maybe that was the Lord’s way of saying that nothing good was easy, but it didn’t make Tim feel like any less of a fraud.
“I’m no scholar,” he admitted. “I just feel like, you know, with all the moral relativism in the world, it’s good to have some absolute standards.”
“Like what?” she asked. “Like Thou Shalt Not Kill, except by lethal injection?”
“The Old Testament says an eye for an eye.”
“And Jesus says turn the other cheek.”
Tim shrugged. “Look, Ruth, I’m not gonna pretend I don’t struggle with this stuff. But that doesn’t mean it’s all B.S.”
“I’ll tell you what cracks me up.” She looked like she was enjoying herself. “All this heaven and hell nonsense. I mean, do you really believe that when we die we’re going to sit on a cloud with the people we love while angels play harps and Jesus drops by for coffee?”
“Come on, Ruth. That’s not what it says.”
“I mean, how’s that different from seventy virgins for every suicide bomber? It’s just Santa Claus for adults.”
“The Bible doesn’t say anything about sitting in a cloud. Heaven’s supposed to be a place where only the saved are welcome. And there’s no death or pain.”
“Okay, fine. But what do you do there for all of eternity?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You probably don’t do anything. You’re one with God.”
“Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds kinda dull.”
“Beats burning in hell.”
“I’ll let you know when I get there. We can compare notes.”
“You don’t have to go there,” he said. “Not if you accept Jesus as your Savior.”
“That’s all I have to do?”
“That’s what it says.”
“And if I don’t do that, I’ll burn in hell?” Ruth shook her head in bewilderment. “Talk about the punishment not fitting the crime. I mean, I don’t see why it matters so much to Jesus that I believe in Him that He’d torture me for not doing it. I mean, He’s God, right? What’s He so insecure about?”
“Insecure?” Tim said. “Now you’re just being silly.”
“I’m being silly? You’re the one trying to sell me a theological system that puts Hitler and Gandhi on the same level.”
“It does not.”
“According to what you told me, they’re both burning in hell for not being Christians.”
“I’m sure God’s capable of making a distinction between Hitler and Gandhi.”
“I hope so. But somebody apparently forgot to mention that in the Bible.”
“Whatever.” Tim didn’t even know why he was bothering to argue with her. Nothing he could say about Jesus was going to reach her ears until her heart was ready to hear. “It’s easy to mock and poke holes. But it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
“I’m just curious,” she said, her smile fading a bit. “Do you really think I deserve to go to hell?”
“It’s not my call,” he told her. “I mean, for what it’s worth, I think you’re a nice person.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Look, Ruth. You can trap me in a hundred contradictions that smarter people would be able to explain away. But that’s not what this is about for me.”
“Well, what is it about?”
“You really want to know?”
“Sure.”
He studied her for a moment, trying to detect a trace of mockery in her expression. But all he saw was curiosity, or maybe just politeness.
“You have to understand the kind of person I was. If you asked my ex-wife, she’d just tell you I was a selfish drug addict, and I’m not saying I wasn’t. But it never felt like I had any kind of a choice. There was just this big dark hole in me, and all I could do was fill it with drugs and alcohol to keep it from hurting all the time. And then, after I’d pretty much fucked up everything that mattered, Jesus came into my life, and He took a lot of that pain away. It was just like He was there, holding me up, watching my back. It was a feeling, not an idea or a belief. Just this kind of physical sense that He was there and He loved me. And it changed everything.”
“Okay,” Ruth said, nodding the way people do when they don’t really believe you, but aren’t going to say so. “I can respect that.”
“I can’t tell you what a relief it was,” he continued. “To be able to turn to Him, and say, Here, Lord, this is my life, I’ve made a complete mess of it, and now I’m giving it to you. And to just feel like a completely new person. I mean, if it wasn’t for that, I’d be dead now, or at least in jail. I sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.”
Ruth didn’t challenge this account, nor did she ask him to elaborate. She just let a decent interval of silence go by, then asked if he wanted some coffee.
Tim glanced at the clock above the sink.
“Yikes,” he said, startled to see that it was already ten fifteen. “I’m gonna be late for church.”
“It won’t take long,” she said. “I cleaned the coffeemaker, like you said. It’s working a lot better.”
“Cool.” Tim grinned, oddly gratified that his diagnosis had panned out. “But I really should go.”
“Come on,” she said, her voice suddenly flirtatious. “Just one cup. I got this really nice French Roast.”
He closed his eyes, and a vision came to him. The Praise Team was up on stage, the worshippers in their seats. Everything was all set to go, except the bass player was missing, his microphone unattended, his instrument resting on its stand. It all seemed so far away, like it had nothing to do with him.
“Ruth,” he said, rising abruptly from his chair, sounding more serious than he’d meant to. “Please don’t tempt me like this.”
* * *
SHE SPENT the remainder of the morning back on the couch, halfheartedly trying to talk herself into going for a run, or to the supermarket, or maybe just out to the backyard to rake some leaves. Even cleaning the bathroom would have been a step up from just lying there, fantasizing about making love to a man who wouldn’t rule out the possibility that she was going to hell.
It was worse than embarrassing. She had every right to be furious with Tim, every right to call him to account for what he’d done. To be wasting her time thinking instead about that little cleft in his chin, or the way his eyes seemed to smile before his mouth did, or how good it would feel to have those big musician’s hands on her body wasn’t just foolish; it was an act of self-betrayal.
She’d felt it the moment he sat down, that strange secret thrill of being alone for the first time with someone you’re physically attracted to, of realizing that the only thing separating you is a little bit of air and your own uncertainty. All she had to do was reach out and put her hand on top of his, and everything would have changed. She kept visualizing the act as they spoke to each other, clenching and unclenching her fist, thinking about how little it would take to lift her hand off her lap and slide it across the table. But she couldn’t do it, and now he was gone.
It was all for the best, of course. He was a married man, a born-again Christian, a recovering substance abuser, and a guy who clearly had issues with keeping his word. All they could do together was make a mess. Let him go to church with his wife, and pray to his heart’s content with the people he’s supposed to pray with.
If the phone hadn’t rung, who knows how long she might have remained on her back, pondering the mystery of how she’d become so pathetic. As it was, she stood up a little too quickly and found herself wobbling on rubber legs in the middle of the living room, certain that she was about to topple over. But the head rush passed as suddenly as it came, and she was able to reach the phone before the machine picked up. The caller ID said it was Randall.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said. “I was wondering when I’d hear from you.”
Silence.
“Randall? Are you there?” She waited a few more seconds. “I think we have a bad connection. … Randall?”
She was about to hang up when he finally spoke in a soft, trembling voice.
“It’s over with me and Greg.”
“Oh, honey. Are you sure?”
“I threw him out,” he declared, sounding proud and heartbroken at the same time. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Maybe you just need a little time apart.”
“I can’t believe it. Twelve years gone to shit.”
“You guys are such a good couple. I’m sure you’ll work it out.”
“What am I gonna do?” Randall whimpered. “I’m not good at being alone.”
Ruth understood that it was her job to supply some sort of encouraging cliché, but her mind couldn’t locate one. She picked up a damp yellow sponge from her countertop.
“I’m a wreck,” he said.
She threw the sponge across the room as hard as she could. It barely made a sound when it struck the wall, then bounced harmlessly onto the table.