Lost Boys (16 page)

DeAnne laughed.

"I wasn't joking," said Jenny. "When the satellite dish was first installed a few years ago, my oldest two climbed the fence and pushed it over. But they've got it bolted down to a concrete pad now, so I suppose it's safe enough as long as we don't let the kids bring tools to church. Bye."

With Jenny gone, DeAnne once again headed for the doorwithout the same urgency now to get away and cry. Again, though, someone stopped her. "Sister Fletcher, I need to talk to you," said Sister Bigelow.

Uh-oh, thought DeAnne. Now it comes.

DeAnne walked over to the table where Sister Bigelow was stacking up the hymnbooks. "Better put down all that stuff you're carrying," said Sister Bigelow.

She's going to ask for the manual back, thought DeAnne. She's going to release me as spiritual living teacher right now. I'm not even going to get a second chance.

But if that's what happened, that's how it would be, DeAnne decided, and she set down her lesson materials.

"Now I can give you a hug without getting the corner of a book in my eye!" said Sister Bigelow. She was half a head shorter than DeAnne, but her hug was large and enthusiastic. When Sister Bigelow pulled away, DeAnne saw her glance around to make sure they were now alone in the room. "DeAnne, I know for sure that the Lord truly brought you to Steuben North Carolina to be our spiritual living teacher."

"Then the lesson was all right?" asked DeAnne.

"I think it was obvious how much that lesson was needed," said Sister Bigelow. "I won't say another word because I don't speak ill of any of my sisters, but I saw that one of the testimonies might have made you feel discouraged and I wanted you to know that there's not a blame thing for you to be discouraged about, and that's that. You are manna from heaven to me. Now go home and feed your family"

It was going to be fine.

Or was it? Jenny had warned her that Sister LeSueur always got what she wanted. That one way or another, she would not be thwarted. The last thing DeAnne wanted was to spend the next few years in a constant struggle-or, worse, an open war. No, she simply wasn't going to do that. She would win over Sister LeSueur with love and kindness. She would never give Sister LeSueur the slightest cause to think of her as an enemy.

DeAnne left the Relief Society room and began to comb the halls for her children. They were nowhere to be found. Step must have rounded them up, she realized, and she headed for the car, hoping Step would have the back of the wagon open so she could set down her lesson materials and Elizabeth's diaper-and-toy bag without having to fumble with keys or wait for Step to do it. Now that she was no longer keyed up about giving the lesson, everything seemed heavier and slower and she began to feel how much she needed some sleep. Not that she'd have much chance. Maybe Step would throw together some sandwiches for the kids while she took a nap before choir practice.

The back of the wagon was open. I may not need Step to save my soul, she thought, but he's pretty useful when I need someone to save my weary arms.

"How'd it go, Fish Lady?"

"It went interestingly."

"I sense a story."

"I'll tell you when there are fewer ears."

"I won't listen," offered Robbie from the back seat.

"Speaking of ear counting," said Step, "didn't you see Stevie in there?"

"Isn't he here?" asked DeAnne. She looked into the back seat. He wasn't there. How could she have failed to notice that one of her own children was missing? She really was tired.

"I didn't see him in there," she said.

"No problem," said Step. "I'll just go in and get him."

"Never mind," said DeAnne. "Here he comes."

Stevie was walking very slowly, looking down. Moping, thought DeAnne, that's what he's doing. He mopes to school from the car, he mopes from school back to the car, he mopes around the house all day, and he even mopes at church. "Sometimes I think he isn't even trying, Step," she said.

"Come on, Stevie!" Step called. "You have starving siblings in the car!"

"I'm not starving," said Robbie. "I had three cookies."

"Cookies?" asked DeAnne.

"Treats in class."

"Oh, sugar. Wonderful. I thought you didn't like cookies."

"These ones were chocolate chip," said Robbie.

"Were they as good as my chocolate chip cookies?" asked Step. "Nope," said Robbie. "They were terrible."

"Then why did you eat them?" asked DeAnne.

"Cause I won them," said Robbie.

"Won them how?" asked Step.

"I answered all the questions."

"Hmm," said Step. "I wonder what your teacher would have given you if you answered them right?"

"I did answer them right!" shouted Robbie, only he sounded cross instead of playful.

"Oh, I guess we're getting tired now," said Step. "OK, I'm through teasing."

Stevie opened the door behind DeAnne and got into the car. "Glad you could make it," said Step. "Hope it wasn't too much trouble, coming all the way out to the car like this."

"It was OK," said Stevie.

"Your father was teasing you," said DeAnne. "He was suggesting that you ought to come right out to the car after church. I worried about you."

"Thanks for translating for me," said Step. He sounded a little testy himself now.

"I wasn't translating," said DeAnne. She felt weary to the bone. "Let's just go home."

Step started the car and they pulled out of the parking lot onto the road.

"I really do want to know what you were doing," said Step.

Stevie didn't answer.

"Stevie," said Step.

"What?"

"I said I really do want to know what you were doing that made you late getting out to the car."

"Talking," said Stevie.

"Who with?" asked DeAnne. Maybe Stevie had found a friend, in which case she was glad he was late getting to the car.

"A lady."

Not a friend, then. "What lady?" she asked.

"I don't know."

DeAnne could feel Step suddenly grow alert. She wasn't sure what it was, but she always knew when he started to pay serious attention. He was still driving, but perhaps there was a bit more tension in his muscles, a slowness about his movement. Deliberate, that was it. He became intensely deliberate. Dangerous. Some one has come too close to his children, and the primate male has become alert. Well, she rather liked that; it felt comfortable to feel him bristle beside her. Of course, that feeling of hers was probably the primate female, gathering her children near her mate at the first sign of danger. We are all chimpanzees under the skin.

"What did she say to you, Stevedore?" asked Step.

"I didn't like her," said Stevie.

"But what did she say?"

"She said she had a vision about me."

His words came to DeAnne like a flash of light, blinding her for a moment: She had a vision. "Dolores LeSueur," murmured DeAnne.

"Yeah," said Stevie. "Sister LeSueur."

"And what did she say about her vision?"

"I don't want to say."

"You've got to," said DeAnne, barely able to control the emo tion in her voice.

Step reached over and gently touched her on the thigh. He was telling her to keep still, that she was too intense, that she wasn't going about it the right way. For a moment she resented him for daring to police her comments to her own son, but then she realized that she was simply transferring the anger she felt toward Dolores LeSueur to the nearest target, her husband. And he was right. They'd learn more from Stevie if he didn't know how upset they were.

"The reason we need to know, Stevie," said Step, "is that no matter what she thinks she saw, and no matter whether it was really a vision or just a dream or just something she made up, she had no business telling you about it."

"It was about me," said Stevie.

"In a pig's eye," murmured DeAnne.

"Sister LeSueur doesn't have a right to get visions about you, Stevie. She's not your mother and she's not your father, she's not your anything," said Step. "The Lord's house is a house of order. He isn't going to send visions about you to somebody who has nothing to do with you. So if she got a vision, I bet it didn't come from the Lord."

"Oh," said Stevie.

Step had laid the groundwork well, but now DeAnne was ready to know. "So what was the vision?"

"He'll tell us," said Step, "as soon as he realizes that it's right to tell us. You had a bad feeling when she was telling you, didn't you, Stevie? That's why you said you didn't like her."

"Yeah," said Stevie.

"Well, don't you think that maybe that bad feeling was a warning to you that the things you were being told were lies? It made you feel bad, didn't it?"

"Some bad and some not," said Stevie.

"Did she tell you not to tell us?" asked Step.

"Yes," Stevie said quietly.

"What?" said DeAnne, outraged.

"He said yes," said Robbie.

"I heard him," said DeAnne.

"Then why did you say `what'?" asked Robbie.

"Your mother was just surprised," said Step. "Stevedore, Stevie, Stephen Bolivar Fletcher, my son, you know what we've told you before. If someone ever tells you children that you mustn't tell your parents something, then what do you do?"

"I know," said Robbie. "We promise that we'll never tell, but then the very first chance we get we do tell you."

"And why is that?"

"Because no good person would ever tell us to keep a secret from our mom and dad," said Robbie.

"Remember that, Stevie?" asked Step.

"Yeah," said Stevie.

DeAnne heard something in his voice. She turned in her seat, turned all the way, and saw that he was crying. "Stop the car, Step," she said.

Step pulled the car at once into the driveway of a Methodist church parking lot. The parking lot was emptying out-apparently the Methodists got out of church about the same time the Mormons did.

"Why are you crying, honey?" asked DeAnne.

"I don't know," said Stevie.

"Stevie, whatever this woman said to you, it's time for you to tell us."

"She said ..." He started crying in earnest now, so it was hard for him to talk.

"That's all right, Stevie," said Step. "Just tell us slowly. Take your time."

"She said I was a really special boy."

"Well, that's true," said Step.

"And she said that the Lord had chosen me to do wonderful things."

"Like what?" asked Step.

"Like Ammon," he said. "A missionary."

"Yes?"

"But first she said that I had to prove that I was good enough."

DeAnne felt as though she needed to spit something awful out of her mouth.

"Did she say what it was you had to do to prove yourself?" asked Step.

"T-teach my parents, she said."

"Teach us what?" asked Step.

"R-righteousness," said Stevie.

DeAnne felt the baby kick. Only it wasn't a kick, it was more like a push, a hard, sustained push against her ribs. The child must have felt her anger; the adrenaline must have crossed the placenta, and now she had made the baby angry, too, or at least excited, upset, energized. I must calm myself, DeAnne thought. For the baby's sake.

"Well now," said Step, "what do you think she meant by that?"

"I don't know," said Stevie.

"I do," said DeAnne. "Stevie, I taught a lesson today in Relief Society, and Sister LeSueur didn't like it."

"Why not?" asked Stevie.

"Because the lesson I taught said that every person can talk to the Lord and you don't need anybody else to tell you what the Lord wants you to do, because the Holy Ghost can talk right to your heart."

"After I'm baptized," said Stevie.

"Which is only a little more than a month away" said DeAnne. "And even now the Spirit of God can whisper in your heart, if there's a reason. But she didn't like me saying that."

"Why not?" asked Stevie.

"Because Sister LeSueur likes going around and showing other people how spiritual she is." DeAnne found herself remembering everything that Jenny Cowper had said to her, and now she believed it all, and spoke of it as if she knew it from her own experience. "She likes to tell people about visions the Lord has given her. She likes to have other people depend on her and do the things she tells them to do. So if people start realizing that true inspiration from the Lord will come right to them, and not to somebody like Sister LeSueur, why, she won't be as important to them anymore as she is now. Do yo u understand that?"

"Yes," said Stevie.

"So she wants me to stop saying things like that," said DeAnne.

"Me too," said Step. "I gave a lesson that said things like that, too."

"So she went to you to try to get you to think that she was having visions about you," said DeAnne, "so that instead of learning from your parents, you'd always come to her to find out what you should do with your life."

"Why would she tell a lie like that?" asked Stevie.

"She's trying to steal you from us," said Step.

"Like a bad guy!" said Robbie.

"Just like a bad guy," said Step. "Only bit by bit, and slowly, starting with your heart. Starting by making you doubt us. Making you wonder if maybe we aren't righteous, and if maybe you need to learn righteousness from somewhere else and then teach it to us. And where do you think that somewhere else would be?"

"From her," said Stevie. "That's what she said-that she knew that the Lord would tell her more about my g-glorious future."

"Such poison," said DeAnne.

"That's called flattery Stevie," said Step. "The truth is that anybody who knows anything about you knows that you'll have a glorious future. You're so bright and good, how could it be otherwise? So it doesn't take a vision from the Lord to tell her that. But she hopes that by telling you wonderful things about your future, she'll get you to put all your hope in the things she tells you and not in what we tell you."

"It's just what phony fortune-tellers all do," said DeAnne. "They tell you wonderful things that you really hope are true. You believe them because you want them to happen. And so you convince yourself that the fortune-teller isn't a fake, that maybe somehow she really knows, but in fact she's really a phony all along."