Potter Springs (3 page)

“Will you marry me?”

Pebbles ground her shins as she knelt too, her toes gritty, not caring, as she pulled those broad shoulders to her. “Yes,
yes, yes, oh yes!”

He slid the ring on her finger and she pulled away to admire it. “I love it,” she announced. A marquise from her Mark. “When
did you …” She raised her gaze, expecting his joy to mirror her own.

Instead, sadness swept his features. A look of resignation. Still on his knees, he no longer seemed heroic, but defeated.

Her question died in her throat and fell, the words drifted like leaves to the ground. Unspoken, they rustled, whispering
in her heart. Not when, but why?

Had he asked her for honor? Or for love?

O
n Tuesday, after spending his day off making plans, practicing speeches, Mark waited outside James Montclair’s office. The
sun barely tipped the edges of the morning traffic, but it looked like James had been hitting it hard already.

A phone dangled from his ear and a pile of paperwork cluttered the streamlined desk. Still busy with the call, James motioned
for Mark to enter. He rolled up starched white sleeves as he spoke. “Yes, Mrs. Timsley. I’ll let the committee know. Thanks
for your prayers, Lord knows we need them.” He rolled his eyes at Mark and said his good-byes.

“What do you need?” James checked his Omega watch.

“To talk.”

“Sure. Just a sec.” A thought line divided his brows as he clicked more keys.

Mark took the time to admire James’s office. Leatherbound books on the shelves, ivy dangling from spare corners, a hand-painted
oil of the baptism of Jesus. The painting depicted a white dove descending on the Master’s shoulders with John clad in camel
hair and shadows in the background.

“Okay, I’m all yours.” James leaned back. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know how to say this.” Practicing in front of the mirror this morning only made Mark see the unnatural color of his
face. He felt green even now.

“Just shoot.”

“It’s about Amanda. And me.” Mark’s legs seemed overlong for the visitor’s chair, even though he’d sat there many times.

A slow grin spread on James’s features. “Are congratulations in order? Did you finally do it? Ask her to marry you?”

“Um. Yes. In a sense.”

“That’s fantastic!” James rose from the desk and grasped Mark’s hand in a vigorous shake. “She’ll fit in perfect here. Sarah
loves her to pieces. It’ll be great to have another minister’s wife. They can run the women’s retreats and the luncheons-”

“She’s pregnant.”

Confusion dulled James’s face and the handshake stopped. “No, after the last one, Sarah had her tubes-” He stopped, catching
himself. “Oh,” he said stupidly. “You mean Amanda.”

Disappointment filled the room, like a silent, unwelcome guest.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Mark pulled away, rubbing his temples. Not able to look his mentor in the eye.

“How did this happen?” James’s voice echoed Mark’s earlier bewilderment.

“That’s what I said.”

“How long have you two been …” Ever the genteel ambassador, James let the question trail as he collapsed into his chair.

“Months,” Mark admitted. “It’s not like we meant to, it was just an accident.”

“It’s never an accident.” Anger tinged the declaration.

Mark snapped his head up.

“You don’t just trip and suddenly you’re having sex. There’s a progression.”

“Okay. It wasn’t an accident.” Mark couldn’t help the anger, the defensiveness. “We’re getting married.”

“Do you love her?”

“With everything I am.”

“Then why didn’t you wait?”

Regret twisted in Mark as James voiced the question he’d asked himself in the mirror. The one his conscience asked him. The
one he ignored even as his flesh melted into hers. “I don’t know.” He did know, but couldn’t say.
Wouldn’t
say in this room where he’d prayed and planned sermons. “I should have. But we didn’t. Now what? How do we handle this?”

“
We,
as in you and Amanda?”

“No, we’re clear,” Mark said. “She’s excited about the baby, the wedding. We still have to tell our parents.”

“Your mother.” James sighed, familiar with Marianne Reynolds.

“I know,” Mark agreed.

They pondered that particular coming collision in silence.

“I may wait until after the wedding, just so she doesn’t make some kind of a scene.” Although Mark knew that where his mother
was concerned,
some
kind of a scene was a guarantee. “What I mean is
we,
as in you and me. The church. How do we deal with this?”

“Well, to be honest, I’m a little thrown, Mark.” His voice held an instructor’s tone.

“Yeah, me too.”

“It’s not what I expected of you. At all.” The anger rose in degrees.

Mark took it like a tackle, impassive.

“I’ll have to talk to the board.” James flipped open his calendar.

“Would you?” Hope descended like the dove in the painting, breaking through the clouds of gray with specks of holy light.
Mark spoke in a rush. “I’ll go before them, tell them what happened, and that we’re getting married. Before the church if
I have to, like a testimony, tell them how even people in leadership, in the church, can make mistakes and that we’re not
perfect, just forgiven-”

“Mark,” James said, gentle and sad. “It’s over.”

“Over?” The specks disappeared, the shadows covered the flight, as if it never happened. Turning what had been hope to an
overwhelming gray.

“We have to let you go. Surely you can see that. Being on staff here-doing what you’ve been doing-we can’t keep you on.”

“Wait. Sure, the timing’s off-that was a mistake. But we’re in
love.
We’re getting
married.
It’s not like this is a totally awful thing.”

“All that will help you, and I’m glad for it. No, it’s not totally awful, but it doesn’t fit with your purposes, our plans
for you here. I’ll call the board chairman, we’ll work something out. To help with the wedding. And the baby.” James picked
up the phone, the sad smile lingering still.

“James, it’s not like I’m the only one. Half the congregation, more than half, I bet-”

“You’d have made a fine pastor, Mark. Maybe somewhere down the line, you still will. But it won’t be here.”

*   *   *

PROGRESSION.
STOPPED IN
traffic on the way home, Mark thought about progression.

He’d met Amanda at some forgettable social. A single’s mixer in downtown Houston, a friend of a friend. She teased him, called
him a preacher boy. Flirting. Her head tilted up to his-her figure, full-blown curves on a petite frame. Completely unselfconscious
and confident, the room dazzled where she saw fit to land, circling with this group and then that. A woman amidst silly girls.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

I’ll catch you if I can,
he thought. She awakened the wolf in him, and he decided to chase.

Progression.
He took her dancing on their second date. To a run-down bar on Houston’s east side, where no Pleasant Valley Baptists would
ever go. Because he wanted to hold her tight, too tight for propriety. They slid across sawdust floors, denim rubbed friction
as he spun her fast, then slow, feeling the heat between their bellies while Patsy Cline poured her silken croons around them.

He’d kissed her full on the mouth for the first time, tasting beer and salt and her own sweet flavor, and it tasted so good
he went back again and again.

Progression.
After months of the chase, she invited him to her family’s lake house for a weekend with Ben and Katy Thompson, her parents.
He put on his shiny face. Ready to make the important introductions. To meet great expectations and surpass them. Except her
parents didn’t show because Katy had a “thing” to go to and Ben wanted to tinker in his garage.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Amanda had asked, innocent. “Want to stay the weekend anyway?”

His conscience whispered no, but he ignored it and chose the path. Enjoyed the ramble down the highway where love and lust
tangled so firmly, he couldn’t see the light of day for the fire all around.

The two of them, alone with the waves and the water. He’d kissed her, her arms around him and the crickets singing. Love and
lust, ancient and stronger than his own will reared like a warrior and laid him down. Lying down with her on a blanket, the
moon high and round and the crickets screaming. He dipped into her, sweet and slow, and was damned by it in his own heart.
But he didn’t stop. He entered his lust and broke his trust, dying down with her. Painted himself a hypocrite while he lost
himself in her. Tossing his future and his calling like a cheap brown penny.
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

Then morning sunlight streamed on what he’d done. On him, sick with regret for not honoring her. For not holding the wolf
in check.

But she’d smiled so sweet and hugged him tight, no furrow of fury or regret on her brow, but crazily, unexpectedly-love. She
didn’t say she was sorry, and when he did, she hushed him and handed him coffee.

The words
I love you, let’s get married
died on his lips and he drank it, bitter, down his throat. Warming him as the sin-sickness slid from his gut.

The serpent whispered
Later
and Mark listened.

Progression.
They’d danced again and again, not bothering with the sawdust floors, his conscience held at bay. He separated the white
from the black and fed the darkness in himself with the power of their passion and dressed in glorious white each Sunday morning.
The shadow eclipsed by the halo, coating his insides with shame while it tied him, tighter and tighter, until he couldn’t
speak.

The wolf caught in the net of his own weaving. He’d screamed for help too late. He’d broken the silence and spoke the truth,
yet there he lay. Wounded by his choices, his purpose and his plans, gone.

Progression.

Still, he wouldn’t be alone. Somehow, in spite of his stumblings and failures, he’d won the desire of his eyes and the love
of his heart. He’d obtained a pearl of great price, Amanda as his bride.

Yet by heeding the wrong voice—
Later,
it had whispered-the cost was higher than he’d ever imagined.

You’d have made a fine pastor, James had said.

Would have.

T
he drizzly morning matched Amanda’s mood as she battled for a parking spot near the upscale restaurant. She punched the pedal
of her red Toyota hatchback, sped past a Starbucks and a Talbots to nab an empty space from a retreating SUV.

Wheeling in to a squeaky halt, she bared her teeth to the rear-view mirror to check for lipstick smudges. She snapped off
the radio and grabbed the leather handbag Mother bought her for Christmas in college:
It’s a classic, honey. You’ll carry it for the rest of your life.

She hadn’t cared for the light shade of the purse, but it was no use arguing with Mother. Besides, she was usually right.

Usually, but not always. This time, Mother was wrong.

Leaping over pothole puddles, Amanda gave herself a pep talk.

She would not argue. She would state her case, pass on the information, then leave. Mother could take the news however she
wanted, Amanda’s only job was to tell the truth.

Then she’d treat herself to an afternoon of watching movies with Mark. Maybe she could cheer him up with the Three Stooges
or
Blazing Saddles.
Something silly, to make him laugh.

News of the meeting with James had sent Amanda into a tailspin, yet Mark seemed determined to finish out his tenure as best
he could.

It was almost as if the firing hadn’t taken place. They never really talked about it, and Amanda hadn’t seen Mark get angry,
or sad, or even call James ugly names like she did in her heated moments.

He didn’t seem to fear what would happen next, where they would go or what they would do. He simply went to work each day
like nothing had ever happened. When she pushed him, he’d say, “It’ll all work out. Give it time, and everything will be okay.”