The Returning (27 page)

Rebekah
, John realized with a start. This was where she came to party. And this was where he came—

“It keeps the janitor and me busy, gathering them all up and throwing them away,” Larry went on. “The town’s sanitation workers must think this is quite the happening church.”

Larry chuckled quietly and looked at John.

John cleared his throat, clasped his hands together more tightly. He knew Pastor Larry was waiting for a confession of sorts. He had to say something, to explain why he had come. “Listen, Larry, I’ve—” He felt his throat grow tight again, his eyes well up. That was the last thing he wanted.

“Take your time,” Larry said gently.

Drawing in a deep breath, John tried again. “I’ve cheated on my wife, Larry.”

Silence. “I see,” he finally said.

“My daughter was right.”

“Right about what, John?”

John fidgeted uncomfortably. “I don’t know if you know where I’ve been the past few years.”

“Yes. It’s all right. Billy told me. He’s very proud of you, you know.”

John’s brow furrowed deeply as he looked up at Larry. “Yeah? For what?”

“He’s your son, John. He loves you.”

“You can love someone without being proud of him.”

“He told me how you came to the Lord in prison.”

“Oh.” John sniffed sarcastically. “Well, he can stop being proud now. Like I said, my daughter was right.”

Larry raised his eyebrows and waited.

“My first night home she said it wouldn’t last. She said prison conversions never last.”

“And it hasn’t?”

“I’ve tried, Larry. But things were easier in prison than they are out here.”

He watched as Larry leaned forward again and rested his arms on his desk. “Did you know,” the pastor asked, “that few people believe in sin anymore. Did you know that?”

John shook his head slowly, his eyes narrowing. He wasn’t sure what he had come for, but he knew he wasn’t looking for a theological discussion.

“People don’t like the idea of sin so—poof!” Larry threw his hands in the air to simulate something going up in smoke. “It’s gone. We don’t have to deal with it.”

“Uh-huh,” John said dully. “Okay. Well, look, Larry, I’ve messed up. I’ve . . .”

“Sinned?”

“Yeah. I guess I have.”

“So you believe in sin?”

“Well, sure. I mean, maybe other people don’t, but I do. How could I not?”

“And what about forgiveness? You don’t think you can be forgiven?”

John looked directly into the pastor’s eyes. “I guess I don’t know what to think anymore. I’m not out of prison three months, and I’ve ruined everything. Me, with my big-shot ideas of making a new life, living for God.” He shook his head again, ran a hand through his tangled hair. “Well, I can’t do it.”

“Of course not.”

“What’s that?”

“I said, of course not.”

John stared quizzically at Larry, who was pensively drumming the desk with his fingers. He waited, wondering what was to come. Abruptly Larry silenced his fingers and said, “I think, John, you misunderstand the meaning of grace.”

The two men looked at each other. After a long moment, John replied, “That may be, Larry. I’m not a reverend like you. All I know is, once God was with me and now He isn’t.”

“Are you saying He left?”

“How could He stay?” John shook his head. “I just can’t do it, Larry. I can’t keep it up, living like that. The alcohol—that’s nothing. I don’t want it. But the other . . .”

Another heavy silence descended over the room. Larry sat motionless, his eyes piercing. When he seemed quite sure that he had John’s attention, he said carefully, “ ‘Of all man’s clotted clay, the dingiest clot.’ ”

John shifted in the chair. He swallowed the annoyance that threatened to latch on to his next words. “I’m afraid I’m not following you. Is this about the whiskey priest?”

“No, it’s about a great poet.”

John’s knee had started pumping; he laid a hand on it to stifle the piston. “Okay,” he said.

“Francis Thompson. Ever hear of him?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He wrote some of the most beautiful descriptions of God’s glory ever written. He’s best known for a poem called ‘The Hound of Heaven.’ ”

John shrugged, shook his head.

“It’s the story of Thompson’s own life, how he tried to outrun God. He spent years running, and during much of that time he was a homeless tramp, addicted to opium, which was the popular drug back in his day. People drank it as laudanum.” Larry paused, shrugged. “It was as common as beer and cheaper too.”

When Larry didn’t go on, John said, “Well, I’m going to assume God caught up with him at some point.”

“Oh yes. God has a way of doing that, doesn’t He?”

“Uh-huh. So this guy kicked his addiction and went on to become some great writer? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“No, John, that’s not what happened. He did stop using for a while. Then he became an occasional user. Finally he became permanently re-addicted. He remained addicted right up to his death at the age of forty-seven or so. He died of what they think was a combination of tuberculosis and laudanum poisoning.”

John thought a moment, cleared his throat. “Well, that’s not a pretty story, then, is it?”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I have a feeling you’re not finished, though.”

“No, I’m not. I have a question for you. Do you think, after all those years of pursuing Francis, God just up and left him because the man messed up?”

John thought a moment. “Maybe not. I don’t know.”

Larry shook his head. “I believe God stayed with him, inspired him, used him even. A dozen years ago, I was a whiskey priest. I’d lost my church, lost my livelihood, very nearly lost my family. While I was in rehab, I came across this book.” He reached for a paperback book that lay on his desk, just beyond his right hand. “That was the first time I read this poem. Listen to these lines, John.”

Larry opened the book to a page marked with a scrap of paper. He looked up at John, back at the page, and began to read.

“And human love needs human meriting:

How hast thou merited—

Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee Save Me, save only Me?”

John’s jaw tightened. He didn’t speak.

“When I read those lines, I understood two things. First, like Francis, I knew I was about the dingiest clot of clay ever to sprout legs and walk the earth.” He paused and smiled at John. “And second, I knew for the first time that God loved me.”

John looked up sharply. “But you were a pastor, Larry.”

“You’d be surprised what pastors don’t know.”

“Well, if you were preaching sermons and you didn’t even know God loved you, what did you know?”

“Apparently not much. Certainly not the one essential thing, the heart of the Gospel. It was something Francis came to know, something that he came to experience—the paradox of grace.”

John nodded, though he wasn’t sure he fully understood.

Larry leaned forward again, held John’s eye. “Now listen to me, John. Here’s the paradox. We can fully embrace God’s love only when we recognize how completely unworthy of it we are.”

John sat in an uneasy silence, thinking about what Larry had just said. He wanted to take it in, but it seemed to hover on the far side of an impenetrable glass. At length he said, “You ever struggle, Larry?”

“I’m struggling right now, friend. I’d give just about anything for a drink. It’s been twelve years since I had one, and the urge is still there.”

John rubbed at his forehead. “With me, like I said, it’s not the drink. It’s . . . listen, Larry, you’re married, right?”

“More than thirty years.”

“You still love your wife?”

“She stayed with me even when I put her through every sort of misery imaginable. How could I not love her?”

John nodded, took a deep breath. “This . . . this woman, I’m thinking maybe I could make a life with her someday. It could be a good life—”

“But she’s not your wife.”

“No, but—”

“But she’s beautiful, and she makes you happy.”

John looked at the floor. “Yeah.” He nodded. “She’s beautiful. And when I’m with her—yes, I’m happy.”

Larry leaned forward, held John’s gaze. “Listen, John, let me tell you something. Not everything that’s beautiful is good. Take it from someone who knows.”

“But—”

“You’d be a fool to give up everything you have at home.”

“Yeah. I know that, but . . .”

“What is it, John?”

“Andrea and I, we’re just sort of—” he stopped, searching for the word—“roommates, I guess.”

“Roommates?”

“Yeah.”

“So whose idea was that?”

“Well, I don’t think it was anybody’s idea. It just sort of happened.”

“Things like that don’t just happen.”

“No? Well, I don’t know how to explain it, then.”

“John, do you love your wife?”

Pause. “She’s a good woman, Larry. . . .”

“But do you love her?”

John didn’t answer.

“You know, John, you don’t have to be in love with your wife to love her.”

“I guess I’m not following.”

“What do you share in common? What interests her? What makes her happy? Do you know?”

John thought a moment, shrugged. “I guess I don’t know.”

“Uh-huh. So you think she’s not worth knowing.”

“No, I . . .” John stopped, dropped his defenses. Larry was right and John knew it.

“There’s one thing you need to understand,” Larry said. “We love because God first loved us, even in the face of all our unloveliness.” He paused. He seemed to want to give John time to think about that. Then he said, “Go home and love your wife, John.”

“I’m afraid I can’t find the strength in myself to do that, Larry.”

Pastor Larry leaned forward, smiling tenderly. “That’s good, my friend,” he said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-THREE

Billy stepped
through the kitchen to the break room at the back of the restaurant. “Dad?”

“Huh!”

Billy bit back a laugh when his dad jumped. “Sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“That’s all right, Billy.”

“What are you doing?”

“Just reading the paper.”

“It looked like you were asleep.”

“Oh. Well, I might have dozed off. What time is it?”

“That’s what I came to tell you. Uncle Owen says it’s time for you to go back to work.”

When his father looked up quickly at the clock, Billy thought he heard him swear under his breath.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” Billy said, “there’s hardly anybody out there eating right now. I checked your tables. You’re okay for now.”

His father nodded, folded up the paper. “Thanks, Billy.”

“You tired, Dad?”

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“You need more sleep.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

Billy fidgeted. Needing a moment to think, he started tying knots into the strings of his apron. “Something bothering you, Dad?” he asked.

His father gave him a weary smile. “No. Nothing, really.”

“You’re looking in the paper for another job, aren’t you?”

“Well, I don’t really expect to find anything right now. But someday I’ll want to move on.”

“Listen, Dad, if it’s money, I’ll work more here. I’ll give you half my paycheck.”

Dad shook his head. “I appreciate that, son. More than I can say. But I don’t want you to do that.”

“Well, okay. If you change your mind, let me know.”

His father tried to smile again, then pushed the chair back from the table and stood.

“Dad?”

“Yes, Billy?”

Billy looked at his apron strings, then worked at untying the knots. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” he asked. “Something wrong?”

“No, I—”

“I’m a grown-up now, Dad. I’m not a kid. I want to help.”

His father looked at him a moment, then came and put a hand on his shoulder. “The best thing you can do for me is just go on being who you are.”

“But, Dad,” Billy protested, “that isn’t much.”

“No, Billy,” Dad said. “It’s everything. I’m proud of you, son.”

Billy smiled. “I’m proud of you too, Dad.”

His father squeezed his shoulder, glanced at the clock again, walked off toward the kitchen.