Birthday Dinner Page 10
Chapter 1
Becca sat on the oak pew about halfway up the nave on Monday morning before work. Father Mark had proudly shown her the sanctuary as part of her tour of St. John’s on her first day, but she’d not been in the hall since. A silent awe wrapped itself around her, filled the dim cavernous space. A large crucified Jesus hung from a cross that hung from the ceiling by invisible wires over the wooden altar. Directly above the cross, mounted high on the wall just under the steep-pitched roof, a small round window offered a glimpse of the blue summer sky, the only unfiltered natural light in the sanctuary. Bold slots of dark stained glass—blue, green, purple, amber, red—marched along each side wall, thrusting their multi-colored muted glow like long fingers into the somber space. The tiny frail flame of a sanctuary lamp hung to the right of the altar flickered behind its rose chimney, the only movement in the otherwise utterly still space.
Becca tried to remember the last time she’d been alone in a worship space, or if she ever had. She’d regularly attended her family’s Methodist church as a child, but always accompanied by parents and siblings. Throughout high school and college, she’d occasionally visited the churches of various friends, always alongside that friend, sometimes with his or her family. Even when touring cathedrals or historic churches, she was always with someone. This was perhaps the first time she’d sat alone in a sacred space.
The solitude and stillness made the gregarious Becca uncomfortable; but it was perhaps just this sort of discomfort, this sense of being temporarily outside herself, that she sought when she’d stopped on her way to her office and cautiously opened the sanctuary’s heavy oak doors and even more cautiously walked forward and taken a seat.
But now seated and properly awestruck, she wondered exactly what it was she was seeking, and if this empty cavern, however portentous, was the place to find it. She’d been shocked and deeply troubled by Latonya’s sudden reappearance and gruff reclaiming of Jonah. It’d all happened so fast that she’d not even had the chance to tell Jonah good-bye let alone ask Latonya about the Summer Learning Program. It was clear from the mother’s attitude that such a query would’ve fallen on deaf, even spiteful, ears anyway. Several attempts to reach Latonya via phone numbers Mrs. Brackett had given her yielded no results, not even an answering machine. So here she was, returning to work, with a large new hole in her heart and no idea how to close it.
And little hope of finding it here, she finally concluded after about five minutes’ silent meditation. She stood to leave but was briefly detained by the alignment of the drooping head of the crucifix with the sun streaming through the round window. That essence of suffering backed by all that brilliance struck her as the height of contradiction and injustice. Those two realities should not exist in the same frame let alone superimposed. How could God, the author of both, let such a merging, such a blurring of hope and despair, occur. What justice in that? Worse, what way forward?
Then she saw someone stand in the dimmest corner of the sanctuary, where the altar railing anchored to the wall. This figure stood still for a few seconds facing the altar and its suspended crucifix, then bowed deeply, then turned and headed straight for her down the center aisle. It took her a minute to recognize Father Mark—robed neck to foot in a black cassock—through her surprise and brief welling fear.
Father Mark smiled gently from a few feet away. “What concerns has Becca brought to lay before our loving God on this first day of his new week?”
“You startled me.”
“I’m sorry. I heard you come in but didn’t want to distract you, so I continued with my morning prayers. When I’d finished and you still hadn’t moved, I was afraid I would frighten you. So I waited for you to stand.”
“Sorry if I disturbed you.”
“Not at all. I was glad for the company.”
“God not company enough?”
“Enough, but I’m always happy for a human presence, especially one seeking help.”
“I didn’t know I was.”
Father Mark gestured toward the pew.
She returned to her former seat then slid a few feet farther down the pew.
Father Mark sat down, leaving several feet between them, and gazed calmly at her in the dim light. “When I first started in parish ministry, I loved Sundays and dreaded Mondays. Sundays were so full of life and activity and fellowship. There were always a hundred hours of responsibilities crammed into about sixteen hours of waking time, and I loved every minute. Theologians tell you that every Sunday is Resurrection Day, and I lived that theology to my core.
“Then came Monday morning; and I felt utterly empty, totally abandoned by the same God that had raised me from the dead and placed me on the top of the highest mountain the day before. I attributed my despair to spiritual letdown and tried to learn to live with it. But it only got worse, to the point where I took Mondays off, only to discover the same problem on Tuesday—with one less day in the week to try to recover.
“Then one Monday morning as I was rushing past on my way to the office, something stopped me outside those doors. Whatever had stopped me was strong—I had a full calendar waiting and a head of steam to plow through it, no doubt my unconscious attempt to avoid the loneliness of Mondays. But this force turned me toward the sanctuary and brought me through those doors. So I sat in a pew—right about here, I recall—and waited. But nothing happened—no visions or voices or divine insights. So I left after about five minutes.
“But the next Monday morning as I went past I wasn’t so much stopped in my tracks as reminded of the previous week’s odd event and stopped voluntarily and spent about five minutes in quiet contemplation in the empty pew. Then again the next Monday, and the next. And after about a month, I realized I no longer dreaded Mondays. That was five years ago. I’ve not missed a Monday morning in the sanctuary since, at least not if I’m in town. Even if I’m traveling, I try to find a church open on Monday mornings and spend a little time there.”
“And the black robe?”
Father Mark laughed loudly, a sound that echoed off the ceiling and walls and was both incongruous and somehow reassuring. “I’m an Episcopal priest—we have to dress up!” He laughed again then explained, “It’s my frail human attempt to formalize what God has already made perfect. For me, wearing black during my prayer time at the start of each week is a reminder and an admission of my fallen condition. I’m bringing my dead self to God on the first day for him to redeem and restore through the week to come. God of course knows all this, but I sometimes forget. So I give myself this reminder.”
Becca chuckled. “Pretty cool garb, just make sure you take it off before heading to your first appointment.”
“Good advice.”
They were both silent for several seconds. Potent stillness rushed in to fill the silence. They looked up at the crucifix and the blue sky through the window. The sun had moved beyond the window’s vista.
“Anything I can help you with, Becca?” Father Mark asked.
Becca turned from the window’s prospect and faced the priest, feeling calmer than she’d felt since yesterday morning. “Not at the moment. I think I’ve got all the answer I can handle right now.”
“God tends to give only as much as you can handle.”
Becca nodded doubtfully.
“No,” Father Mark corrected. “That’s phrased wrong. God gives you something, then gives you the means to handle it.”
“I’ll hope you’re right.”
“Don’t hope on me. Ask him.” He gestured with his head toward the front of the sanctuary. It was unclear if the crucifix or the sky was the intended antecedent of the pronoun.
Becca called Trinia Wells as soon as she got settled in her office and unpacked her book bag of the files and forms she’d carried home to work on over the weekend. Trinia answered herself and on the first ring, an administrative efficiency that was growing rare in the changing world of government services. “Lakeview Guidance Office, Trinia Wells speaking.”
“Trinia, this is Becca Coles. I have some bad news. Jonah’s mother showed up yesterday and took him back.”
“How do you know that?”
“We were there.”
“We?”
“My boyfriend Zach and I. We’d taken Sunday dinner to Jonah and his great-grandmother and had just finished when Latonya came barging in and demanded to get Jonah.”
“Barging? Demanded? She lives there, doesn’t she? And he is her son.”
“It was her aggressive attitude that was so troubling. She didn’t seem to have any concern for Jonah. She just wanted him back—like some tool she’d loaned out and forgotten about and suddenly decided she just needed to have.”
“Maybe she’s realized it’s time to start taking care of him.”
“Maybe she’d heard I was helping him and wanted to seize control.”
“Becca, maybe you’re taking this a little too personally.”
“There’s no ‘little too personally’ about this, Trinia. Yes, I care about Jonah. Yes, I want to help him. You were kind enough to give me a way to help through the Summer Learning Program. And now she’s taken him away.”
“Did you explain about the program and get her to sign the consent form?”
“She left before I had a chance to say anything. It was clear the last thing on her mind was Jonah’s well-being. Her eyes were bloodshot. She looked like she was high or drunk or something.” Becca’s voice was steadily rising in pitch and emotion.
“Becca, take a few deep breaths. Calm down. Getting angry or emotional will do nothing to help the child or you. If what you say about the boy’s mother is true, getting upset will only play into her hands.”
“Then what should I do?”
“Stay within the system, and use it to your advantage.”
“And how do I do that?”
“You just made an anonymous report of an incident of child neglect. I will file the report and pass it on to the principal and the school nurse. We will conduct an interview with the student. If we find corroborating evidence, we will contact the parent for an interview. If the parent doesn’t show, or does show and is hostile or confrontational, we will pass the report on to county child welfare. They will open a case file and contact the parent and interview the child. They will monitor the situation as long as evidence indicates a need for oversight.”
“And removal of Jonah from Latonya’s guardianship?”
“That’s almost impossible, Becca, if the parent wants to fight it. You don’t even want to think about that—the abuse would have to be so blatant that the child would be scarred for life. The best outcome we can hope for is that any one of these interventions would produce a greater sense of responsibility in the child’s mother.”
“And how long might all this take?”
Trinia sighed. “We can conduct the interview with the child today, and try to schedule the parental interview before the end of classes. But with the summer recess starting at the end of the week, this process could get delayed.”
“How long?”
“Weeks, maybe longer.”
“And the spot in the Summer Learning Program?”
“Becca, I can only hold that spot till the middle of the week. If somebody—somebody with authority—doesn’t sign that consent form by Wednesday afternoon, I’ll have to go to the next child on the waiting list. I’m sorry.”
“His name is Jonah.”
“I know that.”
“Jonah Bingham. You haven’t said his name once.”
The voice on the other end of the line hardened. “Don’t make this your personal crusade. You’ll lose, and maybe more than this one child.”
Becca took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You’ve been a great help, Trinia, and a good friend. I have no right to be angry with you.”
“Don’t be angry with anyone.”
“How do I do that?”
“By doing your job.”
“I’ll try my best,” Becca said, then added to herself after she hung up the phone, “But what if doing my job makes me angry?”
A few minutes later, her phone rang. It was Trinia. “I just called down to Jonah’s classroom. He’s absent today.”
Becca replied, “Why am I not surprised?”
“And I checked his absentee rate—it’s high but not high enough for a mandatory action. We could issue a warning; but this late in the year, it would have little meaning.”
“So you’re saying there’s nothing you can do from your end.”
“As far as school policy and standards are concerned, he’s under our radar. There are those intermediate steps I mentioned, but the time of year undermines their effectiveness. Our options are very limited.”
“And your advice about using the system?”
“The system has holes. He seems to have fallen into one.”
“Jonah fell in one at birth. I’d hoped to get him out.”
“Good luck. Let me know how I can help.”
“Hold the Summer Program slot open through Wednesday, please.”
“I will.”
“I’ll try to track his mother down.”
“Becca, don’t do anything foolish.”
“Like get involved?”
“Like finding yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are places in this town where you don’t want to go.”
“I’ll watch my step.”
“Better watch more than that.”