Chapter One
Thomas is snoring.
Which means there’s a problem with his CPAP, which means that I, as the dutiful wife in this equation, should gently shake him awake lest he suffer brain damage from oxygen deprivation. But it’s very nearly five a.m., and if I wake him, that will be the end of all hope for time alone with my thoughts.
How much does a little bit of oxygen deprivation really hurt a person, anyway? Surely he’ll be fine.
With the finesse of long experience, I slide out of bed without jiggling the mattress. The room is full dark, but my questing fingers easily locate my bathrobe, draped over the foot of the bed. I tiptoe out of the room and ease the door closed behind me, reveling in the solitude as I pad, barefoot, down the hallway.
I love the soft mystery of the shadowy kitchen illuminated only by the streetlight outside, but I love the peace and quiet even more. This is my time, this thirty minutes stolen from the demands and expectations of the day.
First thing, I withdraw a single-serving packet of tuna from the pantry and stealthily open the back door. A disreputable orange cat sits at a wary distance, watching me. One ear is half missing, and he’s thinner than I’d like, but he looks better than he did when I caught him digging through my garbage can a few months back. Since then, we’ve come to an agreement. If I provide him morning tuna, he will leave my garbage alone. Beyond that concession, he is unwilling to go. I can’t get near him or touch him, and he won’t eat as long as I’m watching.
When I go back inside, I drop the telltale evidence into the trash can in the kitchen, wash my hands, and retrieve my journal from its hiding place in the cupboard by the stove. Thomas is clear that a man’s place is never in the kitchen, so my secrets are more safely hidden behind the baking sheets than they would be under lock and key. Sometimes I stash novels in that cupboard, as well. There are things a pastor doesn’t need to know about his wife’s choice of reading material.
Unlike the covers of the novels, fantasy romance featuring adventurous characters in scandalous states of inappropriate dress, my current journal appears demure and church-sanctioned. I won it as a prize at a women’s conference. Prayer Journal is printed in large letters across the front, followed by a scripture: A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pitchers of silver. Proverbs 25:11.
But what is inside strays far from the teachings of what I privately call the Church of Thomas, decidedly not fitting to my role of Pastor’s Wife and Helpmeet.
Rendered solid and real by the magic of ink and paper, the thoughts I jot down here remind me that I am something more than Mrs. Thomas Lightsey. It’s not the first journal I’ve kept, and it won’t be the last. When all of the pages are filled, I’ll shred it, as I’ve shredded all of the others.
Sitting on the floor in front of the window, letting the light from the streetlamp illuminate my page just enough to make out the lines, I write:
January 3, 2019
Hey you, are you still in there?
I feel that I’m losing you, no matter how hard I try to hold on. I’ve resorted to small acts of rebellion. Yesterday I hung one of Thomas’s green shirts in with the blues. Moved that hideous vase on the coffee table two inches off-center. I wondered if he would even notice, but of course he did. And instructed me, oh so kindly, about the need for perfect order and the whole cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness doctrine.
I’m not so sure God is big on perfect order. Surely even He would get bored with that. Maybe that’s the reason for entropy. Imagine if everything just was perfect and stayed perfect and He had absolutely nothing to fix or do for eternity? Give me hell before that sort of heaven.
And yes, God, I know You’re reading this because even my thoughts don’t really belong to me. So since You’re reading along, I want to ask You something. You know what I want, more than anything in the world?
A room of my own, à la Virginia Woolf. Like Thomas’s study, only mine. I’d paint it soft blue, I think. And have one of those antique writing desks with the roll top. Wouldn’t it be lovely to sit and think and write like this in the middle of the day and not just first thing in the morning?
I hear Thomas waking. Gotta go.
Stay with me, Inner Liz. Please don’t ever leave me.
I slide the journal back into its hiding place and shift smoothly into a routine perfectly orchestrated over the course of thirty years of marriage. Lights on. Slippers on my feet. I turn the burner on under the frying pan to heat the potatoes I prepped last night. Start the preloaded coffeepot.
Precisely ten minutes later, I fix Thomas a mug of coffee with one scant spoonful of sugar and the perfect dollop of cream. I give the sizzling potatoes a stir. Lift the mug and turn, smile in place, to welcome my husband with fragrant coffee and a morning kiss.
Chapter Two
Click-clack. Click-clack. Yarn over, slide the stitch.
My fingers itch with boredom. The clock on the wall says 4:15. Another hour and forty-five minutes until I’m released from this slow torture, and I’m already stuffed to the gills with gossip and innuendo. My butt aches from the hard wooden chair I’ve put myself in, having left the softer seats for my knitting circle guests. The baby blanket I’m knitting is only two inches long, with hundreds of dreary rows left to go.
“Really, I can’t believe Marjorie asked to head up the committee,” Earlene is saying, her knitting needles clicking her righteous indignation. “Every week she’s at church, as it should be, of course. But surely she knows she can’t be in leadership when we all know what she’s up to. She doesn’t even try to hide it.”
Earlene is my across-the-street neighbor, and was unofficially running our congregation long before my husband took over as pastor. If God were bossable, she’d likely take Him on as a project, but since He’s out of her reach, she contents herself with managing people. Since Thomas isn’t any more open to her opinions than God is, she generally presents them to me.
“We need to love her back to Jesus, not cast stones.” Kimber’s tone is pure holier-than-thou. “I invited her over for dinner after church last week.”
“And got all the salacious details, I’ll bet. Come on, spill.” Annie’s eyes, alight with mischief, meet mine. I want to grin at her, but it’s my responsibility as the hostess of this Blankets for Babies Knitting Circle and the wife of a holy man of God to curb wagging tongues.
Personally, I have sympathy for Marjorie, the gossip meal of the day. Her husband is a lout. I know, but can’t say, that he beats her. I’ve watched the two of them come in for marriage counseling, heard Thomas advise him to love his wife the way Jesus loves the church, and reassure her that her love in Christ will save the marriage. He’s prayed over them more than once.
Prayers are useless over a man like that. God’s not going to smite him down, no matter how often he smites his wife. If she’s left the brute and moved in with an unbeliever who, reportedly, has a gun and is willing to use it in order to protect her, she has my sympathy.
I steer the conversation toward safer waters.
“Tell us all about the wedding, Amy. Has Lisa chosen a dress?”
It’s not the smoothest segue in the world, but none of them notice. Weddings and babies are the only topics that rival juicy gossip, and fortunately we have a wedding coming up.