Snow Angels (8 page)

The week before Thanksgiving, Kendra looked very different than she had twelve weeks previously. Her formerly two-sizes-too-large sweaters barely fit her now. The purple yarn stitches stretched tight to accommodate the basketball bulge of Kendra’s belly, looking completely at odds with her still slender legs in their black tights.

Gazing into the studio mirror as she led her advanced beginner tap class through the last chorus of “Rock Around the Clock,” Kendra decided she looked like an enormous dancing grape clinging to a withered black stem.

Like a Fruit of the Loom commercial gone horribly wrong
, she thought as she peered into the mirror before observing that, once again, Nora Casey had turned left when the rest of the girls had turned right, bumping into Jena Lukens.

“Nora!” Jena shouted, stomping her tap shoe. “Knock it off!”

“Sorry,” Nora mumbled. Her face turned red.

“You’re so clumsy!”

“Jena, that’s enough of that,” Kendra said, raising her voice to be heard over the clatter of the eight little pairs of feet that were still tapping out the time step. “Catch up. Both of you. Shuffle, hop, step, step, fa-lap, step. Come on, everybody. Here comes the swing step. Are you ready?”

Jena glared at Nora a moment longer before resuming the dance, pasting an insincere smile on her face, putting her arms out in front of her, and flipping her wrists up and down in perfect time to the music while her feet flawlessly tapped out the steps of the dance. With her easy grace, Jena was a sharp contrast to Nora who hesitated several moments, trying to recapture the beat before rejoining the dance. When she did she moved stiffly with her head held at a downward angle and her eyes glued to the feet of the girl in front of her, shuffling uncertainly through the steps, a heartbeat behind the rest of the girls.

Normally, Kendra would have stopped the music and had them all start again, so Nora wouldn’t get into the habit of falling behind, but she just didn’t have the energy. She was so tired.

It was a good thing that she’d taken Andy’s advice and handed the directorship of the Christmas pageant over to Darla. The way she was feeling now, there was no way she’d have been able to get through a full rehearsal schedule and teach classes at the studio. Three months ago, she’d been filled with boundless energy and now? It was all she could do to lead the ten little tappers through “Rock Around the Clock.”

Not for the first time, Kendra thought about how much had changed in the last three months.

Now she truly was enormous with child. And while she was still excited about the upcoming birth, she was worried about…well, almost everything. Nothing seemed as simple and clear-cut as it had been when she and Andy stood kissing in the living room, filled with love and gratitude for each other and for the new baby that would soon join their family.

It seemed to Kendra that the bigger her belly got, the more distant Andy had become. Being a pastor wasn’t easy; Kendra knew that. Andy had to be a manager, diplomat, teacher, speaker, and nursemaid, as well as a spiritual guide to his flock. He had to be available to them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Kendra had known from the first that being a pastor’s wife meant sharing her husband with half the town and being understanding when emergencies called him away, often at the oddest hours. With the church membership growing, it was unusual for the Loomis family to go more than three nights running without the phone ringing in the middle of the night, summoning Andy to the bedside of some seriously ill church member. Sometimes, after one of these late night summonses, he was able to return home and grab a short nap before going to work, but more often than not he went directly from the hospital to the church. Kendra didn’t know how he was able to function on so little sleep and, to make matters worse, recently the board of deacons had scheduled a lot of night meetings. That, in combination with the usual evening programs at the church, meant that Andy rarely ate with the family anymore.

Kendra and Thea ate their dinner together, often in silence. What had become of the sweet little girl with the blond braids and ready smile? The girl who had captured Kendra’s heart three years ago? Everything changed when Thea started high school. At fourteen, Thea was in the full bloom of adolescence, giddy and silly one moment, moody and brooding the next. Kendra knew that these teenage mood swings were normal. She remembered being that way herself at that age. Even so, Kendra found it hard to understand how her relationship with Thea had changed so much and so quickly.

Having barely known a mother’s love, Thea had eagerly welcomed Kendra to the family, proudly introducing Kendra to everyone she met as her mom, never using the word stepmother. That suited Kendra just fine. She loved Thea as her own child. So much so that, when she discovered she was pregnant, Kendra had been a little worried, wondering if she could ever love another child as much as she loved Thea. And as badly as she was behaving, Kendra still loved her.

But she missed the closeness and cozy talks they used to have. Now, the moment she finished eating, Thea mumbled a request to be excused and then went to her bedroom, rarely emerging until the next morning. Kendra did the dishes with only Wendell, the tawny and white cat she’d brought with her from New York, to keep her company. The greedy feline wound around her ankles while she worked, waiting for Kendra to toss a few table scraps his way. After the kitchen was clean, Kendra sat on the family room sofa with Wendell curled up beside her and watched television until bedtime, not bothering to build a fire because it seemed like a waste if there was no one to share it with.

Sometimes Andy arrived home before Kendra went to sleep, but when she tried to talk to him about his day, he would brush off her questions, saying that the last thing he wanted to talk about was work. He was still Andy, as sweet and kind as ever, solicitous of her health and the baby’s, jumping up to get her a pillow if Kendra’s back hurt, or to rub her legs when she got a cramp, never forgetting to ask how her day had gone, and listening dutifully while she talked. And that was just the problem. Every kindness Andy performed for her he performed dutifully…and distantly, as though he were going through the motions.

At bedtime, before he turned out the light, Andy would lean over and give Kendra a quick peck on the lips before rolling onto his side with his back facing her and falling into a deep and exhausted sleep while Kendra lay awake in the dark, wondering if she and Andy would ever make love again. This far into her pregnancy with her belly so big that even tying her shoelaces was a struggle, Kendra wasn’t exactly seething with wanton passions, but now more than ever, she craved her husband’s affection and the reassurance of his embrace.

Andy was so busy, distracted by the growing demands of his flock. It was understandable that he had so little time for her and yet…

The class ended, ten little girls sat on benches in the lobby to exchange tap shoes for snow boots before heading out into the frigid Vermont winter. One by one, the girls bundled up and headed out the door to the parking lot where their parents sat waiting with their car heaters running full blast, waving good-bye to Kendra as they left and promising that they’d practice their time step every day before the next class.

Nora was the last to leave. She zipped up her jacket and headed for the door, pausing before a framed publicity photograph of Kendra in full Rockette regalia, dressed in a glittering snowflake costume.

Nora sighed as she gazed at the picture. “Kendra, was it wonderful to be a Rockette?”

“It was.”

“When was this picture taken?”

“About five years ago.”

Nora looked at her teacher, resting her eyes on Kendra’s bloated belly before returning to the photograph. “That was a long time ago. You sure don’t look like that anymore, do you?”

Kendra stared at the young woman in the picture, with her bright smile, her legs extending from beneath the short skirt in a long, shapely line, and her stomach taut, trim, and flat as a board under the sparkly fabric of her costume.

“No. Not anymore.”

“Do you think you’ll look like that again,” the little girl asked innocently. “I mean, after the baby?”

“I think you’d better go now, Nora. It’s late. You don’t want to keep your mother waiting.”

Andy Loomis leaned back in his desk chair and rubbed his eyes, trying to ward off a headache. He’d already put in a long day and it wasn’t over yet.

There was to be another meeting of the board tonight, the fourth one this month. Andy felt there was no need to call another, but Riley Roth had called the day before and very politely made the request. Considering the way things ended last time and how he’d thrown cold water on Riley’s plans, Andy decided to go along with the suggestion. After all, he didn’t want to extinguish Riley’s enthusiasm entirely, just rein him in a little.

When he’d left for work that day, he told Kendra he was going to be late again. Her only response to this news was to shrug and say, “Okay.”

In the past, she’d have given him some gas about scheduling yet another meeting that week. Now she seemed resigned, as though she’d accepted that this was the way things were and always would be. Her benign response made him feel worse than if she’d nagged him about neglecting her. At least then he could have felt defensive and gone off feeling justified that he was doing the best he could for his church and his family. Instead he drove to work feeling guilty.

The truth was, he
had
been neglecting his family. Not intentionally, but this whole business with Riley and the board of deacons had been sucking up a huge piece of his time and energy. And he couldn’t even explain that to Kendra because he hadn’t told her anything about it. Time was when Andy told Kendra nearly everything about his work day, but now? He just didn’t think it was a good idea.

It was one thing to tell his wife about the trivial trials and foibles that were common to any church—the ongoing disagreements over what kind of music should be played on Sunday and at what tempo, the annual budget battles, the letters he received every summer from the congregant who felt that for the choir to sing without their robes was tantamount to blasphemy, or the debates about what to do with the three boys from the youth group who’d been caught trying to sneak over to the girls’ cabin during the junior high retreat. But it was another thing to tell Kendra things that might make members of the church, especially people in leadership positions, appear in a bad light.

Andy had spent his whole life in the ministry. During his lifetime, Andy’s father had been pastor of this same church and Andy had grown up in Maple Grove. He knew that the people of his church were basically good-hearted, well-intentioned folks, even when they didn’t act like it. But, in spite of being the pastor’s wife, Kendra was still young in her faith. He didn’t want to share anything that might cause her to think badly of the church.

And it wasn’t just that. As a newly ordained minister, during his first marriage, he’d told his wife, Sharon, absolutely every detail of what went on at the church. It had been a mistake.

For the first months of their married life, everything was fine. They were in love, excited to be working together in the ministry, and filled with expectation about the upcoming birth of their first child, even though that birth was coming a little sooner than they’d planned. Everything in their lives seemed to be going beautifully, but before long, things got tougher.

Andy was working as a youth pastor in a large congregation in Oregon. He and the senior pastor didn’t see eye to eye on a number of issues and, as the differences between him and his boss widened, Andy told Sharon all about it, just as he always had. That’s what had started their problems, Andy was sure.

Around the sixth month of her pregnancy, Sharon’s excitement about the baby waned. She was always grumbling about the church and, more often than he should have, Andy joined in, freely adding his own complaints to hers. As the time for the birth neared, Sharon became moody and depressed. Andy was worried about her, but Sharon’s doctor assured him that mood swings in pregnancy were perfectly normal and that Sharon would return to her old self after the baby was born.

It didn’t happen. The girl he’d fallen in love with and married had disappeared. Sharon was good to Thea, always made sure she was clean and dressed and fed, but she didn’t seem to take any delight in the baby. Andy called the doctor who said it was probably just a case of the “baby blues” and that Andy shouldn’t worry too much, that it would pass; but it never did. Shortly after Thea’s fourth birthday, Sharon left, leaving a business card for a divorce lawyer and a note saying she was sorry, that she was moving to San Francisco and giving him full custody of Thea. Not too long after that Andy’s parents were killed in a car accident. Andy went back to Vermont to take over his father’s pulpit and raise his orphaned younger sister, Stacey. He and Thea never saw Sharon again.

It wasn’t entirely his doing, Andy knew that, but he had never been able to shake the feeling that the breakup of his marriage had started when he began telling Sharon all about his problems at the church. So when Kendra had told him she was pregnant, Andy decided he wasn’t going to talk about anything that could possibly upset her. He was determined not to make the same mistake twice.

But, seeing the resigned expression on her face that morning made him think he might have gone a little overboard. Maybe he’d been keeping too much from her. Now that this problem with the board seemed to be behind him, he would be more open with her.

By the time he arrived at the church that morning, he had decided that meeting or no meeting, he was going to have dinner with his family. He sent an e-mail around to everyone saying that the meeting was going to start at exactly five and end no later than six-thirty. Then, feeling good about this decision, Andy went on with his day and worked on his Sunday sermon.

Usually writing a sermon left him feeling energized but not today. By four-thirty his temples were beginning to throb and he knew it wasn’t from eyestrain. Early adjournment or no, Andy simply didn’t want to go to yet another board meeting.

No
, he thought to himself,
it’s not just the meeting. The truth is, I don’t want to see Riley Roth
.

Riley Roth was the newest member of the church board and fairly new to Maple Grove as well. He was from North Carolina where he’d worked in the furniture business until, two years before, he’d taken a job as a marketing manager at the new chair factory that had opened on the edge of town. Riley was married. He and his wife, Dana, had twin sons.

The new factory had brought a lot of new people to town and a good number of them had joined the church, but Riley stood out among the newcomers. He threw himself into the activities of the congregation quickly and with enthusiasm. In addition to attending a couples’ Sunday school class with Dana, Riley joined the Wednesday morning men’s Bible study, the choir, and the finance committee. With Andy’s blessing, he started a new ministry, Hands of Help, that met every other Saturday to visit the elderly and infirm to help them with chores or home repairs. It was a wonderful ministry that served not just church members, but anyone in the surrounding community who needed assistance.

When the Bells retired and moved to Florida, leaving Sally Bell’s spot on the board open, a couple of the other members had suggested asking Riley to fill the vacancy. It was unusual to bring someone onto the board so soon after they’d joined the church and, at twenty-eight, Riley was much younger than the other members. But Andy had been impressed by Riley’s desire to serve and thought having someone a little younger, with fresh ideas, might be a good addition to the mix. With the blessing of the board, Andy asked Riley to think and pray about joining their ranks.

Riley accepted on the spot.

Riley threw himself into his new position with eagerness. As Andy had hoped, Riley was full of energy and ideas—maybe a little too full. No matter what the service, program, or ministry, Riley had ideas about how it could be improved and almost always, those improvements revolved around the way things had been done back in North Carolina. According to Riley, absolutely everything about the church was tired, out-of-date, and inadequate. If Andy could have collected a dollar for every time Riley furrowed his brow and said, “Well, you know, back at my old church we used to…” they could have built a new church.

And that would have suited Riley just fine because, before long, it was clear that was exactly what Riley thought they needed to do, build a whole new church.

In 1962, the congregation had built a new education and administration wing, complete with kitchen, fellowship hall, and pastor’s offices, connected to the church by a glassed-in breezeway. However, the sanctuary was original to the site. It was classic New England architecture, the kind of church that tourists stopped to take pictures of, white clapboard siding with tall, clear glass windows, topped by a soaring bell spire. Built in 1866, the church had not changed at all since its original construction. As far as Andy was concerned, the historic building was a source of pride, not concern. Yes, it was true that the recent growth in the congregation had made the pews a little more crowded, but Andy felt that was no reason to scrap such a beautiful church.

Initially, the rest of the board had agreed. They were all good New Englanders, and frugal by nature, raised on the old Yankee maxim that they should, “use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Nobody was anxious to take on the expense of a new building program, not when they already had a perfectly good building.

But as the months passed and Riley continued to make pointed, persistent, and consistently unfavorable comparisons between his old church and his new church, the other board members started to wonder if he might not be right. It wasn’t something that happened overnight, but early in the fall, particularly as they discussed the influx of visitors who would crowd the church to see the Christmas pageant, many of whom would like what they saw and return for Christmas services and then stay on to become full-fledged members of the church, Andy could sense a subtle shift toward Riley’s viewpoint.

Denny Sugarman, who owned the biggest maple syrup farm in that part of the state, wasn’t convinced. Denny hadn’t said anything against the idea—he wasn’t much for speaking unless he had something important to say—but Andy could see in his face that he didn’t think much of Riley’s big plans.

But by the time October came and leaves had turned and fallen to expose the skeletons of the trees, just about every other member of the board was thinking they ought to build a new church. And every person who held that view had very specific ideas about exactly what features and improvements a new, state-of-the-art, user-friendly church should include. That was Riley’s word—user-friendly. Or rather it had been Riley’s word. Now everybody was tossing it around as if they’d invented it. And, Andy noticed, everyone had a different idea of what it meant.

Some people thought that user-friendly meant adding a great big overhang to the front of the building so people could pull up to the front of the church in bad weather and unload the family under cover. Others argued that it might be even more user-friendly to recruit a team of volunteer valets to park the cars when the weather was bad. Somebody else had the idea that it was too inconvenient and old-fashioned to perform baptisms at the lake every summer and that, if they really wanted to be user-friendly, they should buy a new, indoor baptistery with a heater and chlorination system. Still another person thought that what the church really needed was a new, bigger lobby with an espresso machine and café tables.

“Something like that would help bring in the young folks and more new members, give them a place to meet after services where they can relax and get to know people.”

“But we have that already,” Andy argued. “We’ve got a perfectly good fellowship hall in the basement. The hospitality committee served coffee and cake to over two hundred people last Sunday, including more than a dozen visitors. Everyone enjoyed their cake and getting caught up with each other and meeting the new people. How would putting in an espresso machine and café tables make any difference?”

The person who’d made the original suggestion seemed stumped by that and, other than mumbling something about an espresso machine being more “user-friendly,” didn’t have an answer to Andy’s question. But that didn’t matter. Everybody still thought an espresso café would make a fine addition to the church. And just about everybody thought they needed a new sound system. In this instance, Andy was among them.

Their current soundboard was on its last legs. It blew a fuse about every three weeks. Andy thought that spending a few thousand dollars on a new soundboard, a couple of new microphones, some new acoustical tiles in the balcony made good sense and said so. Next thing he knew, Riley pulled a manila folder out of his briefcase and started passing around glossy, full-color brochures from a sound engineering consulting firm.

“These guys designed the sound system for my old church, back in North Carolina,” Riley enthused while the rest of the board flipped through the brochures eagerly eyeing an array of microphones, duplicators, and monitors. “They did a great job. Put in a whole new sound system, plus rigged us up for videoconferencing, taping, and duplication. You should see it! Completely state of the art! Now we can videotape any service or program we want and record them onto DVDs so we can deliver them to the elderly or shut-ins.”

“We do that already,” Andy said, turning to Dean Hamilton, who, in addition to serving as a board member, chaired the church technology committee. “Dean tapes the services every Sunday morning and leaves the master in the office. On Monday, Ruth, my secretary, makes duplicates and mails them out to any people who are too ill or elderly to come to church.”

“Tapes?” Riley asked skeptically. “Cassette tapes? Isn’t that a little nineties?”

Dean Hamilton’s gaze shifted from Andy’s face to the glossy brochure with its pages and pages of new, hi-tech equipment. His eyes glittered.

“Riley has a point, Andy. Cassettes are kind of old-fashioned. I sure wouldn’t mind getting some of this DVD equipment. And look at this.” He pointed to a tall DVD duplicator, a shining silver column studded with all kinds of little drawers and dials.