CHAPTER 7

Millie wasn’t lying on her bed facedown or sitting on the edge staring into space or looking pensively out the window as one might expect from an over-dramatic fifteen-year-old. She was standing in the middle of the room with hands on hips, waiting for her mother to knock on and open the bedroom door. Dove Franklin did just as she was expected. First came the knock then the door eased open, revealing her soft voice, “Millie? It’s mother.”

Millie didn’t shout any of the expected responses like “What do you want?” “Come in,” or even “I don’t feel like talking to you.” She just stood there as the door came toward her and her mother eased through the smallest possible opening as if to keep a world full of germs from entering behind her.

“Millie, what is going on? What happened at Macalbee’s?”

“They said I stole stuff.”

“Did you? Did you shoplift something?”

“I was going to pay for it. I was just picking things up and I was going to pay for it all and then a song came on the loudspeaker and I got to listening to it and I guess I just forgot and sorta walked out the back door without thinking. The next thing I knew they were all over me and telling me I was going to jail and I didn’t know what to do.”

“Did you tell them that you just forgot? Did you tell them exactly what you’re telling me?”

“Exactly what I’m telling you. But they didn’t care. That woman with that tight little perm, Mrs. What’s-her-face and a little colored man grabbed me and held me and drug me back inside. They took me to some dirty warehouse room and made me wait there on the police.”

“Lois Pence. Is that the woman?”

Millie nodded her head.

“Did Mr. Sandridge show up? Was he one of the people who talked to you?”

Millie stared out the window and twisted the chain she wore around her neck and brushed at flecks that weren’t on her sweater.

“Millie, I asked you if Mr. Sandridge was there.”

“He was there all right. He was the one that called the cops.”

“Honey, why don’t you take a bath and lie down for a little bit and let’s just let this thing calm down. I’m sure in a few hours it will all look a whole lot different.”

Dove said this with her arm around her only daughter and a tear in her voice. But there were no tears in her eyes. Crying was not one of Dove’s weaknesses and certainly not one of her defenses. She never even used her striking good looks the way other women who looked even half as good often did. But one glance in her dark brown eyes would have told you her mind was working overtime. She was planning her actions and Millie’s excuse and the other side to Paul’s inevitable argument. She slipped out of the room as carefully as she slipped in and saw Buddy Briggs walking out the front door to his car as she was coming down the stairs.

“Do you want to bring her down or do we need to talk first?”

“I see no need for either. She’s going to bed for a while and I think the best thing to do would be to leave her alone.”

“It’s not just about the shoplifting, Dove. Do you know what kind of problems she’s facing?”

“Problems? In her life or yours? Are you concerned because your daughter has been accused of something she may not have done or are you upset because the ‘preacher’s kid’ is in trouble, and God forbid anything besmirch the preacher’s name?”

“That’s not fair and you know it.”

“Fair is doing all you can for your family. That’s what fair is. Not selling out. Not settling down and giving up. Fair to your daughter is giving her every opportunity in life that you can. You think fair is praying for the bull not to trample you, and I think fair is shooting him between the eyes so that he won’t ever trample you or anyone else. But what’s the point of talking about it? Are we ever going to agree on anything again?”

There was a long silence as she put on her coat and scarf and gloves and he rubbed the backs of his hands and took a deep breath.

“Dove, I’m ready to make that move. You win. You and Millie. I’m ready to go. Let’s just get through Christmas and New Year’s and come the first of January, I’ll make the calls. And maybe then there will be some semblance of peace in this family again.”

“Yeah, you do that,” were the last words he heard before the front door slammed shut.

Paul and Dove Franklin had lived in Mt. Jefferson for nearly ten years. For half of that time she had ridden him almost daily to move. She quickly tired of the congregation and their “petty concerns,” as she was wont to call them. She never felt a part of his life and the things he felt were important. The people he felt a dedication to, she only felt resentment for. More often than not she viewed his caring nature as a personality flaw. She longed for him to be more concerned about her and Millie than with the one hundred or so pew-fillers he considered his family. What kept her awake nights was that she once felt the way he did. She was long past praying for understanding about why she’d changed. Life changes, and there was nothing she, or anyone else, could do about it.

Dove first saw Paul standing behind a podium from the second row at a campus rally their junior year in college. She fell in love with his authority and command before she even considered if he was cute. Those very traits that drew her to him now drained her daily of any emotion she ever felt for him. Authority and command be damned. She wanted a warm body to talk to and touch and feel close to. She was tired of sharing him with every old maid, divorcee, and new widow in the church who called at suppertime in tears wanting him to come by and listen to their problems. She was tired of interrupted vacations to come home for funerals or sudden hospitalizations. She was tired of being married to the entire church and always, always coming in last where need and desire and a little consideration were concerned.

Paul knew this. He had known for the past seven years. They left his first church about the time Millie started school. That move was for all the right reasons. Bigger church. Bigger community. More money. Better schools. Closer to her parents. But it all got too pat too quickly. The more the men and women of the congregation loved Paul, the more they resented her. Or maybe it just seemed so. She was dissatisfied and had to blame someone for her discomforts. Either way, it was time to move on, but Paul could be just as stubborn as she. And yet maybe he meant what he said. Maybe he was ready to make a move. Did he really want to or was the pressure finally getting to him? Her pressure. Her authority and command. It didn’t matter. Being gone was all that would matter. Being gone was the only thing that could solve the problem before it got any worse. The problem no one else knew about. The problem she certainly hoped to God no one else knew about.

Paul stood at the foot of the stairs in the foyer deciding whether to go up and talk to Millie or return to his study and finish the Christmas Eve sermon he had started. If he went upstairs, Millie surely wouldn’t talk to him. But if he went back to his desk, his mind would be too cluttered to write anything sensible. For the second time today he wished he still smoked.

Paul gave up all his bad habits the year after he met Dove—the year he decided he was going to seminary. She was his biggest supporter then. She encouraged him and told him often he was making the right decision. When did that stop? When Millie was born? When they moved to Mt. Jefferson? When he quit discussing his decision to stay or look for a new church? It was about that time she stopped teaching Sunday school and singing in the choir. About that time she started telling him how restless she was for a new town and new faces.

Having to make a choice between Dove and his church was something he’d never considered. Not until just a few minutes ago. There was something in her voice this time he had never heard before. He knew right now, two days before Christmas, that he had to make a choice. And he also knew there really were no options. Just one thing to do. The right thing. For the first time in years he felt a certain peace just knowing what was most important to him.