Roman said, “No, she didn’t.”
“I must be like a Biblical prophet!” my father said that evening. I was finally back at my parents’ house, having restoredfeeling to my wooden-block hands by sluicing them with warm water at the kitchen sink. Nell pulled out a package of frozen vegetables and began to make rudimentary fried rice, heavy on the soy sauce and scrambled eggs, as I told my family about the soon-to-be ex-pastor. My father said, “Was I right? I told you he was bent.”
All three of the women in his nuclear family ignored him.
“So you didn’t see Ruth, obviously,” my mom said.
“I’ll keep trying,” I said, adding that, on the drive back, I’d tried to call Ruth’s parents, but there was no answer and no way to leave a message. “I know Hal and Alice were not fans of Roman. Once on Fourth of July? Alice said Ruth told her about the Rapture and how everybody would go up to heaven on a big white horse. Alice said her daughter got that right from the horse’s ass. That makes sense, they were scientists and they raised Ruth that way. But it was personal too.”
Other teachers who worked with Ruth at Thornton Wilder High surely would have had word of her. That night, I would try to reach some of them.
Why would Ruth leave? Even if they lived with their father, you didn’t just up and abandon teenage kids. Surely, she would come to stand with Felicity at the trial, no matter what? Or did the magnitude of Felicity’s sins preclude even her mother’s presence? Would all her family so fully disown her? Was Ruth with her own parents, as Roman suggested? Or somewhere else?
“I think she grew up in the South,” Miranda said. “In Florida, if I’m not mistaken. Remember, Hal worked there, on the space shuttle?”
Ruth had not been close to anyone, either on our block or when the family moved to the mansion at Starbright Ministry. She was pleasant and pretty but painfully shy: People didn’t catch sight of her from one week to the next. It wasn’t as though somebody reported her missing when she missed spin class.
“For the life of me, I can’t figure how Felicity’s arrest and the collapse of the Roman empire are related, except that they involve the same people at the same time,” I told my mom.
My dad came back into the kitchen, his hockey game interrupted by a loud and tedious seven minutes of commercials for dog food and beer. At least, that was his excuse, but he was a horrible liar. We could tell he was eavesdropping. Dad was part owner of a company that built mansions not unlike Roman Wild’s “rectory,” and in a business where lesser people sometimes padded their pockets by padding your bills, he was known by his associates as Patrick the Pure. He was a little self-righteous. He was actually a lot self-righteous, especially when it came to religious shenanigans. Dad was a card-carrying member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation’s oldest organization of opinionated atheists, founded in Wisconsin. How could he keep silent on such a validating occasion? He had the grace to at least pretend he was just interested in his next cup of coffee. I was always afraid that my father would stroke out one snowy day from his competitive involvement with the Blackhawks or the Packers and his six daily cups of high-octane coffee.
“She must have known all along!” Nell said as we ate. “She’s an intelligent woman.”
“Not the same thing,” my mother said with a sigh. “Roman was always off on TV or preaching at one of those revival things. Maybe she didn’t suspect for a long time.”
My father snorted, and Miranda gave him the side-eye.
“So when Ruth found out about the other wife, she left him?” Nell asked.
“Well, he kind of left her first,” I said. “He’s ruined as a minister but, you know? He doesn’t seem all that torn up about it. He’s got nine lives.” The sheer audacity of men was made manifest to me again. Only some men, true, but at that moment, for me,Roman Wild’s was only the most extreme example of the everyday arrogance of the entitled white guy.
With the smug certainty of a second-year law student, Nell said, “Well, now he’s going to have to face the laws of the State of Wisconsin instead of just the wrath of God. Dad’s right. He’ll do time instead of just his penance. He’ll be doing Sunday services in prison.”
I wasn’t so sure. I still thought that Roman might have another trick or two up his sleeve.
“If this isn’t proof that Christianity is a racket to make people stop thinking and start obeying, then what is?” my dad said. I suppressed a sigh. We’d all heard it before. “And this God they praise? Cruel? Merciful? Whichever suits Him. But always demanding that people bow down for His glory. And pony up their money.”
My mother said, “Pat, settle down. Not all Christians are...”
“Sheep?” Nell said. “I believe they are, in the psalms anyhow. Lambs.”
“I’m definitely not surprised by any of this,” my father said. “Not too unhappy about it either, except for the sake of Ruth and those kids.”
“And Felicity,” I added.
“Felicity, well, Felicity is...”
“What?” I said, biting off the word.
“Another matter,” my father concluded, but I knew that was not what he originally meant to say. If even Patrick the Pure was so willing to judge her history, it might be a tall order to find really impartial jurors.
“People have a right to worship how they please, Pat,” my mom said.
“And I have a right to my beliefs. All that bloviating about the blessings the Lord bestowed is violating my right.”
“That’s not their intent.”
“If I say that you are fat and I don’t mean it as an insult, if I’m giving you a description, then is it okay? Or am I pushing it on you as a fact?”
