The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love - By Beth Pattillo Page 0,82
me?” Eugenie’s question came out as a bark.
“Your faith is your business, Eugenie, and no one else’s.”
“Hazel says I need to prove I’m a believer.”
Paul laughed. “Is that why you’ve been volunteering for everything in sight?” He shook his head. “Your relationship to the church, to God, isn’t about me. It shouldn’t be, anyway.”
“But—”
“Look, Eugenie, I’ve dealt with far more difficult problems over the course of my career. I’ll get through this.”
“Yes, I’m sure you will, but it shouldn’t be just you getting through this. I’m your wife. We’re supposed to be a team now.”
“So what should I have done? Told you that you had to stand up in worship and make a statement of faith?”
Eugenie pursed her lips. “Of course not. But you had to have known how people felt. We could have at least discussed it.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.” As quick as a wink, his eyes went blank, as if he’d pulled a set of window blinds closed. Eugenie had never seen him do that before.
“Paul? What’s going on?”
“Nothing. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“Then why do you look like that? Sound like that?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He turned away to shuffle some papers on his desk.
“You sound like I’m not allowed to know what you’re thinking. To be part of your decision. Your life.”
At that his face crumpled, as if a giant hand had wadded him up like a sheet of paper. “Eugenie—”
Just her name, but filled with anguish.
“Paul—” She reached for him, grabbing his clasped hands in hers. “Tell me.”
He shook his head, and then his shoulders began to shake as well. Eugenie, for the first time in decades, knew pure fear.
“Paul, you have to tell me. What is it?”
He raised his watery gaze to hers. “It was my fault.”
“What was your fault?”
“Helen’s death. Helen’s death was my fault.”
Eugenie’s head snapped back, as if he’d delivered a physical blow. “Your wife died of cancer.” She gripped his hands more tightly. “How in the world could that be your fault?”
“I pushed her too hard, wanting her to meet everyone’s expectations. The older I got, the more I tried to dictate to her.”
Eugenie couldn’t imagine Paul being dictatorial to anyone. “That’s just survivor’s guilt talking. I’m sure you did no such thing.”
Paul laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. Only pain and loss. “I did. And eventually it killed her.”
“So your solution is to not ask anything of me? Even if what you’re saying is true, isn’t that jumping out of the frying pan into the fire?” She paused. “Besides, I’ve heard you talk about Helen. She doesn’t seem like a pushover from the way you describe her.”
“She started to get tired, but I ignored it. Just kept encouraging her to play the piano for the children’s choir, organize the fund-raising walk for steeple repairs.” He freed his hands from her grasp. “None of which was a matter of life-and-death.”
“People get sick, Paul. You can’t control that.”
“But I made her worse. Made it worse.”
“How do you know that?”
And then, though she’d been afraid before, terror rose in her as she looked into his eyes, no longer blank but instead filled with anguish.
“I pushed her when she was sick, and she died. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”
All her life Eugenie had thought preachers were a cut above regular people. She’d believed they had some special connection to God that insulated them from the vagaries of human existence. But since she and Paul had reconnected, she’d begun to see a new, clearer picture of the life of a minister. Now that Paul had revealed his secret fear to her, she could interpret his insistence that she not conform to the church’s expectations in a whole new light. He wasn’t being generous or tolerant or supportive. He was afraid.
“Paul, I’m not going to die just because I do a few things for the church. Or because Hazel Emerson and her ilk question my faith.”
He shook his head. “I know that.”
“But do you? Do you really? Or do you just know it without believing it?”
He looked at her. She could see that thought hadn’t occurred to him before. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. And it’s not your job to sacrifice yourself at my expense.”
“Eugenie—”
“That’s why,” she said, the words spilling out before she’d consciously formed them, “I’ve decided to stand up next Sunday and give my testimony.”
Esther wasn’t sure how it had happened, how she and Brody McCullough had come to eat