April 22, 1986

April 22, 1986

     Bill wiped up the table in his usual, half-assed way, leaving many crumbs behind and streaks of jam and jelly. Angela came up behind him to help him set the next table before realizing in her usual motherly way, that there was quite a bit of cleanup to do for her adopted child, which she did humming to herself and without showing the slightest bit of consternation.

     "What's that you left on Tom's desk, Bill?" Angela said.

     "Notice."
     "Notice?" Angela came back with, heartbroken, but trying not to show it.

     "I'm graduating from seminary in two weeks."
     "Oh my God, congratulations! What will you do?"
     "I'll go back home for a little while, I think, and then find a ministry."

     "You'll be a great pastor," she said with a loving smile that Bill did not receive from starting to stare at the window at a passing truck or butterfly.

     Angela really was going to miss Bill. She loved talking about theology with him. They could talk freely the way Angela was always afraid to with her own pastor. She didn't want her pastor to think badly of her. But Bill didn't raise any eyebrow no matter what she questioned. He was still questioning quite a bit about the Bible himself. He was still deciding what sort of ministry he wanted to run; he hadn't yet had to accept the ministry he had been handed. For example, he wasn't totally abundantly sure that Easter, a pagan fertility holiday, needed to be celebrated at all, though he supposed people's strong feelings for it, and the opportunity to get people to think deeply about their faith and renew it was worth accepting it as a part of any ministry, its dubious origins accepted.

     But, when she thought about it, she noticed a darkness in him, a darkness which she hoped would find a positive outlet over time, the way her son's dark thoughts had turned into a very successful career in illustration when he reached adulthood. His nightmares had become enjoyable reading for others.

     Angela kept flashing back to Thanksgiving Day last year, after they had closed, and they had been discussing the topic of the day, which was that the very popular and likely Prom Queen and part-time waitress, Lorlene, was pregnant, and had spent the last two weeks begging forgiveness from her father, who was trying to resign himself to it but unable to because he blamed himself for having been too soft on her in the first place.

     "She came to me," Bill said softly. "She asked me if there was a way for God to forgive her for getting rid of it. If there was any way she could make it up, by doing good works or charity. She was crying. She wanted to do the right thing, but she just couldn't handle it."

     "What did you tell her?"

     "I told her that this was like a soldier asking if he had to shoot, or a judge asking if he had to convict. We cannot sidestep our responsibility because we fear judgment. We must fear instead the judgment of our countrymen that we did not halt the enemy from advancing, or fear the judgment of our fellow citizens that we did not lock up a dangerous criminal when given the chance. The responsibility of a woman to bear a child is one of the gravest responsibilities a woman can have."

     Angela looked in his eyes, and he saw the cold, dead stare of a sharpshooter, instead of the kind calm of a pastor. This darkness, this messianic darkness, frightened her when she thought about it. For a minute, she suspected that Bill was somehow the father of the Prom Queen's child, but this was wild fantasy, the stuff of her romance novels. Everyone knew it was Lorlene's boyfriend, Chase. Even if Bill were amenable, which would have been hard not only for his general feelings against having any contact with a woman he was not married to save his mother and sisters but his dismissal of anyone that was not as cerebral as he was, Lorlene wouldn't be caught dead with him.

     No, he was not lost in thought considering the nights he had had with Lorlene. He was lost in thought considering how a war may need to be fought. May need to be fought for Lorlene's soul, and if that was not won, a war for her baby. It would be born, no matter what, and there were limits to his abilities as pastor to dissuade her.

     That December came and Lorlene's baby bump disappeared, as did all mention of her ever having been pregnant as if the whole thing had been a dream only further intensified the danger Angela felt from that conversation. Not to Angela, of course. Angela's youthful indiscretions were safely locked away from view, because they had happened so long ago. Angela felt as if someone was going to be visited by Bill. Someone was going to be made to pay for not upholding their responsibility. Angela didn't know who, and that worried her all the more.

     But nothing ever came of that suspicion, and this darkness, as with her son, did not make her love her adopted son Bill any less. She worried, as she had done with her own son, about the darkness in him, but she prayed it would find a positive outlet. That it had in her son gave her pause to alert anybody about it, or let her suspicion make her overt in her resistance to this darkness.

     She hoped her interest in their future was enough to steer them towards the light. But now Bill was going on his way, back to his domineering father, a politician of some kind. Something told her that there was a darkness in his father, too, that he was vainly hoping to avenge by "being good."

      But there Angela was again, trying to save everybody from themselves! Boy, Trudy would have a good laugh when Angela told her she was briefly considering telling Bill to stay and be her adopted son so she could make sure that he didn't go a-killing people in some sort of Holy War. As if Angela didn't have problems of her own! 

     "Well, Bill, I'm going to miss you around here, I really will."
     Bill smiled, a rarity. "I'll miss you, too. You've been kinda like my mommy away from home."

     "That's so sweet of you to say, Bill. I really hoped you would feel that way. I know how hard it is to be away from home sometimes."

     Bill nodded. "But there's no use saying goodbye just yet. I still have two weeks."
     "You're real responsible, Bill. I like that about you."

     "Thank you, but to be honest, Angela, I really need the money! There's not much work back home and being a counselor at our church's summer camp hasn't paid a single day three summers running!"
     Angela let out a hearty guffaw.

     She supposed after all, there would be good people where he was going, too. People to steer him into trouble, yes, but also people to steer him out of it.

     And, as Trudy would say, "you can't save the whole world from the inside of this diner!"

     Well, she could certainly try.