The Friday before Martin Luther King Day, Agatha and Stuart flew in for the long weekend and Thomas came down from New York. Agatha toured the house from basement to attic, checking the results of the Clutter Counseling. She approved in general but pointed out to Daphne that a sort of overlayer was beginning to sprout on various counters and dressers. “Yes, Rita warned us that might happen,” Daphne said. “She offers a quarterly touch-up service but I swore I would do it myself.”
Agatha said, “Hmm,” and glanced at the cat’s flea collar, which for some reason sat on the breadboard. “I wonder how much one of these touch-ups would cost.”
“I could probably get a bargain rate,” Daphne told her. Shoot, she could probably get it for free, if Rita still had her crush on Ian. But maybe she had recovered by now. Daphne hadn’t seen her since that evening in the bar.
Saturday Agatha and Stuart attended an all-day conference on bone marrow transplants, and that night they had dinner with some of their colleagues. This may have been why, on Sunday, they agreed to go to church with the rest of the family. They had barely shown their faces, after all, and tomorrow they would be flying out again. Ian was thrilled, you could tell. He talked his father into coming along too, which ordinarily was next to impossible. Churches ought to look like churches, Doug always said. He was sorry, but that was just the way he felt.
It was coat weather, but sunny, and so they went on foot — Doug and Ian, then Thomas and Stuart, with Agatha and Daphne bringing up the rear. As they passed each house on Waverly Street, Agatha inquired about the occupants. “What do you see of the Crains these days? Does Miss Bitz still teach piano?” It wasn’t till that moment that Daphne realized how much had changed here. The Crains, no longer newlyweds, had moved to a bigger house after the birth of their third daughter. Miss Bitz had died. Others had gone on to condominiums or retirement communities once their children were grown, and the people who took their places — working couples, often, whose children attended day care — seemed harder to get to know. “All that’s left,” Daphne said, “are the foreigners and Mrs. Jordan.”
“Where is Mrs. Jordan? Shouldn’t we stop by and pick her up?”
“She has to drive now, on account of her rheumatism.”
“This is depressing,” Agatha said.
It did seem depressing. Or maybe that was just the season, the thin white light of January; for in spite of the sunshine the neighborhood had a pallid, lifeless look.
The church was barely half full this morning, but there weren’t six empty chairs in a row and so they had to separate. The men sat near the front, and Daphne and Agatha sat at the rear next to Sister Nell. Sister Nell leaned across Daphne to say, “Why, Sister Agatha! Isn’t this a treat!” Daphne felt a bit jealous; she was never called “Sister” herself. Evidently you had to leave town before you were considered grown.
Two years ago Sister Lula had willed the church her electric organ — the very small kind that salesmen sometimes demonstrate in shopping malls — and Sister Myra was playing “Amazing Grace” while latecomers straggled in. Under cover of the music, Agatha murmured, “Show me which one is Clara.”
Daphne looked around. “There,” she said, sliding her eyes to the left. Clara sat between her father and her brother — a slim woman in her mid-thirties with buff-colored hair feathered perfectly, dry skin powdered, tailored suit a careful orchestration of salmon pink and aqua.
“Why isn’t she sitting with Ian?” Agatha asked.
“Because she’s sitting with her father and brother.”
“You know what I mean,” Agatha told her. But just then the music stopped and Reverend Emmett rose from behind the counter to offer the opening prayer.
He was getting old. It took Agatha’s presence to make Daphne see that. He was one of those people who hollow as they age, and when he turned to reach for his Bible his back had a curve like a beetle’s back. But his voice was as strong as ever. “Proverbs twenty-one: four,” he said in his rich, pure tenor. “ ‘An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.’ ” Then he announced the hymn: “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.”
Daphne loved singing hymns. She had forgotten, though, what a trial it was to sing with Agatha, who talked the words in a monotone and broke off halfway through to ask, “Where are the young people? Where are the children?”
Daphne wouldn’t answer. She went on singing.
The sermon had to do with arrogance. Nothing was more arrogant, Reverend Emmett said, than the pride of the virtuous man, and then he told them a story. “Last week, I called on a brother whose wife had recently died. Some of you may know whom I mean. He was not a member of our church, and had visited only a very few times. Still, I was surprised to see him bring forth a bottle of wine once I was seated. ‘Reverend Emmett,’ he said, ‘you happen to have arrived on my fiftieth anniversary. My wife and I always promised ourselves that when we reached this day, we would open a bottle of wine that we’d saved from our wedding reception. Well, she is no longer here to share it, and I’m hoping very much that you will have a glass to keep me company.’ ”
Daphne held her breath. Even Agatha looked interested.
“So I did,” Reverend Emmett said.
Daphne started breathing again.
“I reflected that the Alcohol Rule is a rule for the self, designed to remove an obstruction between the self and the Lord, but drinking that glass of wine was a gift to another human being and refusing it would have been arrogant. And when I took my leave — well, I’m not proud of this — I had a momentary desire for some sort of mouthwash, in case I met one of our brethren on the way home. But I thought, ‘No, this is between me and my God,’ and so I walked through the streets joyfully breathing fumes of alcohol.”
Agatha fell into a fit of silent laughter. Daphne could feel her shaking; she had a sidelong glimpse of her white face growing pink and convulsed. In disgust, Daphne drew away from her and folded her arms across her chest. She didn’t hold with the Alcohol Rule herself, but she almost wished now she did just so she could make a gesture like Reverend Emmett’s. In fact, maybe she already had. Couldn’t you say that every social drink was a gift to another human being? She played with that notion throughout the rest of the sermon, deliberately ignoring Agatha, who kept wiping her eyes with a tissue.
At Amending, Daphne confessed in a low voice that she had spoken rudely to her grandfather. “I told him to quit bugging me about a job,” she said, “and I called Ian an old maid, and I said Bert could go to hell when he showed me where I’d skipped on a bookcase.” Sister Nell was murmuring something long and involved about a dispute with a neighbor. Agatha said nothing, wouldn’t you know. This meant she got to hear everyone else’s sins and pass judgment. “Talk about an high look!” Daphne whispered sharply, and then Reverend Emmett said, “Let it vanish now from our souls, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.” After that they stood up to sing “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.”
The Benediction was hardly finished before Agatha was in the aisle, making her way toward Clara as she put her coat on. Daphne followed, but then Brother Simon stopped her to talk and so she arrived at Agatha’s side too late to introduce her. “I’m Agatha Bedloe-Simms,” Agatha was saying. (Only the rawest newcomer mentioned last names within these walls, but no doubt she wanted to establish her connection to Ian.) “I believe you must be Clara.”