The Godsend of River Grove Read online

Chapter 15 The Deeper Things

  That same evening at the Grant residence, Bill answered the phone on the eleventh ring, inwardly swearing because his parents had apparently died mysterious deaths downstairs and were not taking their calls.

  “Hmm?” he said irritably, his eyes still on his computer screen.

  “Hey-ya, this is Todd Mankewisz. Is Hila Grant there?”

  “She’s got an answering machine where she’s living,” Bill said curtly, and he told him the number.

  “I know, but I hate to talk to those things, and I thought she’d maybe be at her parents. Is this her brother Bill, that everyone says is a genius?”

  “Um. I’m Bill.”

  “Well, I’ve always wanted to meet you, man. It must be nice to be so smart. Say, is it true that Hila’s broke up with Evan Marklestan?” Bill sat saying nothing. He clicked a few more times on the computer screen. “So Hila ain’t there?” Todd asked.

  “She’s not here. Call the other number.”

  “Right, you bet. You hang in there and God bless you.”

  “Uh-huh. See ya.”

  As Bill hung up, he heard his father’s soft knock at the door, and Len came in. “Your mother and I were outside when the phone was ringing,” he said. “She was helping me put up the icicle lights on the eaves. Who was it for?”

  Bill turned in his swivel chair. “Just some would-be boyfriend of Hila’s. I told him to call Cora’s number.”

  Len seemed scarcely to hear this as he sat down. “Good, OK. Bill, how is she? Have you talked to her lately?”

  “We talk, Dad. She’s still hung up on what’s happened at church.”

  Len sighed. “I wish she’d settle down with someone. Hila’s a good girl, but she needs to mind her own business. All this about Ollie Fulborne has made her depressed. Did your Mom tell you, by the way, that Ollie’s in the hospital for his heart?”

  Bill nodded. “So Hila will settle down now. That’s all she wanted was him on the sidelines. I wonder if she’s heard about it yet?”

  “You’re mother and I don’t understand. What has she got against Ollie? What’s the big deal? Sure he’s cantankerous sometimes. Abrasive. And I hated his guts after what he said from the pulpit about Hila; he didn’t have to say that. But she set him off. He’s a pain we have to put up with. Is that a big deal? I don’t know.”

  Bill was yearning to get back to his web surfing, so he said that it was no big deal.

  “And it hasn’t been easy for your Mom and me, not with the whole church knowing that our daughter sent them a page out of Ollie’s diary. Has she said anything about that? For pity’s sake, what point was she trying to make? I read it, but I didn’t see that it was so bad. Just odd thoughts a man writes down and then forgets that he wrote them.”

  “Actually, I never saw it,” Bill said, hoping to end the conversation.

  “I’ll show it to you.” Len got up and went to get it. He was in his bedroom for a minute or two and then brought the paper and handed it to Bill. Bill looked it over.

  “Now this is what the church has needed for a long time,” he said. “Ditch those pesky Commandments and relax.”

  “I don’t think that’s what it means,” Len said nervously. “Ollie has said it didn’t mean that.”

  Bill still held the paper before him. “He stole this, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I recognize it. In this one part it’s almost the exact words. About three years ago Jeff Fontaine—you know, Al’s son —got involved in that little church over on Maple, the Rhema Fountain Church, and he was trying to get me to go there. You remember?” Len did not remember. “Anyway, he was all excited about a lady preacher who was pastor at their sister church in Indianapolis, and she had just self-published a book, or got her church to publish it. Jeff thought this book was the greatest thing since flavored ice cream. He even wanted to give me a copy at his own expense. He was reading to me out of it, and he read the part about ‘I can break every commandment but the first and still be an innocent lamb before God.’ I wonder how old Ollie got a copy?”

  Len was used to his son’s amazing memory and so did not question his accuracy. He merely shrugged as Bill handed him back the paper.

  “Hila’s coming around, Dad. She’ll be all right.”

  Len agreed, not knowing what else to say, and went downstairs.

  The next morning, when she went to get the mail, Hila found a book in Cora’s mailbox with a note from Bill sticking out from between the pages.

  Interestinger and interestinger [it read]. Look on page 45 and you’ll see where Ollie borrows his ideas from. I always suspected that he’s too dense to float an original thought. The author, a Mrs. Dawn Elaine Vortgern, was a guest speaker at Jeff Fontaine’s church in early ’98 and was selling her books and pamphlets. After I e-mailed Jeff about it last night, he called me up and gave me an earful. Said he doesn’t go to the Fountain Church anymore and has decided that Mrs. V. is bad news, a sort of Christian witch. He also said that he knows Ollie had a copy because Ollie’s sister-in-law Rita was going to Fountain and boasted about giving him a copy (signed by the humble author). Jeff says you can keep this copy, and he says to warn you to watch out for the author’s tricks. (?)

  So here’s the plan:

  1) Hila reads book.

  2) Hila stops moping since she now knows who to blame. Have you noticed that the author’s initials spell DEV, the 1st three letters in devil? Can that be a coincidence?

  3) Hila goes to Bafilia like I want her to.

  Agree?

  —Bill

  Hila began reading the book while walking back into the house, first noting that it was entitled The Deeper Things of God. She settled into the recliner and read through lunchtime. In the early afternoon she drove to her parents house and walked in on Bill.

  “Turn off your monitor. We’ve got to talk.” When he reluctantly complied she sat down and opened the book, which she had brought with her. “Most of it is pretty tame stuff, the sort of thing that you’d expect from someone in Dame Vortgern’s theological neighborhood. Lots about healings and claiming prosperity and so forth. But there’s two big things about it. One is what you’d notice before opening the cover. The Deeper Things of God? Before I’d title a book of mine like that, I’d blush till I passed out. She reveals an ego the size of Kansas.”

  “Yeah, she’s not in danger of underestimating herself.”

  “The other is her pet heresies, two of them. One has to do with giving a certain limited respect to the gods of other religions as being supposed reflections of the true God. That’s all rather vague and bizarre, and we won’t go into it.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “The other Ollie has made his own, or at least he once did. In pages forty-four through forty-nine she actually teaches that a sanctified, upper-level Christian can lie, steal, commit adultery, and yet be untouched by it, pure as the driven snow. But it’s like ‘kids, don’t try this at home.’ She says it’s not for the rank and file, not for the ‘immature,’ as she puts it. The idea is that you become her disciple and hope to be trained up to what she calls maturity. If you make it, you not only are loftily spiritual—she calls it the Higher Life—but you can enjoy all the sins of the flesh without any guilt.”

  She sat stiffly on the edge of the bed and glared into space.

  “If looks could kill at a distance…” Bill commented.

  “Yes, if I had a gun and her in front of me, I’d fill her so full of holes you’d think she was wearing polka dots. The rotten hag. Is she still alive, do you think? The way she writes, she strikes me as old.”

  “She’s alive and not that old, according to Jeff. Maybe fifty.”

  “She could still meet with an accident. But do you realize what this means? We don’t have any reason to believe that Ollie started going after the girls until after he read this book. There
were several of them in ninety-eight, but no rumors I know of before that. He may have wanted to before but held himself back. But once he read this,” she lowered her palm to the open page, “and decided he was an exalted Christian living the Higher Life… Well, isn’t it what we’d all like to believe? That we can sin shamelessly and deliberately and still be accepted by a God with a smiley face?”

  “I don’t believe in God.”

  “Shut up, I’m thinking. Dawn Vortgern takes that and codifies it, writes it up like it’s straight from heaven’s publicity department. Listen to this. ‘The body is of the earth, earthy; but the soul of the sanctified one is spiritual, untouched by the earth-nature of the body. The life of the body and the life of the soul are divided by God as if by a great and impenetrable wall. When He judges the sanctified one, He sees only the pure life of the soul, and therefore the deeds of the flesh are not in view, for God Himself is Spirit.’ Get it? So Ollie can pursue thirteen-year-olds and still be all sparkly white.”

  “I thought that was what you Christians were saying all along.”

  “You blithering idiot.”

  “You’re the one always telling me salvation is by grace and not works.”

  “It’s not the same thing. That means that we’re saved from sins we regret and confess, even repent of, not sins we try to justify or pass off as unimportant.”

  “You’re splitting hairs. What twaddle. Either way, God is condoning sin.”

  “He is not, and you don’t even believe in sin!”

  “Calm down, Hila.”

  “I am calming down,” she said, rising smoothly from her chair. “Haven’t I told you that my spiritual crisis seems to be about over? This helps too.” She waved the book in front of him. “It really helps some if I can partly see why all this happened. You may have found me a spoon with traces of the poison still on it. At any rate, it looks like an influence on Ollie. I want to try to find out. Thank you, Bill.” He was surprised that she kissed him on the forehead. “May I use your phone? I want to call the hospital.”

  “To see if he’s dead yet?”

  “No, believe it or not, far from wanting to dance on his grave, I’m hoping that he’s alive and swiftly recovering, because the better he’s doing, the sooner I can ask him about Mrs. Vortgern. I’m thinking that, if those chest pains weren’t really a heart attack and if the angioplasty worked, he might already be mighty chipper, maybe even well enough to discuss stressful matters. OK, so I’m dreaming, but I have to check.”

  “So use it.” He gestured to the phone and, turning his back on her, switched on his monitor.

  She punched in the number and put the phone to her ear. “When he’s well enough to receive visitors, do you want to go with me?”

  “I disdainfully decline.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  But Ollie had had a mild heart attack and the angioplasty had not worked. He was already scheduled for bypass surgery the next morning. Hila stayed home that day and, it being a Thursday, went in the evening to Indianapolis to sit for Ronny Turkelson. On Friday she heard that Ollie had come through surgery well and that, after a convalescence of some months, might be expected to return to normal activities. She began to plan a trip to see him, but not, of course, in order to say a word as yet about Mrs. Vortgern’s book. Even if he had been well enough, she might not have bothered, for already her enthusiasm over that poisoned spoon was lessening. Whether or not his perverted activities had begun after reading The Deeper Things of God, Ollie was much the same monster. She wondered why she had told herself that she wanted to excuse him a little. And if it was not that, then what was driving her to see him?

  Something more important was in her heart, and gradually her motive became clearer to her. She did not wish to excuse him or triumph over him or comfort him. Rather, she felt the situation to be like a funeral. She had heard that the survivors of a deceased person, and particularly the family, need to see the corpse in order that the reality of their loss might be brought home to them, and that for that reason, it is best to have an open casket for the visitation. In her own case, she had come to think of Ollie as permanently in control, if not of River Grove Church the past two years, then at least of his family and his comeback plans. So no, it was not to triumph over him that she wanted to see him helpless but because she needed to see it to fully believe it. Optimally, she hoped to slip into his hospital room while he was asleep and no one else there, let the reality of it sink in for a minute, and slip out again.

  During her days of waiting, she was aware that the River Grovers were grumbling and confused. It seemed that only after Ollie was struck down could it occur to them that he had rearranged and complicated the usual church schedule for the holiday season to the point of near chaos. For not only was the revival week delaying or confounding all usual Christmas preparations; and not only did revival preacher Alan Borden have to be received and housed; but pastoral candidate John Faver and his wife Bridget were due to arrive the Sunday immediately after Thanksgiving and must be housed and examined and auditioned (as Kathy Hofrider put it) and analyzed.

  Anna Ellen Grant, that most average of all the average River Grovers, told anyone who would listen that it was far too much at once, what with Thanksgiving preparations too, and Christmas shopping and decorating, and baking, and wrapping. Crystal Beikreider griped that the teens’ Christmas play had to postpone rehearsals until after the revival. Tempers frayed as various groups tried to meet in the same rooms. Outgoing pastor Steve Wurz, intent on preparing for his next position, did little to straighten things out; Ollie was not there to give permission for anything to be omitted; and as for the elder board, no one took the wheel and steered.

  Since apparently nothing could be cancelled and Christmas could not be postponed, the River Grovers simply buckled down to get it all done. Some of them were spending nearly every evening at the church, either in meetings or decorating the building for Christmas or in group prayer, which was not forgotten. But then some, a few, had lived the balance of their lives spending most of their evenings at church. Jane Burson ran here and there in a haze of exhaustion not much greater than she usually endured. Evan Marklestan found himself falling asleep at meetings, slumping in his folding metal chair in front of a folding, rectangular table with imitation wood finish.

  If they could have observed Hila, they would have gnashed their teeth in envy of her life that week. After a relaxed and happy Thanksgiving with her family, helping her mother very little but playing a good deal with her older sister’s children, she Christmas shopped in a leisurely way, watched PG-rated comedy movies with Eddie and Crystal, and nibbled at store-bought candies and cookies. Jane Burson would have said that she should have made them.

  On Sunday morning she dropped off Eddie quite early at the house church and drove to Lincoln Hospital, timing her visit to avoid all River Grovers. The lady at the information desk gave her the room number, and she went up the elevator feeling calmer than she had anticipated. Even a glimpse of Betty Fulborne, seen through a half open door as she passed the waiting room, did not deter her. It simply meant that she would not encounter Betty in Ollie’s room.

  She came to the door, which stood open, and peeked in. There he was on a bed. Skinny, looking older, a tube attached under his nose and another to his hand. A green plastic curtain separated him from another patient beyond. She glided to his bedside and rested her delicate hands on the high bed rail.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Good morning, Ollie,” she said quietly. “I hear you’re going to be OK. You’ll be able to go home soon, won’t you?”

  He scowled and said something that sounded like ‘Lila.’ She wondered who Lila was and whether he was delirious.

  “Can I get anything for you? Maybe some water?”

  “Yeah, wadder.”

  She took a carafe from the tall bedside table on wheels, poured him a clear plastic cup, and gave it to h
im, keeping her hand on it as he drank, for he seemed in danger of spilling. In so doing she touched his skin, which was rough and dry. She put the cup back on the table. For a moment they just looked at each other. Then someone came in behind her.

  “Ollie Fulborne, what are you doing in that bed?” said a jolly voice.

  It was a couple in their early forties, and the speaker was the man. “Good morning,” he said to Hila. “I’m Pastor John Faver.” A nurse pushed past them to the bed and picked up the clipboard with Ollie’s readings recorded on it. “This is my wife Bridget.” Hila nodded to a little blonde with the mousy, weary, and pleasant look she had learned to expect from pastors’ wives. “Nurse, would you like us to get out of the way? No, we’ll just move into the hallway until you’re done. No, that’s all right.”

  The three went to the hallway. “Ollie and I were Gideons together for years before I became a pastor,” John said smiling. “He talked me into coming down here to candidate. We stayed in a Holiday Inn in Paris last night and drove in early this morning because we knew we had to see Ollie before anything. I know we’re late for church, but I phoned your pastor and told him we had to come here first. I’ll still get there in time to preach.”

  “That’s a refreshing attitude,” Hila said.

  “Do you attend River Grove?” asked Bridget.

  Hila found herself glowing with pride as she answered, “No, I used to, but I left disgusted with the legalistic anti-gospel there. I attend a house church now. And—I am never going to come to terms with the gospel of River Grove. And the reason for that is that I belong to my Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to know what I mean, come visit me, and listen.” Seeing their discomfort, she added. “My name is Hila Grant.”

  John and Bridget exchanged significant looks. “Yes, we’ve heard of you,” he said.

  “You’ve heard how I spoke against Ollie being reinstated as elder?”

  “I’ve heard about the mailings.”

  And there, like magic, were the two sheets in his hand, pulled from his coat pocket. Ollie certainly would not have given him copies, but obviously someone had. Hila took them from him, laughing, and made some remark about the longevity of her productions. The couple looked even less at ease.

  Huff. Betty Fulborne was propelling her short bulk along the hallway. In a moment her small eyes fastened on what Hila held in her hand. She stepped close, took the papers, folded them, and spoke to Hila calmly and Christianly.

  “If you knew what you’ve put him through with this, if you only knew. And now you come here and laugh about it where he can hear you. What can you mean?”

  Hila looked down at her heavily made-up face. “What did I put him through? Tell me.”

  “This,” she elevated the papers, “was the beginning of his heart troubles, it’s what started his collapse. It’s because he knew someone in the church had betrayed him.” She started to tear up the papers. “That’s what makes it hard to take, when you know you’ve been cut by an insider.”

  “No, Betty, I was never an insider.” But Hila paused and waved away her own statement as unimportant. “What did those mailings do to him?” she pressed instead. “Sleepless nights? Stomach aches? High blood pressure?”

  Betty nodded. “I told him not to pick you up that day we saw you on the road. That’s the kind of Christian I am. But dear saint that he is, he pulled over and helped you. And all the time he was sinking.”

  “But Betty, I believe you but, after all, my mailings didn’t affect his election as elder. He made it anyway, so why did he let it bother him so?”

  “It was knowing someone could be so ungrateful, someone who had sat under his preaching and received the benefit. And then to have all those old slanders dragged out and re-aired.”

  “But no one believed it.”

  “Is that how you’d like to excuse yourself?”

  “No, Betty, it’s a fact. Virtually no one thought the diary page and the minutes should make any difference. The congregation voted him in.”

  “Under a cloud!”

  “A cloud he was already under. Please, prove to me that what I did made any difference. What proof do you have that my stand damaged your husband?”

  “You know you did.”

  “No, I don’t. That’s just it. What can I point to? Tell me what he said.”

  “He had a name for you.” Betty bit off the words.

  “Tell me.”

  “Delilah.”

  This registered for a long second and Hila’s face lit up. “Never! Good golly, little old me?” She turned to the Favers. “He tried to say it to me just now.” All were silent for a few heartbeats. “Well, off I go,” she said.