Chapter 31

So it was early December, chillier than it had been when Vernon Hitt came to my office, but life was warmer for him and his daughter. I was finally beginning to think that being an elder of the church wasn't such a fundamentally startling development, and Cecelia had quit smirking at me whenever I said something about it. A while back Cecelia had, if I remember right, said something to me about rumors floating around the church about making me an elder, and I'd paid it so little mind that I wasn't sure whether she'd actually said it, much less when. Yesterday I couldn't spell elder, I thought, and now I are one. It wasn't quite true, of course – I've been able to spell the word for ages. But...

Things had an unfinished feel to them. I knew that I'd done the job Vern had hired me for, and I'd sent my bill off to him in Seattle, and remarkably fast considering it had to go by USPS, I got a check back for the full amount. My marriage was fine, better than fine, so good that "fine" seemed a pale word for it. Darlia was smart and sweet and gentle and loving and beautiful. We had good friends – Rudy and Sara Delgado, Hack and Jenny Peterson, Sandra across the park from us, Letty Ramirez in the Singing Arrow neighborhood, Tina Morales well settled into her apartment on San Mateo, others scattered around the city and even around the country, for we knew people in Washington and California and Alabama as well, and even in Oklahoma, where I'd only visited twice since 1990.

But something wasn't quite right. It was the 17^th of December, just a few days before Christmas, when Cecelia sat down beside me on the sofa. I dogeared my book - The Second Confession by Rex Stout – and looked at her. She had something, made out of fabric, bundled together in her hands. "I wanted you," she said, "to give me your opinion of this." She handed it to me, and I shook it out.

I seemed to be a skirt. It seemed to be the right size to fit Cecelia's small waist, which looks bigger around than it is because the rest of her is so thin. The fabric was a dark blue, midnight or royal or some such thing, with threads of gold and silver and metallic green and purple through it. I slowly realized that the threads formed patterns – crosses, the ancient Christian fish symbol, a stylized dove, a stylized open book. The designs were subtle, showing only when the light hit them just right. Even after I knew they were there, they could be hard to see. It was a Christian skirt, explicitly so, but not obtrusively so. Cecelia could wear this skirt in a gathering of atheists and receive no comment, yet if she ever wished to point out that she was a Christian all she had to do was spread the fabric in the light and let the designs flash.

"It's absolutely fabulous," I said. "You must have worked your tail off to do this."

"I did," she said. "I have been working on this almost as long as I have had my sewing machine. I confess that on two different occasions I nearly abandoned the project, for it baffled me to the point of tears. But I conquered the difficulties, and just this moment finished it."

"You'll have to wear it for me, C. You'll look fantastic."

"I believe I will – look fantastic, that is, or as fantastic as I am capable of looking; there is no question that I shall wear it, perhaps on Sunday." She looked at me. "I have just one more project to complete."

"What's that?"

"Your heart. I have observed your restlessness, your inability to truly rest after the events of the past couple of months. And I have devised a plan." She took the skirt from me, rolled it up into a ball – I didn't protest, for surely she knew what the fabric could take – and laid it on the coffee table. She rose, went to the phone on her computer desk against the wall, and picked it up and dialed.

"Hello?" she said, and I assumed whoever she was calling had answered. "This is Cecelia. How are you? ... That's good. I don't mean to be curt, but I called for a reason. My husband would like to speak with you ... Very well. Here he is." She'd been walking back to the sofa while she spoke, and now she handed me the phone. I looked at her, but her face can be as unrevealing as a slab of ebony when she wishes it, and she must have wished it just then.

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

"Hello, Darvin. Cecelia says you want to talk to me." It was Vern's voice, and suddenly I realized that she was right – I did want to talk to him.

I stood up, and wandered into the dining room, the wood floor smooth and cool under my stocking feet. "Yeah, she's right, though I didn't know it till just now. Al's back – well, you know that, right? – and I'm glad that things are going right with y'all. But I'm still having some problems."