I guess there must be some truth to the old cliché that time heals all wounds. In time, even my animosity toward what I conceived as wrongdoing by our former pastor began to subside. As time went on, I found myself caring less and less about what went on at that church and I held no ill will toward Sarah for still attending. I merely went on with my new life and began to feel comfortable in my own skin, even if it was a new skin. As for Sarah, well, life for her had also seemed to settle into a new normalcy. We were no longer strangers passing in the hallway. We weren't quite as close as we had been during my days as a seminary graduate and youth pastor, but we were hardly at one another's throats, either.
I continued to work hard at my management job at the Harley dealership and she continued to work hard at the church's daycare program. In fact, she put her church management degree from Bible College to good use and turned the daycare program into a money-making proposition for the church. No longer did the daycare only take in the children of working church members, it was now effectively marketing itself into one of the leading daycare programs in the city. Sarah had earned the respect of the church Board of Directors and earned herself a promotion in the process. Although I didn't really have any feelings for her employer one way or another, I was proud of my wife's accomplishments. Who would have thought that a degree from a small Midwestern Bible Seminary would have translated well in the business world? Ironically, it was her position as a manager for the church's outreach that would set her on a far different path, but that's a story for another time.
Our evening routine also fell into a sense of normalcy. Like always, I would try to hang out with the guys from work just to be sociable, but I also knew what I had waiting for me at home. I reserved Friday nights when she was at a youth service or some other church function for my time of hanging with the boys. The rest of the week, I tried to come straight home from work like a decent husband would do. Our evenings would actually be spent being civil to one another. She'd fix dinner or we'd go out to grab a bite to eat and make small talk over our meal. I'd joke about something funny that happened at work, or maybe bitch about something when I'd had a bad day, and she'd do the same. After dinner we would settle in to watch a ball game or movie on TV. I'd still drink a beer or two or walk outside to smoke a cigar, but she didn't give me flack about it anymore and I didn't try to push anything off on her. I was how I was going to be and she was who she had always been. Nothing much was going to change any of that, so why bother?
Our sex life was the one area that was affected by time. Personally, I think the changes were for the better. I'm sure Sarah would agree with me. My wife had always been ultra-conservative in the bedroom and I don't blame that on the church. Well, I don't blame it completely on the church. Sarah had always been sort of shy and reserved and a bit old fashioned in her thinking. Her religious beliefs held that sex was for procreation, not recreation, and that didn't exactly translate into wild, uninhibited sex.
However, ever since that night when Sarah discovered soft pornography on TV, I started to notice small changes in my wife's sexual urges. She didn't shy away from movies with sex scenes anymore. In fact, it had become almost common for her to now ditch the youth group after service on Friday nights and rush home to meet me. She would curl up with me on the couch and sort of subtly direct me to one of those soft porn Friday night cable movies. I noticed that she seemed to really get into the shows that had mind control or some other mental or physical transformation as a central theme. After one or two of those movies, she would almost drag me to the bedroom and it was her that would usually take control of our love-making. That was a far cry from our days of bland missionary-style sex. I'd be lying if I didn't say I enjoyed it greatly. I found myself searching out those kinds of movies specifically for her whenever possible. Maybe what I was doing was wrong, but it didn't feel wrong and I sure didn't hear her complaining about it anymore. I suppose it was our new norm.
One Friday afternoon, as I was getting ready to leave work, I got a text from Sarah. The message was sort of vague. She just said that she had some "interesting" news to tell me, but it could wait until later. I should go out with the boys and enjoy myself. I was intrigued about what kind of interesting news she had to share, but I didn't think much of it. I figured it was just more church gossip. Even though I had long since made it perfectly clear that I didn't care much for church news anymore, she still felt the need to share it with me almost daily. I just took it all in stride and pretended that I was concerned.
Since tonight was Friday and I knew she would be at church, I went to the Broken Spoke with some of the gang from work for our regular weekend routine. I was well into my second game of pool when I got a text from Sarah asking where I was. I was up front with her about being at the bar, but I did find it a little odd that she was texting from church. That was completely out of character for her. I remembered her cryptic text from earlier and now worry began to nag at the back of my mind. I quickly scratched out of my game and told the guys I had to go. I walked out to the parking lot, climbed on my hog and raced home.
Sure enough, Sarah's car was in the garage when I pulled into the drive. Sarah was a stickler about never missing a church service under any circumstances, not even when she was sick. I began to fear the worst. I quickly put down my kick stand and rushed inside. I half-expected to see Sarah sitting at the table sobbing or laying on the couch with an ice pack on her forehead. Instead, I found her sitting on the couch watching a James Bond movie and sipping a soda. She turned to face me when I walked into the den.
"Oh, hi honey. I didn't expect to see you so soon. I thought you'd be out with the boys at least another couple of hours. I'm sorry that I didn't make dinner yet. I was really getting into this movie."
"That's okay. I grabbed something at the Spoke. I got bored at the bar and decided to come home early," I lied. "I'm surprised to see you here and not at church."
She knew I was fishing for answers and chuckled. "Yeah, well, I decided to play hooky tonight. It was just youth service anyway. I go to church five times a week as it is, not to mention working there every day. It won't hurt me to miss every now and then."
I felt as if someone had hit me with a baseball bat. Sarah had always been so absolutely devoted to church and her perfect attendance was one of her proudest accomplishments. I was getting excited and scared at the same time. Was Sarah moving away from the church? Was she starting down her own path to backsliding like I had done? I shook my head. This was stupid. So she had decided to ditch one service that she really didn't need to attend anyway. Youth Service was for the youth, not married women in their late 20s. So what if she decided to miss one little service? I was reading way too much into all of this!
I tried to play off my anxiety. "So, what's this 'news' that you mentioned earlier?" I asked. She immediately seemed to brighten. She smiled.
"You're never going to believe what happened to me today," she said.
"What? Some badass little kid pissed on your shoe?" I joked.
"Hardly, Mr. Smarty-pants. I got a job offer. A very good job offer."
"Really? What kind of offer?"
"Well, it's kind of a long story. Do you remember Renee Parker?"
"Yeah, I think. Wasn't that the girl who started coming to church for awhile right after we started, then quit and started going to that non-denominational church across town?"
"Yeah, that's her. Remember, you threw a fit because you said she left the truth and went out and backslid. Funny how things change..."
"Okay, does this story have a plot?"
"Anyway, well, even after Renee left our church, she kept her son enrolled in our daycare. She took a new job recently and her mom has been picking him up in the afternoons. Since I got promoted to general manager at the daycare, I've gotten to know Alice Parker pretty good. We just sort of hit it off. Anyway, the other day she mentioned how much the daycare had grown since I took over and how much more efficient it seemed to be running. I thanked her for the compliment, but didn't think much of it. "
"Well, that's nice of her to say. You do realize that her husband Bob owns one of the largest cosmetology companies in the state, don't you?" I asked.
"I do now. Mr. Parker himself came to pick up Caleb after work today. He offered me a job!"
It was my turn to be stunned. "What? Bob Parker,
the
Robert Parker of Parker Heights, offered you a job? Doing what?"
"Marketing. He said that Mrs. Parker and Renee were always coming home bragging about the daycare and how I had made all of these changes and how I was really promoting it and stuff. He said that he was expanding the business and needed a marketing manager for the area. I tried to explain that I didn't have any secular experience and that I'd never been inside a hair salon in my life, but he just laughed. He said if I could grow a daycare, I could grow salon customers. He invited me to his office after work to discuss the details."
I was actually excited for my wife, but a little scared as well. "Well, did you go meet with him?"
"I sure did. I was nervous, of course, and I kept making excuses about why I couldn't leave the daycare. I guess he thought I was trying to negotiate a salary. Actually, I was just nervous about taking such a huge leap of faith. Anyway, he took out a pad, wrote down some figures, and slid it across the desk to me. I was shocked at what he offered me to come to work for him! If Pastor only knew what I was going to be making, he'd feel ashamed about paying me so little!"
"Going to be making? Are you telling me you actually took the job?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying. Just the salary alone was pretty astonishing, but it comes with a benefits package as well. I'm nervous, but I couldn't say no. I told him I'd take it."
I was shocked. I never in my wildest dreams thought my dour little wife would have taken such bold initiative. What was ironic was that she'd decided to leave her safe job at her church to take a job for more money in a corporation in the beauty industry. Sarah, who had never trimmed her hair, had her ears pierced or ever worn makeup, would be marketing all of those things to other women. In essence, she would be promoting what her church considered sin. I mentioned as much to Sarah. She just sort of looked confused as if she hadn't thought about it much.
"Well, I did think about that a little. But, I mean, as long as I'm not encouraging women to do it or asking women in church to do it, is it wrong? It's not like I'm cutting my own hair or trying to get one of our church members to cut hers, right? These people are already wearing makeup and cutting their hair. I'm just giving them an alternate location to have it done."
"Sounds logical to me," I chuckled. I knew it was time to change the subject. I didn't want to rain on her parade. "This calls for a celebration!"
I got up and walked to the kitchen. In a few minutes I returned with a bottle of champagne and a couple of long stemmed glasses.
