6. Carry-Out
Morning in the parsonage smelled like coffee and leftover ham.
Ruth stood at their own sink with her sleeves pulled to the knuckles and washed the Pyrex Paul had brought home — the honest pans, the ones that had actually been about food, not about a coffee-urn cord and a punch cloth.
Sun laid a clean rectangle on the little table.
His Bible on the corner, ribbon in the same place as last Sunday.
Her wrists throbbed under cotton, a dull red heat sleep hadn’t taken.
Between her legs the thatch was just a thatch again if you didn’t put your fingers in it.
She had, in the shower. She didn’t now. The greeting line was on her face before he even entered the room. It fit better in daylight.
Paul came in already grateful.
Kissed her temple. Missed her mouth on purpose or by habit, the same miss as last night. Poured coffee like a blessing he was allowed to pour.
“Hall look all right when you left?”
“All right,” Ruth said. Dishwater voice. Pastor’s-wife voice. “Cloths in the bin. Urn coiled. Key on the hook. Pans done.”
He smiled at that. Order. Stewardship. A helpmeet who locked up for the Lord and didn’t leave a mess.
He sat down with the ham on a plate she’d already washed twice and thanked God over it the way he’d thanked God over her in the dark.
Ruth watched him eat the leftovers of a night he had not been inside of.
She kept her hands in the soapy water so he wouldn’t see her fingers shake, or the faint bracelet of red the sleeves were working to hide.
“Wednesday,” he said, chewing. “You’re still good to stay after? They’ll need servers. I can come home with the dishes.”
“I’m good,” Ruth said.
She looked at the Pyrex in her hands and saw a folding table walking across pantry tile. She looked at his mouth and did not tell him what it had not tasted. She did not say *amen.*
“I’m good to stay.”
He almost asked about the door.
Ruth felt it coming while she dried the Pyrex — the little frown he got when something in the house was off by an inch. Last night the bathroom had clicked shut. He liked the light. He hadn’t had the light.
“You closed it,” he said. Not accusing. Curious. Husband-soft. “You never close it.”
Her sleeve slipped.
Not all the way. Enough that the edge of a red ring showed against the vein, coffee-urn honest in morning sun. Paul was looking at her face, not her wrist. She turned to the drawer, tugged the cotton down, and laughed the greeting-line laugh, the baby-necklace laugh, the pans-are-done laugh.
“Steam,” she said. “I didn’t want to wake you. I was a mess from the sink. Lemon soap in my hair. You know how I get after potluck.”
He accepted that the way he accepted I’m comfortable.
Nod. Smile. Ham. The frown gone.
Ruth put the Pyrex in the rack and kept her hands busy so the almost wouldn’t get a second chance. In her head the pantry door was still six inches. In the kitchen it was just a kitchen. He did not come around the counter. He did not take her wrist. He did not find the bracelet.
“You’re too good,” he said again.
Ruth looked at the Bible on the table and not at him.
“I serve,” she said.
She walked him to the study with his Bible.
Ribbon in the same place. Temple kiss. Ham on his breath.
The miss of her mouth again, and she let him miss it the way she’d let him miss everything since the gravel.
At the door he patted his pockets for the church keys — sanctuary, office, the little brass one tagged PANTRY in his own faded marker from the year they took the call.
“I’ll take that one,” Ruth said.
Easy. Useful. Pastor’s-wife problem-solving.
“You’re always hunting it after supper. I’ll open up Wednesday. You come home with the dishes. I’ll stay and lock.”
Paul put the pantry key in her palm like a blessing he was conferring.
Warm brass. The same teeth that had bitten Eli’s fist.
The same hook she’d taken it off of while dishwater wicked into her dress.
She closed her fingers over it so he wouldn’t see the red ring when the sleeve rode up, and she smiled the greeting line all the way to something that could pass for honest in a doorway.
“Love you,” he said.
Already thinking about the sermon. Already thinking about service as a word.
“Love you,” Ruth said.
He went into the study to write about serving one another.
She stood in the parsonage hall with the key and the hidden wrists and the thatch that still knew the folding table, the punch cloth, the aisle-count, the coats at Thanksgiving, and she did not tell him Wednesday was already unlocked.
She put the brass on her own ring, next to the house key, next to the life he thought he was living, next to Bless This House on the mat she had almost fallen on.
Across the lot the fellowship hall was just a hall.
The hymn board still said Serve one another.
The leftover pie was still in the fridge.
Paul never found out.