Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
There is a goose in my house. Satan has entered the building.
I’m standing in the living room, eight months pregnant and feeling it, as Satan, our goose, hisses at me.
Josh has taken everybody out to Buckholt—my dad and all the kids—to go to the farmer’s market, run some errands, and have ice cream.
I stayed home because I felt fat and hot, and my husband sensed I needed some alone time.
Considering how grumpy and bad-tempered I was, it didn’t take all that much intuition.
I’d somehow forgotten just how irritable pregnancy can make you. Oh, I know there are those unnatural Instagram moms who wear flowy white dresses and love their pregnancy bodies and somehow manage to shrink back to a size four by the time they’ve left the hospital.
Those women are wrong, and in any case, I am not one of them.
Every part of me is swollen and aching—belly, boobs, butt, hips, ankles.
Even my fingers look fat. I had to take off my rings two weeks ago because they were cutting into my flesh like it was bread dough.
I feel like bread dough, like one massive lump of pillowy, soft dough.
Which sounds appetizing, and I feel anything but.
I feel awful and angry, and now there’s a goose in my house. A goose called Satan.
We are in the process of staring each other down, and three seconds in, I’m already intimidated.
The goose’s eyes are beady. Her stare is unblinking.
She is in the middle of the living room like she owns the place, and basically, she does.
I’m pretty sure there’s no way I’m getting her out on my own.
Why on earth did Josh think it was a good idea to get a goose?
Something else to rail at him about when he gets home. I have a list; because as an eight-month-pregnant, forty-four-year-old woman, I get to have a list. And no one gets to say otherwise. Even Emmy agreed.
“Goose,” I say as commandingly as I can, which is not very much. “Shoo!”
If there were other people present, they would probably say I’m to blame for this fiasco.
I foolishly left the door propped open when I was taking out the trash, because yes, I’m nesting.
I have a sudden urge to have everything way cleaner than it usually is.
Even Jack has commented on it, when he barely noticed our hall bathroom growing mold spores in the tub—and that was only because I’d told the kids they were in charge of cleaning that bathroom, and I wasn’t even going to go into it.
I lived to regret such an ill-thought-out challenge.
Anyway, all that aside, it’s now me and Satan, and Satan isn’t moving.
She’s already pooped her green goose poop on the carpet.
And, if I’m honest, she looks smug about it.
She stands her ground in the middle of the living room, her beady stare seeming to dare me to try to get her to move.
I’ve been flown at and pecked at by her before, and I really have zero desire to experience that again.
Why do people even get geese? And why was Mother Goose even a thing when geese are clearly evil?
“Goose,” I say, and she blinks. “Satan,” I amend threateningly, although I doubt she even knows her own name. “Satan, get out of here!” To my surprise, she takes a step toward the door. I practically stumble out of the way to clear her path. “Satan, go!” I holler. “Go, Satan, go!”
“Hello…”
The sound of a man’s voice at the door has me whirling around, which is not a nimble maneuver when you’re in my blessed state. I clutch my belly as Pastor Todd steps into my house. Oh, good Lord. He heard me calling on Satan.
“Pastor Todd!” My voice comes out somewhere between a warble and a chirp. “Um… I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I can see that,” Pastor Todd remarks, his brown eyes crinkling.
He’s a nice guy in his late thirties, with a friendly, down-to-earth wife and three burly blond boys who are between the ages of ten and sixteen and are fearsomely good at just about every sport.
I’ve never actually spoken to him before, though, besides to thank him for his sermon before I beat a hasty retreat from church.
The truth is, I’m scared of him and his pastor status.
He doesn’t make a big deal of it, he’s not at all holier-than-thou, but every time I’ve come within fifteen feet of him, I straighten up like I’m on military parade and get a look on my face as if I’m about to have my uniform inspected.
Josh has noticed and joked about it, much to my embarrassment.
He’s able to shoot the breeze with our pastor while I stammer out congratulations for giving a good sermon, something I learned later isn’t really the done thing.
“It’s not a performance,” Emmy explained kindly when she overheard my congratulatory bumbling. “You could thank him instead.”
That’s what I’ve done every Sunday since, somewhat robotically.
And now he’s in my house, along with a goose named Satan.
This is not a situation I am enjoying finding myself in, especially when I’m as pregnant as I am. I feel like anything could happen.
“Do you need help?” Pastor Todd asked with a nod toward the goose. “Let me guess… that’s Satan?”
“Umm… yes.” I feel like I should apologize. Is it blasphemous to call your goose Satan?
“Good name,” he remarks.
I breathe a silent sigh of relief. Blasphemy crisis averted.
“Do you mind if I try?” he asks.
I sweep my arm in a be-my-guest gesture. “Please.”
Pastor Todd walks toward the goose authoritatively, ignoring its hissing and flapping of wings, and within approximately ten seconds, he’s got the goose outside, and the door is closed.
I stare at him in amazed admiration. “Wow,” I say. “That’s like, a gift of the Spirit.”
Pastor Todd lets out a booming laugh, and I blush. Did I just make a Christian joke? Is that even a thing?
“I’m sorry to stop by unannounced,” he tells me, “but it’s been hard to find a moment with you and Josh after church.”
That might be because ever since Josh told me Pastor Todd wanted to meet with us, we’ve been hightailing out of church right after the blessing.
We’ve even made excuses to the kids—the animals, the garden, Grandpa’s tired, I’m tired—but I’m not sure they were fooled.
Judging by his expression, I don’t think Pastor Todd was, either.
“Sorry about that,” I say, and decide not to offer any lame excuses.
Pastor Todd smiles at me with far too much understanding.
“Do you mind if we talk a little now?” he asks.
I look around the room a little wildly, as if I’m expecting someone else to appear.
“Well, Josh’s not here…” I begin falteringly.
“True,” he agrees seriously. I know he has a policy as a married man never to meet alone with a woman in a private place, and I appreciate that, but right now it’s just him and me, minus the goose.
“How about we chat out on the porch?” he suggests. “Just for a few minutes, and then we can find a time later for the three of us to talk together?”
There’s nothing I can say but yes.
I insist on offering lemonade, and Pastor Todd graciously accepts it, and soon we are seated on the rocking chairs on the porch, glasses in hand. I feel like I’m bracing myself for some kind of spiritual interrogation.
The pastor must see that, because he chuckles softly and says, “This isn’t meant to be scary, Abby. It’s really just a check-in, to see how y’all are doing, and how the church can serve you better.”
“Sorry.” I can’t help but cringe at how obvious my alarm must have been.
“Josh and I… we’re still pretty new to the whole church thing.
I grew up going to church,” I add hastily, not wanting to cast implicit aspersions on my upbringing, “and my dad is a real… believer.” I cringe again; I don’t even know why.
“But Josh and me… we’re…” I shrug helplessly.
“You’ve been going to Grace Fellowship for over a year,” Pastor Todd points out gently.
“Yes.” I nod almost maniacally. “Yes, and we enjoy it, we really do, and so do our kids. We really do feel…” I pause, trying to figure out just how we feel.
“Part of things,” I finally say, although that isn’t entirely true.
I feel more a part of things than I once did, but I’m not a card-carrying, cloth-Bible-toting member of the fellowship yet, that’s for sure.
“I’m so glad,” Pastor Todd says warmly. “Because what I’ve wanted to talk to you and Josh about is the possibility of you becoming members.”
“Right.” I smile weakly. “Yes. That seems…” I trail off helplessly.
His eyebrows rise. “It seems…” he prompts.
I shrug, even more helpless. I really don’t know what I’m trying to say.
“Abby…” Pastor Todd’s voice is gentle. “What, in your own opinion, would keep you and Josh from becoming members?”
He sounds so practical and so nonjudgmental, I find myself blurting, “Well, I’m just not sure that we’re, you know, real.”
A smile tugs the corner of his mouth. “Real?”
“Real, you know…” I lower my voice to a ridiculous whisper. “Believers.”
“Ah.” Pastor Todd sits back in his chair, as if all has been revealed.
I duck my head, embarrassed. “I mean, we like church,” I feel the need to add hastily. “And I’ve really enjoyed Bible study. And I’m reading the Bible some, and so is Josh, and the music at Grace is amazing, but…” I shrug, helpless once again. “I’m just not sure we’re there yet.”
Pastor Todd nods slowly. “Understood,” he says, and there is no rancor, no judgment, in his voice, which fills me with relief.
I felt like I was going to get a look filled with disappointment or even a pointing finger of accusation and shame. But Pastor Todd just smiles.
“What do you think,” he asks, “would make you feel like real believers?”
I stare at him, mystified. I was not expecting that question. “Umm..” My mind is blank. “I guess just a sense of certainty?” I offer hesitantly. “And fewer feelings of… doubt?”
Pastor Todd chuckles. “I think all believers would appreciate those things,” he remarks, which surprises me somehow, because the idea of the pastor feeling any doubt just seems… absurd.
He must see the look of disbelief on my face, because he chuckles again. “You don’t believe me?”
“Well, no,” I admit baldly, and then hasten to explain, “I thought all… real Christians… just, you know, believed.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Blindly?”
I feel myself blush. “Well, no,” I say quickly, before I’m compelled to admit, “well, kind of.”
“That’s understandable,” Pastor Todd replies, and to my relief, he doesn’t sound offended. “Belief—faith—is a funny thing. It’s the firmest foundation you can possibly have, yet it can feel like the slipperiest, flimsiest thing in the world.”
I stare at him, shocked and yet gratified, because my faith has certainly felt flimsy. It’s felt non-existent, or almost. Very much almost.
“I… I don’t know what to say,” I confess. “I suppose I’d say I would like to believe. I would like to be able to believe.”
Pastor Todd nods, taking even this in his stride. “There’s a verse in the Bible for that. ‘Lord, I believe. Help me in my unbelief.’ Mark 9, verse 24. Cried out by a father whose son was desperately and dangerously ill.”
I feel a lump forming in my throat. Darn those pregnancy hormones. I don’t recall having ever heard that verse before.
“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Pastor Todd continues. “But maybe we can set up a time for you, me, and Josh to talk together? Nothing scary or pressured. Just as I said, figuring out how the church can best serve you.”
I nod jerkily. Stupidly, I still have a lump in my throat.
“All right, then.” Pastor Todd smiles easily and rises from his chair. “Thanks for the lemonade, Abby. It was delicious.” His eyes twinkle at me as he smiles. “And make sure to watch out for Satan!”