Here I am. Send me.--Chapter Thirteen

Evelyn and Chris go to Leyla's family church. The greeting is not as warm as they hoped.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Evelyn hid reddened eyes as she made her way to her desk and then to the restroom. No one else walked in while she was working with her make-up. Some Visine would help but she was never able to give herself eyedrops. One last look in the mirror revealed a hasty repair job that would fool no one, and she headed back out.

The rest of the day dragged on as she sorted through the backlog of paperwork she usually ignored. It was boring and worthless, but now she had nothing else to keep her mind occupied, except for the interruptions, which came at a regular pace. Her coworkers gave their condolences while trying to share their own war stories from the previous day. Evelyn gritted her teeth and pretended to listen.

She often caught herself staring into space, and when she returned to awareness, she struggled to recall her thoughts. Nothing came to mind; for a brief period, her mind had gone completely blank. The day was coming to a blessed end when the old and slightly rusty visitor chair next to her desk squeaked under weight. She forced a fake smile and looked up to see Chris.

Her words came out without thinking. "Are you going to go all preacher on me?"

"I'm sure I will, but probably not today."

She replayed her greeting in her mind. "Sorry. I'm getting a little exhausted with people telling me that they're sorry for my loss. He was my co-worker, not my father."

"And that makes it not a loss?"

"Not in the same way. It's not my loss. It's his wife's loss. It's his kid's loss. It's not about me."

"It's okay for it to be a little about you."

"Is it?"

"Yes." His answer was quick and clear.

"Well, I already cried today. We can check that off the list."

He let the sarcasm slide. "Do you want to grab something to eat on the way to the church?"

"Church?"

He looked slightly confused. "We're going to the Wednesday night service at the Stoners Creek Independent Church in Hermitage."

She had forgotten. How messed up was she today? "Yeah. Right. Leyla's church. I guess I had my mind on other things. Food sounds good. I think I skipped lunch, and I'm pretty sure I missed breakfast."

"Then you get to choose. My treat."

His treat? Was this a date? Did she want it to be?

She gave her standard answer. "I'm good with anything. Fast food--chicken or hamburgers. Italian is always good."

He got on his phone. "There's an Italian place near Summit Hospital."

"That sounds fine."

"Should we take a company car?"

She unconsciously glanced toward Amanda's office. "No. Amanda told me not to pursue it." He might as well know before she dragged him into it.

"We're going rogue, huh?" He tried a smile.

It didn't land. "Something like that." Her voice was tired and without energy.

He matched her business-like tone. "Do you want to drive, or shall I?"

This sounded to her less like a date. Considering that she couldn't remember if she had eaten lunch, it might be best for someone else to drive. "Could you? I'm a little out of sorts."

"No problem. It's four-thirty now, so we should probably get going. Services start in two hours."

It took them forty minutes to get the 15 miles across town. Dinner was pasta and deliberately bland small talk. At six-fifteen, they pulled into the gravel parking lot of the small, rundown church in a rural area of Davidson County, where houses were four hundred feet and more apart. The church was a single-story white building with multiple stains and areas of disrepair. Mold and moss covered the asphalt roof shingles. Many were curled with age. There were no visible windows.

There were five other cars parked.

Chris and Evelyn crunched through the loose gravel and listened to the grinding and spinning sounds of an old outside HVAC unit as it struggled to keep air flowing in the building. A short, fractured concrete walk connected the gravel to the steps leading to the front entrance. Weeds grew through the multiple cracks. One of the steps had settled and made a trip hazard on the way up. The entrance itself was comprised of double doors that had once been green but were now a faded grey green with much of the paint peeling away. A hand-written sign on the right door read "Use Other Door." They did.

They stepped into a small entry foyer. There was an open door to the right, which showed a dilapidated but clean restroom. The flooring was yellowed vinyl that was puckering and pulling away from the walls in the corners.

To the left was a closet. Another set of double doors faced them. These doors were closed, and they heard noises from the other side. Chris leaned forward and opened one of the doors. On the other side was a sanctuary that filled the remainder of the small building.

The vinyl flooring continued throughout, and the walls were drywall, painted a mottled light blue. Eight people were standing around in quiet conversations. Chris had expected that the congregation would be older, but three appeared to be in their twenties, and the other five over fifty. For a moment, everything stopped, and all eyes were on the two strangers. Then everyone turned back to what they had been doing. No one approached them.

Evelyn tugged twice at Chris' arm. "Aren't churches supposed to have greeters or something?" She whispered.

"Most churches have the gift of hospitality or they wouldn't survive. Welcoming new members is how churches maintain their numbers or grow. But some rare churches are formed around a handful of families or cliques, and they're not as excited about outsiders."

Just as Evelyn was about to express her opinion about what type of church this one was, a voice spoke behind them. "Hello! And welcome!"

They spun to see a middle-aged balding man wearing a fraying suit.

He held out a hand toward Chris, "I'm Pastor Rick. I'm the senior pastor here. We don't usually get visitors on Wednesday nights."

Chris shook the extended hand and returned the smile. "I'm Chris, and this is Evelyn. We met a congregation member the other day and thought we would drop in."

This statement seemed to puzzle Pastor Rick. "A member of the congregation? Who?"

"Rachel Marshall."

"We also met Leyla," Evelyn interjected.

A harsh whisper, almost like a hiss, erupted from the group behind them, prompting Chris and Evelyn to look over their shoulders. The two small groups of parishioners were openly staring. When they looked back, Pastor Rick seemed to be trying to convey something to his flock through facial expression. His smile returned instantly and then morphed into a look of concern.

"That family has had a very trying week. The main thing we're planning for tonight is to pray over them. We're hoping that Cal can come with Rachel and Leyla. He's usually on the road. We haven't seen much of him since he started getting longer hauls."

Evelyn ignored the continued whispers behind her. "We met Cal on Monday."

Pastor Rick continued to look confused. "How do you know the Marshalls?"

That was when the door behind the pastor opened and Rachel walked in with Leyla in tow. All eyes turned to her, but she focused a blazingly intense gaze on Evelyn. "What are YOU doing here?!" The old woman's voice rang through the room.

Chris answered, "Hi. Mrs. Marshall. It's nice to see you again."

"Leave me and my family alone!"

Leyla pointed at Evelyn. "Police lady."

Pastor Rick reacted. "Are you with the police?"

Evelyn again felt all eyes on her. "I'm a social worker with the Partners in Care program. I'm not a police officer."

Chris followed up. "Would it be a problem if she were?"

This put the pastor on the defensive. "No. Not at all. It's just that it would have been nice if you had identified yourself."

Evelyn tried to restrain her mounting frustration. "As a social worker? Does every visitor have to identify their job title?"

Rachel appeared to be melting down. "Either she leaves or I leave!"

"Now Rachel..." Pastor Rick looked like he wanted to melt into the floor.

"You heard me, Pastor! Either you kick this woman out of here, or I'm finding a new church!"

A voice came from someone else in the room, a female voice. "Miss Rachel, if we kick everyone out you don't like, we'd all have to leave."

Rachel turned toward the new voice, "You shut your mouth, you little tramp."

Evelyn identified an attractive blonde woman in her mid-twenties as the voice's owner. The young woman continued, "There she is! That's our Miss Rachel! The queen of charm!"

This last was shouted at Rachel's back as she pulled Leyla out the front door. The slamming of the door left the room in silence. The moment was awkward, but then Evelyn heard a soft giggle from the younger group.

"I'm sorry." It was Pastor Rick. "Rachel can be something of a handful."

"She's crazy!" It was the same young blonde woman.

Pastor Rick's eyes rolled. "Courtney, please!"

"Sorry, Pastor." She didn't sound apologetic.

The pastor turned back to Evelyn and Chris. "Rachel isn't always like that..."

Courtney interrupted, "Yeah, sometimes she zooms around here with a crazy smile like she's been free-basing Red Bull. She's less scary when she's just mean."

"Courtney!" It was Pastor Rick.

"Sorry, Pastor." Her tone had gone from not sorry to sarcastic.

Pastor Rick looked directly at Chris. "Now, let's talk about you two. While everything you told me was technically true, it was a serious omission that you skipped the part where your presence would upset Rachel."

Evelyn started to say something, but Chris spoke first. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Evelyn smiled but offered no apology of her own. "I was the co-responder on the scene when Leyla's mother attacked her."

The pastor nodded. "So, you've met Josey."

"That time and two others."

"She's your patient?"

"She's my case. As is Leyla." The last was a stretch since, after the wellness check, Amanda had made no such assignment.

"As their pastor, I will do whatever I can for the family. I'm not sure that letting you disturb them is helping."

Chris gently took Evelyn's elbow and eased her toward the door. "Certainly, Pastor. We'll leave now so you can get on with your service."

Evelyn allowed herself to be led out to the car and didn't speak until they were both seated within. "I wanted to talk with some of those people."

Chris shook his head. "It was not the right time. We were disrupting their church time."

"What church time? There were, like, six of them."

"For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

She looked at him. "I guess that's in the Bible somewhere. What about we gather with them out here in the parking lot when they finish?"

"That would be rude. Also, my shift starts in less than an hour, and I hate being late. Lastly, here." He handed her a small group of papers stapled together. "A pile of these was on that table next to the entry."

Evelyn pulled out her phone and turned the flashlight on the document. The cover page read Church Directory. She turned the page to see a small picture and contact information for every church member. There were twenty-seven names.

She smiled, "Pretty impressive, Phillip Marlowe."

"Who?"

"Oh, he's..." A flood of memories hit her, and she paused. "It's something John Toland used to talk about. Never mind." And, just that quickly, she was sad.