I went to the river to jump in,

My baby showed up and said, “I will tell you when.” (Tore Down)

Michelle Lester had decided about a half an hour after the scandal broke that she and the two girls were going to go up to their mountain condo for the weekend, in order to do some journaling, grieving, and deep communicating. There were so many issues, and there always seemed to be more, no matter what they did, or how fast or how much they wrote in their journals. The girls were used to this process and really would have been fine about the whole thing except that each one of the girls thought the other one was going to bring the pot. Turned out neither of them brought it, and there they were, confronted with a long weekend of quality time with their mother, without any assistance from the world of herbal remedies.

Michelle had called Brian about the weekend away, and he had encouraged her to go. He said he would miss her, and asked what time they should connect again on Monday. He was so nice—the only thing that was worrisome about him was his attraction to that Mitchell church. They had only talked about that a few times, and Brian was apparently far less non-committal about it in his conversations with her than he was in his conversations with Pastor Mitchell. She had never attended Grace Reformed with him, and was quite content with the perceptions she had formed at fifty yards. She wasn’t really going to church anywhere, but she remained a contemporary evangelical to the back teeth. She had lost her faith while still managing to hang on to all the platitudes.

The three of them—Michelle, Shannon the elder and Kimberly the younger—dropped their bags just inside the front door of the condo, and headed out for a bite to eat. Their condo was located within walking distance of a number of upscale eateries, and they had no trouble picking out a little bistro with espresso and ferns, the kind of place that served sandwiches with bark still in the bread, exotic little art sandwiches. The only problem with these places is that there were always waiters there named Chad, and that kind of kept the tender issues right on the surface.

When they had ordered their bark sandwiches, Michelle folded her hands together, and said, “Girls, we need to talk like this because we really need each other. I know we have the inner resources to get through this.” Her facial expressions and cadences were just like Oprah, only a great deal whiter.

The girls just looked at her blankly, although she had no idea that this is what they were doing. They knew better than to argue with this kind of girl time together, so they just did what they always did, which was to blink occasionally, followed by a nod. Their father had taken all their oxygen years before when he went philandering over the horizon, and when natural forces, abhorring a vacuum, restored some of the oxygen, their mother took it away by other helpful and certified means—clustering round with a suffocating blanket of therapeutic clichés. Still, she was a devoted mother, which meant that the girls were simultaneously appreciative and at their wits’ end. They were good students, because they both thought this meant that it would increase their chances of going to college a long way away, and then hooking up with a man who had come to college from a long way in the opposite direction.

Michelle was a very smart woman, but it must also be said she had always been a “will that be on the test?” kind of smart. She had a perfect score on the verbal portion of her SAT tests, and was no slouch on the math portion either. She had gone to college on a full ride academic scholarship, and had been pretty ambitious, if that phrase can cover being very ambitious. All of this, along with some corollaries, was about to tumble out of her because Michelle had come to the condo that weekend prepared to share way too much with her daughters. They had gone through some journaling marathons a couple times before, but Michelle had always held back thinking it the principled thing to do. But now she had resolved to be completely transparent. Michelle’s grandmother, a grand dame of the old school in Mississippi, would have said that Michelle was about to go stepping in high cotton.

In college, Michelle had occasionally day-dreamed about one day being the First Lady, but was humble enough (to herself) to not be set on it. She was naturally beautiful, but over the years she had minor cosmetic surgery on several occasions, including a couple of Barbie implants. She belonged to the fitness club, had a personal trainer, and was always slightly, winsomely, tanned. She was blonde naturally, but was not above giving herself a nudge in that direction from time to time.

“About two years after I found out about your father’s behavior, as you know, I met Brian. Such a considerate man. What you don’t know is that his consideration has been a sharp contrast in every area.”

The field of high cotton was approaching, but so was the waiter, a young man named Chad, no relation. He stopped next to the table, and remained quiet, as many waiters do, to give the conversationalists a moment to wind down. But Michelle had launched into the first part of the monologue she had prepared and appeared oblivious to the presence of the waiter. He, however, was very aware of his presence there, as were the two daughters.

“After your grandfather passed away, your father was impotent for about six months. So selfish, so self-absorbed. I spoke to him about it a number of times, sometimes quite forcefully . . .”

Chad cleared his throat. “Excuse me? May I share with you the evening’s special?”

The two girls looked at him with grateful and pleading eyes. Tell us all the specials the restaurant has ever had. In the moment of silence that followed, Michelle blinked a couple times, and thought over the scenario again. After Michelle had found out about Chad’s infidelities, she had drifted into her adultery with Brian, who had been her investment broker. Unlike her husband, who was doing everything he apparently could to cover the waterfront, she was faithful to her lover, and he was faithful to her. Brian was a pagan, but a decent sort. She initially felt bad about sleeping with someone who didn’t have a testimony, but she got over it soon enough.

“And the blackened catfish, with our special Cajun sauce.”

They all looked at Chad the waiter blankly, but it looked to him like they were looking at him thoughtfully, and Michelle’s thoughts were wandering again. Michelle had initially taken up with Brian as an act of attempted “take that” revenge on Chad, but then lost her nerve when she was going to tell Chad about it. She had initially assumed the information would devastate Chad, but on the threshold of telling him, suddenly realized that it probably would not do anything of the kind. Then, after that, she found that she was emotionally attached to Brian, and the Lester marriage staggered ineptly toward the point of divorce.

Chad the waiter left them with their menus, along with the information about the specials, and retreated quietly. Shannon and Kimberly watched him go with sadness, and Michelle started up again.

“Some forms of selfishness are bearable, and in the give and take of any relationship, you certainly have to deal with it. But selfishness in love-making is simply unendurable. And that is what I told him, a number of times.”

The two helpless daughters began thinking that perhaps that boy back in school really knew what he was talking about when he would alert the class with his constant refrain of “Overshare!” Shannon, in an attempt to get the subject off things she didn’t want to know about, had to resort to asking about things she did know about.

“Tell us more about how it went over at the church. I . . . I was too much in shock to notice very much then.”

Of course, in the church, the announcement of the impending divorce was amicably and professionally accomplished, as it pretty much had to be, and the repercussions did not seriously affect Chad’s ministry at all. In fact, he got a book deal with Zondervan out of it—Walking With Christ Through Divorce. As John Mitchell had once said to Cherie, in one of his periodic and vain attempts at getting through to her, the congregation at Camel Creek had gotten such a steady diet of relational goo from Chad’s messages that they were fully prepared to accept the “growing apart” line, along with the “still best of friends” bit. And Cherie had said to him, “You’re always so negative, John. Cranky almost.”

Michelle was focusing intently on her daughters, wanting them to hear everything she said, regardless of what she said. They had come up here to this place to share. “The elders had me meet with that counselor a few times, just so they could say they had, and I knew that, but told the counselor about everything anyway.”

“Even about, about the . . .” Kimberly started to ask.

“The impotence? Of course. Especially about the impotence. I told the elders about it too, just to see some of them smirk and turn red. Two of them in particular.”

Shannon thought her mother was shouting the word impotence, and looked up at her second use of it to see that Chad the waiter was right there, right on time, to take their order. He stood there, looking as solemn as a judge, for which the girls were thoroughly grateful. He attended a small charismatic church in the area, and for him dealing with overshare was a way of life, an art form.

But after Chad the waiter receded with their orders, the girls turned back to their mother, interested in spite of themselves. “Two of the elders?”

Like her husband, Michelle had been a perfectionist and when it became apparent that her marriage was not a suitable venue for a perfectionist to practice her arts, she had turned her attention to their two girls. Michelle had become the uber-mom, and was involved up to her chin in developmental activities for her daughters—ballet, soccer, violin, therapy, soccer, and more therapy. The girls had always done well at King’s Academy Christian School, which was sponsored by Camel Creek in more ways than one. It was an academically sound school, but it had long ago lost all moral authority with the students. The one rule that was enforced was that any moral disorder must not be conducted in such a way as to embarrass the headmaster in the newspapers, and for the most part the students honored this working truce with the administration. Both daughters were quasi-regular users of marijuana (but anything harder would be stupid), and both had slept with several of their classmates. They had been careful not to get pregnant (which would have embarrassed the school and church in the newspapers), but felt completely free to do whatever they wanted to do. They did not want to wreck their lives, but they did want to suit themselves. They were accomplished musicians, decent athletes, and decent students. Their mother was thoroughly invested in their development, which they both knew, and so they did not really detest their mother. It would be more accurate to say they tolerated their mother with affection, sandpapering the rough spots of their relationship with a little help from some hippie’s illegal garden. The worst part was having to do all that damn journaling, and here they were with a whole weekend stretching out in front of them like a very straight highway in Wyoming, the only bend in the road involving the very slight curvature of the earth.

But the waiter who had seated them (not Chad the waiter, but the first employee to greet them behind the lectern thing, the one who said “table for three?” and carried the silverware) looked like he might have some connections with Colombian agriculture. If not, the next rest area was 58 miles. The girls had detested their father since they found out about his adulteries, but what their mother was telling them now awakened the first glimmer of sympathy that either one had ever had for him.

Of course, it is easy for all of us good Christians to detest Chad, joining right in with the Lester women on this point, because, taking one thing with another, he was, well . . . detestable. But even creeps have hopes, dreams, aspirations. Even creeps have a story, and perhaps a brief moment in their toddler years when they were cute. Michelle thought she was giving the girls the back story, the information that would make their detestation and bitterness mature. It was actually having the opposite effect. But of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

“Your father grew up with an indulgent mother and a severe, distant, and demanding father. You girls don’t remember them. Everyone who knows your father knows that he was born a CEO, and his gifts were manifested early on in student government in high school and college. Half the faculty thought he was an inevitable and tragic choice in running for governor. He had everything in control except for his relationship with his father, who was impossible to please.”

This was quite true, if something else might be inserted here. The more Chad exhibited control of his grades, ambitions, hair, junior high Day-timer, briefcase, and other sundry accomplishments, the more his father withheld approval. This battle between them was actually a battle for fundamental control of their relationship, and a year after Chad graduated from college, his father triumphed in their running battle by dying of a massive heart attack, leaving Chad with no real way to get back on the scoreboard.

“So after we graduated, we got married. I figured out later that this was so that Chad could say ‘take that’ to his father. Your grandmother was formidable but, um, plain. I was homecoming queen—did you know that?—oh, of course.”

Things were quiet at the table for a few moments. The girls played with their napkins.

“He was a virgin when we married,” Michelle said suddenly. Shannon and Kimberly looked around in alarm for Chad the waiter, but he was inexplicably at another table. “I wasn’t, but only because of the youth pastor at my home church. And what a lecherous goat he was. He made it to the big time, though. He is some kind of wheel at Families International now.”

If Chad the waiter had been there for the whole conversation, and if he had been a trained counselor, he might have been able to read between the lines and say that, despite everything, things were okay in the Lester marriage, depending on what kind of scale you use, until Chad’s father died. This threw Chad into a deep blue aquamarine funk, and his resultant bout of impotence. Michelle had said she had spoken to him firmly about it, but it would be closer to the point to say she taunted him mercilessly over it, which led eventually to Chad’s sexual rebellion, and the manifestation of this new (and inevitable) area of his life which he could not control. A control freak everywhere else, his father had thoroughly taught him that there had to be one area where he had to be helpless. It might as well be an area with some short term rewards.

“I met your father at Camel Creek, back when it was Evangelical Alliance Church. We both grew up in severely conservative homes, and so we both liked the contemporary worship. Your father had told me that he was going to be the governor, which I took as a promise, and we were preparing for law school, but then the church asked him to reorganize the youth ministry. And a year after his father died, the pastor of the church retired, and your father was asked to consider the post. He had never been to seminary, but the church only had several hundred people in it, and they really liked his easy, conversational style of speaking. And he was a hard, driving organizer behind the scenes. And credit where it’s due, he was good.”

“And then what?” Kimberly asked.

“I thought he had promised me to run for governor. I finally said okay to the church offer, but I still think our agreement was for just a short-term thing. But within six months, the attendance at the church had exploded.”

* * *

Around the time Michelle was describing, Chad’s sexual flailing was limited to motelporn and occasional strip clubs in other cities while away on business. But within several years of taking the pastorate at the church, now renamed Camel Creek, several observant women counselees saw their opportunity and seduced him without very much difficulty at all. “Like hitting the floor with my hat,” one of them said afterwards to a friend. “Not that difficult.” After those two fiascos, Chad tried to get ahead of his lack of control in this area by becoming the predator, creating an illusion of mastery to himself. His infidelities became known to Michelle after about ten years, and then had become an open secret to about half of the church staff and personnel. The other half continued with their labors in trying to fulfill the Great Commission.

Chad was a very capable speaker (he didn’t really preach) and for those who liked that kind of schmoozing, he was very good at it. Those who did not care for this genre of speaking—like Pastor Mitchell, say, to take one sample at random—found it intolerable. Chad subscribed to CEO magazines, read business guru books, devoured the Wall Street Journal, and while away on business trips looked every inch the Fortune 500 businessman. Because of his salary, book deals, and so on, he had become a very wealthy man.

He had a very winsome smile, every hair was in place—without looking too much like helmet hair. He was immaculately tailored, but in a way that was always deliberately casual. He was never flustered or angry. In office matters, he always knew what to do, and was the undisputed master of the elder board, ministry teams, and church staff. In one area of his life only, deeply hidden, was this sense of sexual panic.

And speaking of panic, at this very moment, while the Lester women were washing their sandwiches down with five dollar bottles of water, Chad Lester was looking over his shoulder in a metaphorical sense. Not physically. Nothing was coming up from behind him that way. But he knew it was over. It had to be over. Nothing but over.

He had fallen off a skyscraper, and nothing really was to be done about it. What he did between now and the time he hit the sidewalk would not really affect things one way or the other. He needed to do what was necessary to do, and not just go through the motions. Perhaps it was not inevitable. But it probably was. Not so inevitable that he should not continue to work with the attorneys, the staff, and the authorities. But it was inevitable enough to not matter if he called Cherie. Angela had been a disappointment, and had really acted very selfishly. Cherie was a warm person. Of course, she had reacted very strongly when they drifted apart some years ago, but perhaps she would be willing to talk with him this afternoon. He had checked with Miguel, and as one of the pensioners, she had assured him of her continued silence. She had also appeared to understand that this meant that the pay scales would be adjusted. Miguel had said something about a balloon payment, but whatever. Perhaps she still had feelings, or needs, or something. Sure, why not call Cherie?

The weekend was approaching, and he needed to go over his message for Sunday. Chad walked down the corridors of Camel Creek’s administrative wing, and turned abruptly into the sermon-writers’ office. There were nine writers in there—fewer than some of the other megachurches—and they were responsible to have Sunday’s message delivered to his desk by noon on Friday. He usually did not look at it until he was actually delivering it, but after the “positions for women” flameout the other night, he thought he was probably rattled enough to have to go over it beforehand. The message was late, probably because they were trying to nuance the heck out of it. Of course, Chad had a certain measure of sympathy with their dilemma. How do you write a sermon for somebody in such . . . um, unique circumstances? And at least two of the writers were privy to information that could keep them from writing with great verve and moral authority under such circumstances. But those two whassnames had been okay in bed. Chad decided not to be angry about the message being late.

A few moments later he was walking out to his car, fifteenth draft of the message in hand, and he found himself dialing Cherie as he pulled out of the parking lot. He began to leave a message on her answering machine, when she suddenly picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Cherie. Chad here. I was wondering if you had a moment to talk. Can I swing by?”

* * *

Michelle folded her hands primly on her lap. “There. I am glad we came. Let’s go back to the condo. We can all do some journaling for a little bit, and then share before we go to bed.” The girls nodded gamely, and they all got up to go. When they all got out to the parking lot, Kimberly pretended to have left her purse inside, and said, “Hold on a sec,” and dashed back in to ask the waiter at the lectern her question. She had clearly misjudged her man, because she came back out after a moment with her purse, and shook her head slightly at Shannon. The three walked slowly down the sidewalk back to their place, all three chatting aimlessly.

* * *

John Mitchell looked out across the all done dinner table. “Another triumph, Cindi. Yet another triumph. Like the Pittsburgh Steelers of a few decades back—unstoppable. Viva la cheese potatoes.” Cindi smiled and began clearing the table. Sandy sat playing with her napkin. “Daddy?” she said. “You have met Pastor Lester, right?”

“Right,” he said.

“Couldn’t you just . . . explain to him . . . from the Bible or something . . .?”

Her father shook his head. “Not any opportunity.” He started to say something else, but the phone rang, and Cindi hopped up and grabbed it. “Hello?” After a couple seconds, she handed the phone to John. It was Cherie.