In most ways, Brother Slade was smaller. As his hair receded, it revealed an uninspiring head, littler than it looked under the blond of his youth. It was an unraveling betrayal up there, a lake in drought showing itself to be nothing but average rock and sediment beneath the murky mystery. No treasure, no bodies, no archeological wonderworld. His musculature, too, was littler. The shoulder ridges of his suitcoats hung in midair as though a landslide collapsed the mountain but left the cliff suspended until the foundation gave fully away. By contrast, his fingers were bigger, or the cups were smaller. It took paramount concentration to get the thimble of water from the tray to his mouth. He used to sit in front of the congregation and take the first cup thinking no more about the mechanics than he would about folding and unfolding his arms. The deacon who brought the tray and waited for its return while Brother Slade wrestled the water was the youngest son of a couple who moved into the ward as newlyweds when Brother Slade was Bishop Slade. The deacon’s dad still called him bishop. Once a bishop, always a bishop.
Being remembered as one who was once a bishop made Brother Slade feel less like he was shrinking from sight. The deacon didn’t shift or shuffle when, because of Brother Slade’s delay, he was outpaced by the other deacons. The boy, and the children of those who knew him as bishop, shook his hand respectfully when their dads stopped in the hallway or beside the pew to say hello. Fathers invited him to join the circle when babies and grandbabies were blessed, or sons ordained. It pleased Brother Slade that deference trickled down to the next generation.
He was privileged to serve as witness at the sealing of a member who went through a difficult divorce while Brother Slade was bishop. Bishop Slade tried his best to get the man’s first wife to bring the kids, move back in and forgive her husband for spending the family savings on his distractions. She couldn’t let it go. Bishop Slade stood by his side. He would have liked to watch the brother start his new family. He would have liked to be part of the baby blessings and the baptisms, to see his work as bishop grow in perpetuity. The good brother’s new wife wanted a fresh start in a more affordable place.
Most of the youth from his time settled down outside the ward boundaries when coastal living became prohibitively expensive. Many empty-nesters followed their children inland. Brother Slade took some credit for the fact that the Barker twins, boys who went through their teen years under his tenure and whose parents stayed in the ward, worked hard and made sacrifices to move their young families back when they finished missions and school. The boys introduced their wives, children and babies to their former bishop. Brother Slade was grateful that the Barkers sat in the pews in front of instead of behind the Slades. Warm as they were to him, he didn’t want the twins to witness his fumble with the sacrament.
The boys had an older sister, Megan Barker-Ford, who had been the ward beauty and the it girl at stake dances before she left for college a year after Bishop Slade was called. He thought of her as one of his even if the time had been short. She recently moved back to the ward with her husband and family after a decade on the East Coast. She was puzzlingly cold toward him. Their first weeks back went by without a hello from Megan, and Brother Slade didn’t meet her husband until the twins introduced him. The husband was kind but not conversational. The extended Barkers now ran three pews deep and the pews remained those directly in front of the Slades—except for the Barker-Fords. They sat on the far opposite side of the chapel. When Sister Barker-Ford’s two oldest daughters helped with baby cousins, they took the babies over to their pew instead of sitting with the other Barkers. From his observation, Brother Slade saw no rift.
Brother Slade watched the Barkers and the Barker-Fords merge at the back of the chapel when sacrament meeting ended. They talked and smiled and shuffled kids. Grandpa took one baby so its mother could teach. One of the twins took another. They peeled off in groups. Primary cousins escorted nursery cousins. Adults went their way. Megan, her husband and their oldest daughter walked toward the small hall in front of the bishop’s office. From what Brother Slade observed, no one in the family had a problem with Megan nor did anyone in the ward. People were as drawn to the more mature Megan, married career woman and mother, as they had been to her as an unattached teen.
It was Brother Slade’s habit to spend a minute or two near the bishop’s office before going to the second hour. He stood in the clerks’ doorway and made comments about “the countinghouse” or greeted the clusters of people waiting for interviews. The three Barker-Fords were among them. Their oldest daughter was one of several new young men and women getting their first limited-use recommends.
As her bishop, Brother Slade remembered being alarmed by Megan’s beauty. He doubted that Megan understood the power she held over the young men she went with on dates and to dances. It was not lost on him that when the great prophet Isaiah predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, he included an exhaustive list, not of the weapons of warfare, but of the tools women used to beautify themselves. Mantles and wimples and crisping pins destroyed. Bishop Slade’s mantle saved.
To save Megan, he was diligent. He interviewed her three times in the year before she graduated. Once, for a temple recommend. A second time to serve as Laurel president. Lastly, an ecclesiastical interview for her application to BYU. One interview might have been good enough for all three, but Bishop Slade believed that purity was worth protecting. He didn’t shy away from the difficult questions. He asked Megan how far she went on dates. She said not far at all. Bishop Slade pitied the boys who had to double down on self-control with a looker like her. In a compromising situation, he feared Megan was too accustomed to being liked to set firm boundaries.
When he pressed her, she admitted to French kissing. Then, he got serious. Bishop Slade used straightforward terms and didn’t pull punches. He asked her about touching over the clothes and under the clothes. He asked about her panties and breasts. He asked if she ever went home and masturbated after serious kissing. She left the first two interviews in tears and was already crying when she came in for the third. He never drew a confession from her, but he planted the seed. She served a mission and married in the temple. If not for him, she might have kept some young men from doing the same.
Megan’s daughter was invited into the bishop’s office before Brother Slade made it over to the Barker-Fords. He was surprised to see that Megan and her husband went into the interview with their daughter. In his day, bishops had private interviews with kids. As the bishop’s door closed, Megan looked out and blazed Brother Slade with a look that made him recoil. It was a mother’s look, one that assured him that if he took one step closer he would suffer a repudiation so humiliating and withering and possibly physically destructive that he would never, not ever, recover.
He couldn’t understand it. He protected Megan. He advocated for her purity. No, no he didn’t ask the same questions of his granddaughters when they became teens, and yes, yes he did make it clear to the succeeding bishop that such questions need not be asked of them. They were not beauties. With the young men, it had been better to let them come to him. Future bishops themselves, they needed to know they were trusted.
Brother Slade stood motionless in stupefaction. If teenage Megan talked, if she discussed those interviews with her less comely girlfriends or in later interviews with other bishops, the disparity could have been misinterpreted. Inappropriate. Perverted. Dirty. Straightforward terms that didn’t pull punches.
He waited. He deserved the chance to explain. When the Barker-Fords exited the bishop’s office, Brother Slade walked forward. Megan’s smile at the bishop flashed into a fierce stare when she saw Brother Slade move toward them. Before she could speak, Brother Barker-Ford put himself between his wife and daughter and Brother Slade. Extending his hand, he gave Brother Slade a stiff-arm handshake and walked him backwards into the corner while Megan and their daughter went the other way.
No matter how small he became, he was once her bishop.
Terrie Petree & Hollands last appeared in Tourmaline.
