Wandering Fern
The tree swayed above as crisp leaves crunched and scraped against one another. Fern let them fade to black and then return to vibrant green with the open-shut of her eyelids. With each blackened hue shot a scene of the night before: the scotch breath, arms wrapped over her bony shoulder, and the tension pulled tight as the shrill of a dissonant chord whenever he pulled his arm away from her skin. There, in the tension, lived feelings lingering between passion and fear. There was a breath and a rotation of her body. His arm came down instead of over, and pain singed the edges of the bruises across her abdomen. In their first eighteen years of marriage, he had not hit her. But the loss of his career and reputation had positioned his rear over a barstool and his lips around the crystal rim of a glass of scotch. Pastor Bill was a mean old drunk.
Fern was laying in the yard, that morning, wondering which part of her spiritual walk had not measured up. She knew that Bill’s actions were his own, but as his wife, taught to love and submit to him, she had somehow fallen short. She clenched a fistful of grass and closed her eyes to another image. A young girl veiled and dressed in white, pure and holy in the eyes of God. She looked dotingly on the hazel eyes of her future husband and repeated the words: in sickness and in health.
Alcoholism was a disgusting sort of sickness. Most mornings she read her bible, cleaned up vomit from the night before, bandaged her own scrapes and bruises, read her bible some more, and joined the other ladies from the church for the bible study that day. That morning she was too tired. Her stomach held an assortment of blue, purple, green, and brown water color splashed over her midsection.
Fern wandered into the kitchen. She wiped the counters with a Pine Sol covered rag, put the dishes in the cabinets and quickly dusted the distressed grey sign above her stove that read: For we walk by faith, not by sight. Fern went to the linen closet, pulled a bag of her things that she had been storing there, and walked out.
Their home had once been the blue, two-story home connected to the church property. Pastor Bill, Fern, and their son, Jeffery, had lived in the home since before Jeff could walk. Since Bill had been sent out of the church for an alleged porn addiction, however, they had settled in a yellow Florida-style home a mile down the road. Fern followed the pebbled path beside the road toward the church. The palms and pines that made up the woods in their small Florida town seemed to raise around her as she wandered. The road went out of view. Fern took little notice. She listened to the crunch of pebbles and pine needles under her feet and the chirps of the bugs and birds that littered the trees. She tried to make them out by their noises, but her head was heavy with foggy memories and the speech that she was trying to blend into a cohesive unit for the new pastor-in-chief.
My husband… Her husband. Bill Thomas. Beloved pastor of Mid-Florida Church, who served diligently and prayerfully for years as their leader but was now dealing with allegations of porn addiction, …he beats me.
How her life had spiraled out of her grasp was beyond her own understanding. She had done everything as was expected. Attended all church events, stayed up-to date with her bible reading, led women through all struggles.
She watched her feet move on the path. Every step was a click. Every moment was another heave of memory—Bill standing tall before an audience of their peers, the glow of Jeff’s eyes when he first believed, and the first time they met to discuss the allegations of misconduct.
***
Bill sat in a red suede chair across from the desk of the assistant pastor. The assistant pastor, Henry, was behind the desk—a stark look over his face. An elder of the church sat beside him in the other red chair, and Fern sat behind Bill in a smaller chair from the Fellowship Hall. She tilted her legs as society told her was respectable, folded her fingers into one another, and placed them in her lap. Bill wiped the sweat from his forehead. His hairline was receding to obscurity, but he maintained a clean-shaven look that kept him presentable. The elder tilted his chair so that he was facing both Bill and Fawn, and the assistant pastor’s wife filed through the door to take a seat beside her husband.
This is Big, Fern thought and she brushed the top of her dress down.
“It has come to our attention, Bill…”
Fern couldn’t help but let her mind wander. She studied the names of the books on the shelf behind the assistant Pastor’s chair. There was an assortment of Holy Bibles and Study Bibles as well as books about the rules of the Reformation and the creeds associated with their doctrine: Salvation Belongs to the Lord, Systematic Theology, Reformed Dogmatics. Each title seemed more confusing than the next, but Fern had been taught not to question the intricacies of the faith. That was a job set specifically for the men and the elders.
Fern realized, by the number of eyes directed to her that she had not been listening to the conversation unfolding before her.
“I’m sorry, What was that?” She asked.
“Pornography. On Bill’s computer.”
Bill had tensed his entire body and was turned away from Fern. His glance was cast into his lap and his eyes were unmoving.
“I’m sure there must be some mistake, Henry. Bill would never engage in such—“
Bill was red faced. He nodded slightly, but said nothing. Fern covered her face, took a breath, and looked dead into the eyes of the assistant pastor.
“So what do we do from here?”
The church called a meeting of the elders who determined that Bill could no longer perform his pastoral duties. They announced Bill’s resignation the following Sunday morning citing “personal reasons”, and Bill and Fern were moved to the church’s “charity home” until they could find another place. It was from the charity home that Fern walked that day, through the small patch of woods that stood between their house and the church.
***
When Fern reached the clearing of the woods, she pulled out a compact mirror and some Revlon Moondrops lipstick to make herself presentable. She traced the edges of her lips, paying special attention over the spot where her lip was missing pigmentation. She brushed down her brown hair and cursed the speckles of gray that had begun to show. Only thirty-eight and she was going grey. She replaced the mirror in her bag and marched to the door of the church office. Only there did she falter.
She had met Bill on those very steps of the church. At the time he was 25 and ending his two years of seminary school. Fern was just 18 at the time. Her father, Pastor Clark, pulled her close to his side. He smelled of old spice and butterscotch candy and his beard was already forming a shadow over his cheeks. Bill was is stark opposition to her father. He stood straight as the pines lingering in the woods and his skin was smooth and soft. He had no smell, at the time, but his eyes carried the lightness that appears just before a bout of inspiration strikes. He was there to learn from the best. Pastor Clark squeezed Fern’s shoulders.
“This here is my little girl.” Her Dad said, his accent was loaded with drawls from a thick Alabama upbringing. Deep in the Country he always recalled. “Fern Louise. Her mama named her, before she passed, but even with the hippie dippie name she’d a good kid.”
Fern was transfixed on Bill. Not only did he stand and smile while her dad rambled, he spoke with a smooth accent—the kind that used words like loquacious and dignitary to describe someone of high accord. Dad was wonderful, Fern loved him to pieces, but a man of substance and brains was a prize.
***
The door to the church office opened before she could grasp the handle. Fern watched the edge of the door-sweep catch on the rug inside of the building and bend as a broken bow pulled too tight. It needed to be replaced at least three years ago.
“What can we do you for Mrs. T?” Henry asked, blocking her entrance to the office.
“I just—May I have a moment of your time?”
Fern closed her eyes and pressed her stomach to remind herself of why she was there. She had lost most of her resolve amongst the whispering pines and palms. For a moment she thought of running back into the woods and back to her home, but the cottage was hardly a home to her. It was not the place where Bill and she had shared their first intimate moments. Or where she taught her son to read and write and prepare for college. She longed to cross the threshold of the blue home where life was as it should have been. Her reality was inside of the walls of a small yellow cottage, bursting from end to end with pressure and the stink of vomit.
“Come on in,” Henry said. He was studying the way that Fern was longing for retreat. He backed away from the door and, after another glance into the woods, Fern slipped inside.
“Come into my office”
The Office hallway had been completely redone. Instead of the images of church members at picnics and gatherings, there were elaborate crosses and handmade signs about dying to yourself, and picking up your cross. The image of the first congregation, with her father in the center in a button-down and Fern clutching his leg, had been removed. In its place stood a wall with the faces of the elders of the church. Each man smiled and was wearing a suit jacket with a pin of the church’s logo. The photographs were in plaque-style frames with the name of the elder engraved below. Fern thought it was a disgusting over-spending of the church’s small budget, but she smiled when Henry asked if she liked the new décor.
She faltered as they passed the door that belonged to the Assistant pastor. Even though she had not missed a Sunday since Bill’s resignation she hadn’t been back to the office since they boxed up Bill stuff. She followed Henry into the main Pastoral office that had first belonged to her Dad and then to Bill.
“Please sit down,” Henry said. “What can I help you with?”
Fern sat in the same red chairs that Bill had sat in when he was let go. Bill had chosen simple wooden chairs with green cushions for the pastoral office during his time. He had criticized Henry’s taste for being gaudy and overly expensive when the budget was so tight. Henry said that the office should give a good impression for visitors. Fern thought Henry was an idiot, but now she relied on him to help her in a way that her husband had failed. She sought protection. She opened her mouth to tell her story. Closed it. Pursed her lips. Took a breath. Began again.
“I can see you are under a great deal of stress,” Henry said. “I am sure this is not an easy—
“Bill is beating me.”
Henry closed his mouth.
***
Bill started drinking slow as the sway of a wood of palms at first. Their church had never been opposed to drinking an alcoholic beverage or two as long as there was not a lifestyle of drunkenness. Bill would sometimes have a glass of wine with dinner. The smell of fermented grape nearly vanished by the time he would give Fern an evening kiss.
When Bill was let go, especially after they moved into the cottage, he would often have enough wine that it would linger over the bumps of his tongue. Fern could taste that night’s merlot set deep in the kiss that he would press into her mouth and through her throat. Fern gagged on more than one blurry make-out session that could rival their honeymoon days before she realized that something was off in Bill. Sure she knew his secret of pornography, but the church had set us up with a program to monitor his computer history and email the pastor with any suspicious activity. The goal was to have him fully rehabilitated and reinstated as a changed man and an elder. Pastor Henry thought it would look good to have a success story at the beginning of his pastor-ship.
Bill had learned to overindulge in the bodies of naked women sprawled out for the men in those videos to partake in the lusty pleasures of the flesh. When his supply of pornography was removed, he took solace in the bar across the street from the cottage. Fern had failed to realize that he was not searching for a new job in anything that his six years of bible school and seminary school would afford him. He was searching for the buzz of anything that could come from the bottom of a bottle. He started to smell of scotch by the time he returned at 5:30 each day. Fern didn’t question it until he was barely able to cross the threshold because of his drunken wobble. He looked like a tripe caught on the edge of a fisherman’s boat, trying to learn to walk.
“Where were you?”
“Job hunting.”
“Looking for a job at a barstool?”
“Now Woman, don’t you accuse me that way—“
“Don’t call me woman.”
Fern had never spoken to Bill with anything less than full respect of his position in the church and in the home. Wives Submit to Your husbands… Bill had never been anything less than loving to Fern. Husbands love your wives… But Fern had grown tired of Bill’s scotch breath and hard kisses. Bill had grown tired of Fern. When he struck her, his arm came down to her shoulder and the other pressed into her abdomen. He was without apology. Fern backed against the wall with her arms outstretched before her and pleaded for him to stop. Bill pretended to swing once more, smiled at her, and spoke.
“Don’t you talk to me that way.”
His smile was the worst of it. When he was stone drunk, Bill would get a smile that did not exist when he was in his right mind. Crocodile teeth sort of thing. The hazel in his eyes turned black and his breath was warm with drink. Fern shook and hid into the smallest places of the home. Their bedroom closet was her favorite. Bill never used it anymore as he now only dressed in T-shirts and shorts from their dresser drawers. Fern had set up a corner where she could read her bible by lamplight and cry without being heard. She had created a wall with her nice hanging clothes—the kind she wore to service.
***
Henry listened to her story, inhaling at different parts, and giving all of the proper sympathetic looks that he could muster. Fern never softened to tears as she told the story, but remained sharp with a tongue that told the truth. She lifted her shirt as evidence of the ongoing offense.
“The brown ones are nearly gone. The blue ones are from last night. I just need some help. Some protection or some money or something.”
Henry studied her for a long time. He pulled out his bible and turned pages that he didn’t read aloud.
“And you did nothing to provoke him?”
Fern was stunned. He was asking of provocation when she was covered in bruises and scrapes from her husband? She answered anyway.
“Well the first night I may have—spoken ill of his drinking. He was barely able to come through the door. But I don’t think that this is the proper way of handling—“
“I was just looking for more information.”
Henry bowed his head and prayed to himself. He fumbled through scripture once more, not stopping at any place in particular and the looked back to Fern.
“I feel you need to go home.”
“To go—? To Bill?”
“Yes. Home to Bill.”
Henry leaned back in his chair. And faced her squarely.
“You have every right not to go home, of course but, Fern, I want you to consider the bigger picture here.”
“The bigger—?”
Fern studied Henry’s face. He looked like a cow chewing his cud—the idea squashed between his teeth.
“We have had so much drama and media attention since Bill was caught with the pornography on his computer.”
Fern thought of the reporters trying to take interviews the week after his resignation had come out. Someone had spilled his addiction to the media. Fern hid in the church for three hours that day, until even the most energetic reporters had left.
“We’re trying to rehabilitate Bill at your request, but I don’t think that’ll be possible—“
“My request?” Fern had no recollection.
“. . . If the media gets wind of this. Now I will talk to Bill—“
“Please don’t—“
“… and see if we can work some counseling and alcohol rehab into the equation. You guys can get back together and go back to your lovely and inspiring marriage.”
The way that Henry had annunciated the word inspiring made Fern want to puke. She could not see herself getting back together with a man who, for the last three weeks, had hit her.
“And where will I go during this?” she asked.
“During what?”
“During the rehabilitation.”
“Home, I suppose. Unless do you feel unsafe—?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here. I’ve brought my things.”
“Well we have nowhere to put you, really, but I can send an elder over every day if that will help.”
“He hits me at night.”
Fern was struck by the fact that they were actually negotiating whether she should live with Bill when he was like this.
“I just want to get out. I just want to be free of him.”
“So you will not work in his rehabilitation? “
Fern looked at the plaques spread over the wall where Bill had once placed pictures of their family. He was her husband, and somewhere inside of him there was that good man, but right now, she could not stay.
“No.”
“Then I cannot help you. I have to think of the bigger picture here.”
“The bigger picture? What if you send me home and he kills me?” Henry sat forward in his seat.
“Has he ever mentioned—? “
“No. But—“
“I have a church to run. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.”
With that, Henry stood and held out his hand. It was the oddest conversation that Fern had ever experienced. It ended so abruptly and did nothing for her. Fern was so taken aback that she grabbed her bag, left the church, and headed home.
***
Bill was laid out on the couch when Fern walked through the front door. He was wearing his suit. He looked at the bag in her hand, unsurprised by the sight of it, and turned to the ground.
“Fern,” he said. “I’m ashamed of the man I’ve become. I’ve been out all day looking for a job worthy of you.” He eyed the bag. “Please don’t leave me.”
His buttons were off by a button. His hair was unkempt and he was wearing white socks with his dress shoes. Fern sat beside him and patted him on the leg. She could smell wine on his breath. It was only two in the afternoon.
“Henry called?” she asked.
“Yeah. But I did go on an interview. At a construction company.”
“And how did that go?”
Fern could count her heart beats. She was staring at the pair of them through the mirror across the room. He looked like he was falling apart. She was like a withering flower. Together they could not fake half a marriage.
“Said I needed to see him once I’m sober. But that’s something. I just need to get—“
“I know.”
Fern pressed her hands over Bills. He was 42 and she was 38 but the lines in their hands told stories of a much older couple. Her fingers were purple and tiny, his were fat but with brittle with broken nails. They didn’t curve into one another as a couple of many years should. Instead her fingers sat tight over his rounded palm.
“I can’t stay.” She said.
“Fern.” He huffed, starting to get angry.
“You can’t expect me to stay. Not after everything that you’ve done.”
“But we are cleaved together. Husband and wife. Until the day we die.”
“And when will that be? If it keeps on going on like this—when does it end?”
“I promise I won’t hit you,” he said.
“I just can’t believe that.” Fern grabbed her right arm with her left. She shrunk into herself for a moment and then let her injured arm go. “I don’t believe that. And I owe it to myself to get out of this before it gets any worse.”
“And what about me? What am I supposed to do with all of this?” He stretched himself taller and was as a dome over her small body. He grabbed her shoulders and she stepped back.
“You,” she said, straightening as much as she could, “are supposed to accept it.”
Fern pulled her body into the straightest line she could manage and kept her eyes fixed on his. The noiselessness resonated throughout the room and fixed them into a moment, each staring down the other as if a movement, even a breath would ignite an explosion.
Fern closed her eyes and for a moment lost some of her resolve, but when she opened them, pressing her awareness into his untucked shirt and the stench of stale wine and the sting of his muscles that contracted and contorted as if ready to strike at any moment, she knew that she would not back down.
“I have to go,” she started slowly, “before you kill me.”
“I’d never—“
But his words were lost under the weight of the intoxication that hung on his clothes and pulled at every line on his face. He was much older than the years his age had afforded him.
“So this is it?” he asked.
“This is it.” She said
He nodded and kissed her on the head. She closed her eyes and didn’t open them until she was outside. She walked down the highway and left the church and home where she had lived since she was born. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.
***
The highway glistened like firestone under the rays of the afternoon sun. Fern could barely see ahead of her. When she neared the edge of the church property she noticed the old decorations leaned against the side of the dumpster. They were finally cleaning house. Amidst the collection pictures of church parties and events was the picture of the church from when her dad was the pastor. Three truths came to her as she studied the picture. Not all people are bad. Her dad with his wide face, blonde hair, a strong stalky build was in the middle smiling with the congregation. He could have been just another church member. Fern was five and with ringlets in her hair—untouched and pure. No one is completely good. The picture itself was beginning to fade. The edges were browned and the weather had caused damage to the print. Even she could see the ways that she had ruined her relationship with Bill. She did him no favors by letting his drinking and abuse slide over the years. God is good, all of the time. This lesson was the hardest to swallow, but her trust in her belief system, in her God, told her it was true. She looked at the faces of the congregation, smiling and joyful in their belief in God and hoped that she would find that once more. As she wandered, the Florida heat pressed against her, but once in a while a cool breeze crossed her face. She pressed forward.
