She scooted in next to Cub. He was thrilled, reaching for her hand and threading his big fingers through her little ones. It was mildly painful but authenticating, to have him lay claim to her here in front of Hester and God, in case either of them was looking. That was one thing she could do well, make Cub happy, if only she could apply herself. She took this vow as regularly as she breathed, and reliably it was punctured by some needling idea that she was cut out for something more. Something, someone. She leaned against his shoulder and sighed, wistful for the breakfast that almost was. She could make it through another hour if her stomach wouldn’t growl.
She watched Pastor Ogle walk onto the stage, dressed exactly as usual in jeans and an open-collar shirt, nothing out of the ordinary. Yet the congregational atmosphere shifted like weather. Given the drawing in of breath, the speculative waiting, Bobby Ogle could be that famous groundhog that would or wouldn’t see his shadow. If she ever had people’s attention like that, even for ten seconds, there was no telling what she’d say. Bobby was amazing. And he hadn’t even called the faithful to order yet, he was just checking in with the choir director before the opening hymn. She’d seen TV preachers with styled hair and diamond rings that sparked in the studio lighting, and wondered how anyone trusted such showy men with their tithes. Pastor Bobby was the opposite, possessed of the same rumpled appeal Jesus probably had. Maybe in this day and age Jesus would buy his clothes at the outlet stores where the Ogles shopped, and shed the hippie haircut for one like Bobby’s, with bangs straight across. He looked like some kid you’d want to invite home for dinner. Though Bobby, unlike Jesus, might empty your fridge. He must weigh 280 at least. He’d played football for the Feathertown Falcons, as Cub did five years later when he got to high school. She happened to know they’d called him Titty Ogle back then, due to his anatomy. Kids are evil. Which of these congregants remembered that now? She’d bet money that some of these churchful people had once laughed at Bobby Ogle in his football uniform with his chest bob-bob-bobbing along the fifty-yard line. But he had made something of himself, gone to seminary school, founded this church with his wife, and raised up a set of twin girls, never allowing bitterness to curdle his spirit. His face told the whole story now, as he listened to the choir director: pure patience. Even though most people found Nate Weaver way too full of himself. Nate seemed dressed for a whole different show, packed into his shiny brown suit like a sausage casing, and his new little goatee did nothing to hide his double chin, if that’s what he was thinking. Dellarobia knew these thoughts made her a small person.
Pastor Ogle could look past petty things. He clapped Nate kindly on the shoulder and walked to center stage to stand a moment in the bright stage lights with his head bowed, no notes in hand. No pulpit. Just plain Bobby, standing on the pool of his own shadow. He motioned then for the congregation to stand for the hymn, “What a Friend I Have in Jesus,” and all rose. Mr. Weaver pumped his hand to direct the choir in the too-vigorous way that got on Dellarobia’s nerves. Hester was hogging the hymnal, making Cub share it on her side, managing to imply even in the Lord’s abode that three was a crowd. She looked fanciful as ever today, in a blue dress with a ruffled stand-up collar of the type Loretta Lynn made famous at the Grand Ole Opry. Pastor Ogle had lured Hester over from a harder line of Baptists, and Dellarobia knew some marital compromise was involved. Bear had stopped attending over there. Here he could sit out the service in Men’s Fellowship, which had checkers and country music pitched low enough you could still hear the sermon on the closed-circuit if you so desired. Bobby had found the key to modern believers: that many preferred their salvation experience to come with a remote.
Dellarobia thought Men’s Fellowship had its appeal, all the more so right now as the audience heaved into verse four of “What a Friend,” dragging it like a plow through heavy clay. Certainly in Men’s Fellowship no one ever made you sing. She just wished it had a more welcoming vibe for the female of the species. She’d strolled through a time or two to retrieve a Diet Coke out of the machine, and observed that they even allowed smoking. The family always split four ways, Bear going with the men, the kids to the Sunday school, she to the café, and Hester to the sanctuary with Cub in tow, playing her boy like a trout on a line, always reeling him in at the end. Dellarobia had tried to get Cub to go with her to the café, which was mostly younger women, but also some couples, “Christ’s love everywhere in equal measure” being the theme of the Ogle ministry. But there was no battling Hester, she was wired to win, just made that way: sinewy, righteous, unbeatable.
Soft, round Bobby was precisely the reverse. He won people over in a different way, using his hands to push and pull his congregants as if kneading dough and making grace rise. Like a humble baker making bread. He was actually a foundling, people said, abandoned at birth, adopted by an elderly minister and his wife who’d since passed away. Dellarobia wondered what that would feel like, to have no inkling of your people. All hers were dead, but at least a known quantity. Bobby dedicated every Mother’s Day sermon to the saintly woman who’d taken him in, heeding God’s call to embrace the rejected and discarded. Bobby was love personified, to the extent that this was rumored around town to be a no-heller church. Or that in Bobby Ogle’s version of heaven everyone would wind up in one place, criminals and Muslims included. Dellarobia could not confirm or deny the accusations; in Bobby’s light all things seemed possible. The way he was warming up right now, with everyone singing happiness and love in his general direction, his body seemed to be manufacturing some kind of vitamin from the gaze of the worshippers. Hester’s ponytail practically flapped in the breeze of hallelujah.
After the hymn Bobby said quietly, “Would you be seated,” no question mark, his hand moving toward the floor as if urging a dog to sit. They sat. Dellarobia kept her eyes open during prayers, a long habit, just a watchful person by nature. She quietly snapped open her purse and made sure her phone was on vibrate, since Dovey liked to text her on Sunday mornings for her own entertainment. There was one waiting now: COME YE FISHERS OF MEN: YOU CATCH, GOD WILL CLEAN. Dovey’s fondness for one-liners-in-Christ was bottomless, she collected them off church marquees. Back before texting, she used to pass them over during health or history class on scrims of folded paper. Dovey was Italian Catholic, she and her five brothers with all that darling mess of dark curly hair, and claimed she’d logged enough church hours in childhood to do her for life. Dellarobia fished her glasses out of her purse and put them on, possibly to spite her mother-in-law. “Boys don’t make passes at girls wearing glasses,” Hester liked to singsong, a joke so tired she could scream. If boys didn’t, the woman would not have the grandkids she did at this point in time. People could overlook anything when it suited them, right down to the making of the Lord’s baby children.