Flight Behavior

Bobby wound up the prayer with a reminder to hold the sick and beleaguered in their hearts, and named off congregants who could use that kind of help. The list was impressive. He never used notes. She tried to put the near miss of the muffin out of her mind, but it loomed in the thought bubble over her head, attaining Goodyear-blimp size. Bobby’s plaid shirt was from Target; she’d considered that same one, shopping for Cub. No shiny suits for Pastor Ogle, he was not into things of this world. Just love. She caught his mention of upcoming Thanksgiving services before she zoned out again. Her mind was flipping through channels the way Cub did with the TV remote every evening, a form of persistent inattention that made her crazy, yet here she was. The blasted muffin would not leave her brain. They were supposed to go to Hester’s for Sunday dinner. She remembered a navy blouse she’d borrowed from Dovey for a funeral back in June. Seeing Eula Ratliff in the choir had caused her to think of that. It was Eula’s mother who died. That blouse could easily have hidden in Dellarobia’s cramped little closet until someone else died—not that it mattered, her closet and Dovey’s were more or less merged by now, they’d worn the same size since eighth grade. The same size, meaning they were the size of eighth-graders still. Dovey called that an achievement on Dellarobia’s part, after three pregnancies, but to her mind fitting into a size zero did not count for much as an accomplishment. It sounded like nonexistence. She sometimes wondered if subconsciously she’d gone for Cub just for the increase in marital volume.

A couple ducked in late, slid into the pew next to her, and promptly closed their eyes in prayer, leaving Dellarobia free to scrutinize them. The man wore sporty sunglasses pushed on top of his head as if he’d just hopped out of a convertible. But if that was the wife with him, there was no convertible in the story. She’d probably spent two hours getting her hair organized and congealed, the bangs individually shellacked into little spears, all pointing eyeward, which made Dellarobia cringe. She had a thing about eyes. Preston had a habit that killed her, of poking himself along the hairline with his pencil while pondering what to write. Every pointed jab went into her own flesh, her own eyes wincing reflexively. She was tempted to hide his pencils.

The assistant pastor read a Bible passage about the Lord shaking the wilderness and making the oak leaves whirl, presumably to remind everyone it was fall. The man with the sporty sunglasses now seemed to be checking her out on the sly. Dellarobia had gone through her phase of miniskirts in church, egged on by Dovey, who once gave her a creepy antique fox stole with intact head and tail, on a dare that she would wear it here. That was pre-kids. Now she was lucky just to get everything zipped and buttoned, shooting for decency and not for show, a green turtleneck sweater and denim skirt today. But those boots. She ought to throw them in a river.

The choir lit into a rock-and-roll version of “Take My Life and Let It Be,” with electric guitars, keyboard, and drums. The congregation was allowed to join in, but on the choir’s special numbers the sound system gave them the upper hand and they always sounded great, like hymns on the radio. The pompous Mr. Weaver notwithstanding, the choir looked like they were having a barrel of fun. All except one older fellow who was too earnest, holding his hand to his chest as if asking Jesus to marry him, fearing the wrong answer. The rest looked thrilled, raising their eyebrows and singing an exclamation point at the end of every line: “Take my feet and let them be! Swift and beautiful for thee!” She picked out those who’d been in her graduating class: Wilma Cox in the gigantic checkered top. Tammy Worsham, briefly Squier and now Banning, with her blue eyeshadow and a little more cleavage than necessary for the eyes of the Lord, it could be said. Quaneesha Williams, the sole African American choir member, who was jiggle-dancing to the music, plainly yearning to bust some bigger moves. Dellarobia was with her, everything here would go down better if you could dance. Some of life’s greatest calls were answered not by the head but by the body. Which is what got her into trouble, of course, most lately with the telephone man. Who was she to judge Tammy’s husband-collecting and cleavage? Her mood spiraled and crashed like a clipped kite.

Pastor Bobby launched his sermon with a quote from Corinthians: “Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Well, Dellarobia thought, read my mind, why don’t you. She had all but flayed her flesh for months to stop thinking wrongful thoughts, and in the end what it took was a burning bush that turned out to be butterflies. Now she tried often to guide her mind back to the vision of those fiery hills, especially at night, hoping to lie down feeling like a person of some worth.

“Jeremiah seventeen-nine tells us about disobedient thoughts,” Bobby said. “ ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.’ Now this is hard to admit, because it scares us, but it’s true. Every one of us here, and I’m speaking of myself too, we can look something straight in the eye and give it a different name that suits us better.” He had wide-set eyes and an entreating way of holding his hands palm-up. It was hard to imagine a lot of domestic drama at his house. But really, who didn’t lie to himself? “We might call it ambition,” Bobby said. “We might call it a great passion. When the true name of what we’re dealing with is greed, or lust. We all have the special talent of believing in a falsehood, and believing it devoutly, when we want it to be true.”

“Yes, brother,” someone said softly from the darkness.

“That is how our Creator made us. He knows we are thus inclined.”

Bobby again was answered with gentle assent. He looked out at his flock with the kindest gaze, like a father having an important talk with his young sons. “The Lord wants us to secure our hearts against things that lure us wrongly. When we’re struggling with jealousy, and guilt, and impatience, and hardness of heart, and lust, He wants us to use our rational minds and call these things by their true names. We all want to be in our minds, and not out of them. We need them to behave. How do we do that?”

Dellarobia wondered how many others in this room felt he was reading off their personal résumé. If Bobby had a suggestion, she was all ears.

“There is no use in focusing on a bad thought and trying to chase it away,” he said. “Really that just won’t work. You’ll see nothing in your mind’s eye except the one thing you want to shut out. The hunter sees naught but that which he pursues. Do you hear me? You do. There is a different way to go. Philippians counsels us to replace a wrong thought with a good one. ‘Brethren, fix your thoughts on what is true. Whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. And peace will be with you.’ ”