“Well,” Aaron said. “That’s it, then. I’m somewhat at a loss for words. I expected more of an argument.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Loyalty to the institution, maybe. A wish to protect the Church from controversy. A natural hesitancy. Something like that.”
“The Anglican Communion is not a stranger to controversy.”
“Right,” Aaron said. “Never forget Henry VIII.”
Dan smiled, and said nothing, and waited. The air in the room had become thick with something like a miasma, the residue of emotions left unfelt, of positions left untaken. Aaron shifted his weight uneasily from one leg to the other and back again. He was in such perfect shape, his discomfort looked deliberately chosen, as if it were a dance move.
“All right,” he said. “That’s it, then. I’ve put down the first Saturday in March. That should give us all enough time.”
“For what?” Dan asked.
“For deciding how we want this to play on the evening news.”
Somebody else might have accused Aaron of being in it for the publicity, but Dan did not, because he knew that there was going to be no way to keep this off the evening news. Instead, he waited patiently while Aaron decided to get out, looking more uncertain and uncomfortable by the minute, the way people do when they expect to have a fight and get acquiescence instead. Except that Dan wasn’t really acquiescing. That was not what was going on here. It was much more complicated than that. Aaron backed out of the office door and looked around, probably to make sure that Mrs. Reed was still gone. She must have been. Aaron said nothing to anybody, not even to Dan. When he had backed away far enough so that he was clear of the door, he turned around and began to hurry out of sight.
Dan waited until he heard steps on the stairs. Then he got out of his chair and went to the window on the other side of the room from the one Aaron had been looking at. He didn’t want to look at stained glass, at a mosaic of St. Stephen being stoned to death in Jerusalem. He wanted to see the street and the traffic and the weather and the things that were really real.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see. This was never a very busy street. There weren’t any businesses on it. Anyone who wanted to have a cup of coffee or buy a paper had to go around the corner where the plate-glass storefronts were. The only time this neighborhood ever really heated up was on Sunday, when the churches were all having services at once and the asphalt was choked with cars whose owners couldn’t find enough places to park. If he strained sideways, he could see just far enough to catch the white cross on the sign in front of Roy Phipps’s place. Sometimes Roy had his people out on the sidewalk with signs, for no reason Dan could tell. Sometimes they were gathered there on their way to a demonstration at a gay bar or the local offices of the Gay and Lesbian Support Advisory. Today, there was nothing, just dead air. Roy Phipps might have been nothing but another neighbor with a job in a bank and a car that needed to go to the mechanic’s place almost every month.
Dan retreated back to his desk, sat down again, and sighed. Before Aaron had shown up today, he had almost made up his mind to announce his homosexuality from the pulpit this Sunday. He was still unhappy that he had withdrawn from his initial impulse to announce it at Scott Boardman’s funeral. Now he didn’t know if he could do it without putting Aaron and Marc’s enterprise in jeopardy, and he didn’t know what was more important. His head was throbbing so badly it felt as if it were going to split open at the seams.
He had no idea how long he sat there, thinking nothing, totally blank. The next thing he was aware of was Mrs. Reed, back from wherever she had gone, standing in his open doorway. She looked as placid and thoughtless as she always did. If she disapproved of what went on at St. Stephen’s, if she longed for a more traditional version of religion, she never gave any indication of it to anyone in the church.
“That police lieutenant called,” she said. “He’s coming over here in about half an hour. I couldn’t put him off. He said it was important.”
“That’s all right,” Dan said. “They have to do what they have to do. Can I ask you a personal question?”
“You can ask me anything you like.”
“Have you been an Episcopalian all your life?”
Mrs. Reed blinked. “I’m not an Episcopalian at all. I’m a Methodist. I’ve been a Methodist all my life. Does that create some bar to my employment here?”
“Not at all.”
Mrs. Reed seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, and then thought better of it. “The lieutenant was very urgent. That was why I didn’t put it off, even though you weren’t around for me to check. I hope you aren’t put out by it.”