For Love of Self: Book 2 of Blessed Be
Chapter 3, in which Marshall Savage captures Spencer's attention
“A naked wood sprite. A secret no one will talk about. This is not what I expected.”
For Love of Self is the second novel in my Blessed Be series. Here on Substack, you can choose to follow along as each chapter is read aloud by The Reverend Reid D. Farrell, Jr., whose face is on the book’s cover.
For Love of Self is the second novel in my Blessed Be series. Here on Substack, you can choose to follow along as each chapter is read aloud by The Reverend Reid D. Farrell, Jr., whose face is on the book’s cover.
PLEASE NOTE: This third chapter is the last one that will be available without charge. Beginning with Chapter Four, paid subscribers to Robin Reardon Writes will be able to continue listening and reading.
If you aren’t already subscribed, you can do it right now; no waiting! And if you’re a paid subscriber, or if you change your free subscription to paid, you won’t miss a single chapter.
For Love of Self is available in ebook format on my website, and you’ll find both ebook and print formats wherever online books are sold.
Although each book in the Blessed Be series can be read on its own, reading all three will take you along with Spencer Hill as he solves a deep mystery and learns about compassion and love.
All nineteen chapters of Book One, For Love of God, are available now on Substack.
For Love of Self / Robin Reardon / © 2023
CHAPTER THREE
Vanessa had been right about Troy. Despite a call Monday afternoon from CC telling me the dog was doing a little better, the call I got early on Tuesday evening was from Abby Chisholm.
“We’ve just called the vet,” she told me, her voice catching on stifled sobs. “He’ll be here in half an hour. Can you come?”
It took me a few minutes to appreciate that here, in this community, the veterinarian would go to the dog for this act of mercy, not the other way around.
By the time I arrived at the Chisholms’, someone else from the church was already there. It was Marshall Savage. He sat on the floor of the living room, CC beside him, Troy’s head in CC’s lap. Marshall looked up as I entered and, I swear, blushed nearly crimson. His dark red hair topped the typical red-head complexion, and what would have been a light flush on me was almost a flame on his pale, lightly freckled face. It was a sweet face—vulnerable, even, though that might have been partly because of what he knew was about to happen.
Abby, standing beside me, spoke in hushed tones. “Thank you for coming, Reverend. I didn’t know CC had already called Marshall.”
“That’s no problem.”
Looking a little embarrassed, she said, “My husband told me it was silly to involve the minister in the death of a dog, but….”
I laid a hand lightly on her forearm. “This is as much about CC and your family as it is about the dog. Love is love, and CC is in pain.”
As I lowered myself to the floor, facing CC and Marshall, I smiled inwardly. In a small parish such as this one, it was entirely possible and even appropriate for the minister to involve himself in the death of a family pet. If I’d been in a large city? I couldn’t imagine a direct, personal connection with a child and her family for a reason such as this. I made a note to thank my Union advisor for sending me here.
CC leaned against Marshall’s shoulder as she slowly stroked Troy’s back. It was obvious his breathing was shallow and quick, between short periods where it seemed he wasn’t breathing at all. None of the three of us moved when the veterinarian, Dr. Lombardi, arrived, until I made way for him so he could be close to Troy.
He readied the tools of his profession and then spoke to CC.
“I’m going to give him some medicine now, CC. He’ll barely feel it. It’s just to make him relax and to ease his pain. All right?”
She nodded, and I watched as Troy’s legs released some of their tension.
“Now, CC,” Dr. Lombardi said, “if you haven’t already said goodbye, you should do it now.”
I could tell CC was struggling not to weep. A few tears coursed their way down her cheeks as she bent over Troy and kissed his head. Her voice squeaked, making it almost impossible to tell that she said, “I love you, Troy.”
“One more injection, CC, and he will ease painlessly into a sleep. He won’t wake up.”
CC nodded and a sob escaped her.
My own eyes watered as Troy’s body went completely limp. And then I heard Marshall say, “Oh!”
His face, wet with tears, was nearly shining with a kind of beauty I don’t think I’d ever witnessed.
“What is it?” I asked.
Marshall seemed to be speaking to someone who wasn’t in the room. “Oh, yes. How—” His voice caught, but his face shone. “How perfect. Yes.” He closed his eyes as we all waited. Then he bowed his head and, almost inaudibly, said, “Thank you.”
When he raised his face, still shining from some source I couldn’t identify, he looked at me. “I don’t know how this will sound to you, but something just happened. Something undeniable.”
I gave him an uncertain nod, and he looked at CC.
Marshall took a deep, shaky breath before he spoke. “Troy is not alone. Another dog, named Angus, was here.” Marshall’s voice was shakier than his breath had been, but he kept talking. “Angus was a wonderful dog. Loved his people dearly. He died protecting my father from a grizzly bear.”
No one spoke while Marshall took a moment to collect himself. Then, “Angus was a very old soul. Troy was a sweet soul, fairly new to life. Just now, Angus came for Troy. He filled the room with his love for Troy, and he carried him away. Oh, so tenderly. He carried Troy away.”
Marshall smiled at CC as copious tears flowed down his cheeks.
Dr. Lombardi lifted Troy’s lifeless body and carried it outside, while CC and Marshall held onto each other and sobbed. They were still locked in an embrace when the vet came back in.
To Abby, he said, “Would you like to have Troy cremated or buried?”
CC lifted her head from Marshall’s shoulder. “I want to spread his ashes all over the back yard. He loved playing there.”
~
I stayed long enough to be sure there was nothing I could do to bring comfort to the Chisholms, but it seemed the comfort Angus had given them was beyond anything I had to offer. How pale, and how trite anything I might have said Sunday about dogs going to heaven would seem now, after what Marshall had said. I sat on the Chisholms’ front steps and waited for Marshall.
“Reverend,” he said quietly as he passed me—an acknowledgement, nothing more.
“Marshall?” I called as I rose to my feet. “Could we talk a minute?”
He stopped but didn’t turn. “I know what you’re going to say.”
Beside him now, I said, “Do you? That’s funny, because I don’t. What am I going to say?”
He heaved a sigh heavy with exasperation. In a voice that wasn’t quite his, he said, “Spirituality is one thing, Marshall. Magical thinking is something else entirely.” He turned, his face now defiant.
I wanted to chuckle, but I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t taking him seriously. “That doesn’t sound like me. Who else would say that to you?”
He crossed his arms over his chest protectively. “I think you know.”
The only name I could come up with was Loraine. “And I think I can’t know. But what I do know is that what you said in there was excruciatingly beautiful. And I don’t think you would have invented the loving presence of your dog. I believe you truly felt it.”
Skepticism? Is that what I saw on his face then?
“In fact,” I went on, “although I couldn’t say precisely what I felt, I did feel something. Whether it was Angus coming to carry Troy away, or it was the love you felt for Angus once and for CC now, doesn’t matter as far as I can see. Love is love.”
I wanted to say more. I wanted to speak from a sudden rush of emotion I couldn’t name, a warm and uplifting wave of something I felt coming from this man. But there were no words.
He blushed, less violently than before. “Thank you.” I watched as he walked to a little blue car, his slender form not quite rigid but not quite limber, as though he felt the need to steel himself against something invisible to me. If he had turned toward me at any point, I would have waved. But he didn’t. The little car’s tail lights disappeared over the crest of a hill. But whatever had nearly overcome me, that unnamable wave of emotion, remained with me.
I walked to my own car, and as my fingers touched the door handle, I froze in place. In my head, I heard Vanessa’s voice: “So you’ve sussed him out?”
She’d said that to me Saturday evening, during dinner. I hadn’t known what she’d meant, and when I’d expressed confusion she had dismissed the statement and gone on to something else.
Sussed him out. What could that mean, except that Marshall was gay? Vanessa had thought I’d guessed as much, but when she saw I hadn’t, she was unwilling to reveal what she knew. Commendable; she wouldn’t “out” him.
If I was right about Marshall, that might explain the flushed face when he saw me; he might believe I knew. But—wait. Why would that embarrass him? Because embarrassment certainly is what it looked like.
Was he attracted to me? Was that it? It was no secret, I was sure, that I was gay. I’d revealed that during my interview, and I’d made it clear I didn’t care who knew. But did he know? And would that matter? When we’re attracted to someone, that isn’t based on sexual orientation. So did he know I was gay?
I shook my head and opened my car door. This internal discussion was pointless.
~
Wednesday I had lunch with Loraine Fuller, the first of the meetings I planned with each of the lay ministers. If I had worried she might want to intrude upon my role as minister, my concerns were assuaged. As Vanessa had indicated, Loraine had an agenda, but it wasn’t taking over my job.
We sat across from each other at a small table in the town’s only diner, plates of hamburgers and fries before us. Her dark brown hair was cut fairly short—not in a masculine style, but it looked easy to care for. She wore what appeared to be a cotton shirt under a knitted vest the same dark blue as the strips on the shirt. Her build was solid but not heavy, not tall and not short.
“I’m in earnest about this, Reverend.”
“You can call me Spencer if you like.”
She pointed a fry at me. “I’m in earnest about this, Spencer.”
It was a challenge for me to focus on her next words. Her use of a french fry as a pointer sent my mind careening back to the first meal I’d had with Puck. With Donald. He’d wanted to make a point about the religious subtext he saw in the play Sleuth, and he’d used french fries in the same way.
“…and I’d be happy to work on the program. I’ve collected a lot of relevant material, both scriptural and historical.”
It took me a second to integrate what my ears had heard but my mind had slipped away from, but I recovered well enough. She wanted me to hold an open meeting about the topic of sexual orientation. I had to be very careful with my response. I also wondered if Loraine had suggested this to Vanessa and had not met with encouragement.
“Your enthusiasm is impressive,” I told her, and I meant it. “Do you have reason to believe it would be well attended? Do you have a sense of how many people in the congregation would participate?”
She made a face I interpreted as That’s not the point. “Certainly all the gay and bi people in town, not just those in our congregation would attend. My goal would be for straight people to come, too, to learn more about what it means to be gay. Reverend, nothing like this has ever been done here.”
I nodded, doing my best to look thoughtful. “Although out people like you would likely be there, in my experience when someone is gay and not completely comfortable being seen that way, they would avoid a gathering such as the one you’re suggesting.”
“Well… they shouldn’t.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t you put together a rough draft of what you think this would look like. I have to be honest with you, though. I’m reluctant to push forward with any kind of special interest so early in my tenure here. We can revisit the idea at some point in the future.”
She scowled. “I have to say I’m disappointed. I thought you’d be keener on moving our cause forward.”
Our cause…. I couldn’t tell her outright that it wasn’t my cause.
“As regards your cause,” I said, trying not to stress your, “what do you see as your objective? What’s the end game?”
“What do you mean? Isn’t that obvious?”
“I’m trying to understand what you think success looks like.” I saw her puzzled expression and tried again. “This program you’re suggesting wouldn’t be an end in itself. I believe you see it as a step, moving forward in a specific direction. For example, is there something about the way our community perceives you as a lesbian that you feel needs adjustment or correction?”
“It’s not just our community. But, yes, I often feel as though people see me as different from straight people.”
“You are different.” I held a hand up to stop any objection. “I think what you’re looking for is the kind of acceptance in which you aren’t made to feel different because of your orientation.”
“Respect. I want respect.”
“Can we agree on the goal of respectful acceptance?”
She squinted, not at me but at something inside her mind. “Okay. Sure.”
“And I think that’s what everyone wants for themself, really. But gay people are often made to feel as though they aren’t getting it. And they’re not wrong. I hear you about that, believe me. But here’s the thing.” I hunched forward a little. “We are making progress. It can feel very slow, and we see setbacks all the time. We see bigotry winning in some ways and with some people. But you mentioned history a minute ago. History shows us that changes in society happen slowly, and usually only after enough people within that society see the change as a good thing.”
I wasn’t finished, but she interrupted. “I want to help them along.”
“I understand that. So do I. We just need to be sure we’re helping and not pushing. No one likes to be pushed. Kindness begets kindness. Love begets love. And when someone makes an adjustment that they think is their own idea, that change is real, and the changed person brings others along with them.”
She sat back hard against the booth behind her. “What are you saying? That we just have to twiddle our thumbs and wait?”
I shook my head. “Far from it. What you do in your role as lay minister is hardly inactive. When people who know you’re gay see you reaching out to help someone in trouble, they’re more likely to seek you out when they need help. When they do that, they don’t care that you’re gay. And Vanessa tells me you have an abundance of exactly that kind of love. I mean, the kind of love people need from a lay minister. The love they need from everyone, of course, but you’ve generously put yourself in a position where you expect to help people. And the more you’re seen as helping others, the less and less important your sexual orientation becomes. That is how we win. That is how we gain respectful acceptance.”
Loraine’s brow furrowed in a way that made her appear distressed. Sad, even. “But that will take forever.”
I smiled. “It seems to me you’ve made a lot of headway here already. Vanessa spoke highly of you, and what I heard last Sunday tells me you’re insightful and open-hearted. Surely, she and I are not the only people who’ve noticed that. And in fact, I’m in awe of your courage.”
She watched my face for several seconds. Then, “So we’re on the same page?”
I nodded. “I’m reading all the words on it, taking them all in, looking for direction from what they say and also from what they don’t say. That can take longer.”
I picked up the bill for lunch, and Loraine surprised me by giving me a quick hug as we parted outside the diner.
~
Thursday morning I met with John Thompson, the business manager. I wouldn’t say that I wished I hadn’t, but I will say it wasn’t a fun meeting.
John was pleasant enough, but it was during this meeting that something I’d learned in seminary about a minister’s role came home, as they say, to roost. John went over with me all those chores that had been Vanessa’s, chores for which John handled finances but for which the execution was all mine.
There was making sure the church building or function hall was heated in winter in time for services, for bake sales, for the boy scout meetings, for the Knameless Knitters, who got together as a group and who knitted, crocheted, and anonymously donated warm clothing for people of reduced means who lived in and around Assisi, and for various and sundry gatherings that might take place in the church or function hall. There was contacting workers as needed to repair anything that might go amiss, from heating to plumbing to building repairs.
By the end of this meeting the list of chores seemed so long that I wondered when I’d have time to actually minister. I sent up a silent prayer of gratitude for Deena Cunningham, who would do most of the work of putting a printed program together for Sunday services.
I’m an inveterate observer of human nature, writing novels about all kinds of people, some of whom happen to be gay or transgender or bisexual or intersex—people whose destinies are not determined solely by their sexual orientation or gender identity. Check out my work on my website.