Nothing Sacred

“My mother just died.” The bald words sent Martha to the chair next to him.

“I’m sorry. So sorry.” She hadn’t even known he’d had living parents. “Is your father there with her?”

With a blank expression, he shook his head.

“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say. Even as negligent as her father had been, she’d still been rocked to the core when he died. Parents anchored your existence. Or something.

“Has she been sick long?”

He shrugged. “Months. Maybe years.”

“So you got a chance to see her?”

He shook his head. Martha had no idea what that meant. There was so much about this man that she didn’t know.

Or hadn’t known.

“I haven’t seen her in twenty-three years.” He could have been talking to himself. The wall. It certainly didn’t seem like he was talking to her.

“Oh.”

Well, then. Obviously they hadn’t been close. Not that it still wasn’t awful to hear about the death of a family member. Especially a parent… Martha wondered what had happened to keep mother and son apart for twenty-three years.

But didn’t ask. She didn’t want to be that close to him. Not anymore.

“Are you going to her funeral?”

He looked at her, then sat up in his chair. “I haven’t decided.”

Martha needed to leave. To get away from his pain before she did something foolish—like take him in her arms to offer him the comfort her heart was crying to give. She’d come back another time.

Later.

After he fully recovered and was busy lying to them again.

“Don’t go,” he said as she started to rise. The office was gloomy, getting darker as the day closed. David flipped on a lamp on the corner of his desk.

Martha stood there, undecided about what to do.

“Please,” he said, seeming to become more and more himself as the seconds passed. “You stopped by for a reason. I’d like to know what it is.”

Still she hesitated.

“Really. My mother’s in the past. Just something I have to deal with. And I will. By living in the present. Tell me. Why’d you come?”

His words grew stronger with every one he spoke. The pain in his eyes was subsiding.

“You seem pretty upset about something that’s supposed to be past.” Martha couldn’t forget his pain that quickly.

“I just received the phone call.” He stood, too, and, with his hands on her shoulders, gently pushed her back into the chair. “I’d been hoping to see her once….”

“I should come back later,” Martha insisted, standing again. “I’m not here with good news.”

Nor did she want to be feeling compassion for him. This…this liar. This preacher.

This…man.

He frowned. Asked her to sit again. “Please, Martha, if you’re troubled, that’s even more reason to stay. Talk to me. It’s what I’m here for.”