A/N -- Disclaimer: QL characters belong to Belisarius and company. I just use 'em because I love 'em.
Quantum Leap: The Tie That Binds (August 13, 1961)
Sam came aware slowly. There was no sound, except the occasional cough. Before him, on a raised platform, lay an open Bible, a long pad of lined paper covered with neatly curved handwriting, and a typed sheet. He looked up. A well-dressed, quiet assembly -- a church congregation, he realized -- waited expectantly. For him. With a flash, it dawned: he was a preacher, standing at a pulpit while the congregation patiently awaited his next word.
"Oh, boy," he murmured, and the sound echoed hollowly through the sanctuary. To his left, the organist cleared her throat, as if to warn him, or remind him, or wake him up. Sam looked down at his notes. He had no idea where in his sermon he was, or if he had even begun it. The lined paper held no answer. He glanced at the Bible, which was open to the Book of Proverbs. There were several chapters on those two pages; he could have been reading from any of them. Acknowledging defeat, he lifted his eyes again to the congregation and, bestowing his best smile upon them, shrugged.
"We'll turn in our hymnbooks to our next song," he said with apparent confidence, modulating his voice to accommodate the microphone. He nodded at the organist who, bemused, began to play. He recognized the song as "Blest Be The Tie That Binds." Scanning the printed program, he went weak with relief to notice that it was the last item before the benediction. He added his voice to the resonating harmony filling the room, but his mind raced with unanswered questions. Who was he this time? Where and when was this? What on earth did one say for a benediction?
All too soon the four verses of the hymn were sung and the final chords of the pipe organ died away. Once again, there was expectant silence. Sam resisted the urge to lift his hands over the congregation. "Go in peace," he said finally, and the organ swelled again. Sam closed the Bible gently and, steeling himself, walked down the center aisle, flanked by two men he assumed were his deacons, to the now open front door. Behind him, the buzz of conversation started, quietly at first, then slowly rising to normal volume.
Sam squinted in the bright sunlight, pausing at the top of the front steps. Wherever this was, it seemed to be late spring or early summer. The sky was blue and utterly cloudless. Instinctively, he knew that this was a small, small town somewhere in the Midwest. He felt almost at home.
The deacons stood on the two steps just below Sam, so that together, they formed a three- person receiving line to the sidewalk. Nobody spoke. People began to trickle out of the church, greeting Sam with a friendly, "Good day, Reverend," and a handshake. From the style of their dress, he placed the period at somewhere in the late fifties; perhaps early sixties, considering how slowly small town fashions change. He smiled and nodded at each person, murmuring politely in answer to their greetings. As usual, he experienced that lost, unreal feeling of knowing he was the only one in the game who didn't have a handle on the rules.
A tiny, ancient woman hobbled out, leaning heavily upon both a sturdy wooden cane and an equally sturdy looking young man. She put out her gnarled, knobby-knuckled hand and Sam squeezed it gently. Peering at him over her glasses, she asked, "You coming down with something, Reverend?"
Sam looked down at his shoes. "No, ma'am, I don't think so," he answered softly.
"Then what happened to your sermon?" she pressed.
He must have leaped in before the sermon started. Damn. He turned on his smile. "Uh, well, I guess I, uh, lost my train of thought, ma'am."
She glared at him. After a moment, she said in a schoolmarm tone, "When I taught you in fifth grade that briefer was better, I didn't mean that brief."
"Yes, ma'am. See you next week, ma'am," Sam said, blushing.
"If the Lord is truly merciful," she retorted, "He'll come and get me before then."
Bit by bit, people greeted him and wished him a pleasant day. Some were white, a few were black, and all were well-dressed. Most looked at him strangely, but nobody ventured to comment on the service. After a while his face began to ache from smiling and his post-Leap disorientation began to give way to a stress-induced tension headache. He turned to greet the next person, an attractive black woman who slipped her small hand into his.
"Morning," Sam murmured.
The woman smiled, not the friendly-but-impersonal moving of the mouth that accompanies a vague after-church greeting, but rather the barely concealed grin of a friend who knows too much. "Interesting sermon, Reverend," she said, clearly trying to look serious.
"I, uh, lost my train of thought," Sam said again, feeling ridiculous.
"Apparently," the woman answered dryly, raising an eyebrow. "Tea at five?" Sam looked at her blankly. "As usual?" she prompted.
"Uh, okay, five," Sam said, having no idea what he was agreeing to.
The woman grinned again and turned to proceed down the steps. Only then did Sam notice that she was very pregnant. He was so intent on staring that he almost missed her tossed- over-the-shoulder comment, "Tonight's message should be so short."
From the next person in line, standing slightly behind him still, came a mutter which sounded to Sam like, "The nerve of that Jezebel." He turned, surprised to see a thin, slightly overly-made-up woman, around forty, whose deeply pink-lined mouth was puckered in disgust as she watched the black woman move carefully down the street. Then the frown was gone as she laid her hand on Sam's arm and cooed, "Wonderful service, Reverend. I always get a blessing." She moved away before Sam could so much as nod.
As he bid "Good day," to the last of the congregation and to his deacons, he heard the chamber door open beside him. Al stepped out, dressed in a hot pink shirt with a tie and trousers in an alligator pattern. He stood for a moment, taking in Sam's light grey suit and white clerical collar, then begged, "Please. Tell me you're not a priest. Anyone who voluntarily gives up you-know-what makes me nervous."
"No," Sam snapped, "I'm not a priest. I'm a Reverend and it sure took you long enough to get here."
"Patience is a virtue, Reverend," Al smirked, removing the handlink from the pocket of his unreasonably baggy trousers.
"Who am I and why am I here?" Sam growled, re-entering the church and closing the heavy doors behind him.
"Why, Reverend," a female voice answered from the direction of the pulpit. "I hope this isn't an identity crisis you're having." A round, motherly looking blonde woman made her way down the aisle toward Sam. "People forget things all the time, though maybe not whole sermons," she added, smiling. "I expect you're just dwelling too hard on your problems. My George used to do the same thing." Sam looked at Al, who shrugged and punched some keys on the handlink. "'Course, I'm sure it's hard to concentrate on anything with that Palmer hussy sitting right there, big as life. Some people have no shame. I mean, it takes two, and people do make mistakes, but, coming right out in public like that. Well. It's disgraceful." Moving past Sam toward the door, she continued without missing a beat. "And that reminds me, don't forget the Wilson christening is at one. 'Day, Reverend."
"'Bye, Sam said, barely audibly. He waited until the door was fully closed, then whispered fiercely, "What the hell is going on? Who am I?"
The handlink blinked and beeped. Al said, "You're the Reverend Michael Fallon. You are the minister here at the First Church of Oak Hill, Illinois. It's August thirteenth, nineteen sixty-one." The handlink squealed. Al smacked it. "You're thirty-one years old, unmarried, no kids, and you live alone in that trailer thing in back of the church."
"Who was that?" Sam asked, nodding with his head toward the front door.
Al frowned, deciphering information. "That would be Mrs. Beane, the church secretary. She keeps track of your schedule, makes sure your shirts get ironed, and, from the looks of things, has a little soft spot in her heart for you. I mean, the good Reverend."
Sam sighed. "Why am I here?" Dragging facts out of Ziggy through Al was always a tedious process. Especially since nobody kept a complete database on small towns like Oak Hill, Illinois.
"Ziggy says there's aneighty-eight percent chance that the reason you're here has to do with a woman named Lena Palmer." Once again, Sam looked in the direction Mrs. Beane had gone, his mind racing.
"I think I met her," he said vaguely.
"If you had, you'd know. Black woman in her late twenties, about eight months pregnant," Al said.
"I did meet her. I'm supposed to have tea with her at five or something like that."
"That makes sense," Al said. "Ziggy says you've known each other from childhood, and that every week for the past three years you've eaten Sunday dinner at her place."
"She doesn't seem to be very well liked," Sam remarked, remembering the hostile comments concerning the woman.
"I imagine the folks around her would like to see a scarlet 'A' on her chest," Al drawled, "this being a good Christian community and all."
"I get it," Sam said, pieces falling into place. "What am I here to do, then?"
"Well," Al said, squinting at the blinking handlink, "Ziggy's not sure, but he does know that -" He stopped and looked at Sam. His voice dropped to a mumble. "That Lena Palmer has some kind of accident tomorrow. Neither she nor her baby survives."
x x x
Sitting down at the tiny kitchen table in his cramped and crowded trailer, Same said, "What kind of accident?"
Al walked through a chair, pushing buttons. "Well, Ziggy says that according to the town paper, nobody knows exactly what happens, except that she takes some kind of fall in the bake shop she runs about two miles from here. By the time anybody finds her, she's in bad shape, hemorrhaging badly. The baby either is stillborn or dies just after it's born. Lena Palmer dies about a day later. Ziggy found a whole write up about it in the paper, and there was a coroner's inquiry, which concluded there was no foul play."
Sam was silent, so Al went on. "According to Ziggy, you - or rather, Michael - and Lena grew up together. You went to seminary in Chicago, and she took over her father's bakeshop. In the past couple of months, seems just about all her friends have started to avoid her, except you. She won't say who the father is, but odds are on Hart Warner, a guy she dated years ago. He was home on leave from the Army at about the right time, and, folks say, probably left her with 'a package.' At any rate, she keeps pretty much to herself, and, as you can tell, you're about all she's got."
"So, I'm here to save her life. Make sure she doesn't fall. Maybe get Warner to marry her?" Sam felt the familiar frustration of not knowing exactly what his mission was.
"Maybe all of the above. Remember, you're her friend, but you're also a minister. Your advice probably carries a lot of weight with her." Al frowned at the handlink. "Uh-oh. Sam, right now, you've got a more urgent task. The Wilsons are here for their christening."
Sam blanched. "I can't christen a baby! I don't know how, and I'm not a real reverend." He jumped up and yanked the curtain aside from the window to see several cars pulling into the church parking lot.
"Well, you must have been christened," Al offered.
Sam glared at him. "I was a baby, Al, I don't really remember it well."
"Well, don't get huffy with me, Sam. I'll get Ziggy to dig up a prayer book and I'll walk you through it. Go comb your hair and make yourself presentable." The chamber door appeared and Al stepped backwards into it. "I'll be right back."
Sam walked over to the mirror hanging above a small dresser. He studied the reflection. Michael Fallon had short blond hair and brown eyes. He was clean shaven and ordinary looking. He had a dimple in his right cheek. Sam thought he looked understanding and intelligent, in a corn-fed kind of way. As he turned away, he could not help but wish that, just once, he would look in a mirror and see his own reflection. He was beginning to forget what his own face looked like.
The Wilsons must have thought their Reverend was suffering from some rare form of brain fever, the way that christening went. Every so often, he would pause, look at the air, and clear his throat. His movements, when he finally did get around to blessing the baby, were jerky and awkward.
The truth was, Sam couldn't get through that ceremony fast enough for his taste. Al, forty years in the future, held a copy of the Book of Common Prayer in front of Sam, who would glance at the pages, commit them to his photographic memory, then look at the baby and recite the words. He could not control the trembling in his hands as the proud new mother handed him the infant to be blessed with holy water. The little boy stared in wonderment at Al, who made comic faces at him and told off-color jokes. Sam nearly lost his concentration entirely when Mrs. Wilson informed him that the little boy's name would henceforth be, Arnold Eugene Wilson. The Third. Al moaned, sympathizing with the child out loud, "And I thought Albert was bad, you poor kid. You'll be lucky if you don't end up a serial killer."
After photographs were taken and the parents and guests consumed the cake the Wilsons had brought, they finally left and Sam was alone. He went back to the trailer and read through the handwritten notes on the desk. At four, he began to walk up the street to Lena's bakeshop.
It is a strange feeling to lay eyes on someone and know that, somewhere in the next twenty-four hours she may not exist anymore. Sam tried to swallow the dread as he opened the door to the bakeshop. The bell on the door jingled and he stepped into a room full of sweet cake smells. The shelves were clean and bare; it occurred to him that of course Lena would not do business on a Sunday.
Lena appeared from a back room. "Hi, Michael," she greeted him. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to show. Come on back." He followed her through an immaculate white room containing two oversized ovens and a long Formica table, into a normal sized, brightly decorated kitchen which was obviously part of her home. The small table there was laid out for two. "Have a seat," Lena invited, removing her apron. She was dressed in a blue maternity top, black pedal pushers and white tennis shoes. Her straight hair was pulled back from her face by a bow. She bent awkwardly to pull a pan of muffins from the oven, her swollen abdomen making her unwieldy.
Sam jumped to his feet. "Here," he said, "let me get that for you. Why don't you just sit on down there," he added, holding the chair as she sat down with a little difficulty but no protest, "and I'll put everything out."
Lena tried to get comfortable on the narrow kitchen chair. "Everything is such a battle nowadays," she said, smiling. "Takes me forever just to heave myself out of bed in the morning. Pulling on socks is like an Olympic event, the amount of effort it takes."
"How long is it now?" Sam asked to make conversation as he set the plate of sliced chicken next to the sweet potatoes. He ignored the twinge of foreknowledge.
"Four weeks, six days," Lena answered without hesitation. She spooned some potatoes onto her plate. "How was the christening?"
Sam noticed the deliberate change of topic but didn't comment. "Went okay. I didn't drown the baby, anyway."
Lena reached over and patted his hand encouragingly. "Well, at least you're getting better. That's good to know," she said.
They ate in silence for a while, Sam enjoying both the company and the well-cooked meal. Finally, he said, overly brightly, "So. Heard from Hart lately?"
She looked at him blankly, then said slowly, "Hart Warner? I got a letter from him a couple weeks ago. He's still stationed in Germany. Why?"
"Oh, no reason," Sam answered, seemingly intent on his meal. Then he said, "Lena. What are you going to do when the baby comes?"
She watched him thoughtfully, swallowing her food. "I don't know what you mean, what am I going to do."
"I mean, are you giving it up, or ..." He trailed off at her sudden, closed expression.
"Michael, there doesn't happen to be a big demand out there for mocha babies," she snapped. She stabbed a piece of chicken more forcefully than necessary.
Sam was silent. He pushed a chunk of sweet potato around the plate with the tip of his fork. She was clearly mad at him for bringing up the possibility of adoption. Maybe she was still hoping that Hart Warner would return and marry her. If so, he'd have to get here soon.
When he glanced up again, Lena was looking out of the little round window above the sink, her hand rubbing circles on her belly, a strange half-smirk on her face. "What's the smile for?" Sam asked, curious.
She seemed to come back to the present, then ducked her head, avoiding his eye. "Oh, it's just me being evil," she murmured, reaching for her glass of milk.
"Being evil?" Sam prodded.
Lena sighed, and the mischievous expression was back. "I was just trying to picture the reaction of this little town if this baby comes out looking more like you than like me."
Sam put his fork down carefully. He opened his mouth, but was too shocked to do anything but close it again. Lena held his gaze until he covered his face with his hand. "Oh, boy," he groaned.
They chatted about everything else besides the baby for the rest of dinner. As Lena sliced the cake she had baked for dessert, they heard a voice from the store. Sam was surprised that she left her front door open and told her so. "Sometimes folks drop by to place orders," she grunted, trying to hoist herself up out of the chair. Sam rose to help her.
A brown haired boy, about fifteen, peered around the door. "Hey, Miss Palmer, anything for me to do?"
Lena finally gained her feet. "I don't think so, Peter," she said, breathing heavily from the exertion. "I'm all set for today, so I'll see you tomorrow morning."
"Sure thing, Miss Palmer," Peter answered eagerly. "See you, Reverend." He disappeared.
"He's such a great kid," Lena said, walking to the sink to peer out the window again, rubbing her back. "I don't know how I'd run this place without him. His mom's a little on the nosy side, but Peter's dependable as rain."
Sam watched her worriedly. "Is he the only other person around? Are you sure you're not doing too much?" He came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then said, "Michael. I'm fine. And don't worry. I haven't told anyone. I don't plan to. Relax."
"I'm not worried about that, Lena," Sam said, stung by her implication. "I just want to make sure you're not overdoing it."
"I'm fine," Lena insisted, laying her hand gently along his jaw for an instant. "And Peter Beane is a big help. Anything heavy or strenuous, I let him do it. Really." She moved around him and back to the table. "We'd better finish dessert or you'll be late for service." The conversation was obviously over.
x x x
Sam preached a respectable twenty-minute sermon that evening on getting the board out of one's own eye before criticizing somebody else's speck of dust. Under the circumstances, he couldn't help but notice the irony. The board in Michael Palmer's eye seemed to be the size of a building. To his credit, nobody fell asleep while he was talking, and several people commented after the service that they were glad the Reverend was feeling better. He returned to his trailer alone. Al was nowhere to be found. Exhausted, he fell asleep early.
Sam woke with a start at the crack of dawn the next morning. He had a plan. Maybe it would work. He called Al. The hologram did not appear for several minutes. By the time Al strolled through the chamber door, Sam was ready to scream. "Where the hell were you? I've been calling you for a good fifteen minutes."
Al glared at him silently for a few seconds, his mouth tight. "You may get up with the birds, Doctor Beckett," he answered, his voice icy, "but for the rest of us, it's two o'clock in the morning and we've been running scenarios nonstop since the last time I saw you. If I'm slow to respond to your royal summons, it's because I haven't slept."
Sam flushed. Al only ever lost his good disposition when he was very tired or very worried. "I'm sorry," Sam said, genuinely contrite. "I have a plan." Al brightened a little. "What if I get Lena to take the day off, you know, drive to Chicago or something. If she's not in the bake shop, she can't fall, right?"
Al punched it into the handlink. "Good idea, Sam, but it won't work. It just pushes the accident back by a day. You've got to stop her from doing whatever she does when she has her accident, and apparently it's something she does on a regular basis."
"That's a big help," Sam said.
"We do have more information on the Reverend, though. Seems soon after Lena's death, he kinda falls into the bottle. In about two years, he gets fired and goes to Chicago, but he never gets another minister position. He eventually ends up drinking himself to death. Ziggy thinks the accident and this guy's breakdown are related." He shook his head. "I don't know, though. I mean they're close friends and everything, but that seems a little drastic -"
"I'm the baby's father," Sam said quietly. "I mean, Michael is."
"Ah," Al said, eyebrows rising. "Well, that'll do it. Talk about a deep, dark secret. I guess when Lena and the baby die, ..."
"He's consumed with loss, and maybe guilt because he never admitted it, and he can't handle it," Sam finished for him.
"That kind of thing could tear a man up inside," Al agreed.
"...Only, what if he does admit it? What if he and Lena get married?" Sam began to form a better plan. He also began to pace. "Say I get Lena to marry me. She says yes, and I offer -- as her fiancé -- to help her out during the day. I keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn't do … whatever she does, she doesn't have her accident, and Michael doesn't become an alcoholic."
"That's great, Sam," Al said dryly, "only she won't marry you."
That caught Sam up short, mid-stride. "Well, why not?"
"Because, unlike you, Lena's got some sense." He ignored Sam's hurt puppy dog look. "You've forgotten a few crucial points, Dr. Beckett. First, this is 1961, and there's no way Michael and Lena would ever get married. The civil rights movement isn't even a glimmer yet in a small town like this. A white man marrying a black woman? Never happen. Second, do you really think Michael wouldn't lose his job if he admits to having an affair with a parishioner -- any parishioner -- and fathering a baby out of wedlock? Get real, Sam."
"But it's not out of the question," Sam persisted stubbornly.
"Maybe a twenty-three percent chance of success."
"But not out of the question, and besides that, we don't have another plan." Sam grabbed a shirt and pulled it over his head. "You and Ziggy run this scenario. I'm going to the bake shop to propose to Lena." Seeing that there was no point in arguing with Sam, Al stepped back through the chamber door and disappeared.
Lena was on her second batch of cakes by the time Sam got there at six-thirty. He knocked at the door, but there was no answer. The door opened under his hand. "Lena?" he called softly. Rounding the corner into the baking room, he let out a cry and rushed forward. Lena was standing on the second rung of a four foot stepladder, leaning precariously forward. Holding a broom by its bristles, she was jamming the handle into an iron grate on the wall up near the ceiling. She turned her head as Sam dashed toward her. He grabbed her waist and hauled her almost roughly to the floor. Setting her firmly on her feet, he fumed, "What the hell do you think you were doing?"
Lena stared at him, speechless and trembling, for a full ten seconds before she shouted back, "I might asked you the same thing, Michael Fallon! You scared the life out of me!"
Sam struggled to gain control of his temper and his voice. "I don't ever want to see you up on a ladder again," he said through clenched teeth, knowing even as he spoke the words that they would incense her.
He was right. Her expression and her tone grew instantly arctic. "I thought you were the shepherd of the flock, Reverend, not the owner." She turned to her work table and began pouring batter into a cake pan, her hands still shaking.
Sam took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Upsetting her wouldn't be healthy for the baby, either. "I just got scared," he said in a more normal voice, "seeing you up there, that's all. You could easily have fallen and hurt yourself, or the baby." Or you both could have died, his mind added. "I'm sorry. I seem to be apologizing a lot lately."
Lena turned to face him, looking directly into his eyes. Her expression softened. With the back of one hand, she pushed damp strands of hair off of her perspiring forehead. He noticed her palms were covered with flour, which left a white streak just above her right eyebrow. They were standing very close together; he could just feel her abdomen brush against him. "The vent is stuck," she said, gesturing toward the grate on the wall. "It doesn't open when I flick the switch, and that's why it's so hot in here. By midday, I feel like I'm in the oven. I figured I'd open it before I put in the second batch of cakes. Peter isn't in yet, or I'd have asked him to do it." She smiled fleetingly as she wiped her hands nervously on her smock. "It was stupid, I know. I won't do it again."
Sam took a chance. "Lena. Marry me."
At first, she just looked at him, her face blank with sheer disbelief. Then she twisted away and walked a few paces across the room. "You've got to be kidding," she said. When he remained silent, she covered her eyes with one hand. "Don't do this to me, Michael. We've already been through this." Sam's estimation of Michael rose several notches. "Please. You know all of the reasons we can't marry."
"I love you, and you love me," Sam ventured, waiting for her to deny it.
She didn't. "That's not the point, Reverend," she said, stressing his title. "You'd lose your job, for one thing. Maybe even get kicked out of the ministry altogether. Then what would you do?"
"I'll do something else," Sam argued.
"Michael, don't be dense. You're a minister. That's what you do -- what you were born to do -- and they would fire your behind before you could say 'amen.'" She laughed, bitterly. "And furthermore, God may be colorblind, but Oak Hill, Illinois, certainly isn't. We could never get married here."
"So we'll move."
"To where? California?" She sighed. "This is crazy."
Sam walked to where she was standing, arms crossed defensively above her belly. He placed his hands gently on either side of her face and hoped what he was about to say wasn't a lie. "Lena. I love you. I love our baby. I want to make us a family." He bent his head and kissed her softly. She didn't resist, but she didn't step closer, either. He deepened the kiss as a tremor ran through her. He felt her hands on his arms, clinging for a moment, then she raised her arms to encircle his neck. He gathered her close to him, losing himself in the sweet bakery scent of her. Finally, she slid her hands back down to his elbows, then slowly pulled away from him.
"I never thought I'd do that again," she said shakily. She let go of his arms. "But you and me that time, that was a mistake. You can't build a marriage or a family on a mistake, no matter how much you want it. We can never be together. Not here or anywhere else." Tears shimmered in her brown eyes. "You love me, but you love being a minister, too. And I love you too much to destroy that. I can't marry you, Michael," she said, her voice trembling with regret and tears. "It would be wrong." She dropped her hands to her sides and waited for him to release her. When he did, she walked quickly out of the room, into her own kitchen and shut the door. Sam knew he heard muffled sobs coming from her apartment, and it broke his heart that he had failed and that he had hurt her.
What he didn't hear was the click of the front door closing, its bell muffled, or the sound of teenaged footsteps running down the street toward home.
He stood for a moment in the middle of the room, then reached over and shut off the oven. Behind him, Al said gently, "It was a good try, Sam." Sam silently walked past him and out of the shop.
x x x
"What do you mean, nothing's changed?" Sam's voice grew louder with disbelief. "I found her on the ladder, and don't tell me that's not the accident Ziggy's talking about. She said she wouldn't do it again."
Al sighed, just as frustrated as Sam. "Ziggy says the accident, whatever it is, still happens sometime tonight. Maybe she does something else."
"Like what," Sam snapped, approaching the end of his tether, "skydiving? Stockcar racing? Come on, Al, it has to be the ladder. And she promised --"
"Yeah, but will she keep that promise?" Al asked quietly.
Sam stopped. "Maybe I should go keep an eye on her."
Al winced as he pointed out, "After this morning, Sam, I would guess that you are the last person on the planet she would want to see. Sorry."
That took all the wind out of Sam's sails. He remembered her shattered expression, and the sound of her sobbing as if the world were just too much to bear. All he could do was sit down on his lumpy miniature sofa and try to come up with another solution.
Meanwhile, at the bake shop, Lena was putting the finishing touches on an elaborate anniversary cake. The door opened.
"Hello, Mrs. Beane," Lena said pleasantly. Although she was aware that most people in town despised her, she made it a point to be civil, if only because her business depended upon it. She was especially nice to Mrs. Beane because she was genuinely fond of her helper, Peter. "What can I do for you today?"
Mrs. Beane paused, as if pulling her thoughts together. "Miss Palmer, I am well aware that people make mistakes. Men have been taking advantage of girls probably since the beginning of time. But I've decided that this is not the sort of environment a boy of Peter's age should be exposed to."
Lena said, "I imagine you mean my being, uh, in the family way." Mrs. Beane nodded, her cheeks growing pinker. "But, I have been in this condition for several months now, and it doesn't seem to have been too much of a problem."
"Certain things have come to my attention."
"Like?" Lena prompted.
Mrs. Beane's voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, as if to speak the words out loud might soil her in some way. "Like who the baby's father is," she hissed. "Anyone who would have an affair with a minister, in my opinion, has no morals whatsoever, and is poison for an impressionable boy like my Peter. I don't want him around you anymore, Miss Palmer, and I intend to have Reverend Fallon removed from the church as well. Now, where is my son?"
It took Lena several seconds to find her voice and call Peter out from the kitchen. She noticed for the first time that he would not meet her eyes. Dizzy, she groped beneath the counter for the cash box, unlocked it, and extracted a ten-dollar bill. "Peter," she said, sounding unfocused and strange, "this will cover whatever I owe you since the last time I paid you. I've enjoyed having you here. You're a fine worker." She placed a hand on the rounded top of her belly, where the baby had just kicked her, and leaned against the cake counter.
Mrs. Beane seemed to want to say something more, but instead only shepherded her son out of the shop. Lena was too shocked and suddenly too tired to fight anymore. The tinny, faint tinkling of the bell above the door mocked her.
x x x
The church bells had just tolled the nine o'clock hour when Sam heard a knock at his trailer door. In despair because he had so far been unable to think of a way to save Lena's life, he dragged himself across the crowded trailer to let his visitor in. The two deacons he had encountered, as well as the church secretary, entered, their expressions closed and tight. He invited them to sit on the tiny sofa and one of the two kitchen chairs. There was stiff silence as they all waited for someone to speak.
"Reverend," Mrs. Beane said awkwardly, torturing her leather purse strap between her fingers, "I had some rather disturbing news from my son, Peter, today."
"What kind of news?" Sam asked.
"About you. I didn't know what to do, so I went to Deacon Miles and Deacon Finley for advice." Sam waited. "And I also went to see Lena Palmer."
Sam felt his heart drop. "What is this about, then?" he asked, stalling desperately for time.
Deacon Miles nailed him with a straight and steady gaze and asked, point blank, "Are you the father of Lena Palmer's baby?" Deacon Finley looked away, toward some point at the other end of the trailer. Mrs. Beane flushed.
Sam maintained eye contact and replied, "Yes." He heard Mrs. Beane's sharp intake of breath, as if she had hoped against hope that there was some error. "Now what?"
"Then as Senior Deacon, I will have to ask for your resignation. Your kind of guidance this town does not need." Miles' tone brooked no argument.
"My kind of guidance?" Same said angrily, despair and fatigue catching up with him. "You haven't had any problem with my kind of guidance for the past year. Well, I'm sorry to inform you that I am a human being. I make mistakes. And, like you, I ask forgiveness and move on. But I guess I'm not allowed to make mistakes, am I?"
"We're not talking about mere mistakes, Reverend," Deacon Finley said, now staring down at his clenched hands, "we're talking about a minister, supposedly a man of God, fathering a child out of wedlock with a - a colored woman."
"Which part bothers you the most, the status of the baby or the color of the woman?" Sam could not keep the contempt out of his voice. He stood, towering over his still seated guests. A few feet away, the chamber door opened and Al stepped out, gesturing urgently. Sam ignored him. "I listen every day to your faults and your failings. I counsel your gambling problems, your booze binges, your cheating on your wives. I put up with your gossiping about the people you profess to love. I listen and I tell you that no matter what you've done, God loves and forgives you. And I don't judge you." he leaned over them, fury in his voice, his arrows hitting home. Not one would meet his blazing eyes now. "You, God knows, are not perfect." He turned away. "And neither am I."
"Sam," Al said. The handlink was beeping urgently.
"Lena refused to marry me because she knew you'd fire me, and she knew you'd never accept us." He wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly cold. "And it's because of you - judgmental, imperfect bigots like you - that I'm going to lose her. Why don't you get the boards out of your own eyes before you judge me?" There was silence, absolute, when he finished, until Al said, "Uh-oh. Sam, you need to get to the bakeshop, NOW. Ziggy says Lena's accident is about to happen."
Sam whirled to stare for an instant at Al, then he flung open the flimsy trailer door and ran into the night.
x x x
Lena locked the front door of the shop and pulled the shade down over the window. She shut off the lights and went into the bake shop kitchen. The wind had picked up somewhat since sundown; she noticed that gritty dust had settled on her baking surfaces. It was coming in through the open vent. Peter had left before she could ask him to close the vent for the night. The dust depressed her, a symbol of her life gone wrong.
No doubt, Michael was getting his marching papers at that very moment. Mrs. Beane's righteous indignation would not stop with removing Peter from Lena's tainted presence. She suspected they'd both be lucky if they were not tarred and feathered by morning.
She eyed the counter top. Well, she couldn't change history, but she could damn well do something about this dust. She looked at the ladder folded and leaning in a corner, then at the darkened bakery. Indecision and her promise to Michael paralyzed her for a full minute. As she finally moved toward her apartment, a gust of wind blew more dust across her bleach-scrubbed table. Resolved, she marched over and grabbed the ladder with both hands.
Sam ran as fast a he could, Al urging him on. Anyone looking out the window as he passed would have been convinced that the Reverend had truly lost his mind. He gasped for breath.
At the top of the ladder, Lena paused to regain her balance. Between the baby's almost continuous movement and her swollen abdomen, she had difficulty finding her center of gravity. For a moment, she reflected that perhaps climbing the ladder was not a good idea. But she was up here now, and the sooner she could close the vent, the sooner she could be off the ladder and resting on her sofa with her swollen feet up.
Slowly, she lifted the broom and poked it through the iron grating. She pushed gently upward, but nothing happened. She pushed again, harder. "Dammit," she said through gritted teeth, jerking the broom handle back for another try. The ladder shifted and slid on the smooth floor. Lena lost her grip on the broom, which clattered to the floor, and flailed her arms, trying futilely to stay balanced. She fell backward, her side catching the edge of the table, and landed hard on the floor. The ladder crashed down on top of her.
"She's down, Sam, hurry!" Al yelled as Sam stopped to grip a stitch in his side. He sprinted the last several yards to the darkened bake shop. He tried the door - locked. Al sailed right through the walls to where Lena lay, unconscious and still. "In here, Sam!"
Sam dashed around to the back, hoping that there would be a back entrance or a window. The door he found there was too solid to break with his shoulder or foot. He smashed the window with his elbow and climbed painfully in. He sprinted through the bedroom and kitchen, tripping over and bumping into furniture, and skidded to a halt in the baking room next to Lena's panting form.
She was curled into the fetal position, her hands gripping her belly. "Lena," Sam said, keeping his voice remarkably calm and feeling her wrist for a pulse, "Lena, I'm here."
She moved restlessly and moaned in pain. "The baby," she gasped. "The baby's coming."
"You're going to be fine," Sam said, even as he noticed the bleeding. He grabbed some white towels from the counter and put them between her legs, beneath her skirt. "I'm going to call the ambulance," he told her, "and I'll be right back." He wasn't sure if she even heard him. He ran to the phone and dialed 911, then, cursing himself, hung up and dialed 0. He could hear Al telling Lena to hang in there, as if she could hear him.
"Oak Hills Police Department, Operator speaking."
"This is S- uh, Reverend Fallon. I'm at Lena's Bakeshop on Main Street. I need an ambulance, fast. There's been an accident. There's an injured woman in labor." He knew he was speaking too quickly, and struggled to control himself.
"What is the nature of the emergency?" the Operator said.
Sam half sobbed, half screamed, "She's losing her baby! She needs an ambulance, now!" He held the line long enough to hear the Operator confirm that the ambulance was on its way, then slammed the receiver down and dashed back to Lena's side. He managed to calm himself enough to lift the ladder and throw it aside. He checked her abdomen. "Al, she's having strong contractions."
"Well, the ambulance is on the way, Sam. Just hang in there. I think you got here in time."
It seemed to take forever for the ambulance, which was little more than a white station wagon, to arrive. Sam felt like stamping in frustration when he realized that the highly trained paramedics and the state-of-the-art portable trauma units of his era did not exist yet. It would all depend on speed, then, rather than technology. He pulled rank as a clergyman, refusing to get into the police car, insisting instead on riding in the ambulance with Lena. He held her hand as the wail of the sirens split the night.
At the hospital, almost forty minutes later, he surrendered her to the nurses. She was in full, premature labor, writhing and crying from the pain. The admitting nurse sat him firmly on the waiting room couch and told him, "There's nothing you can do now but wait. And pray. We'll let you know when something happens." At his bleak expression, she added gently, "She's in very good hands."
Sam leaned over and put his head in his hands.
Al said, "Gee, Sam, you look like hell."
Sam glared at him. "Well, how do you expect me to look? I don't know, Al. I messed up. I should have been there; I should have stopped it. Instead of losing it with those people."
"Maybe they needed to hear it," Al suggested.
"No," Sam said, "I messed up. Now Michael's definitely fired and Lena and her baby still might die." He looked down at his blood-stained hands and clothing. "I think I might have failed this time, Al," he said in a thin voice.
Al peered at the handlink. "Ziggy says you've still got a chance," he assured Sam, but Sam knew he and Ziggy were only trying to make him feel better.
Sam had never known such a silent place as that hospital in the hours he waited for some news. Nobody on the floor made a sound. He paced; he prayed; he searched his mind for all the small and not so small things he could have said or done differently. He slept a little.
Finally, at half past three, a white haired man entered the waiting room. Sam jumped to his feet. "Doctor?"
The doctor removed his sterile cap and mask. His shirt was blood stained. He eyed Sam for a moment, then said, "I'm Doctor Field. Miss Palmer is fine, and so is the baby." Sam let out the breath he had been holding. The doctor continued. "There was some distress; we had to go in and take the baby by Caesarean section, but they're both strong. The baby's a little on the small side, but that's to be expected."
"Can I see her?" Sam asked quietly.
"Not just yet. The nurses are making her comfortable. She'll be taken to her room in about half an hour. You can see her then."
"Oh," Sam said, and returned Al's smile.
There was an expectant pause, then Dr. Field said, "Reverend. Would you like to hold your son?"
"My - son?" Sam stood, speechless and astonished in the middle of the room. "How -?"
The doctor smiled. "I've been in this business a long time. Over thirty years. Two things you can't fake. Pregnancy and fatherhood. This way."
When the nurse placed the tiny, sleeping baby in Sam's arms, he could not control the tears that spilled from his eyes. They splashed gently on the baby's blanket. He had never seen anything so amazing or miraculous as this hour-old little boy. Sam met Al's gaze; no words were necessary or adequate.
Sam sat by Lena's bed. "I don't understand why you haven't leaped," Al said, frowning.
"I do," Sam said. He leaned over. "Lena?" Her eyelids fluttered open and she focused slowly on Sam's face. She wet her dry lips with her tongue. "The baby?" she whispered, almost inaudibly.
"We have a beautiful, perfect little boy," Sam said, stroking the hair from her forehead.
"Is okay?" Lena's voice was like fine sand.
"He's healthy and ...perfect." He took her hand. "Lena. Marry me." She looked at him, startled. "I love you, Lena. Please. I've seen my life without you and it's empty. I need you and I need our son. Marry me?"
Lena's eyes filled with tears which overflowed and rolled down her temples to the pillow. She closed her eyes briefly, and tightened her hand on Sam's. Barely perceptibly, she nodded, then whispered, "Yes, Michael. Yes." Sam leaned down and kissed her ever so gently on the lips. He glanced up at Al, who didn't need to tell him that they'd be all right. Al lifted his hand in a wave.
Sam Leaped.