With the bombshells dropped by Arnold Thompson and his son, the lawyers for Harry and Prudence asked for and got a four week adjournment to review the evidence.
The following Saturday, before the weekly service, the ministers had their weekly conference. As usual, the children who could speak were also there. So were Samantha and Ashleigh, who had quietly married David and Sam two nights before and were now their wives - and in effect, full members of the pastoral team.
After a reading of the last meeting's minutes, there was a knock on the door of the boardroom. Samantha offered to answer it. Shelby's executive assistant handed her an envelope. To Samantha's surprise, it was addressed to her. The envelope seemed thick.
"What is it?" asked Ashleigh.
"I'm not expecting anything," her sister replied, "... unless it's the galleys of the first volume in our commentary."
Ashleigh shook her head. "We're not getting that until this coming Friday. But I'd open it anyway."
Samantha did so, and looked at the first page. She gaped.
"What is it, Samantha?" asked Ruthie. In just a matter of a couple of weeks, she had already come to love her new sisters-in-law.
"It's a petition," Samantha said. "Three percent of the congregation are demanding an emergency meeting of the membership. They want to get rid of ... all eight of you." She pointed at the ministers.
"Even me?" asked Tamara.
"Yeah."
Samantha sat down, shaking. Ashleigh gave her a hug. There was a silence of about ten seconds.
Finally, Peter said, "Does it say why?"
"Oh, let's see ..." Ashleigh took the sheaf of signatures and skimmed the first page.
"Peter ..." she read, " ... you cheated on Ruthie and had a baby with Felicity. Ruthie ... you had sex with two women, one of them now your wife. Hope ... all the money you stole. Felicity ... you had sex with Peter, natch, and with Hope - wait, no one's supposed to know that except US! Patrick and Tamara, you had premarital sex, in violation of your contracts banning fraternizing with church employees. Oh come on ... the heart wants what it wants. No one's going to hold that against you - any of you! The congregation is going to shoot that part of the petition down, flat!"
"But that's just six. There's the two of us - Rod and me," said Shelby. "We haven't had sex outside of marriage ... other than as spies. We've never touched dirty money. And both of us have always been professional! What do they have against us?"
"This, Aunt Shelby," said Heather. "You and Uncle Rod employ the other six guys here. You're the bosses. In their view, you were supposed to protect the morality of our congregation. Since Mom and Dad cheated on each other, and Uncle Patrick and Aunt Tammy had premarital sex, you were duty bound to fire them. Hope and Felicity ... they had their way with our parents. They never should have been invited here, not even to sit in the congregation - let alone be pastors with you two."
"Who's behind this?" asked Maighread.
James thought about this for a moment. In his dreams as of late, he imagined him and her grown up, making love and having a family. But they were only eight. Not a good time to think about it. Although she had admitted to him she thought he was cute - and they even had shared a French kiss in one of the church's closets. The first kiss for both of them ... and had done so a few times afterwards too. They had finally decided to tell their parents they were now boyfriend and girlfriend ... but not today or even next week.
"Do you actually have to attend church to be a member?" he finally asked.
"We go through the prayer and attendance cards every week to see who's coming," said his father. "If someone hasn't shown up for three months, we remove them from our e-mail lists. We still send a tax receipt, though." Peter thought about it for a minute, then realized what his son was driving at.
"On the other hand, Jim ... no, you don't actually have to walk in," he said. "You can sign a card, and leave it in the mail slot at the entrance to the sanctuary. We've ... we've never actually distinguished between members and adherents."
"Chinese dinner ... forget it, I'll just order it for all of us anyway," said Tamara. "It's people working for Prudence. They've infiltrated our church, and they have the numbers to force this."
"Do you think they're betting on other members who have been quietly stewing about you guys, finally taking the opportunity to get rid of you?" asked Kaitlyn.
"You bet, my daughter," said Patrick. "I know we've all been talking about leaving and going to California ... but I want it to be on our terms. We all do."
"What if they vote non-confidence in just one of you, but not all?"
"We all resign, together ... including you kids as Sunday school teachers," replied Felicity. She and Hope held hands, as the best friends they were. "It's all of us, or none of us."
Heather started sobbing.
"What's wrong, Heather?" asked Ruthie.
"Mom ... it's not the thought of getting rejected by our followers," said her daughter. She and Chester had started seeing each other as well, and were kissing each other for fun although they weren't ready to say they were "dating" - although they knew about James and Maighread and agreed to keep it a secret for now.
"No ..." she continued, "... I keep having these nightmares that you and Dad are going to get killed by Prudence and her henchmen! What will Jim and I do then? We don't want to go into foster care - especially if it means we never see each other again! I've had them for weeks, and now I'm worried we won't even make it until the vote in four weeks!"
"Heather," said her mother, "nothing will happen. I'm sure of it. And as for the worst case scenario ... we pray nothing will happen, but if it ever did, Rod and Shelby promised Peter and I a long time ago they would adopt you, no questions asked! And we made the same promise to them about Rhiannon and Maggie."
"You'd ... you'd do that?" Heather turned to Shelby.
"Of course, darling!" Shelby said. "Rod and I have always thought your family and ours is one and the same. Families take care of each other. I hope you never have to face that, nor we ... but if it does, we'd be honored to have you and Jim as our daughter and son. We've all worked out arrangements with the other parents here, too, so no one falls through the cracks!"
Heather's tears turned into a torrent, and she ran into Shelby's arms.
"I ... I didn't know you loved us that much!"
"You never have to worry that we don't," said Rod, smiling. "You and Jim always know how to make us smile when we're down. And ... well, Sunday school can be a grind, but you - all of you, and that includes Tammy's children since they've joined you four - make it so much fun. The adult class for visitors is so lively with you and Chester. And now that Samantha and Ashleigh are here ... this church is in safe hands when it comes time for us guys to go home. Yes, we love you, all of you ... for who you are, and what you do here!"
Samantha and Ashleigh were crying tears of joy as they heard Shelby and Rod. They could feel their babies move inside of them. Ashleigh then got a text message.
"What is it, sis?" asked Samantha.
"Looks like the galleys are ready after all," replied Ashleigh. "They'll come to the home where we're at at eight am."
"School starts up that morning," reminded her sister. "We made a deal with these guys here."
"It's coming on CD-ROMs. During lunch, we can start reviewing and editing them. Well, I'll let you go first, while I go through the signatures on this stupid petition and see if they're legit or not. I have a feeling some may be fake. Then the next day, we'll switch turns."
"What makes you think they may be fake?" asked Hope.
"Hope," said Samantha to her sister-in-law, "you of all people should know that - you said in your trial testimony your parents did that for all sorts of petitions they sent to Congress. Getting their followers - your followers - to sign online drives multiple times with fake e-mails. Let us go through them, please. If we can prove just five percent are fakes, we can get it thrown out and you guys are safe."
"And if they are legit?"
"Then Team Prudence doesn't know us," replied Ashleigh. "We use our resources to get the dirt on some of the signers. We expose them as hypocrites, the congregation votes for you and you win."
"How much do we need to win?" asked Felicity. "We can't just stand on fifty percent plus one. Because that'll mean forty nine percent are against us. We couldn't survive for another year at most."
"Let's make it sixty-seven percent," decided Shelby. "If we get that much, it means we're here for the long term. If it's less, we'll give six months notice."
"Are you sure, darling?" asked Rod.
"Yeah," said his wife. "But we can do this."
"I hope you're right." Rod kissed his wife. The other couples kissed. Finally, the children gave each other fist bumps, while the "couples" winked at each other and whispered "I love you" to each other.
Meanwhile, Prudence' business manager received an e-mail confirming the delivery of the petition. He knew it would needle the recipients. But he was not going to tell her the petition had been successfully delivered. He had something else in mind for her, and the petition was the key to getting that.