Matters continue apace with Morgan and Brooke. With the two of them, all is well. Morgan is settling down into her new role as beloved, taking greater and greater comfort in Brooke’s obvious affection and love. Their former relationship means that their partnership has moved faster than any of the other couples I have seen. They have not been physically intimate, but there is trust between them, and each has great knowledge and fondness for the other. Really, the only change has been the singularity of vision between the two of them, the special role that each now fills for the other. Aside from that awareness, they already know how to be in love.
But there has been some difficulty. Today was a Sabbath day for them, and the members of their church have begun to realize what has changed between them. The reaction was not a favorable one.
Unlike with the two families, there was no formal announcement made to the members of Emmanuel Baptist Church. Word travels, however, particularly among a tightly-knit group such as this. The majority of them were aware of the new development by now, and the aura in their thoughts was not welcoming as Brooke and Morgan walked into church hand-in-hand.
It was my first opportunity to attend a worship service in the Garden. I was excited, but Danit warned me that this could be one of the most difficult ordeals I have yet to face. She was not wrong, and I am so very disappointed in those who call themselves children of our Father-king.
Brooke and Morgan’s normal position at the end of the third pew was already taken when they had arrived. Men stared at them, or else tried not to look at them, and women whispered behind their hands. The children in Morgan’s choir were noisy and disrespectful, and one of them told Morgan that she was going to hell. Her mother had told her that.
Brooke and Morgan handled it very well, I believe. I did my best to shield them from the worst of the animosity, and they kept close to one another. Brooke was very circumspect, wanting to protect Morgan from censure, but Morgan, moved by defiance, leaned over in the middle of the sermon and kissed Brooke on the cheek. A woman behind her gasped in astonishment.
Why do they believe that it is their place to judge? Their role is to love, is it not? And yet they cannot see the warmth in the spirits, the goodness that such a love brings to both women; they only see the mismatch in the flesh.
After it all, I was so distressed that Danit allowed me to return to the Garden to calm my thoughts. “Find a quiet place, with wind and water,” she advised me. “Or else visit your other assignments. You are doing very well, Asa’el. This is a difficult task, but you are well up to it.”
I doubted that. I still doubt that. That black rudeness, the condemnation, the banishment of two loving souls into dark exile—I feel that I have taken it all into myself, that it is soiling me from within.
Still, I tried what Danit had said. I went to my favorite place in the garden, a place recommended to me by my fellow cupids—a stone cross atop a mountain in the land of Portugal, with a view across the peaks to a brilliantly colored castle. Before the sight has quite astounded me, the combination of beautiful wooded landscape stretching out into hazy dimness and the rambling spread of human creation holding my attention for hours. But today it could not soothe me.
Nor did I want to bring my darkness to any of the others. Lamarr and Tammy, Ramona and Jesse, Don and Charlotte—all of them are happy, and it is my duty to make them so. I could not take my comfort from them.
Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself at the home of the fire woman again.
Freya does not attend church services; she was still in her pajamas, curled in a chair with a cup of coffee, busily writing something. I learned with a quick look over her shoulder that it was a letter to her mother, full of news and good feeling. It made me smile for the first time in the day.
I watched her for a time. Even in such a sedentary activity, there was liveliness in her. Gone was the sloth from the last time; she was glowing bright again, and I wanted more than anything for her to see me.
“What would you say to me?” I asked her, speaking aloud, though not trying to make her hear me. I wanted her to hear without my forcing her to. “I think you would know precisely what to say to make me feel better.”
Strange that in so short a time, I should have such faith in her.
Coming to the end of a thought, she looked up and tapped her pen on the edge of the paper. A frown came to her brow, and she set her paper aside, rising gracefully to her feet. I stepped out of the way as she paced across the room, her thoughts churning over a new problem. Curious, I started to look at those thoughts, but then she began to speak them aloud, and I simply listened.
“I’m not lonely,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “Everyone has their moments, because society has convinced us that we need someone else to prop us up, to be content. I don’t.” She sighed. “I want someone, to help me through the rough spots, but I don’t need him anytime soon.” She ducked her head, her hair rippling as she passed through the sunlight coming in the window.
“I’m happy here,” she said, and she looked around, her eyes moving around her little house, her cats curled in the empty place where her body’s warmth still remained. “I’m happy where I am. And I have my times when I think I need to be better—when I realize that I’ve disappointed expectations I built up years ago for myself. But disappointment won’t kill me. It can’t.” She balled her hand up into a fist and punched the air only a few inches away from me. I watched her turn again, the weight of the darkness beginning to lift.
Turning sharply and suddenly, she hurried to a bookshelf and pulled free a book. Flipping through it—its pages were much marked and tattered—she found the page she wanted and nodded, smiling. “ ‘We must accept finite disappointment,’” she read out, “ ‘but never lose infinite hope.’ Right.” She looked up with a satisfied smile, right into me. “Disappointment happens, but hope lasts, and that’s what will keep me going. Good.” Closing the book with a thump, she skipped back to the shelf and replaced it. “Thanks, Dr. King. You’re a peach.” And ushering the cats out of her seat, she returned to her letter, writing many of those thoughts to her mother.
I watched the words forming at the end of her pen, very nearly floating through the ceiling in my relief. She was correct, as was the Dr. King from whom she borrowed the words.
Our brethren in the garden are torn every way by the forces of our father and his Enemy. They are battered, broken, and blind, and sometimes they will disappoint us in their weakness. That is why the battle will be long. But the victory is assured, my friends, and we can lessen the gap between ourselves and that end if we will only have hope, and faith in our Father’s power. The process may be slow, but he is indeed drawing his children home.