* * *
The special meeting of the Bethany church council was called for the second Tuesday in December. Dale only found out about it because Mrs. Pelto told Mrs. Lindberg at the post office and Mrs. Lindberg told Arvo at the pumps.
"Propriety," said Arvo, coming into the office and stamping snow off his boots. "That's the word. Eino is saying propriety. The pastor and the widower. In a garage. On Thanksgiving." He shook his head. "In my day, we didn't need a meeting for a thing like that. We just talked behind your back like Christians."
Dale didn't say anything. He was doing a brake job on the Lindbergs' Buick and he kept doing it.
Nora came by the shop that night, after closing. She didn't come in. She stood in the side door in her long navy coat with snow on her shoulders and her face set in a way he hadn't seen before, a careful flat way, like a nurse coming out of a ward with news.
"I can't come on Saturday," she said. "Or Wednesday."
"Because of Eino."
"Because of a lot of things. Because I've got a council meeting next Tuesday where seven people are going to talk about me in the third person while I sit there. Because the council votes in January whether to extend my call or let me go at the end of the interim, and if they let me go after one year, with this on it, no other parish in the synod is going to touch me." She took a breath. "And because there's something I should have told you. Before Thanksgiving. Before any of it."
He set down the wrench.
"I applied for a job in October," she said. "Before the tire. Before I'd even unpacked. At the VA hospital in Minneapolis. Chaplain on the long-term ward, the men who came back from my war and never really left it. I didn't think they'd want me. They called last week. They want me to start in February."
"So you're going," said Dale.
"I don't know. I haven't said yes." She looked at the floor. "I told you. I'm not good at staying. Every place I've been, the minute it starts to matter, the minute people start to count on me, I find a reason. It's always a good reason. It's always somewhere I'm needed more. That's the trick of it. You can run your whole life away from people by going toward other people who need you more." Her voice was very even. "I know exactly what I'm doing, Dale. I've known for fifteen years. I just haven't ever been able to stop."
"Then stop."