Runaway

said Sara. “But you almost didn’t get in. Juliet thought you were a salesman. Juliet’s my daughter. My dear daughter. I told you, didn’t I? I told you she was coming. Don is my minister, Juliet. My friend and minister.”
    Don straightened up, grasped Juliet’s hand.
    “Good you’re here—I’m very glad to meet you. And you weren’t so far wrong, actually. I am a sort of salesman.”
    Juliet smiled politely at the ministerial joke.
    “What church are you the minister of?”
    The question made Sara laugh. “Oh dear—that gives the show away, doesn’t it?”
    “I’m from Trinity,” said Don, with his unfazed smile. “And as for giving the show away—it’s no news to me that Sara and Sam were not involved with any of the churches in the community. I just started dropping in anyway, because your mother is such a charming lady.”
    Juliet could not remember whether it was the Anglican or United Church that was called Trinity.
    “Would you get Don a reasonable sort of chair, dear?” said Sara. “Here he is bending over me like a stork. And some sort of refreshment, Don? Would you like an eggnog? Juliet makes me the most delicious eggnogs. No. No, that’s probably too heavy. You’ve just come in from the heat of the day. Tea? That’s hot too. Ginger ale? Some kind of juice? What juice do we have, Juliet?”
    Don said, “I don’t need anything but a glass of water. That would be welcome.”
    “No tea? Really?” Sara was quite out of breath. “But I think I’d like some. You could drink half a cup, surely. Juliet?”
    In the kitchen, by herself—Irene could be seen in the garden, today she was hoeing around the beans—Juliet wondered if the tea was a ruse to get her out of the room for a few private words. A few private words, perhaps even a few words of prayer? The notion sickened her.
    Sam and Sara had never belonged to any church, though Sam had told someone, early in their life here, that they were Druids. Word had gone around that they belonged to a church not represented in town, and that information had moved them up a notch from having no religion at all. Juliet herself had gone to Sunday school for a while at the Anglican Church, though that was mostly because she had an Anglican friend. Sam, at school, had never rebelled at having to read the Bible and say the Lord’s Prayer every morning, any more than he objected to “God Save the Queen.”
    “There’s times for sticking your neck out and times not to,” he had said. “You satisfy them this way, maybe you can get away with telling the kids a few facts about evolution.”
    Sara had at one time been interested in the Baha’i faith, but Juliet believed that this interest had waned.
    She made enough tea for the three of them and found some digestive biscuits in the cupboard—also the brass tray which Sara had usually taken out for fancy occasions.
    Don accepted a cup, and gulped down the ice water which she had remembered to bring him, but shook his head at the cookies.
    “Not for me, thanks.”
    He seemed to say this with special emphasis. As if godliness forbade him.
    He asked Juliet where she lived, what was the nature of the weather on the west coast, what work her husband did.
    “He’s a prawn fisherman, but he’s actually not my husband,” said Juliet pleasantly.
    Don nodded. Ah, yes.
    “Rough seas out there?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “Whale Bay. I’ve never heard of it but now I’ll remember it. What church do you go to in Whale Bay?”
    “We don’t go. We don’t go to church.”
    “Is there not a church of your sort handy?”
    Smiling, Juliet shook her head.
    “There
is
no church of our sort. We don’t believe in God.”
    Don’s cup made a little clatter as he set it down in its saucer. He said he was sorry to hear that.
    “Truly sorry to hear that. How long have you been of this opinion?”
    “I don’t know. Ever since I gave it any serious thought.”
    “And your mother’s told me you have a child. You have a little girl, don’t you?”
    Juliet said yes, she had.
    “And she has never been christened? You intend to bring her up a heathen?”
    Juliet said that she expected Penelope would make up her own mind about that, someday.
    “But we intend to bring her up without religion. Yes.”
    “That is sad,” said Don quietly. “For yourselves, it ’s sad. You and your—whatever you call him—you’ve decided to reject God’s grace. Well. You are adults. But to reject it for your