CHAPTER 3
1754 Words
CHAPTER 3
When Kennedy reached the sanctuary, she was more than grateful to find some of the youth group students stacking up the last of the chairs. She walked back to the main entrance looking for someone who might have work for her.
“You here to set up?”
She turned around to see Dawn, Carl’s middle-aged secretary.
Kennedy gave a brief smile, which wasn’t returned. “Yeah, I was just wondering if there were any jobs for me to do.”
Dawn rolled her eyes. “Plenty of jobs, I’m sure. It’s figuring out which ones need to get done first that’s the big problem.”
Kennedy didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know Dawn all that well, and even though their past exchanges had been cordial, Kennedy never felt perfectly comfortable around her.
“I’m sure Nick will have an idea of how you can help. I’ve got to meet my husband for lunch.” With that, Dawn swept past.
Kennedy looked around at all the half-opened boxes in the foyer. It was strange. She’d never thought before of how much work went into planning one of these big conferences. She remembered her dad attending something like this back when they still lived in the States. It was so long ago she could hardly remember any details. What stood out most in her mind was how after one men’s event, her dad had come home, knelt in front of her, and asked her to forgive him for not being the kind of father he should have been. She didn’t know if things changed after his emotional speech. She just remembered the way his words had terrified her. Back when the world was black and white, when there were good guys and bad guys and it was so easy to tell one from the other, she thought that her father’s apology put him on the same level as the villains in her Saturday morning cartoons.
What surprised her now was how many people were scandalized at the thought of the Truth Warriors conference. Back as a kid in New York, she recalled several events like this one. Nobody thought much of it, but she remembered listening to announcements year after year, hearing testimonies of men when they returned home from these sorts of conferences and announced before their God, their family, and their church how encouraged they’d been and inspired to embrace their calling as humble, loving, strong leaders. What was controversial about that? When protestors threatened to march in front of the church if Carl didn’t cancel the gathering, she initially thought their complaint was that it was a men’s-only event, which seemed ironic since who would bother complaining or boycotting a church that put on a weekend women’s retreat?
As the controversy escalated, she skimmed enough news headlines to understand there was more to these protestors’ grievances than simple gender-based exclusion. They complained against anything patriarchal, especially traditional religious mores. The feminists were afraid that an all-male conference whose stated goal was to encourage men to embrace their God-given roles as the heads of their families would send waves of oppression cascading throughout the church.
At first, Kennedy had stayed on the sidelines of the debate. She knew enough to understand that women’s roles in today’s society were freer than they’d ever been, at least in the United States. Leaders in the women’s movement in the past had suffered and worked hard, and as a result, Kennedy could get a driver’s license, register to vote, attend medical school, and become a top-ranking, respected doctor in whatever field she decided to enter. Of course, there were still many parts of the world where girls weren’t given these sorts of opportunities, and one of her hopes for her future was to use her position as a doctor to travel to other countries offering health care and educational opportunities to girls and women trapped in these backwards settings. But that was as far as she’d ever considered feminism or the women’s rights movement. She wasn’t ready to go out and burn her bra or make the world bow down to her because she had two X chromosomes, but she certainly didn’t want to take her educational and vocational opportunities for granted either.
As far as a woman’s role went, Kennedy had grown up in a traditional family. Her mom kept house, and her dad worked long hours. But Kennedy knew plenty of other godly, Christian couples where both spouses held gainful employment. She figured those sorts of decisions could vary from one family to the next. She certainly didn’t want a pastor to tell her the only job she could do was stay home and have babies, but she also didn’t feel like she needed a whole army of angry feminists marching or making women feel bad if they chose to focus on their children instead of their careers.
Which is exactly what they’d done to Sandy. Sandy, the most maternal, godly woman Kennedy had ever met. But because she wasn’t using her college degree to earn money as a “productive” member of society, the Harvard editorial team had ridiculed her in last week’s edition of the student paper. All because she was a stay-at-home mom married to a pastor who dared to host a Truth Warriors conference at his church. Did these students know how many foster children Sandy had saved from a life on the streets? Did they know how much time she devoted every week volunteering for different causes? Just how did these editors define what productive meant anyway? Kennedy had never known a harder working woman.
“That you, Kennedy?”
She turned around to see Carl and Sandy’s son Woong wandering the St. Margaret halls. “Hey, bud. What are you doing?”
“I’m supposed to be helping set up for the conference thing, except most of the time the jobs are too big for me, so I’m mostly just walking around.”
“I’m a little lost myself.” Kennedy was amazed at how fast Woong had grown. He’d gained half a foot over the summer alone. This fall, the Lindgrens had decided to pull him out of Medford Academy and teach him at home. Sandy had a feeling he was older than they initially guessed based on his scant orphanage records. She figured that homeschooling would allow him to excel past his assumed level in some areas (like science, where his curiosity had proved to be his most valuable asset) and would allow her to give him individualized attention to catch up on his weaker subjects like math and reading without the stigma of performing beneath a certain grade level.
Woong let out a loud sigh. “Hey, you know if they got any snacks? I’m hungry.”
Kennedy shook her head. “Sorry, bud. I haven’t seen anything around here. Maybe you should ask your mom.”
He frowned. “No, she went into the prayer room with one of the teens. I don’t know which one, but she was crying, so that means they’ll be in there for hours. But it’s ok. Hey, you know what? My dad was in a really big fight. I could hear him yelling all the way from the other side of the church. Did you hear it, too?”
Kennedy smiled at the slight exaggeration. “Yeah, sometimes even grownups get into arguments.”
He shook his head. “No, this wasn’t just the kind of thing where they talk angry and then lie and tell you they weren’t really fighting. I’m talking about a real, actual fight. Like in those Jackie Chan movies. You ever seen him?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the old Chinese man who does kung fu and beats up all the bad guys ten at a time and then puts on his glasses and smiles real big.”
“I know who Jackie Chan is. I meant why do you think that’s the kind of argument your dad was in?”
Woong stretched himself to his full height. “I heard it. You know. Fighting sounds. Like oof and pow and ahh and things like that. And at one point a whole bunch of books fell over. Or something else real heavy and loud, but it sure sounded like books to me even though I couldn’t see it on account of the door being shut.”
Kennedy still hadn’t decided if Woong’s imagination had taken over or if there was really any reason to be concerned. She knew that Nick could be quick tempered when he was debating issues of social justice. She also suspected Sandy was at least partially right when she said Carl had been grumpier than normal although Kennedy wasn’t certain if that could be blamed on the diet or not. But still, Nick was the most committed pacifist she’d ever met, and even though Carl could be intimidating, she doubted he had actually hurt a living being since his days as a professional NFL linebacker decades earlier. She figured Woong must be exaggerating, and who could blame him — stuck here wandering the church with nothing to do but stay out of people’s way?
She felt in her pockets. She still had a few coins from when she’d bought her ticket for the T ride to St. Margaret’s. “Hey, want to come with me to the vending machines? I’ll find you a snack, and then after we’ve had something to eat we can look around for a job for the two of us to work on. How’s that sound?”
Woong eyed the coins in Kennedy’s hand. “How much money you got there, anyway?”
“Enough for you to get one thing.”
He let out a melodramatic sigh. “I guess I’ll have to be content with that.”
When they turned down the hall toward the vending machines, Nick was running toward them and almost knocked Woong over. “Have you seen Sandy?” he blurted without a hint of apology.
Something was wrong. Something wasn’t right.
“Sandy,” he repeated. “I need to know where she is.”
Kennedy’s synapses hadn’t connected her tongue to her brain quite yet. She stared at Nick’s hands.
His wet, blood-stained hands.
“Holy macaroni!” Woong exclaimed.
Nick ran his fingers through his hair. More blood. Smeared all over.
“What happened to you?” Woong asked.
“Go find your mom.” Nick wasn’t looking at either of them. He was panting. Totally out of breath. “Find your mom, and tell her it’s an emergency. Hurry.”
Woong shrugged and darted off.
Kennedy kept staring, but at least now she’d found her voice. “What happened?”
Nick doubled over. For a minute, Kennedy thought he was going to be sick. “There’s blood everywhere. It’s ...” He swayed, and Kennedy had to put her arm under him to keep him from crashing.
She lowered him to the ground. His face was ashen, a grayish pallor. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
He shook his head, smeared with blood. “Everywhere,” he repeated in a whisper.
What was it? An accident? Did one of the teens get hurt? Kennedy lowered her face to his, trying to snap his brain to attention. “What is it?”
He held his head in his hands. “I tried to stop the bleeding. I tried to call for help.”
“Help with what? Who’s hurt?”
Nick let out a sigh. His whole body reeked. She knew people could get nauseated at the sight of blood, but she didn’t know they started to smell bad, too.
“Carl.” Nick blinked. “He’s unconscious.”
- Writer
