“How did you find the first tutor?”
“Michael found him through the school. Both were through the school.”
“The high school where Mike attended classes?”
“Yes, but this teacher didn’t work there. He taught at George Washington High, on the other side of town, but he was on the list of recommended tutors.”
“Michael was a smart boy,” Harry said.
“Smart is never smart enough,” his wife said.
“He could have been something someday.”
“Not with just being smart,” his wife corrected.
The Karneses made Ben nervous. He couldn’t figure them out. They were fanatics of some sort, but they seemed to have gone down their own strange little trail in the wilderness of disorganized – as opposed to organized – religion.
“If he hadn’t gone wild like he did,” Lora said, “he might’ve made something of himself. But he couldn’t control himself. And then how could it end any way but how it did?”
Glenda said, “Do you remember anything at all about the first tutor – where he lived? Didn’t Mike go there for the lessons?”
“Yes,” said Lora Karnes. “I think it was in that nice little neighborhood over on the west side, with all the bungalows.”
“Crescent Heights?” Glenda suggested.
“That’s it.”
Turning away from the television, looking over his wife’s head, Harry said, “Mother, wasn’t the fella’s name Lupinski, Lepenski – something like that?”
“Dad, you’re right. Linski. That was his name. Linski.”
“Richard?” Harry suggested.
“Exactly, Dad. Richard Linski.”
“But he wasn’t any good,” Harry told the wall past Ben’s left shoulder. “So we got the second tutor, and then Michael’s grades improved. He was a good boy.”
“Once, he was, Dad. And you know, I don’t blame him for it all. Plenty of blame for us to share in it.”
Ben felt their weird gloom sucking him down as surely as if he’d been caught in a whirlpool in a dark sea.
Glenda said, “Can you spell that last name for me.”
“L-i-n-s-k-i,” said Lora.
Richard Linski.
“Michael didn’t like him,” Lora said.
“Michael was a good boy, Mother.” Harry had tears in his eyes.
Seeing her husband’s condition, Lora Karnes said, “Let’s not blame the boy too much, Dad. I agree. He wasn’t wicked.”
“Can’t blame a child for all its faults, Mother.”
“You have to go back to the parents, Dad. If Michael wasn’t so perfect, then it’s because we weren’t perfect ourselves.”
As if speaking to the muted evangelist on the television, Harry Karnes said, “You can’t raise a godly child when you’ve done wicked things yourself.”
Afraid that the couple was about to descend into a series of teary confessions that would make no more sense than the words on the needlepoint samplers, Ben abruptly got to his feet and took Glenda’s hand as she rose beside him. “Sorry to have brought this all back into your minds again.”
“Not at all,” Lora Karnes said. “Memory chastens.”
One of the quotations on the wall caught Ben’s eye:
SEVEN THUNDERS UTTERED THEIR VOICES
– Revelation, x, 3
“Mrs. Karnes,” Ben said, “did you make the samplers yourself?”
“Yes. Needlepoint helps keep my hands to the Lord’s work.”
“They’re lovely. But I was wondering … what does that one mean exactly?”
“Seven thunders all at once,” she said quietly, without fervor – in fact, with an unnervingly calm authority that made it seem as if what she said must surely make sense. “That’s how it will be. And then we’ll know why we’ve always got to do our best. Then we’ll wish we’d done better, much better, when the seven thunders roll all at once.”
At the front door, as Ben and Glenda were leaving, Mrs. Karnes said, “Does God work through you, Mr. Chase?”
“Doesn’t He work through all of us?” Ben asked.
“No. Some aren’t strong enough. But you – are you His hand, Mr. Chase?”
He had no idea what answer she wanted. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Karnes.”
She followed them onto the front walk. “I think you are.”
“Then God works in even more mysterious ways than anyone ever knew before.”
“I think you are God’s hand.”
The scorching, late-afternoon sun was oppressive, but Lora Karnes still chilled Ben. He turned from her without another word.