The flow and rhythm of Desmond’s life was not greatly altered by his demotion. On a day-to-day level his schedule remained the same. He still tended to the church and it’s property. He visited the sick and the homebound, generously giving them his time and support. He still heard confessions and counseled the troubled, and he continued to make his rounds about town visiting his friends.
A short fall harvest caused by an early arrival of winter weather allowed Desmond to stay busy helping out on local farms. The work was intense and time consuming, but only lasted a few weeks. After the early and short harvest Desmond found he had more time on his hands than which he was accustomed. He filled in this time by making surprise visits to classrooms and helping teachers prepare their children for the many holiday pageants and programs soon to come.
The majority of townsfolk displayed awkwardness when talking to Desmond for the first few times following the announcement of his demotion. After awhile Desmond’s cheerfulness and calm put even the most flustered parishioners at ease.
Soon, there were only two groups of people who continued to have trouble dealing with Desmond. One group consisted of the radical fringe striving to find a new pastor. The other group were close friends of Rachel’s and Rebecca’s who never knew quite what to say, or what they could say, to Desmond.
Desmond was very careful to avoid having direct contact with Rachel when he visited her school. Excited children often complicated this strategy by loudly informing Desmond where “Mrs. Prouty” was at that very moment. Desmond would do his best to thank the children for telling him where she was while accepting the embarrassed apologies of their teachers.
While some townsfolk dealt with their discomfort by avoiding Desmond, others found themselves attracted to his situation. Many of Desmond’s visitors were curiosity seekers looking for something to talk to their friends about.
Another smaller, but highly persistent, group of visitors were exclusively female. These ladies were more than mildly curious in Desmond’s new found bachelorhood. Some were rather young and others were middle aged, but they all were extremely generous and conspicuously unattached. Some were single, some divorced, but all were interested in making themselves visible to Desmond.
Desmond was swamped with visitors in new and\or flattering dresses bringing homemade dinners and desserts to his door. Unsure of how to politely decline their gifts, Desmond found himself weighing more than he ever had. His visitors, well aware that he was still legally married, only stayed a few minutes and kept their romantic intentions hidden.
The attention he received from his guests made Desmond fairly uncomfortable. In an odd way he felt unfaithful by their just stopping by and preparing him food. Knowing everything he said and did in these private meetings would be talked about by a lot of people Rachel knew, Desmond was more than a little concerned with how he was being interpreted.
He found his efforts to be friendly but distant extremely exhausting and had little doubt that the context of these short social exchanges were being highly misrepresented and distorted. The knowing looks he often received from friends of his tacit suitors only reaffirmed his belief that even the most innocent of encounters were being misconstrued.
Desmond’s anxiety regarding these visitations was erased the moment he would picture Rachel listening to any rumor regarding him. She surely would realize how uncomfortable he was with the attention, and put no stock in any insinuation that he was becoming romantically involved with any other woman. In the long run Desmond was more concerned about the Board of Governor’s response to his female guests than Rachel’s.
The board’s search committee, headed by none other than Hal Willis, was busy interviewing candidates for Desmond’s position. Desmond usually heard rumors regarding an interview two to three days after they were supposedly to have occurred. As far as he knew no candidate currently interviewed was seriously being considered for the position. Yet, with the ambitious Hal Willis leading the way Desmond had little doubt a successor would be found within a couple of months.
Even without the company of his family, Desmond was finding his life fairly rewarding. The joy of helping people, which had always been his major reason for becoming a pastor, was still very alive in Desmond. He looked forward to each and every day, and found much to be thankful for each evening.
The smiles and thank-yous he received in response to his services more than compensated for all the distractions and pressures in his life. He enjoyed working with and helping people, and decided that he would continue to do so even if he search committee found a replacement for him.
Desmond enjoyed being a pastor, but he enjoyed the relationships he had built in this little town over the last twenty years even more. If a replacement were found, he felt he would still stay and find an alternative way to help others. Instead of moving on to a new parish, Desmond preferred the thought of remaining where all his friends and memories were.
The only reason Desmond could find which would motivate him to leave the area would be if Rachel and Rebecca were to move. His need to be near, if not with, his family was far superior than any other desire he could imagine. Desmond realized he didn’t need much in his life to be happy, only an opportunity to help others and to surround himself with people he loved.
Desmond found happiness, as long as he could picture his family reunited. Ideally, Desmond wanted Rachel and Rebecca back into his daily life. Although he missed them, he did not feel a need to try and force them to return. Each day he exhorted himself to remain patient, by telling himself that though he needed them, he did not need them today.
Near a month had passed since Desmond sent the letter to Rachel informing her of the board’s intentions to replace him. The note was fairly short and reassuring, letting Rachel know he was not panicked or upset with her. He included no gift, and talked of nothing else but his conversation with Hal and its likely repercussions.
The letter, though quite tame, provided Desmond with an acceptable excuse to write to Rachel. Desmond interpreted her not writing back as tacit approval for him to start courting her. If she did not want him to write again, Desmond reasoned, she surely would have told him to leave her alone.
All of his free time Desmond spent composing new letters to send to Rachel. He would anguish over each line he wrote, and read and reread the letters numerous times before sending them off. Each envelope actually contained two letters. Though addressed to Rachel each envelope contained one letter to Rachel and one to Rebecca.
Desmond encouraged Rachel to read the letters he wrote to Rebecca and to use her discretion if and when to give them to his daughter. Desmond claimed that since he had no contact with Rebecca he did not feel able to decide when she was ready to hear from him. He told Rachel that he fully trusted her to judge when Rebecca was ready to accept the content of his letters.
In a way Desmond felt Rachel’s censorship role a blessing in disguise. The letters to Rebecca were an indirect and relatively safe way for him to express some of his feelings to Rachel. Testaments of love, which Rachel might feel as a breach of protocol if directed towards her, were quite safe when written to Rebecca. In a letter to Rebecca he was free to express any emotion without the fear of pressuring Rachel. To tell Rebecca he missed her and her mother was much more acceptable to Rachel than Desmond directly telling Rachel he missed her.
Though there was no set schedule to Desmond’s correspondence with Rachel and Rebecca, he generally averaged one completed letter each fourth or fifth day. The letters to Rachel were a definite substitution for conversation, keeping her abreast of the general events in Desmond’s life. The letters to Rebecca were much more emotional and spoke directly to the issues surrounding their separation.
Desmond did his best to honor Rachel’s sense of courtship. While all his letters to Rebecca were very personal and emotional, the first letters to Rachel were emotionally tentative. Each letter to Rachel strategically grew more personal and loving. Slowly his general concern for her welfare turned to testaments of his undying love for her. He went from fond reminiscing of good times, to missing her deeply. Though he was very anxious to win back her favor, he did his best to temper the feelings his words conveyed.
On one level Desmond felt bad that Rachel stayed away and did not echo his words of love, yet on another level he was encouraged by her silently enduring his courtship. He looked at this courtship as a way for them to improve their relationship, to get rid of the silences and the taboo subjects which distanced them from each other. Each passing day Desmond became increasingly dedicated to resolving the long standing distance they both accepted.
Desmond wanted his family back for not only what they had, but what they could have together. He missed the potential of his family almost as much as their joyful history. He wanted to strive for the ideal of love and intimacy he and Rachel long ago accepted as unrealistic.
In the last two letters he sent to Rachel, Desmond talked of his desire to share more with her. He admitted that though their separation was difficult for him, he was hoping that it would bring them closer together in the long run. He stopped short of saying they needed to talk, and instead focused on the anticipation of sharing more. Both letters were accompanied by flowers, pink and white carnations with the first, and white roses with the second.
Desmond, a little concerned that he might be proceeding a bit too quickly with Rachel, planned on being more general in the next couple of letters. In those he planned on returning to local events such as some of his favorite costumes the trick-or-treaters wore, and updates on the pageants at the different schools.
In his previous letters to Rebecca he had talked little about Andrew. He limited himself to speaking of how much he missed Andrew and asking how she was doing. He thought it best to avoid any subject which would arouse any specific memories of Andrew. He imagined her sense of loss to be peaking, and did not want to do anything which would increase her suffering.
His current letter to Rebecca was becoming extremely difficult to finish. Since he was spending so much time with the school children, it was difficult not to talk about them. Knowing how difficult it was for him to think of Halloween without thinking of Andrew, he was hesitant to discuss the subject with Rebecca. Yet, he found it hard to speak about his life without talking about the pageants or the children’s costumes he’d seen for Halloween.
Desmond found it hard to talk about his life without mentioning the delightful time he was having helping out with the school children. Each time he tried to include his visits to the school his letter appeared cruel and vicious. When he tried writing the letter without any mention of Halloween or the children it appeared cold and empty. Rebecca knew what time of the year it was and purposely avoiding the subject was probably just as cruel as talking about it.
The dilemma regarding how to talk about children around Rebecca became a central theme in his current letter to Rachel. He expressed his amazement at her being able to continue teaching while mourning the loss of Andrew. He asked if the school was sensitive to her situation and what they were doing to help her remain professional with the children.
Desmond explained his current difficulty writing to Rebecca and asked for her advice on how to talk to Rebecca about things like halloween. Were they going to stay home to answer the door, or spend the night out to avoid the trick-or-treaters? These questions were impossible not to ask Rachel. He also asked her how she handled the subject of her students with Rebecca, and how she kept it from coming between them.
Many such questions poured out from Desmond. Though he expected no direct answer from Rachel, he wanted her to know how much he appreciated the difficulty of her situation. His fear of overloading the letter with personal questions was equalled by his need to express how much he admired and respected her. Each time he re-read the letter it was his intention to remove some of the questions. Yet, instead of finding any to remove, he only found more that he wanted to ask.
Desmond decided to spread his questions out over a few letters. The moment he mailed the letter his heart was filled with great anxiety. Though he cut back on their number, Desmond feared his questions would overwhelm Rachel and cause her to back away. Yet, the provacativeness of the letter also filled him with hope. If she were to write back there was a 50% chance she was going to tell him to write no more, but there was also a 50% chance she would be moved to answer his questions.
Over the next few days Desmond’s heart pounded every time he opened the mailbox. The excruciating wait filled with fear and anticipation proved to be unnecessary. The letter from Rachel never came and Desmond began to doubt she had even read a single one of his letters.