by The summer was rough on Judith, anyone would say so. She and Frank had sent little Arthur to that de-punk boot camp the year before. She hadn’t wanted to. Arthur was such a sweet boy even if he was dressing strangely and listening to all that aggressive music. But hadn’t it been the same for her generation and the generation before? She’d read “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” back in school and laughed at how overwrought everyone got over a haircut. Plus his friends were always polite when they came by or ran into her in town. Sincerely polite. Not like some of the boys at youth group who always smiled and nodded and said “yes ma’am” but had a look in their eyes, like they were pulling some trick, waiting for a misstep, predatory. Frank was adamant, though, and Mrs. Stilson and Pastor hounded her week after week, so she relented.
And it seemed to work. Arthur came back looking like the nice, clean little boy she remembered. Frank gloated, obviously, and Mrs. Stilson was always floating around the edges, reminding Judith of how she hadn’t wanted Arthur to go, reminding Judith of any little thing she would rather forget.
Then the night of Arthur’s graduation party, he just left. Collected all the checks people gave him, emptied his college fund, and was gone before the sun could rise to see him. No note, no hints, just gone.
Frank got worse after that. He’d been getting worse the whole year, like he’d needed Arthur to be rebellious, to resist obedience, to have someone to push back against to feel like a man. With the boy gone, Frank seemed unmoored. He didn’t even have someone to perform the pretense of being mad at and less than two months later, he left himself, moved to another town with the secretary he’d been seeing for a few years.
Through it all, Mrs. Stilson was there, checking in on Judith, commenting on how unfortunate it all was, reminding Judith of all the things she’d done wrong. Such things didn’t happen to Mrs. Stilson. A person like Mrs. Stilson always kept right with God, something everyone in earshot was kept well aware of. Folks like her were just blessed, but of course she was, being so committed, working so hard to do right by the Lord. The whole time things were hard for Judith, Mrs. Stilson was right there to let Judith know exactly what she’d done wrong and the work she needed to do to get right, if not with God, then with Mrs. Stilson.
