Elders Read Online Free Page A

alone
because
of it, because of his imminent leave-taking from it), that he had to squint back tears of his own.
    “What if I can’t do it?” he said. “What if I get too homesick. What if … I mean … I could come home, right? If things got really bad? I could come home early and you wouldn’t be ashamed of me, right?”
    “Oh sweetie,” his mother said.
    His father cleared his throat. “You’re better than that, Seth. You wouldn’t be doing this if you weren’t going to do it well. That’s one of the things I most admire about you.”
    “I know that, but I mean—”
    “We know you’ll do well, Seth. Elder McLeod, I should call you. You’re an elder of the church now.”
    Elder McLeod came to in the courtyard as a tall lanky shadow suddenly dissected the rectangle of light on the cement. The shadow disappeared, and the light with it a few seconds later, and for a moment the darkness was total. McLeod heard Passos call out, “Sorry, hold on.” The light came on through the bedroom window and another bright yellow rectangle leapt out into the courtyard, enveloping McLeod like a spotlight.

 

    Elder Passos woke the next morning to the sounds of sweeping—brisk, purposeful strokes. They seemed to come from the courtyard outside. Who was sweeping at—what time was it? Passos strained at his bedside clock: 6:09. His alarm wouldn’t sound for another twenty minutes. He slew his eyes across the room: an empty bed, and neatly made. The yolk-colored sheets hugged the mattress with military tightness, but that wasn’t surprising in itself. Passos had noted well McLeod’s tidiness, his zeal for symmetry. The two beds sat precisely equidistant from the window, the two stand-alone dressers, like upright coffins, equally spaced from the foot of the two beds. What surprised Elder Passos was the apparent fact of McLeod’s having risen on time, early even, some twenty minutes at least. In the week they had worked together McLeod had gotten out of bed each morning around eight, sometimes later, never uttering a word of explanation or excuse as he scudded across the hallway to the bathroom.
    The sounds from outside stopped for a moment. Passos thought he heard metal on cement. A dustpan? He rolled back his head on the pillow with effort, emitting a glottal, bullfrog moan, but through the bedroom window he saw only sky, a gray wash. The sun hadn’t even crested the property wall.
    On his way to the bathroom it occurred to Elder Passos to wonder again what had happened last night. He hadn’t actually asked his companion. He hadn’t dared to. McLeod had come in fromhis little party looking not refreshed but funereal, his eyes raw-rimmed, heavy, his mouth drawn. At his bedside he’d knelt for ten minutes at least, offering by far the longest prayer Passos had seen from him, and the first personal prayer. Then he’d climbed into bed and faced the wall.
    Passos heard the sweeping again as he came out of the bathroom. He crossed into the entryway, his bare feet slapping the green linoleum as he went. Through the open front door he could see McLeod, sure enough, working a broom over the remnants of last night’s fire, head down, already in his proselytizing clothes. McLeod finally looked up at the sound of Passos’s laughter.
    “Oh, hey,” McLeod said. “What?”
    “You tell me,” Passos said.

    They ate breakfast together at seven o’clock, held personal study from seven thirty to eight thirty, companionship study from eight thirty to nine thirty. All of it straight out of the Missionary Handbook. You would have thought God Himself had dropped in to observe. At moments Passos wanted to laugh again, but he resisted. He decided not to ask anything about anything. Whatever this was felt newborn, fragile.
    As soon as the elders left the apartment, the day began to waste away in door contacting—little there because of the championships, but what else could they do? And McLeod didn’t complain. At one point he