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“Don’t you ever show disrespect to your stepmother again. Don’t you ever show disrespect to any woman again, not even your sister.” He was like an Old Testament prophet. After that, Sam only behaved that way when his father wasn’t in the house. He was mad at me because I wouldn’t let him put ginger ale on his cornflakes.
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    Jeannie Israel When I first met the children, I thought they were appalling. I was doing my psych Ph.D. at the time, so a little inclined to diagnose everybody, but really, they were ferocious little things. I thought the boy might be possessed. It happens.
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    Eleanor Applegate Monica was amazing. With your own kids you’ve got some instinctive connection. You’re in love with them, they’re part of you. Monica was without a road map with those two, but she was patient most of the time.
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    Bobby Applegate I thought they should have been drowned at birth, Norman’s children. I offered to do it myself, but Monica discouraged it.
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    Monica Faithful I made a wonderful kid’s bedroom out of the room Norman wanted to use for his study. I got bunk beds and made Marimekko curtains, and let the children each choose a color for one wall. Sam’s wall was the color of eggplant; Sylvie’s was orange. I did the painting myself and I brought them a little play desk from home. I brought a lot of my favorite books from my childhood and put them in their bookshelves. Then one day I came home from school and found Norman home from work hours early. I asked him what was the matter, but I could see he wasn’t sick; if anything he was entirely too well. He was excited, sort of inflated, and he couldn’t sit down; he was pacing up and down and gesturing with his arms, the way he does.
    My first thought was that he’d been fired. But no. Hesaid, “Today Mr. Cantwell offered me a raise and a change of title. He said he was very impressed with my work and the partners wanted me on track to join them.”
    I said that was wonderful, because it was, it was much much sooner than we had any right to expect. I said, “Darling, how fantastic,” or something like that and went to give him a kiss. In my head I was already thinking about what we’d do with the extra money. But Norman wasn’t through. Mr. Cantwell invited him to lunch to celebrate, and Norman’s answer was “No, thank you, I have thought about this for a long time and I’ve come to understand that Christ has a different plan for me.” Then he resigned.
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    Jeannie Israel Monica called me and said she needed a break, and I asked her to come to New York for the weekend. She took the train down Saturday. I’d bought theater tickets, but we never went. She spent a lot of the time crying. She couldn’t understand how a man with alimony, child support, and I don’t know how many thousands in student loans to pay off could quit the best law firm in Boston to go to seminary. How was he going to pay for that, she kept asking.
    She was frightened. She didn’t have any money of her own. Her grandmother paid her tuition, but she didn’t keep a car in college, or take fancy trips or spend money on clothes. She was afraid that Norman thought she could pay off his loans, or put him through seminary, or both. She was shocked at that.
    I asked her if she believed in him and she said yes. I asked her if she believed he’d had a true call from God, and she said she guessed he believed it. We had both grown up in pretty secular households.
    What kind of man does a thing like that without discussing it with his wife? Without even seeing that he should have discussed it with his wife?
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    Owen Cantwell Norman Faithful may have been the most talented litigator I ever saw. There’s a quality you have to be born with. Jack Kennedy had it. When Norman was on his feet talking, you couldn’t look away. And his memory was phenomenal. I was