Work Text:
They made some bad outta that Good Book
And I hate that it took
So long to get over what it did to me, cause
They hit you over the head with it
Stuff it down your throat
Say ya need to be forgiven
While they keep casting stones
I know that they mean well
They're just trying to save ya from hell
But I'm still bleeding from that beating
I got from the Bible belt
Bible Belt by Chris Housman
Things have been difficult for Bill Woodward, but they’ve been looking up. He has a budding relationship with Sylvia from work in the wake of his divorce. He’s been spending more time with his best friend, too, since they’ve gotten to go on some double dates. He’s not a big fan of Paul’s new girlfriend, but she’s getting him out of the house more. That has to mean something, right?
Now that Alice is away at college, she gets to choose how often she visits him versus her mother… and despite his worst fears…. Alice came his way for fall break and for Thanksgiving Break. It’s not just because of Deb, either! Sure, she’s been spending time with her girlfriend, but she’s also been spending time with Bill- just him. Sometimes with him and Sylvia or him and Sylvia and PaulandEmma.
She still won’t go to church with him, of course. She stopped going after she came out as a lesbian when the divorce proceedings really started (if you two get to blow up my life, I'm at least gonna live it how I want! I'm a LESBIAN, OKAY!?! And you're both just gonna have to deal with that.) and has refused to darken the door of River of Grace Baptist Church ever since. Bill worries about that sometimes, but he knows that he has to let her choose. That's one of the main things they believe in at River of Grace, after all- that having a relationship with God is a choice. They don't baptize babies so that kids can make up their own minds, and Alice made her mind up in the exact opposite direction.
And he's trying to be okay with that. He has a lot better luck with Alice when he gives her space and doesn't pester and nag and guilt the way that he's prone to. She's even been home for the entirety of Thanksgiving Break (not crossing the bridge a single time to visit her mother)! Bill’s feeling a smug sort of joy, even as he sits in his normal pew on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and Alice still lays unbaptized in her bed.
Church starts. Bill sits, sings, and listens. After the service ends, Grace Chastity makes her way over to him. She looks concerned; probably because he mentioned to the entire Chastity family last week how excited he was that Alice was going to spend the entire break with him. Are they still under the impression that Alice attends church when she’s visiting him? (She hasn’t been in this building for three years, so Bill doesn’t know how they could be, honestly.)
“Where’s your daughter, Mr. Woodward?” Grace asks, “I thought that you said she was spending the holidays with you this year!?!”
“Alice is heading back to Ann Arbor,” Bill says. He neglects to mention that she’s still asleep in her bed and not driving down their old state highway to meet up with I75 South.
“Wait,” Grace says, “she’s already in college ?” What a strange reaction for Grace to have. They went to enough years of Sunday School together that Bill thought she'd just... know that Alice is older than her.
“Yes,” Bill patiently, “she’s two years older than you, Grace.”
Grace’s eyes widen. “Mr. Woodward, that’s really bad.”
Bill feels his brow furrow in confusion. “How could Alice going to college be bad? She got into U-M!” She’s going into their renowned theater program to become the greatest playwright of her generation. And if that doesn’t work out, there’s always becoming a doctor… but Bill won’t press for that until later.
(Maybe drama therapy, even? With Alice’s kindness and creativity- why, she could do anything, someday!)
Grace bites her lip. "That’s hundreds of miles away, and she’s still a…” she glances nervously around the church, “you know?”
Bill feels as frustrated as he normally does talking to Ted Spankoffski. “Still a what?”
“....a lesbian?” Grace whispers. Bill is now more frustrated with her than he normally is with Ted Spankoffski, and that’s really saying something,
“Yes, she’s still a lesbian, Grace,” Bill says, “it’s generally a lifetime commitment.” It would be okay if it weren’t, of course, but Alice has been quite firm in this. He will be just as firm about it in support of her.
Her eyes somehow go even wider. “And you’re okay with that ?” Bill can almost hear Alice cackling at that. Okay with it? My dad! HA!
And yes, there’s a part of him that isn’t okay with it. That's the part of him that wanted to walk her down the aisle in a traditional ceremony, hand her off to a handsome, church-going young husband that he knew would support her financially and give him wonderful grandchildren….
But that’s not what Alice wants, and Bill is trying very hard to accept that what Alice wants is different than what he wanted for her… Even if it’s not a lovely Christian man, but Deb, who makes art and smokes weed.... Loath as he is to admit it, Deb is intelligent, kind, and somehow has a leveler head than either of them do. She makes Alice happy, and he's trying very hard to accept that. But Bill knows with God's infinite love and grace, He's already done what Bill himself has struggled with.
“That’s the way that God made her,” Bill tells her.
Grace Chastity laughs at him, and it sounds almost… maniacal. “Mr Woodward,” Grace tells him, shaking her head condescendingly, “God made us plenty of things, but that doesn’t mean we should do all of them. He made us mean and- and horny and-” she stops herself, “if we did every little thing we wanted to, the world wouldn’t be very nice, now would it?” Bill is not very good at reading between the lines, but he sees what Grace is doing here- she wants him to condemn Alice right along with her.
He’s not going to do that.
“I support my daughter,” Bill says, because no, he doesn’t think that God would send her to hell for being happy the way that he made her. That would be like a kick to the head, he thinks. Not very sportsmanlike at all.
“Mr. Woodward,” Grace says, eyes wide with fear and concern, “do you support your daughter’s choice to go to hell?”
Bill lets out a frustrated hiss. "She's not going to hell, Grace!" He glances over to the crowd that’s started to form around them. A crowd that isn’t saying anything one way or the other.
“I’ll talk to Pastor Jennings about it,” Grace says, patting his shoulder, “maybe he can help you help your daughter!”
“Fine,” Bill says coldly, “you do that.” Then, he grabs his coat off the pew, and he walks briskly out of the building.
What a rude interaction. Hopefully, once Grace talks to Pastor Jennings, he’ll set her straight. He'll get Grace out of Bill's hair and remind her that other people's lives are sometimes just other people's business.
That isn't what happens.
Bill sees a call on his phone from Rev. Jennings. He picks up immediately. What sort of man would he be if he didn't? One who leaves his pastor out to dry? In what might be his time of need? Not on Bill's watch.
“Bill!” the pastor’s jovial voice says.
“Hello, Reverend,” Bill says a bit frantically, "are you okay?"
"Yes," he booms, "I'm perfectly fine. I'm just calling about you- how you might be feeling?"
Ah, so this is about what Grace said. Bill immediately feels embarrassment rush over him. "I’m really sorry that Grace bothered you with that. I’m sure that you don’t need to worry about this-”
Pastor Jennings cuts him off. “No need to apologize for Grace, Bill. The girl can be a little…. zealous, but she always means well.” Bill feels his stomach drop.
“What do you mean, Reverend?”
Matthew Jennings makes a noise in his throat. “What I mean, Bill, is that Grace Chastity fears for your daughter’s immortal soul, and quite frankly? I share that worry. When kids go off to college and they’re already runnin’ around, ignorin' God's natural way of things, why- it becomes very difficult to get them back on the right track. Do you see what I’m saying?”
Bill lets out a shaky breath. “This really isn’t something that I want to discuss.”
“But you need to!” the pastor implores him, “what if Alice were to die, right now? Would you want her to be sealed off from God’s light?”
He feels anger flare through him. “God loves all his children.”
“But they must repent of their sins, Bill. What your daughter's doin' right now? That's a sin, Bill. The burning kind."
Bill feels the anxiety and anger flood his chest, enough that he interrupts his long-time pastor. “I’m sorry, Reverend, “but how is this any of your business?" He wants to say something snappier- something more... heroic. But it's all anger and shame and protectiveness curled up in an awkward, anxious package.
It's a miracle he managed any words at all.
“Bill,” Rev. Jennings condescends, “you’re a member of my congregation- one of my own flock. The final resting place of your daughter’s soul is very much my business.”
Bill can barely see from anger- impulsive, righteous anger. “One of your flock, huh? So you get to decide on how my daughter lives her life?"
The pastor sighs. "Yes, Bill, that's exactly what I'm sayin'. That's a pastor's job, after all."
Bill feels his breath speeding up and up and up and- "Then I'm leaving your church!"
The pastor lets out an awkward little laugh. "Now Bill, there's no need to overreact-"
Bill doesn't have time to think before he adds, "Effective immediately!" He hears Pastor Jennings start to say something, but Bill hangs up the phone. The adrenaline floods through his veins as he blocks the man’s number, and does not answer calls from anyone else in the congregation.
Grace Chastity- Matthew Jennings- every single congregant who stood there and watched his fight with Grace…. He doesn’t have the heart to have this argument with them and himself anymore than he already has. He's not going to change their minds, after all. He barely got them to admit what they thought...
All those years they gave him condolences, promises that Alice would make her way back to him, back to God, back to both of their love. He thought it was because they were estranged, that she was hurting him.... but it wasn't just that, after all.
They hate me, dad, Alice's teary voice told him, If I go back, they'll just- they'll tell me I'm going to hell, okay? Or try to- to fix me or guilt me or- or-
Sweetheart, he'd told her, of course they don't think that. They just want to help!
Yeah, help me sign up for fucking conversion therapy! Or- or- Abstinence Camp- or- her nervous breathing sped up and up and up, and Bill was talking her down from a panic attack and promising she wouldn't have to go back to church with him if she didn't want to, even if he thought she was catastrophizing. He told her that the people at church loved her, just like Jesus did.
That reignited the panic attack, of course, and the shouting, tear-ridden fight.
Alice was right that night. The people at his church are exactly the way that she said, and he didn't listen. He- he told her that she was overreacting, and that they loved her and they wanted to help and that she needed to stop being so stubborn-
And now he’s facing the awful, ugly consequences of that.
Sunday comes, and Bill is still numb to his decision. After forty two years of life, Bill Woodward is no longer a member of River of Grace Church. Technically, he’s not a member of any church. He’s churchless- floating in space like the sort of sad vagabond that his church friends would always say needed Jesus. Now, Bill needs something to fill that void in his morning, so he figures out the best approximation he can manage.
Bill sits in a huddle of blankets on the couch, watching church on TV. He does not like watching church on TV, but he can’t go back to River of Grace, and he does not know where to go instead. So he sits in his huddle of blankets on the couch, watching church on TV.
On Monday morning, he forces himself out of bed and gets dressed for work. He feels awful, after a week of agonizing over what to do on Sunday and his guilt and his fear and his loneliness, culminating in one very sad day spent almost exclusively on the couch.
He moves through the office in a haze, not even bothering to grab a mug of coffee. He just floats over to his desk and tries to force himself into reports. He moves his hands up to fiddle with his tie, and then realizes that he’s not wearing one.
Bill forgot his tie. He never forgets his tie! Does this mean that he’s having a bad day? A bad day could spiral into a bad week bad month bad unemployment- and he won’t even have a church! What if he loses his fucking house because he forgot his tie? Because he never listened to Alice about his church’s homophobia? Because he’s a terrible father who won’t have a house and she’ll have to visit her mother in Clivesdale for the holidays instead of him?!??! And then she’ll resent him and they’ll be right where they were during her senior year, when everything was awful and-
A mug of coffee appears in front of him. Bill glances up to see Charlotte Sweetly, sending him a kind and knowing look.
“You doing okay, Bill?” she asks gently.
Bill laughs tightly. “Me?” He reaches out and takes a sip of the coffee- dark, with hazelnut creamer, just the way he likes it, “Never better!”
Charlotte… does not look convinced. Charlotte Sweetly, like her name suggests, is a very sweet woman, but she doesn’t tend to notice when things are wrong for other people. When Paul’s mom died and he came back from the bathroom after an hour of crying his eyes out, Charlotte didn't even notice anything was wrong until she saw the obituary in the paper. But Charlotte just brought him a cup of coffee, made exactly the way that he likes it, completely unprompted.
This must be bad.
But if-stress-were-a-human-person-Sweetly pulls a chair up beside him, sends him a tight smile, and asks, “Really? You could… tell me, if you weren’t.” She glances nervously down at the coffee cup, and sends him a tiny, nervous smile. "We’re friends , right?”
Whatever dam was holding him together breaks; Bill starts blubbering.
“I- I found out that- that my church,” he manages, “they hate gay people. And Alice knew, of course she knew. She told me over and over again, she said dad, your church hates me. You still go and they hate me, do you hate me!? And I say, of course not. Of course I don’t hate you, and they don’t either! But they do, Charlotte.” His voice gets caught in his throat.
“They do hate her. They think she’s going to hell and I just- I can’t go there anymore! So I had to watch church on TV yesterday and that makes me so lonely! And I don’t even know- what if the pastor on TV hates her too? What if-”
He feels a heavy dread settle on his shoulders. “What if they all do?” Bill needs church. He needs the love of those around him and the love of God and- if all Christian churches hate gay people, will he have to give that up all together? Or-
What else is there? Judaism? He doesn't know much of anything about Judaism, except that there's a synagogue in town and Paul said he went there for a gay wedding recently, one of his second cousins or something- BUT THEY DON'T HATE GAY PEOPLE, RIGHT?!? SO THAT'S BETTER THAN RIVER OF GRACE-
He feels Charlotte's hand land on his, and suddenly he hears his own raspy, rapid-pace breathing.
"Deep breaths," she tells him, "we got this. In for, uh, 5, right?" Bill looks at her with wide eyes.
"Yeah!" she says, "5! 1-2-3-4-5... out... 1-2-3-4-5." She repeats it for however many times it takes for his breathing to settle into a steady rhythm. Bill looks down at his lap in embarrassment. "I-" he wants to apologize, but he knows she wouldn't want to hear that. "Thank you, Charlotte." He squeezes her hand, and then lets go. He doesn't need the crutch desperately anymore, so he would rather let it go.
Charlotte smiles slightly. “I’m so sorry, Bill. I know that- that must be hard.”
He nods. He just- he doesn’t know how to deal with all of this. He’s the dad- he’s supposed to have the answers here, right? He’s a dad and he’s a Christian and he’s kind and he’s efficient. He does not break down in the office. (At least he doesn't want to.)
"I don't know if this will help," Charlotte says, "but not all churches feel that way. I just- I wanted you to know that."
Bill just stares at her.
“Bill,” Charlotte says, “this is gonna sound like some… ploy, to get you to go to church with me.” Then she laughs. “And maybe it is, a bit. But my church…. We support gay people. That's... important to us."
Bill narrows his eyes at her. That’s what he thought about his church. Everyone is welcome, they said. They wanted Alice to come back to church. They wanted to see her and make sure that she was alright, and bring her back into God’s love… but that was insidious. It was about fixing her, in the end. And it only got very aggressive when they realized that Bill wasn’t trying to do that.
“That’s what they said,” Bill tells her.
Charlotte bites her lip. “We really do want them there, I promise. Not just- just to fix. But as themselves.” Bill doesn’t say anything either way.
“If you want to come with me this week,” she tells him, “I think I can prove it.” Bill glances up at her, and he sees nothing in her eyes but… vulnerability. He thinks that this is all genuine.
He manages a little smile. “Okay, Charlotte. I’ll give it a try.”
“Service is at 10 AM!” Charlotte chirps, “and I can pick you up at 9:45-” An idea crosses her mind. “Unless you want to have breakfast first?”
Bill feels himself smile. “I would love to have breakfast first.”
The week passes by faster and a lot smoother after that start. It’s not perfect, by any means, no week at CCRP is, but Bill keeps it together. He keeps his beans cool, thank you very much. Bill makes it to Sunday, and then to breakfast, and then to the service… and it’s nice. Certainly nothing blatantly homophobic during the service, and then Charlotte insists on introducing him to the pastor afterwards. The pastor is standing awfully close to another man as they chat with different members of the congregation.
“Bill,” Charlotte says, “this is my pastor, Mike, and his husband , Dan.” Dan has a rainbow wrist strap for his watch. Then, Bill notices that the white cross pin on Mike’s shirt is on a rainbow background.
“Oh,” the pastor says, his eyes lighting up, “this is your friend?” Charlotte nods, and Mike turns his attention to Bill. “It’s very nice to meet you, Bill. I heard that your daughter is a theater major at U-M?”
Bill nods. He finds himself starstruck, looking at this wonderful, put-together, gay-as-the-day-he-was-born pastor. (A pastor who, clearly, would not think Alice is going to hell for being gay.)
Dan laughs a loud and friendly laugh, “That was my major.”
Bill nods awkwardly. And then, because he’s anxious and excited and does not know how to talk together, he blurts out, “she’s a lesbian!” Mike and Dan share a knowing look.
Then, Dan grins. “She’s a theater major. I’d sure hope she is.” Then a few of the others in the congregation burst into laughter. They chat like this for another twenty, wonderful minutes- talking about scripture and God’s love and the way that not every Methodist Church is affirming of queer people, but enough of them are that Mike is not alone in his fight or his readings of scripture.
Bill feels more at home than he had at River of Grace in years. Since before the divorce at the very least. He and Charlotte finally gather themselves up to leave, but Mike stops them for a moment.
“Will your husband be joining you next week?” Mike asks gently.
Charlotte laughs so hard it sounds painful. “The therapist asked him to." Her shrug looks like a spasm. "But we all know he won’t.” Mike and Dan both send her a sympathetic look, and they make their way out of the sanctuary and then out the door.
“Thank you for coming,” Charlotte says, “ really. It’s been… a very long time, since I had company in the pew.”
Bill smiles. “Well, now it will be a very long time until you’re alone in it again."
Charlotte smiles tentatively. “We’ll see.”
They do see. It’s only three weeks until Alice drives back from Ann Arbor for Winter Break, and Bill spends each and every one of those Sundays with Charlotte in her pew. It’s a lovely church, really.
Charlotte complains about something that Ted said (and god, Bill hopes it wasn’t during one of their oh-so-secret-office-quickies) about her church being dirty. He was wrong. (Bill thinks that Ted is wrong most of the time, anyway, so he’s not surprised.)
When Alice gets home, she shows him some of her new favorite musicals that she found from her new theater department friends. He shows her some of his favorite old movies and takes her ice skating. When they get home, they decide to watch a movie before bed. One that’s so good, he really wants to watch the sequel: immediately.
Alice sends him a skeptical look. “Dad, it’s 10 PM. Are you sure you want to keep going?”
Bill rolls his eyes. “Come on, Alice, I’m not that old.”
Alice sends him a confused look. “Don’t you have church in the morning?” He blinks, so she continues, “I thought church was at, like, 8?”
“Yeah,” he says, “it was at 8 at River of Grace. I go to one at 10 now.”
Alice’s eyes widen at him. “Wait, did you change churches?”
“Yeah. I- uh,” he reaches up and rubs awkwardly at his neck, “you were right, Alice. They thought some… nasty things. I needed a change.”
Alice just gapes at him, so Bill keeps talking.
“I’ve been going to Liberation Methodist with my friend Charlotte,” he rambles, “the pastor’s married to a man, and I-” he feels awkward, the same way he always does talking about gay issues, “I know that they’re supportive, because of that. It’s nice.”
Alice stares at him. “Wow.”
Bill shrinks into himself. Is she going to think that’s lame? Or clingy? Or- psychotic or something? He doesn’t think that he can handle that, after everything he’s gone through changing churches for her.
“That is nice, actually,” she says, sending him a smile, “can I come too? I’ve- uh- I’ve never been to a church that doesn’t hate me.” He feels tears building in his eyes as he says, “OF COURSE!” They finish the movie, and Alice even gives him a good night hug on her way to bed.
The next morning, they wake up and have breakfast and get ready together. She wears a pair of bright red slacks, a white button-up, and a black tie. Alice even asks him to teach her how to tie it . Then Charlotte comes to pick them up and she compliments Alice’s outfit, and his wonderful daughter even tries to say something nice about Charlotte’s signature cat sweater. (Which is very, very sweet.)
The service is nice- a collection of advent hymns and a sermon about how to live the spirit of advent during difficult times that Pastor Mike opened with a silly joke about donning the gay apparel. Alice actually laughed at it too, and laid her head on his shoulder. After the service, they go to Miss Retro's with Charlotte and then go back home.
“It was kinda nice, actually,” Alice tells him. She looks anxious for a second. "I'm not gonna like, go at school or anything! But I don't mind going with you."
She flushes, and Bill thinks that she's embarrassed by her earnestness. "Only if you buy me Miss Retro's after, though." Relief floods over him, followed by love so strong he can barely breathe.
Bill gathers her into the biggest hug that he can. To his most pleasant surprise, Alice hugs back.