CONCLAVE AT SOUTH FORK

MISS ELLIE DISCOVERS WHAT BOOTS ARE FOR

It must have been hard for her. It felt like she had known them both all her life.

They were so much alike. Devoted. Brilliant. Tireless. Of noble lineage. For decades residents of the stratosphere of service and command. Although one was of average height and build, and the other tall and athletic, their faces were remarkably similar. Now one, her husband, was gone. And the other, of proven loyalty, capable, ready to assume leadership of the Council his True Brother had appointed him to guide.

Oh, the anguish of the chaste and lonely widow! as she fought the temptation to look into his eyes and see Shoghi there! They were so much alike! She prayed God to keep her eyes away. She prayed the others wouldn't notice. Suddenly she was struck by the realization that for the rest of their lives, he would be president of the Council, the highest appointed post in all the land, and she would continue as a hand at that Council. They would be together day in and day out. All would be expected to show him the deference and obedience they had given her husband. All. Including her. He was a widower - would he ask for her hand to make the office complete? She was a widow - no one could ever hope to approach her husband's place in her heart. Yet there he stood - placed by the hand of her husband and the Will of God straight in the path of the rest of her life.

He would have ideas. Ideas of his own. He'd been her husband's favorite there at South Fork, and had earned the merit through his devotion to the Idea. There had always been an undercurrent of jealousy among the other hands. A blue-blood American, an architect, tireless traveler and executive for her husband's plan of global conquest, hand-picked to design the earth's first church, to head the great Council, to be a true friend to the True Brother of South Fork. That left her as...as a widower. Somebody's wife suddenly out of the loop.

At night she tried to see her husband's face before her, but his friend's face kept coming in and out, until she could not see a difference. It was a spiritual battle and she was not winning it.

Next morning she awoke with the answer in front of her. She called some friends over for tea and after an appropriate period of condolence and small talk she let drop that although it wasn't certain or even for sure, it appeared that he was already making plans to take over the spread. And, heavens! Was anyone receiving the impression he was trying to....woo her?

And you know how rumors fly.

Part VI of a series Let's Make 'Em Real from Help Me I Can't Breathe Around These People!