George Powell loved his daughter, Shannon, truly he did. He enjoyed her chatter at dinner, and -- after he'd shut himself away at his computer to type up the sermon for Sunday -- was very glad to take a break from his struggle in finding something new to say about "Who do you say that I am?" to help put her to bed.

Shannon was all sweet smelling from her bath and brushing her teeth. She gave him an enthusiastic hug and kiss. He read her one book. Then Barb and he heard her prayers and kissed her good night. All of this was a pleasant break from work.

Still, he breathed a sigh of relief when Barb and he were safely distant from her room. Shannon was a delight, but she was a responsibility as well. When she was around and awake, you had to pay attention to Shannon. Barbara, now, paying attention to Barbara was a delight -- especially when he kissed her and held her against him as he did now. But he could leave her to her own tasks when he had to get back to struggle with what Paul told the Galatians about law and faith.

When he'd got it down, he put it away. As always, he wouldd run through it for Barb. That would be tomorrow night, Saturday being a holiday. Tonight, they looked in on their daughter and blew kisses from the doorway towards her sleeping form. They made their separate preparations for bed; the parsonage, which had four bedrooms, had only one bathroom. In bed, though, they came together.

He kissed Barb closed-mouth before kissing all over her face. When his tongue invaded her mouth, hers welcomed it, then dueled with it. Always on call for mothering, she wore a warm flannel nightie. But it was a large one, with plenty of space for his hands. Later, when he'd pushed it up around her armpits, he had free access to kiss and lick her breasts. And, still later, when he kissed lower on her body, she could pull it down a little way so that the wet nipples were covered against the chill of the air conditioning.

Kissing there, he could appreciate her odor and her sweet taste. And she appreciated his kisses, too. "Oh," she said, "oh, George. Oh, darling. Oh, George!" She reached down to draw him upward and in.

At that point, they heard the toilet flush in the bathroom next door. They froze. Had Shannon heard them? They listened to her stomp down the hall to her room. Whoever invented the phrase, 'the patter of little feet, ' must have been deaf. When Shannon's bed creaked, he went back to licking Barb's sweetness.

But Barb shook her head. She tugged on his arms, pulling him up her body. She reached down to put him in, her hand warm and soft on his erection. But what he touched next was warmer, and softer, and delightfully liquid. After he drove in, he paused for an instant to appreciate that glorious feeling along his whole length.

But Barb ran her hands down his back and tugged at his seat. He started moving in her, both of them keeping the absolute silence of concerned parents.

The feel of her nipples brushing against his chest, the feel of her hands resting on his seat, these intensified his passion. But the feel of his stiffness sliding within her smoothness was the dominant sensation. She felt so wonderful he wished he could tell her so. But, with the walls so thin and Shannon down the hall, of course he couldn't.

He kissed her instead, the next time he was fully inside. Her tongue met his, and her arms and legs hugged him briefly. Then he had to move, had to move faster and faster. The first time the springs squeaked, though, he slowed down a bit.

Then he pressed into her as hard as he could and throbbed. And gushed. And, then, collapsed.

He moved off her after a second. He lay next to her and was careful to cover her with the sheet. She was so darling, so delightful. She didn't really need the sheet, though. She wasn't filmed with perspiration as she sometimes was. He had come, come gloriously, come explosively if silently.

She hadn't. He moved his hand to her crotch; maybe she needed a little more attention just then. She pushed his hand away and lowered the nightie to cover herself. She didn't want any attention just then. He couldn't ask why. Probably Barb wouldn't tell him even if Shannon weren't around; but Shannon was, and you couldn't discuss sex where your eight-year-old might overhear.

Friday, the occurrences of the night nagged at him. So did the sermon, though not so much. Saturday was the Fourth. On the fifth of July, after the holiday, attendance would be sparse, and attention would be absent. Still, he knew that the Epistle and the Gospel related, and he knew that he hadn't expressed the relationship.

He printed out the sermon he had while Shannon was taking her bath. After kissing her good night, reading her a story, and hearing her prayers, he and Barbara retired to the dining room. He gave Barb the sermon. "Very good, dear," she said afterwards. Which meant that it wasn't. Barb's responses were an accurate prediction of how the sermon would go over with the congregation, but not if you listened to the words.

Still, there was no sense fretting over it. They watched the news together and went to bed. Their good night kiss was friendly. He could tell she loved him, could also tell she didn't desire him. Oh well, Monday night was coming. There was no sense fretting over that, either. 'God grant me the patience to bear what I can't change, the strength to change what I can change, and... ' sometime some samples of the latter in things which really mattered.

Saturday, they and the whole town went to the lake. There was a picnic all day and fireworks in the evening. Many of his parishioners could remember when politicians came out to address them; the real oldtimers could remember when people gave attention to those speeches. The lake fed into Lake Michigan, not Lake Superior; it was the fourth of July, the height of summer. Still, the water was a little chilly to tempt George.

Barb went in, though. She wore a one-piece suit, appropriate for a pastor's wife. Appropriate, she thought for the mother of an eight-year-old. Really, she had a great figure. If she was carrying more than she had before Shannon, the gain was as much in the breasts as in the waist. Over the suit she wore what was essentially a muu muu.

"Look at Crystal Cameron," he said when they'd got to the lake and Shannon had scampered off to find her friends. "You could dress more revealingly. If Ryan lets his daughter wear that, he can't object to your wearing something more form-fitting." Crystal was currently in jeans, top, and sandals. The jeans were tight enough, though, for anybody to see that her bathing suit was a bikini. You could see the outline of the minimal bottoms quite clearly.

"And who says that he lets her?" Barb retorted. "She's eighteen, George. When I was eighteen, my dad didn't approve of how I dressed. Anyway, Ryan isn't the problem." And Ryan wasn't the problem.

"Can't see why. When you were eighteen... , well, nineteen, I thought how you dressed was delightful." He hadn't known her at eighteen.

"And what changed when I was twenty?" She was close to laughing.

"Nothing. Well, you bought new clothes, but your style was still delightful."

"Didn't seem to me that you thought so then."

"Didn't I say I liked them?" Damn! had he been too sparse with his compliments even back then?

"You wanted to take them off at every opportunity."

He laughed. He loved her in this mood. She was a good mother and the sort of wife who supported her-husband-the-pastor, and he loved his wife and loved Shannon's mom. He just wanted his raunchy girlfriend back sometimes.

"Monday," he said. Monday was his day off, and Monday night after Shannon was safely asleep, was their special night.

"It's a date," she said.

And then the Denver family invited them over "to nibble."

And, one worry removed, he certainly wasn't going to fret over the other. They socialized a bit, and he lay on a blanket with his mind totally blank while Barb and Shannon (Shannon had inherited her mother's polar-bear genes) went swimming.

And, into that blankness, that welcome blankness, popped an idea. If the Gospel and Epistle had a dialogue together -- and he was convinced that they did, the Lectionary committee may well have been convinced they did, too; after all, they'd put them on the same Sunday -- then that dialogue didn't have to be expressed as one thing followed by another thing. The logical progression was: "Who do people say that I am?" What did Paul say Christ was? "Who do you say that I am?"

It would make a great sermon. He would remember it in three years; he might even put it in a file on his computer to bring up in three years. But this was Saturday, he wouldn't get back until after the fireworks. There wasn't time to change the sermon he'd preach tomorrow.

His women came back for lunch. Barb donned her muu muu again; it stuck to her still-wet suit. Shannon wrapped herself in a towel they'd brought. After lunch, the family scattered to visit other families in their spots. He returned to their spot minutes before Shannon. "Is it all right to go in again?" she asked.

It had been more than an hour, but... "Wait here. Mommy won't be long." And, indeed, Barbara came back minutes later.

"Let's go swimming again," Shannon greeted her.

"No thanks. You can go in by yourself, just stick close to people." Not that Shannon was in any danger. The girl could swim like a fish. "And come back here when you come out."

After they'd watched Shannon run towards the lake, Barb turned to him. "George, what's wrong?" Why they bothered talking to each other, he couldn't tell. After more than a decade of marriage, they could read each others' minds. Instead of preaching his sermon to Barb, he should just walk in front of her with it in his hands. She'd look a his face; he'd look at hers; he would know how the sermon would go over with the congregation.

"Nothing's very wrong. It's just that I put the sermon together in the wrong order. And I figured that out when it's too late to change it. And, while that's happened to me before, usually I'm putting on my robe when the light breaks -- teaching the adult class, at worst. Now I've got plenty of time to brood over it. I just don't have any time to change it. I'm tempted to think it out now and wing it tomorrow, but you know what's happened before when I wing it." The congregation might not notice what the sermon was about, tomorrow. They would sure-as- hell notice if it took forty minutes.

"And why can't we go back?"

"You can't be serious. The fireworks. You know what Shannon would say if she missed the fireworks? It's not that far. Maybe I could walk it and leave the two of you here."

"You're going to drive back. I'm going with you. We'll leave Shannon here. The church is full of people who think they have parental rights to Shannon, telling her how to behave. Let one of them take the parental duties, for once."

"You could stay here. See the fireworks. Hitch a ride."

"You need an audience."

"Well, I'm not sure I'd trust the people who take most of the parental authority with respect to Shannon. How about the Camerons, Ryan and Laura?" And Ryan, as chair of staff-parish, was the first man he should go to for help.

"Sounds good to me. They ought to be good substitute parents. After all, Crystal hasn't dropped out, gotten pregnant, or been arrested for drug use."

When Shannon got back from swimming, they ran it by her. "Dad and I have to go back to the house," Barbara said. "Do you want to go back with us, or stay to see the fireworks?"

"Do I have to go?"

"Not if Mr. Cameron will watch you. Will you be good and do what he says?"

"Oh yes. Please, please."