“I thought I was doing you a kindness,” Tamra said.
She was looking at the shelf. Not at me.
“I went to that conference, and they talked about burnout. About churches that run the same five people into the ground for forty years, because nobody ever gives them permission to stop. And I looked at the five of you climbing those stairs with hot pans, and I thought, nobody has ever told these women it’s all right to rest. I thought I was the one finally saying it.”
“We know what you thought,” I said.
I sat down on a folding chair across from her. My knees complained the way they do now, at seventy-two.
“I don’t believe you meant us any harm, Tamra. I never believed that. Not even the day you taped that sign to the door.”
“Then why didn’t anybody tell me different? Why did you just let me do it?”
