I was standing at my kitchen counter holding two church booklets, one in each hand, and the only sound was the coffee maker hissing because I’d forgotten to put the pot under it. Mine said Mark and Brenda Henderson, like it does every Christmas.

The other one said Mark Henderson and Diane, with gratitude for eight years of faithful giving. And family. I read that last word about nine times. And family.

Let me back up a second, because my hands were shaking and I want to get this right.

My cousin Lorraine lives clear across town near St. Luke’s. She’s the kind of woman who reads every page of every church bulletin, bless her heart, and she’d recognized the name. She didn’t call me first. She just mailed me the whole booklet with that one page folded down at the corner, and a little yellow sticky note that said “Brenda, is this your Mark?” That’s all. No phone call. I think she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud, and honestly I don’t blame her one bit.

Mark and I have been married thirty-four years. We got married at our church, First Methodist, the same one that’s been printing our two names side by side in that little donor booklet every December for as long as I can remember. I used to feel kind of proud seeing it. Mark and Brenda Henderson. Like we were a real solid couple that gave back. I’d point it out to him at the breakfast table and he’d just go “mm-hm” behind his newspaper. Go figure.

The thing about Mark is he was never a romantic man. I made my peace with that years ago. He can’t remember our anniversary to save his life. One year I left the date written on the bathroom mirror in soap and he still walked right past it.

But he was steady. He went to work, he came home, he cut the grass on Saturday and went to early golf on Sunday. Early, early golf. The man would be up and gone before I even had my robe on, and he’d be back smelling like coffee and fresh air by lunch. I’ll be honest with you, I never once questioned it. Who lies about golf?

So I’m standing there with both booklets and the first thing I do, because I’m not as dumb as he thinks, is I go to the computer in the spare room and I look up St. Luke’s. And there it is, plain as day on their little website. Sunday services at 8:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Eight in the morning. A whole decade of “early golf” and I never saw a single trophy, never washed a single golf glove. Mind you, I’d offered to buy him new clubs three Christmases in a row and he always said no, the old ones were fine. Of course they were fine. They were probably still in the garage with the dust on them.