The Thursday Ministry

“Love may be patient and kind—but in winter, it should also wear a proper coat.”

The Corolla gave its usual soft grumble as I turned the key in the ignition, the engine shaking off the night’s lingering chill with more enthusiasm than I could summon for this early Thursday morning outing. It hesitated for a breath—just long enough to register its displeasure at being roused—before catching with a wheeze and settling into its familiar rhythm. Faithful, if ageing. A bit like me, after a night threaded with Paul-shaped worry and not nearly enough rest.

The dashboard lit up in its quiet procession—pale green and amber dials glowing against the tired beige interior, blinking into wakefulness like someone rising reluctantly from sleep. The digital clock read 9:27, its small numbers insistent, unbothered by my lateness. Later than planned, but early enough to catch the early-morning crowd at the shops before the real chaos began. The sensible ones, the early retirees and the young mums with prams, who knew to get in and out before the teenagers emerged for after-school snacks and the checkout lines stretched to the refrigerated section.

Outside, the morning clung tightly to its overnight chill. One of those bone-deep winter starts Adelaide excelled at—crisp, cloudless, utterly still. The kind of weather that looked beautiful through a window but betrayed you the second you stepped outside. The sky overhead was vast and empty, a flawless dome of sharp blue that offered no warmth, only light. The sun hung low, cold and detached, casting its brightness with all the generosity of a miser counting coins. It touched rooftops but didn’t linger, painting the eaves and aerials in white gold without bothering to take the edge off the air.

I’d tried to make things tolerable—pre-warming the car for ten full minutes while standing at the kitchen window with my second cup of tea, willing the cabin heater to achieve something beyond token effort. But the Corolla remained stubbornly indifferent. When I opened the door and climbed in, my breath immediately fogged the windscreen in pale, anxious plumes. The condensation spoke in whispers, curling and vanishing like unspoken thoughts—proof of the night spent spinning in bed, chewing on the same looped thoughts about Claire’s clipped tone and Paul’s silence.

The kind of worry that doesn't shout, but hums. Quiet and persistent, like a fridge in another room. Always there. Always just noticeable enough to wear you down.

At 9:49, Evelyn appeared at her gate with the sort of timing that made me wonder, not for the first time, if she was perched by her window each morning like a bird on a wire, waiting for the faint tremble of my Corolla’s starter motor. She was wrapped in what might charitably still be called a cardigan—the same pale blue one she’d favoured since at least the winter before last. It hung on her frame like paper, fluttering at the sleeves, no match at all for the bite of the wind.

But she wore it as she did everything else in her life: with unyielding purpose. Her lipstick—coral, always coral—was applied with the same care one might give to military formation. Her chin, lifted just so, dared the morning to question her choices. And her steps, cautious and deliberate, traced a precise path along the frost-dusted concrete of her front walk, like she was walking a rope stretched over consequence.

I leaned across to pop the passenger door open from the inside, instantly regretting the movement as a blade of icy air knifed its way in, wrapping around my shins and rushing down to my ankles. It hit with the smug triumph of something that knew it had the upper hand. A punishment for my small act of kindness. The air in the car shifted with a visible shiver, and I muttered under my breath about the indignities of mid-winter mornings and the choices that landed people in suburbs with barely functioning insulation and citrus trees that survived out of sheer spite.

Evelyn, undeterred, climbed in like a woman used to enduring worse. Which, of course, she had.

“You’re going to catch your death,” I said as Evelyn climbed in with her usual careful grace, immediately brushing a loose dark curl back from her cheek with fingers that looked just as chilled as I’d expected. Her knuckles were red from the cold, the skin taut from winter’s bite.

“That cardigan’s no match for July, and you know it.”

“Oh, I'll be fine,” she replied with her characteristic optimism, blowing into her cupped hands like a schoolgirl pretending not to mind the frost. The sound was soft and breathy, a fragile attempt at warmth in the chill of the Corolla's cabin. “The heater in this car’s stronger than the one in my lounge room anyway.”

“Only just,” I muttered, reaching across to nudge the temperature dial up another notch. The fan gave a louder whirr in response, rising to the challenge with all the bravado of an ageing kettle—audible effort, limited results. The vents shuddered slightly as they delivered what could best be described as air with intentions. Warmth-adjacent, but not quite there.

“Still better than my old thing,” she said cheerfully, settling back into the passenger seat with the resilience of someone who’d spent a lifetime choosing attitude over discomfort. “I have to sit with a hot water bottle balanced on my lap until I'm at least halfway down the street. My neighbour thinks I’m smuggling a small animal under my coat.”

I huffed a laugh despite myself, the image rising unbidden—Evelyn, regal and upright, smuggling some startled marsupial beneath her cardigan. Even with the weight of yesterday's lingering unrest pressing at my temples, it drew a smile to my lips. I pulled away from the kerb, tyres crunching gently over the dusting of frost and scattered leaves that had gathered overnight like nature’s quiet commentary on our little suburban lives.

The street was quiet, but not still. That mid-morning lull between the school run and lunch hour had settled in, leaving behind the traces of movement without the bustle itself. A few car engines idled in driveways, and the low rumble of a distant mower buzzed faintly through the chill. The light had that winter sharpness—clear but cold—casting everything in crisp relief. We weren’t ahead of the day, just passing through its softer middle, when the world was busy, but not in a hurry.

“You could wear a proper coat, you know,” I said, sparing a glance at her stubborn knitwear. “Like a normal person would in this weather.”

“I don’t like the bulk,” she replied, tugging her sleeves down to her knuckles in a way that betrayed a fresh shiver she tried to pass off as a casual adjustment. “It restricts my elbows when I’m reaching for things on the high shelves.”

“It restricts your sense, more like,” I said dryly, turning us onto the main road where the early commuter traffic was beginning to gather—steady, predictable, a kind of urban migration of people chasing purpose in modest sedans and weary utes.

She shot me a look, equal parts amused and affronted, her eyebrows raised as though I’d just suggested we run our errands barefoot. Then, without ceremony, she leaned forward and opened the glove compartment—an act so normal it barely registered as intrusion.

A half-squashed packet of peppermints rolled out with a pitiful rattle, followed closely by an expired script from last May, which fluttered to the floor like something that knew it no longer had any business being there.

“You really should keep tissues in here,” she remarked, peering in with the methodical disapproval of someone cataloguing household shortcomings. “What if someone sneezes mid-ride?”

“I keep tissues in my bag,” I replied, eyes still on the road as a courier van pulled out two cars ahead. “Second zip pocket, right beside the hand sanitiser.”

“Of course you do.”

The words came with that familiar cocktail of affection and mockery that Evelyn had perfected over years of close friendship. She didn’t mean it unkindly—hers was a love expressed in dry observations and knowing smirks, a kind of verbal shorthand for shared history and deep regard. I'd stopped bristling at it long ago. Underneath the barbs lived a tenderness I had come to recognise for what it was: unwavering loyalty dressed in sarcasm’s clothing.

Instead, I waited until we reached the first red light and gently pressed the brake, feeling the familiar, reassuring give of the well-worn pedal beneath my foot. The car slowed obligingly, the engine settling into its idle with a quiet, rhythmic shudder—like an old friend murmuring to itself, still reliable after seven faithful winters, even if it groaned a little more than it used to.

I reached down into my handbag—the brown leather satchel with fraying stitching at the corners and a stubborn clasp that stuck every third time. It wasn’t fashionable, had never tried to be, but it had been with me through school drop-offs, emergency dentist visits, and everything in between. I rummaged beneath the usual contents—spare tissues, a half-used lip balm, a receipt from Chemist Warehouse—until my fingers found the laminated A4 sheet.

It had been typed the night before, just after the last stitch had been sewn on Shayna’s dress. I’d double-checked every detail, cross-referenced times, and even laminated it.

The plastic crackled faintly as I unfolded it, catching a shard of morning sunlight through the windscreen. My lists were more than notes—they were protection. Order, predictability, a defence against disruption. Against surprises that wore you down, one forgotten appointment at a time. Each item ticked off was a small victory.

Evelyn caught sight of it and burst into laughter—real laughter. Not a genteel chuckle, but a deep, full-bodied laugh that filled the Corolla’s cabin and fogged up her window in one gloriously human exhale.

“You and your lists,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with the back of one hand, still chuckling.

Without a word, I passed it to her, my fingers still warm from holding it. Her expression softened as she read, the amusement mingling with that unique brand of long-standing fondness that only came from years of knowing someone thoroughly and liking them anyway. The light turned green. I eased the car forward.

“Greta Smith’s Official Thursday Visiting Schedule,” she read aloud in her best announcer voice, full of drama and delight. “Colour-coded, no less.”

“Only a little,” I said, eyes on the road as I nudged the indicator. “Just to keep us on track and efficient.”

She held the sheet like some sacred artefact, as though she’d been handed the Rosetta Stone. Her eyebrows lifted in mock awe.

“Stop one: Sister Gwen Trenerry, 10:15 a.m. Notes: check in on leg wound progress, encourage continued scripture reading routine.”

“I printed that straight from her Sunday Relief Society update,” I said, adjusting the mirror so I could keep an eye on the car trailing a little too closely. “She mentioned the healing’s been slower than expected.”

“Stop two: Sister Melanie Henderson, 10:50 a.m. Notes: cheerful disposition but tends to run significantly over time. Aim to exit gracefully by eleven-thirty at the latest.”

Evelyn gave another snort of laughter, the sound familiar as the tick of the turning indicator—warm, lived-in, comfortable.

“You really are a marvel of organisation, Greta.”

“I’m realistic,” I said, guiding the car smoothly toward the roundabout. The road began to slope slightly downward into the older section of the suburb, where the houses had more weatherboards than brickwork and the driveways were narrow enough to require careful negotiation. “Last time we visited Melanie, we were stuck there for forty-five minutes while she walked us through every single one of her grandson’s Year 10 achievements—and then followed us to the car with banana muffins like she’d just emerged from a CWA meeting.”

“She means well, though. Her heart’s in the right place.”

“Her heart gives me anxiety,” I said, a little more dryly than I’d intended.

Evelyn tucked the laminated sheet back between her palms with the tender care of someone handling a cherished heirloom, her fingers brushing over the edges as though the plastic might bruise. Then she shifted slightly in her seat, angling her knees toward me in a way that signalled intention—a slow, deliberate turn that suggested we were either about to share a quiet moment of wisdom or she was preparing to launch into something delightfully irreverent.

“You know, visiting teaching isn't supposed to be a race against time.”

“It's not a hobby, either,” I replied, eyes fixed on the road ahead, where the morning sun sat squarely in the worst possible place—blinding and resolute, casting long glare lines across the windscreen. “It’s a stewardship, Evelyn. We’ve got four sisters to visit today, two of them with actual pressing concerns that need attention. Organisation isn’t obsession—it’s love made practical.”

The words came out a touch too sharp, clipped with a tension that had been rising like floodwater behind my ribs ever since Claire’s phone call the night before. It hadn’t found an obvious outlet yet, so it had begun to leak—first into my tone, then into the slight tightness around my jaw, and now into this conversation, which had deserved more kindness than I’d given it.

I inhaled slowly, the way I’d learned to do during those brief seasons of self-care—back when yoga seemed like a good idea rather than an indulgent luxury—and exhaled through my nose, letting the breath stretch longer than it wanted to.

“If we don’t make a proper plan, things get missed. Important things. And more importantly, people get missed. That’s infinitely worse than being overly organised.”

Evelyn didn’t answer straight away. She never rushed to fill silences, preferring instead to let them bloom into spaces where truth might quietly settle. That was her way. She didn’t push back, didn’t prod or correct. She simply waited, patient as a leaf drifting toward water, letting the moment pass without judgment.

But I caught the trace of a smile at the corner of her mouth—one of those subtle, wry expressions she wore when she knew something she didn’t intend to say aloud. It was an expression full of wisdom and restraint, the kind that accompanied the quiet refrain of a well-worn hymn, never sung but always softly present. Comforting. Familiar. Certain.

At the next red light, I allowed myself a quick glance in her direction. The morning sun filtered through the windscreen and landed on her face with a cool clarity—not bright, but soft and precise. She looked calm. Focused. There was a stillness to her that didn’t demand attention, but held it all the same.

She had that rare kind of presence—quiet, contained, and unshakeable. Not the kind that filled a room, but the kind that anchored it. And that spark—that subtle glow—was always there. Not dramatic, not performative. Just... steady. Like something lit from the inside.

It was the same spark that caused people to linger in doorways after church, drawn to her without quite knowing why. They stayed to hear her laugh, to feel her hand rest lightly on theirs, to stand a moment longer in her company.

I often marvelled at the difference between us. We shared the same calling, bore the same responsibilities, carried the same list of names and needs in our pockets. And yet, while she moved through those assignments with what looked like spirit-led instinct, I marked checkboxes, tracked time, and double-checked progress. Her warmth seemed effortless. Mine was constructed—practised through care and repetition.

Both had value. At least, that’s what I told myself.

But some days, like this one, I found myself longing—quietly, without resentment—for her way of simply being. For her unhurried presence in a world I only ever seemed to manage.

We turned off the main road into the quieter stretch of Smithfield’s back streets, where the landscape softened and the world seemed to release a long-held breath. The tension of the morning rush dissolved behind us, replaced by a slower rhythm—the kind that still respected morning but didn’t demand urgency from it. Here, the air carried a gentler kind of stillness, one woven from memory and routine, where bins stood in tight formation at the kerb and the sound of barking dogs was familiar, not intrusive.

These were streets that knew stories. The kind of neighbourhood where children once rode rusty bikes to the corner deli, and elderly women still paused to chat over hedge lines while hanging out washing. There was a calmness in it all—faded but loyal—like a song remembered more for its rhythm than its melody.

White picket fences lined the pavement at regular, well-mannered intervals. Some were peeling, the paint lifting in slow curls that spoke of fixed incomes and too many other things needing attention. Others were aggressively neat—painted with unnerving precision, like the fences were staging a protest against entropy itself. You could almost hear them whispering arguments between eras: one foot in nostalgia, the other trying not to look outdated beside a solar-panelled roof.

Tall lemon-scented gums stood like sentinels at the edges of nature strips, their limbs sprawling in grand, slow gestures above the road. The breeze stirred their silvery leaves, releasing that sharp, familiar tang of eucalyptus that lingered just long enough to summon a memory. Vicks on the chest. A warm hand on a small back. The comfort of being looked after when the world felt too big and your lungs too small. A scent that carried childhood on its back, along with the ache of those who had done the looking after.

The gardens we passed bore winter’s mark without complaint. Lavender bushes, once robust and fragrant, now stooped under the brittle weight of frost, their colour leached by the season into something apologetic and papery. Weeds had mounted their campaigns in the warmer weeks, only to be frozen in their tracks—ambitions stiffened mid-reach. Geraniums drooped like weary party guests long past polite departure, their blooms curled in resignation, muttering their regrets to no one in particular.

“Did I tell you I remade the dress for Shayna?” I asked, not so much out of necessity, but as a gentle offering into the quiet. It wasn’t the sort of silence that needed breaking—it was companionable, built from years of knowing when to speak and when to simply share space. But sometimes even comfortable silences liked a little tending.

“She’ll love that,” Evelyn replied without hesitation. “Poor little thing looked like a deer in headlights last time we saw her at the sacrament meeting.”

I nodded, eyes steady on the slow curve of road ahead, where sunlight filtered through skeletal branches, casting shifting shapes across the bitumen. My gaze flicked automatically to the small hazards I’d trained myself to anticipate—cats darting beneath parked cars, rogue prams on cracked pavements, the odd branch drooping too low where the council hadn’t yet caught up.

“The finished dress is on the backseat,” I said, a flicker of quiet pride warming the words. “We’ll deliver it last, after our official visits. If we run out of time, I’ll take it round myself this afternoon.”

“That’s exactly why I like you, Greta,” Evelyn said, reaching out to rest a hand briefly on my forearm, her touch feather-light but full of affection. “Even your spontaneity is thoroughly planned in advance.”

I smiled at that—not broadly, not showily, but in the small way that happens when someone names you rightly, without judgement. It wasn’t a laugh, just a soft tightening around the mouth, a gentle easing of the jaw. She was right, of course. I was never truly spontaneous, only ever prepared to appear so, and being seen like that—fully, kindly—brought its own kind of quiet comfort.

Her hand fell back to her lap, coral nails neatly matching her lipstick, her wedding band still glinting faintly against her fingers.

Even as she settled again, my mind was already rehearsing the rest of our morning. I was recalculating—schedules, routes, conversation time, emotional bandwidth. Part of me was already scanning the afternoon: dinner needed to be sorted—something hearty, probably lentils, since we were sorely lacking in greens this week. Noah’s cholesterol had been nudging upward again, and while I couldn’t hold the world together on prayer and chickpeas alone, I could at least ensure we weren’t facing cardiovascular disaster in the process.

The world was messy. But fibre? Fibre I could control.

We slowed to a careful stop outside Sister Trenerry’s modest brick unit, the Corolla idling with a sympathetic sigh as if it too recognised the solemnity of this particular visit. The unit sat slightly sunken on its lot, its edges softened not by design but by the slow erosion of years lived in quiet isolation. There was a faded dignity to it—the kind that clings to places once tended with pride, now held together by habit and necessity rather than energy or means.

The bricks, once surely a bright, assertive red in the optimistic 1970s, had dulled to a muted rust—a weary hue softened by decades of sun and neglect. Rain had streaked subtle paths through the mortar, and spiderwebs clung to the eaves like lace left out too long. The building seemed to hum gently with the weight of time, whispering stories that no one had stopped to listen to in quite some while.

Before we’d fully pulled up, the lace curtain at the front window twitched—a brief flutter, unmistakable. A flash of gauze and motion behind glass, the silent semaphore of someone who had been watching, waiting.

Of course she had. I could picture her already: positioned just beside the sill, a crocheted cushion beneath stiff knees, spine gently curved over her open scriptures, though I doubted her eyes had been on the words. Listening, more than reading. Listening for tyres on gravel, for the muted clunk of doors, for voices outside that meant she had not been forgotten.

The front garden bore the signs of determined care, slowed now by aching joints and weary breath. It had once held order, symmetry. Now, it hinted at effort outpacing capacity. A few gnarled rose bushes clung to life, shaped by hands that remembered the angles of pruning but no longer had the strength for subtlety. Their limbs were skeletal and defensive, as though bracing for another frost they wouldn’t survive.

Off to the side, a lone garden gnome kept silent company beside the cracked concrete step. Its ceramic surface, dulled by years of sunlight and rain, bore the fading memory of bright primary colours, now softened to washed-out hues like an old family photo in a secondhand frame. A chip on the nose gave it a permanently disgruntled look, as if it too had opinions about the lateness of the hour or the condition of the roses.

Evelyn smoothed the creases from her woollen skirt in brisk, efficient strokes—ritual, not necessity. She moved with the grace of someone preparing for an audience, her posture straightening by degrees as if summoning the version of herself reserved for moments such as this.

She leaned toward me with that little half-smile of hers, the one that danced between mischief and sisterly encouragement. It was the look she wore whenever we stood at someone’s doorstep, poised to bring companionship and counsel under the quiet flag of visiting teaching.

“Ready?”

I inhaled slowly through my nose, drawing the chill morning air into my lungs and holding it there a beat longer than needed, like a bracing tonic. My hand moved reflexively to the scarf at my neck—a small floral square in shades of teal and plum—adjusting it with fingers that lingered more out of habit than purpose. It wasn’t fashion, not anymore. It was armour, of a kind. Fabric against fragility.

My gaze dropped momentarily to her cardigan—still that pale blue, still inadequate. It fluttered slightly in the breeze like a brave but underdressed usher at a winter funeral. I said nothing, because the futility of the observation had already been accepted by us both.

“Not really,” I admitted, my voice quieter than I expected, tinged with an honesty I didn’t often allow to show through in these moments. I squared my shoulders and fixed my gaze on the door ahead—weathered red, flaking slightly near the base where time had chipped away at the paint. “But let’s begin anyway.”