Rebecca “’Becka” Paulson and Joe Paulson

Rebecca “’Becka” Paulson and Joe Paulson’s marriage ends in betrayal and a fatal chain of events: Joe’s affair with Nancy Voss is exposed by the talking image of Jesus, and ’Becka’s attempt to act on what she learns culminates in a lethal television alteration that kills them both. Their relationship moves from estrangement and concealed infidelity to a final, irreversible encounter in their living room.

Marriage and Estrangement

’Becka is Joe’s wife, and the two share a home in Haven. Their intimacy has already diminished: Joe no longer seeks her out at night, a change that ’Becka experiences partly as relief but also connects to the perfume she notices on his collars. She could have continued to ignore those signs, and even imagined tolerating his absence, but the talking image of Jesus makes the affair impossible to keep at a distance.

The history of their household is marked by ’Becka’s effort to preserve what she values and Joe’s failure to understand it. A lifelike three-dimensional image of Jesus, given to the couple as a wedding present by ’Becka’s sister Corinne, had occupied the same place above their television for about sixteen years. Joe had once disparaged the gift, and ’Becka had defended it as something whose value could not be measured by price. She allowed him to turn it around during his monthly poker evening, but otherwise kept it in place. The image thus belongs to their shared domestic life while also embodying a difference in how they regard the sacred and the valuable.

The Affair and Its Discovery

Joe is one of Haven’s two mail carriers, and his affair with Nancy Voss, a fellow postal worker, takes place in the setting of their work. ’Becka had noticed clues—the loss of marital attention and the scent of perfume—but had not assembled them into certainty. The image of Jesus begins speaking on July 7, telling her that Joe has been having an affair with Voss during lunch hours and sometimes after work. The disclosure turns suspicion into knowledge and recasts the television image: ’Becka comes to believe Joe wanted it removed because he sensed that it could reveal his sin.

For the next several days, the revelations Jesus gives ’Becka are distressing and damaging to her sleep and sanity, yet she remains compelled to listen. Her belief that the speaker is the Savior helps sustain that attention. The affair therefore changes more than her understanding of Joe’s conduct: it ties their private betrayal to the strange authority of an object in their home, and to the influence under which ’Becka begins to act.

The Television and the Final Encounter

Jesus instructs ’Becka to alter the Sony television, warning her to be careful around its internal electrical components. Shortly before Joe returns to the living room, she finishes wiring the device into the television and sits pretending to read The Upper Room. Joe enters expecting the set to be ready for him. ’Becka answers sharply that he can turn it on himself, a departure from her usual manner and the last time she speaks to him as his wife.

When Joe presses the button, the altered television delivers a lethal electrical current. The screen first shows a baseball moment connected to Joe’s winnings, then displays him and Voss together at the post office. The affair is made visible in the same household where ’Becka had received the image that disclosed it. As the television’s casing begins to burn and the three-dimensional image of Jesus jitters and explodes, ’Becka understands that she has caused her husband’s death. She rushes to him and is struck by the current herself.

Death and Narrative Significance

The television’s rear panel blows away in a flash, and ’Becka falls with Joe; Joe is already dead. The fire spreads from the wall behind the set to the curtains, and ’Becka dies as well. The marriage has no reconciliation or later reckoning: its final movement runs from hidden infidelity, through supernatural disclosure and ’Becka’s intervention, to the deaths of both spouses.

The relationship is shaped by a bitter reversal. ’Becka initially treats the image of Jesus as a cherished sacred object and accepts its revelations as a route to truth, but the device she modifies under its direction becomes the immediate means of death. Joe’s affair, previously concealed within ordinary postal routines, is exposed through a domestic object he had wanted removed. The television consequently becomes both witness and instrument: it reveals the betrayal and turns the spouses’ shared living room into the site where their relationship ends.