Good Heavens (14 page)

A nervous little smile showed on her face and then vanished.

I knew she was embarrassed looking the way she did, muddy from head to foot. With neither hand free, she brushed her head against her shoulder trying to wipe her face. “Please pardon my appearance,” she stammered. “The trail proved to be too much for me. If you will excuse me, I need to get back to the house and clean up.”

“Oh, please,” he begged. “Please, come sit with us a few minutes.”

As much as she didn't want to let go that branch, the way he begged left her little choice. He carefully helped her onto the rock, and I moved over to make room for her to sit down between us.

Ringstaff couldn't take his eyes off her. “How long has it been?” he asked. “When was the last time I saw you—Moscow? Milan?”

“I don't remember,” she said softly and drew her knees up under her chin.

“Oh, I think it was Milan—must have been fifteen years, well, almost fifteen years ago.”

Lenora smiled slightly and laced her fingers together, holding on to her knees.

I felt like a fifth wheel. This gentleman was someone from her past, and maybe what they had to say to each other was none of my business. To tell the truth, curiosity was about to kill this cat, but I made an excuse and started to get up. “I need to see about the ladies,” I told them. The man jumped up and helped me get off the rock onto the bank. Like I said, he had been brought up right.

All I did was climb far enough to be out of sight and earshot. As I sat waiting for the girls to come down, I couldn't get over the way Mr. Ringstaff seemed to spark something in Lenora.
It might be good for her if I asked him to stay for supper
, I thought. All we had were beans, but we had plenty, and I was going to make the cornbread.
Well, we'll see
.

8

Mr. Ringstaff couldn't come for supper because that evening he was driving to Greensboro, where he would spend the night and take an early flight to New York the next day. After Lenora had gone upstairs, he stayed a few minutes on the porch, and I gave him a rain check for the supper he was missing. “I'll be back next week,” he told me, “and I'll be in touch.”

Of course, I was dying to know who this man was and what business he had in New York. There was no doubt Lenora knew all about him, so the temptation to ask her was strong, but I didn't. As frail as she was, asking her anything personal might send her further back into her shell and spoil what chances we might have to help her. When I'd set my mind to find out a mystery such as this one, I was pretty good at it. I thought,
The next time I talk to Dr. Elsie, I'll ask her about Ringstaff. He's her neighbor; she'll know
.

Ursula looked better after resting a while, and she seemed encouraged that someone else had called about
the piano. “I told him it's in poor condition,” she said, “but he didn't seem to be put off by the price. He's coming tomorrow to look at it.”

I had made rice pudding to go with our meal and planned to take some to Lester the next day when we returned the horse and plow. The garden needed a lot more grubbing before we could plant, and we were already past planting time. Of course, we had no seed or anything else.
Maybe there is not to be a garden, after all
, I worried.
If the Lord don't send in the money to pay these bills, we'll have no need for a garden. We'll be closed down
.

I couldn't bear to think about that happening, but I had to admit, we weren't offering much in the way of spiritual help for these women. On that account the Lord might be finished with Priscilla Home. I felt guilty that I hadn't done my part. I'd been so busy about the garden and everything I hadn't put first things first. There was one thing I knew I could do, and I promised myself I'd get cracking on that the next day.

Saturday morning we had our first Praise and Prayer session. Each of the women had been issued a new translation of the Bible, one easier for them to understand than the King James, and we were sitting around in the day room ready to get started.

I hardly knew how to begin. “Well,” I said, “what do we have to be thankful for?”

There was dead silence.

I was about to say something myself when Dora volunteered. Can you imagine—Dora!

“He has give me ever'thang a body ever needed,” she was saying. “The sun to warm my back, the moon and stars spread over me of a night, good water to drink, good air to breathe, a mill on the branch to grind my corn, a cookstove and bed pots. I got no quarrel with God. He's been good to me.”

She didn't mean to be funny and, to my surprise, nobody thought it was. Nobody laughed or even smiled. I guess we were all kind of taken back by what she said and the way she said it.

The effect had not worn off when I cleared my throat and suggested we open our Bibles to the Psalms. There's real soul food in the Psalms. “Let's pick verses to praise the Lord with,” I told them. “Mr. Splurgeon says, ‘We ought not to leap in prayer and limp in praise.'”

That pearl of wisdom went right over their heads. They were too busy turning back and forth trying to find the Psalms. “The Psalms is smack dab in the middle of your Bible,” I told them.

“I found it—the Palms!” Wilma exclaimed.

I hesitated but decided it wouldn't do not to correct her. “It's Psalms, Wilma, not Palms, okay?”

“Sure looks like Palms,” she said and laughed.

To get the thing going, I picked the first verse of Psalm 103: “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

Angela, curled up in the corner of the sofa, added, “And forget not all his benefits.”

Good
, I thought.
At least somebody understands
what we're trying to do here
. But then there was a long silence. I didn't know what to do. They were turning pages, looking for something to read, so I waited and prayed somebody would come up with a verse.

Wilma, the truck driver, started reading a long psalm with every verse ending in “his mercy endureth forever.” By the time she had read half a page, she stopped. “That ain't what you want, is it?”

“It's all good, Wilma. Go right ahead.”

And she did.

Melba, one of the best cooks in the house and a hairdresser like Brenda, found the psalm she was looking for and waited for Wilma to finish before telling us, “I can say this one by heart. I learned it in Vacation Bible School when I was eight years old.” She recited the Twenty-third Psalm without a hitch.

“That's the one they used at my daddy's funeral,” Nancy said. “He died the day I graduated from nursing school.” She read a praise verse, then explained, “Emily left her glasses so I'll read another one for her.” Emily, the slender redhead sitting beside her, was Nancy's roommate. They all said she was a professional ice skater, so I reckoned that was true.

I felt really good that the women seemed to be liking what we were doing. They kept pawing the pages until I reckoned maybe half of them had read a verse or two.

“Miss E.,” Angela asked, “could we sing a chorus or something?”

“Sure,” I said. She and Nancy put their heads together and came up with a chorus about being a sanctuary for the Lord. Angela led off with a voice like an angel's. I tell
you, she sang as good as any of those big-time singers traveling all over the country making big bucks. Why, it wasn't no time till she and Nancy had us all singing that chorus, only you can bet your bottom dollar I didn't let loose full force; I just hummed along. The words were so pretty and the girls sang so sweet it would have made the angels clap their hands, except as how probably none of the women could honestly claim to be a sanctuary for the Lord. It's like Splurgeon says, “Fools can sing, but only those who are taught of God can be holy.”

During the singing, Portia left the room to go to the bathroom, and her roommate, Linda, jumped at the chance to tell us about her. “Portia calls herself Satan's child, so don't look for her to sing Christian songs.”

No one laughed, and I for one had to bite my tongue not to jerk a knot in that blabbermouth.

Portia didn't come back until we were giving our requests for prayer. We prayed for the women's children, their husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends, and their parents, but oddly enough, no one asked for victory over their own addiction.

As Dora and I left the house to get the plow and horse ready to make the trip back to Lester's, Linda followed me. “Miss E., can I go with you?”

“No, you need to stay here and work in the garden.”

“I've got something to tell you.”

“Can't you tell me right now?” I motioned to her to lift the other end of the plow to help me put it in the trunk.

“No, I can't tell you right now. It's a long story, something important you should know. I can tell you in the car.”

She just wants to fill me in on more gossip
, I figured. “Well, if it's something about another resident here, we'll go to that person and you can tell it to them as well as to me.”

Linda laughed. “That would take all the fun out of it.” Then she blurted out, “That tattoo Portia has covers the entire front of her body—you oughta' see it! It's a rose bush with buds where you might expect—”

“Linda, I don't want to hear this!”

“You don't want to hear that she left home when she was fourteen because of her stepfather—how he messed with her?”

“No! I do not want to hear another word of this!” I was getting madder by the minute and walked fast toward the garage, trying to shake her. She kept right on my heels. “Linda, we're not here to dwell on the past. We're here to think about the future we can have if we let the Lord into our lives.”

That garage was full of junk. I was looking to see if there was a gasoline can in there. We needed gas for the van.

Linda would not shut up. “Portia's mother is a Christian, and every time Portia calls her, her mother sends her a bus ticket or a plane ticket to come home. Of course, Portia never goes home; she just cashes the ticket and spends the money. She could go home now if she wanted to. Her stepfather left her mother some time ago, so she's got no excuse not to go home.”

“Linda, that is none of your business nor mine!” I found the gas can, but it was empty.

She laughed and followed me back to the car. I tell you, there was evil in that girl! I knew I shouldn't let her bug me; after all, she wouldn't be at Priscilla Home if she was a saint. Like Splurgeon says, “It takes holy hearts to make holy tongues” and Linda was a long way from having a holy heart.

But I couldn't shut her up!

“One reason Portia got that tattoo is to keep Christians away from her. No self-respecting Christian will have anything to do with somebody has got tattoos like that.”

“Then why did she come here to this Christian place?” I asked and opened the car door.

“The only reason she came here was to have a warm place to spend the winter.” Linda was holding on to the door to keep me from closing it.