Good Heavens (25 page)

Of course, my joy was not to last. Monday morning after Praise and Prayer, Ursula called me into her office. “Esmeralda, something distressing has come to my attention.”

“Oh?”

“Linda tells me that when Dora stormed out of the house the other day, you went after her. Is that correct?”

I tried to hedge. “Oh, come, Ursula, you know Linda lies.”

“If this is not true, tell me. Did you or did you not go after Dora?”

“Well, yes, I did. I felt I had—”

“And where did you go?” Looking over the top of her glasses, her eyes were so fixed on me I guess I was supposed to squirm.

With no way around her, I confessed. “Dora was up at the falls.”

“And you followed her up there?”

“I did.”

“In the rain?”

“Yes, in the rain.”

Ursula fished out a paper clip from a tray and, twisting it all out of shape, leaned back in her chair. “Did it ever cross your mind that a woman your age is in no condition to attempt such an operose venture?”

“No. I can't say as it did.”

She popped forward in the chair. “Fatuous, absolutely fatuous! A reckless, egregious disregard for cautionary procedure!”

For all I knew she could have been cussing me, but the Walking Dictionary was not finished. “Did it not occur to you that should you fall and break a limb, it would tax all the emergency service resources we might engage to bring you out?”

Anything I would have said would only add fuel to the fire, so I didn't answer. As Splurgeon says, “If a donkey brays at you, don't bray back at him.”

Leaning herself back in her oversized chair, she succeeded in straightening that paper clip into a straight piece of wire, then toying with it, asked me, “What exactly did you accomplish by such intrepid heroics?”

“Exactly? . . . I don't know, Ursula. I do believe it was the Lord's will for me to do what I did, but we don't always know the reasons why, do we?”

“No, I guess we don't.” I thought she was softening, but then she threw me a curve. “The Priscilla Home Board would not see it your way.” If she was threatening me, she was wasting her breath. When I didn't say anything,
she tossed the paper clip in the wastebasket and wheeled around. “I have decided to dismiss Dora.”

“Dismiss Dora!” I nearly came out of my chair!

“Precisely. She has been most uncooperative, and now this tantrum that has endangered not only her life but also yours is unconscionable. You can tell her to pack her things.”

“Ursula, you can't mean that. Maybe this tantrum, as you call it, is the breakthrough you've been waiting for. Think about it!”

She reached for another paper clip.

“Besides,” I told her, “we need Dora in the garden. The rain has just about ruint the rows she's laid out—”

“Not ruint!” she said in that cold, unfeeling voice she had got. “Ruined.”

“Okay, ruined,” I said as calmly as I could. “Ursula, Dora's the only one can handle the plow and get the garden back in shape.”

“Esmeralda, I never approved of your bringing that animal on this property and having our residents digging in the dirt. We are not a farm colony.”

“Think of it as therapy, Ursula. Outdoor work gives us a good appetite and we sleep better.”

“There is more to this program than eating and sleeping.” She was bending that paper clip this way and that but looking out the door as if she was thinking. I sensed she might be reconsidering about Dora.

“Don't we give the residents three strikes?” I asked.

She didn't answer me. “Now that you mention it, there is another matter that has been brought to my attention.”

Oh no
, I thought.
What else?

“I want you to go in your bathroom and see if you can find your mouthwash.”

“Mouthwash?” I was puzzled, but I got up and went in there to check it out. I did remember that I couldn't find the new bottle I had bought, but I thought I must have left it in the van when we came home from town. I had forgot to look there.

Well, it wasn't in the bathroom, so I went back in the office. “I must have left it in the van.”

“Your mouthwash has been consumed,” she told me.

“Consumed?”

“Yes, consumed. Portia stole it out of your bathroom and drank all of it.”

“Stole it out of my bathroom? When?”

“The night you came from the falls. Linda tells me several of the residents descended on your room, and you allowed them to visit with you.”

“Well, yes, I did but—”

“That was most unprofessional. Linda tells me that when Portia went to the kitchen to bring you another cup of coffee, she slipped into your bathroom and took your mouthwash.”

“Now, see here, Ursula—it was Linda who went in my bathroom—Linda, not Portia.”

“We found the bottle in Portia's backpack.”

“Then Linda put it there!”

“No. Portia did not deny the charge.”

“Ursula, you don't understand—”

“Esmeralda, I understand perfectly. If you had read
my guidelines, you would be aware that an alcoholic will drink anything that has an alcohol content—cough medicines, mouthwash—anything containing alcohol. This offense is strike two for Portia. One more and I will have no choice but to dismiss her.”

“Oh, Ursula, you're making a big mistake!”

She ignored me. “By this experience I hope you have learned the wisdom of making our personal living quarters off-limits to the residents. Do you understand?”

“Ursula—”

“It was most unprofessional for you to allow them to congregate in your room.” She stood up, dismissing me.

I tell you, I went to bed that night all shook up.
Portia didn't drink my mouthwash—but that poor girl is so bullied, so afraid of Linda, she'll take the blame. . . . Whatever made Portia the coward she is must have been terrible. That poor child is soul tired—sunk so deep she can sink no more. Oh God, do something—give her a glimmer of hope peeking through that fog she's in. Help me, Lord. Help me help that girl!

16

That night after Ursula said Dora must leave and also gave Portia another strike, I couldn't sleep. It was all so unfair. Didn't Ursula have sense enough to know that it was her who caused Dora all that torment? That business of having her write a letter to her dead child was the worst thing anybody could have done. It wrung the heart out of Dora; she could have killed herself.
A temper tantrum, my eye! Ursula knows I'll not tell Dora to pack her bags. Before I'd do such a thing I'd pack my own bags. Besides, this is Dora's first strike, and she gets three
.

As for Portia, I knew good and well that Linda had stolen the mouthwash, drank it, put the bottle in Portia's backpack, then tattled to Ursula. I knew that, but I could not prove it. I figured Portia took the blame because Linda kept her so browbeat she would be afraid not to.
I can't figure out how Linda has such control over that poor girl
.

I wrestled on the bed as long as I could, then I got up and was in the kitchen making myself a cup of tea when
Angela came in. She was breaking a rule being up at that hour of the night, but I was sick and tired of Ursula's rules. “Can't sleep?” I asked.

“No.” She was making a cup of coffee in the microwave.

In a few minutes it was ready, and she stirred in some sugar. “I need somebody to talk to.”

“Will I do?”

“Who else can you talk to around here?”

We went down to the day room. I sipped my tea and waited for her to say something. Leaning back in the chair and closing her eyes, she nursed the coffee mug in both hands and said nothing.

After a while, I said, “I guess you heard what's happened to Portia.”

“Linda told us. Miss E., Portia didn't take your mouthwash.”

“I know.”

“Everybody knows it was Linda. I really yelled at her, but it didn't do any good. She has Miss Ursula conned; she believes anything Linda says.”

“Can we prove Linda did it?”

Angela sighed. “No, I guess not.”

“Portia didn't deny she did it.”

“She was scared, Miss E.” Angela toyed with the cup, took a sip, and looked like she was tickled about something. “Dora says Portia has worms.”

“Dora says Portia has got worms?”

Angela smiled. “That's what she calls it. Dora says they're ‘fear worms.'”

“Fear worms? I never heard of such a thing.”

“Well, you know Dora—that's just the way she talks. Portia's full of fears, and they're eating away at her. Dora says fear worms will kill you.”

“Well, why—why is Portia so afraid?”

“Linda says her stepfather did a number on her when she was little. I don't believe much Linda says, but that may be true. Portia was afraid to stay at home and afraid to leave. Once she left, she was afraid of everything and everybody. She lets anybody do anything they want to do to her. That's the only way she can survive on the streets.”

Hearing that made me sick. “Why doesn't she go home? Linda said that stepfather has left her mother.”

“I guess she's afraid he'll come back. She's afraid of everything.”

What was left of my tea was cold, so I set it on the table and stretched out on the couch. I couldn't make sense of all this. It upset me so, I couldn't even pray. I just lay there dreading another day like this one.

Angela started in again. “Miss E., I've crossed the line.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. I've gone too far for the Lord ever to take me back. Remember that place where it says ‘he gave them up'? Well, he's given up on me.”

“No, I don't think that's true.”

“Miss E., I've done everything in the book.”

“So?”

“There's another place that says when a person knows what being a Christian is and then turns their back on the Lord, that person can't ever repent and be saved.”

“Where does it say that?”

“I don't know, but it's in there.”

Vaguely I did remember something like that in the Bible, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember where it was.
Hebrews, I think
. But I didn't have my Bible, and the one on the table was a new version. I knew I'd never be able to find it in there. Anyway, I did not want to believe it was true of Angela, but what could I say?

That young girl with her hair rolled up in curlers, no makeup, and wearing a nightshirt with the picture of some rock group on the front, was yet probably the prettiest girl in the house. And to think that somewhere her parents were trying to carry on Christian work while she was living all-out for Satan. I hoped that here in the middle of the night they were asleep, but chances were they were tumbling and tossing, worried to death and crying out to the Lord about her. I've been told the prayers and tears of godly parents make it impossible for their child to perish. Maybe that's true and maybe it ain't, but I wanted to believe it was true. I didn't want to believe the Lord had give up on Angela. I asked her if she had ever been clean before.