Homefires (18 page)

“You can do it,” Kirk insisted when I panicked at playing for congregational singing. “Actually, Neecy, you’re the only one in the church who can read music.” Of which I was well aware. I was also aware nobody else had Lizzie’s gift of playing by ear
or her audacity to try. Now, for the very first time, I esteemed Lizzie’s spunk.

I groaned. “I’ll try, honey. Accompanying a congregation isn’t like sitting at the piano at home, you know, so don’t expect too much.”

The following Sunday, nervous as Ma McKonna’s neurotic cat, I took the vacant piano bench and commenced to play before service began. Hands shaking, I made it through
Abide With Me
, in memory of Lizzie,
What A Friend We Have in Jesus
and
Rock of Ages
– all simply because I’d played them so often I could almost do them without music. Surprisingly, the congregationals proved easier. I felt less on display and more a team member as Jake Lester led singing in his slightly off-key way that, months earlier, nearly made my perfectionist-ear curl in on itself. Lately, I’d determined to hear less dissonance and more devotion. Today, I adored the man’s booming caterwauling – augmented by emotion – because it covered up my fumbles and misses.

Everybody
loved
me and thought I was right up there with Liberace. I knew better. By now, Heather, eight, already played in piano recitals, much more talented than I ever hoped to be, soaking up instruction like a thirsty sponge and mastering pieces after two or three brief sittings. Even so, I was more advanced than she at that stage and was stuck on the piano bench for the duration of Kirk’s pastorate.

Spring was in the air, inspiring Kirk to leave the church’s double doors open that Sunday morning. Sunshine spilled over the small foyer and up the crimson aisle, ushering in a bouquet of wildflowers fragrance that hung lazily over the drowsy flock.

At eleven-ten, Kirk entered the pulpit. From the piano bench, I saw Ma’s dog Sugar, a big golden Retriever, sitting on his haunches in the doorway, his tongue lolling happily out the side of his mouth. Sug was the lovingest dog on God’s Earth but usually got only as far as the steps in reaching his goal: to get inside the church.

Today, Sugar faced no obstacles. Softly playing the offertory hymn,
How Great Thou Art
, I couldn’t watch his progress for fear of missing a note and the building falling in on me. On the
last chord, I glimpsed Sug, prostrate, at the end of Jake Lester’s pew, Jake’s dangling fingers lazily stroking golden fur.

Kirk arose from his pastoral seat and approached the pulpit, not having yet spotted the visitor. “Shall we stand for prayer?” Everyone arose and he began to pray. I peeked at Sug, now strolling ecstatically down the aisle, stumbling over his big clumsy feet, gazing adoringly at all the people who weekly greeted and petted him outside. “And Father, we thank thee for all – ”

Kirk’s prayer stretched long and Sug ventured onto the lower tier prefacing the pulpit, in full view of the flock, sat on his haunches, tongue lolling happily and then, as if inspired, rolled over on his back, legs in the air, as in surrender.

“Amen. You may be seated. The sermon today is taken from the Book of Matthew.”

Laughter began to ripple through the flock, drowning out the riffling of turning pages. Kirk’s brow knitted in confusion.

“Psst.” I got his attention from the front pew and nodded toward our canine interloper.

“Ahhh,” Kirk’s composure slid a notch amid the rising rumble of laughter. “Brothers Jake and Leroy, would you assist me in removing our friend from the pulpit?”

The three men commenced to pick up Sug, who mysteriously evolved into jointless mush, slithering from their grasps into a lifeless golden mound on the carpet. It took two more men and changing their tactics to gently drag Sug’s dead weight down the aisle to remove his bulk from the worship service. There wasn’t a dry eye in the church by the time Kirk returned, flushed and sweating, to deliver his message.

Kirk vows, to this day, that the solemnity to deliver that sermon was the most difficult he ever achieved.

“Trish! You here?” I stuck my head in the dorm room, a messy chamber except for Trish’s corner, where she studied, denimed legs pretzeled, on her small bed. She bounded up to hug me and then Anne, who’d gotten Ruthie, her sister, to baby sit Dale, and had driven down with us to visit Trish.

“I’ve missed you, Trish.” Anne’s spontaneous declaration warmed me and I thought how the separation had worked
wonders with their relationship. It transported them from Daddy’s censor to freedom, an ingredient that works magic.

Another thing that worked magic was Anne’s spiritual conversion, right after Trish returned home. Daddy’s came a few miserable weeks later, after which he threw away his Chesterfields, stopped his cussing and never looked back.

Folks speak of miracles mostly in physical terms. To me, the greatest miracle of all is a life changed by the supernatural power of the Almighty.

The visit that day took us all over campus, where Trish showed us off to friends. During lunch in the cafeteria, we met a guy named Gene, with whom Trish batted quips and whose Alfalfa-twig and outrageous wit seemed to intrigue my not-easily-impressed sis. Like Kirk, he was a ministerial student. I liked him instantly and suspected I would see Gene Tucker again.

Back in the dorm room, we began our goodbyes, hugging like no tomorrow, when Anne took both Trish’s hands in hers, looked her in the eye and said, “Trish, I’ve prayed much about – what I’m about to say.” She took a deep steadying breath, her sky-blue eyes stricken. “I wish I could go back and do things different with you. I wish I’d seen your needs like I do now – it took knowing Jesus to open my eyes to
truth
,” her voice cracked, but she steadied herself and continued. “And I’m so, so sorry. I hope you – and Neecy – can find it in your hearts to forgive me. If I could, I’d go back and undo it all. But I can’t.” Enormous grief labored her words. “It wasn’t intentional – I’ve always loved you, Trish. I’m so ashamed to admit this – but I was jealous because your Daddy was so protective over you. He made me feel sorta – Idon’t know…like he didn’t trust me to do right by you. Then I got mad. It wasn’t you. I loved you, Trish. I just didn’t know how to show.…” She swallowed several times. “When you cried, it scared me because I didn’t know how to – .” Her composure dissolved into silent weeping.

Trish flung her arms around Anne, unable to say a word and they hugged like two clinging to a buoy in a raging sea.

Tears of wonder filled my eyes and when they finally stepped away from each other, wiping away tears, I stepped up to my stepmother and hugged her fiercely, knowing the courage of her gesture. The humility. The
love
behind it.

And my faith in humanity took an abrupt upward swing.

“What’s she wearing?” Krissie whispered as I took my front-pew seat between her and Toby after playing the offertory hymn
And Can it Be
.

“It’s an African native costume.” I referred to the colorful clothing worn by our visiting messenger from Sierra Leone, who now stood before the congregation to speak. Her presentation was as colorful as her garb, drawing her audience from quiet little Possum Creek to lush tropical jungles and faraway villages, where she served as a medical missionary. Her stories of exotic illnesses and miraculous interventions drew rapt attention. At the end of the service, when Kirk appealed for the customary love offering, Krissie finally stirred.

After the closing prayer, as everyone milled around, she looked at me. “Mama, I want to be a missionary.”

“Oh?” Her countenance had never been more solemn.

“Mm hm.” She nodded decisively and raced off to speak to the lady doctor, who took inordinate interest in Krissie’s newfound focus.

Toby’s fingers slipped inside mine. “Mama?”

I looked down into huge blue pools of excitement. “Yes, Toby?”

“I wanna be a mish-nair, too.”

I suppressed a grin. “You do?”

Later, en route home, I felt a tap on my shoulder. “What is it, Toby?”

He poked his head between the seats, cupped small hands around my ear and whispered, “What’s a
mish-nair?”

“Pastor’s college graduation’s just a month away,” Ma McKonna pronounced in her abrupt way. My hand paused on the plate I was about to scrape following our delicious lunch of Ma’s chicken and dumplings. I decided not to mention Kirk’s appointment with denominational officials the next Thursday. I vigorously tackled the soiled plate as if to scrape away a niggling suspicion playing on my mind:
a change is about to take place.

“Ahh, Ma,” I said, stretching my arm across her rounded shoulders as she washed a plate at the sink, “what would I do without you?”

She chuckled, blushing with pleasure. “Oh, Law, you’d make out.”

Drying the plate, I wondered in that lovely moment when honeysuckle breezes wafted through the open window how I could leave Possum Creek and its salt of the earth folk. I closed my eyes. No. God wouldn’t do that to me, just when I’d learned to love them as my own.

God wouldn’t do that to me.