Homefires (22 page)

Tearful farewells abounded on the asphalt parking lot, underscored with Deborah’s bewildered scowl, pacing, and “
No way!”
while Toby trailed and patted her resisting arm, muttering, “we’ll come and see you, Deb. It’ll be all right”... while Jessica and I fueled her agitation by having one good breakdown, unbridled cry on each other’s shoulders. While Krissie and Sandy vowed solemnly to write each other every single day and Heather
,
with friends, joined by arms tangled and cleaving, bodies heaving in grief at parting.....

Was it only last night?
I gazed into Kirk’s weary face, so dear. So needy. And I smiled, stretched up for a long kiss and said, “Of course, it was the right decision.”

“Git outta my face!” bellowed a distinctly angry male voice from outside. “It’s
my
furn’ture, I tell ya.”

I thanked the departing church ladies, who’d earlier slipped quietly into the kitchen with steaming bowls and a succulent baked ham garnished with pineapple and cherries and within an hour, fed us and cleaned up.

What
was
all that racket about coming from the front yard?

I dashed to the front door and peered outside where moving vans hovered on the busy front lawn, gilded golden by nightlights. My gaze combed workers who, for the first time today, appeared frozen and mute, peering at two men who stood, toed-off, glaring at each other.

“I spoke for that bedroom furn’ture nigh on two years back,” the tall, lanky red-haired male named Homer Beauregard bellowed.

The other one, Fred Chastain, who seemed older, shook his salt-and-pepper head. “Can’t help dat. Clancy, he be in charge o’parsonage stuff.” His stance was quiet and firm and his dialect thick low-country. “He said it’s mine since I put down da deposit on it ovuh a year ago, case it ever got sold. Since Miz Crenshaw don’t wanna use it, it’s
mine.”

In a flash, the carrot-top man advanced with white, clenched fists to within an inch of his opponent’s nose. “
A twenty dollar deposit? I don’t think so,”
he roared.

“Hey!” Kirk stepped between the two men. “Say fellas, can’t we sit down and discuss this without all the anger?” This in his most engaging, conciliatory manner. “I mean, – ”

“Hey, preachuh,” Fred turned abruptly to Kirk, “You best stay outta family bid’ness ‘round heah.” He lightly cuffed Kirk’s shoulder in good ol’ boy fashion. “Dat’s da best advice ah can give ya. Do dat, you stay outta trouble.”

“Yeah.” Homer Beauregard grunted assent. “He’s not shootin’ you a line. Solomon Methodist’s a tight, family church. You best remember – family? They stick together. Hey?”

“Thanks,” Kirk replied evenly, his expression shuttered. “I’ll remember that.”

Kirk left the men to their dissension, which within moments rose to pitch again.

Disbelieving, I quickly turned away and fled to the clutter of my room, which I attacked with new vigor, closing my ears
to the furor beyond the new walls.
Where’s Christian charity?
Is there no place for pastoral counsel when family gets out of line?
What,
I asked myself as I savagely stuffed wadded paper into a garbage bag,
have we gotten ourselves into?

“Cousins?” I gaped at Kirk across the breakfast table the next morning. “First cousins?”

“Yep,” he replied, crunching into toast. “Seems they’ve been feuding all through the years. Over some land – they’re all big landowners, by the way, as are most of these folk.”

“Did they settle the dispute last night?”

Kirk chuckled, elbows on table, nursing his coffee mug in both big hands. “Nah.” He blew on the steaming brew and his gaze moved past me to the double windows that framed a breathtaking view of the evergreen forest backed up to church property.

And I knew. That smiling half-moon glimmer of green said a part of him enjoyed the near-to-blows adventure.

The next six months will forever stand out in my memory as a time of supreme joy. Loosed from fast-paced inner-city hubbub and exposure, our family rediscovered one another. Granted, the forced seclusion at first did not lay well with the youngsters, but, predictably, without a playmate-smorgasbord, the two youngest siblings established a camaraderie that led to previously unheard-of,
creative
diversions. Late afternoons found them riding bikes until classroom-accumulated restlessness was spent. Then came quieter pastimes, when Krissie patiently taught Toby games, such as Parcheesi, Password and Old Maid Cards.

Kirk was – well, Kirk was gone most of the time. Pastoring, I knew, so I carried on.

Teenage Heather discovered a new world of peers surprisingly as appealing as her former ones. Added to this was the pleasure of her very own
space,
luxury for a private girl whose former cramped quarters forced her to share her bed.

“They’re your rooms to decorate as you please,” I said during the first week, “so go to it.”

Krissie’s room was the brightest and perhaps most engaging in the parsonage, a study of pastel yellow and gold accessories that splashed against soft antique white walls and rested on plush pale moss-green carpet that invited toes to dig in. In this near lackadaisical atmosphere, her industriousness leaped to my attention. All day, while I cleaned and organized kitchen and bathrooms, I’d see her zip by, in and out of her quarters with cleaning supplies and vacuum. And pride, warm and sweet, oozed through me. Surreptitious peeks revealed Krissie’s closet, drawers and shelves organized fastidiously enough to pass military inspection

When,
I wondered with considerable awe,
did this metamorphosis take place? Why she’s as diligent and responsible as an adult.
And I decided it was Providential, this oasis in which I found myself, this timeless bubble that halted and allowed me to see, really
see,
all the good in my life.

At 3:10 a.m. I jerked upright in bed. Toby’s scream hauled me to my unsteady feet and down the hall-length to his pecan-paneled room. His muffled yells augmented into terror. I gazed wild-eyed into the darkness, searching for him. Kirk, on my heels, flipped on the overhead light, exposing the rumpled, empty bed and myriad sports decals attached to his walls with enough Scotch-tape to complete a season’s gift-wrapping.

I pivoted to my right and peered through the closet door, a mere three feet to the left of his bedroom entrance. Huddled there, pale face plastered to the corner, hands splayed over cheeks, Toby sobbed.

I peeled him loose and wrapped my arms around him.

“What happened, Toby?” Kirk asked gently.

“I – I couldn’t find the
bathro-o-om.”

Disoriented, he’d taken the wrong door and couldn’t find his way out.

Heather met us in the hall as I guided him to the bathroom, looking surprisingly sympathetic and I thought again how our cohesion, our dependence on one another was blossoming into something rare and precious.

Newton-John’s
Let Me Be There
blared from the portable record player.

“Well – what do you think?” Krissie stood back to display her room in its final splendor.

“Very nice.” My gaze roamed appreciatively over her neatly arranged dresser, fragrant with talc and cologne – to the highly polished furniture, immaculate closet and shelves. A gigantic new poster sang to me from one spacious wall.

“How do you like it, Mom?”

She noticed my attention riveted to the huge freckledfaced, splitting grin of Pipi Longstocking, carrot-red pigtails “startled” straight out over each ear – as a tiny brown shrieking monkey, long tail draped around one pigtail, perched on the heroine’s shoulder.

“Do you think it’s cute?” The
vulnerability
behind that query ambushed me. Right then, at that precise moment, my opinion stood between her and desolation.

“I think it’s darling.” The truth. “Where did you get it?”

Her instant smile revealed perfect teeth and restored confidence. “Ordered it at school.”

Something burgeoned inside me, a warm thing strung with silk and velvet and sweet-smelling orchids. It had to do with the fact that she’d bypassed lesser wholesome choices for this. A small thing, yet I’d never felt more proud of my daughter than in that moment.