Homefires (51 page)

“Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?” I peered fearfully at them, knowing I didn’t want to hear but it was like a keg of worms turned loose. There was, for me, no turning back. “Tell me.”

Kirk’s eyes when they met mine blazed. “She’s trying to destroy everything with lies.”

“Lies?” Roxie, sprawled in the floor, gave a small strangled sound of disgust and climbed to her stiletto-heeled feet.

“Shut up!” Callie stepped forth warningly.

“Lies.” Kirk turned to Roxie with a look on his face I knew to be throwing down the gauntlet. “Get out of my church and don’t show your face here again.”

Roxie’s face turned ugly. “For now.”

She swept past Callie, searing her with a look of disdain. “Before I’m through, you’ll both wish you were dead.” Then she turned and looked at me with bald contempt. “Let’s see – what was your name? Oh yeah – poor, poor
blind
little
Neecy
. You – ”

“Lay off her!” Callie shoved violently and Roxie’s padded shoulder struck the door with a loud
thud.

“Get your sorry behind out of here!
Now.”

I reeled from Roxie’s assessment of me, one I myself entertained all too often. Was it accurate?

Roxie got her footing, brushed her short skirt over her hips in a defiant caress and shook the titian mane from her shoulders.

She looked straight at Kirk, whose poker face was unreadable. It annoyed me. It sent fissures of fear through me. “For now,” she purred and oozed through the door with much elaborated hip movement.

“Thank God.” Callie closed her eyes as the footsteps faded. Then her eyes popped open. “I’d better see her out.” She raced to make sure Roxie didn’t detour
.

Kirk peered at me. “You okay, Neecy?” The query was so tender and caring it caught me off guard, made me dizzy.

I nodded. “You?”

“Yeah. I am now.” He shook his shoulders and rolled his head as if to dispel the catastrophe. “I should have done that a long time ago. I just didn’t know how – devious she was. Had no idea.”

I told you so.
Yet I could not,
would not
speak the words because I could not get away from my ethics – would never be able to abandon them. In essence, I treat others as I want to be treated.

Then, his arms held me so desperately, everything fled except the two of us. And I realized that whatever had happened, Kirk was as much victim as I. He helped me into my choir robe and hand-in-hand, we walked to face whatever the day might hold.

My healing was not instantaneous but calm was. In the wake of infernal anarchy
,
I wallowed in heavenly tranquility.
Pastoral Appreciation Day proceeded without a whiff of what had transpired in Kirk’s office that morning.

“What brought it all on?” I asked Callie later that week. For the first couple of days following the explosion, I’d simply floated upon euphoric deliverance, paddling round and round in it like an aimless intoxicated duck. “Why did Roxie go over the edge?”

Callie sat on my sofa after dinner one evening, sipping coffee. Kirk, Heather and Toby were doing their monthly Convalescent Home odyssey, involving that evening the entire Solomon Youth ministry. Alone, Cal and I packed the dishwasher, wiped the counters and curled up across from each other in the cool earth-tone ambience of the den.

Callie nursed her cup in both hands, legs tucked beneath her at an alluring angle that still showed ample calf and ankle, and drew from her brew leisurely. Giving her time to think. These days, the old impulsive, shoot-from-the-hip Cal did not exist.

“She wanted my job.” Callie stated matter-of-factly. She placed her cup on the end table and then steepled her fingers to her full lips.

“Your job?”

“Yeah. See – I might be leaving soon.”

Whammo
! “Cal. No.”

“Fraid so, Neecy. Mama’s got cancer.”

“Dear Lord – no. How long have you known?”

“For a few weeks now.”

Hurt washed over me. A flashback to the past when Callie failed to share important things with me. I tried to brush it away. Had to.

As though reading my thoughts, she said, “I didn’t say anything because – Neecy, you’ve been through a lot lately. I didn’t want to add to it with my problems.”

“Am I that transparent?” I choked on the words, hating my vulnerability.

Callie’s smile flashed, showing her even white teeth. “I’ve known you a long time. Remember?”

That, too, made me uncomfortable, but I hid it by smiling. “Yep. Fraid so. I just hate it that you don’t let me help you carry burdens, is all.” Then suddenly, I despised myself for whining.

“Sorry,” Callie threw up her hands, making me feel guilty. “Thought I was doing the right thing.”

“You were saying Roxie wanted your job.” I truly thought I was ready to talk about it.

Callie’s face clouded. “Did she
ever.
” She wiggled herself into tailor position, ankles crossed before her, more animated. “She got to sneaking in, to eavesdrop on me and Kirk. I told you she was jealous, accused us of having this thing going.” She rolled her eyes. “Wishful thinking on her part – thinking if Kirk would hit on me, she had a chance, you know?”

I nodded, feeling my insides begin to churn. Too late, I realized I wasn’t as ready to hear Kirk discussed in this context as I’d thought.

“Well,” Callie continued, “one day, she overheard me mention I might be leaving soon to take care of Mama and she appeared like a Genie in a bottle –
ta da!
– cutting her eyes at Kirk like a western Geisha, smearing it on like mayonnaise. ‘
Oh, Kirk, I’ve been praying for a job like this. Ever since Moose left, I’ve been crying myself to sleep at night tadatadatada.’
The whole nine yards, baby.” Callie said all this through clenched teeth, the chocolate eyes all pupils, now moistened with rage. “I told her ‘no way.’ That first on the waiting list is Tillie Dawson, who’d love to be back.”

Tillie.
How little I’d understood when another woman clouded her marriage. I thought I had sympathized, but I’d not had a clue.

Callie’s leaving.
Despair flushed through me. “When’re you going?

“Not until I have to. Soon, however. Mama’s going down fast.”

Butterflies flapped away inside me. I had to ask. “How did Kirk handle Roxie’s demands for your position?”

Callie’s brow knitted and she crossed her arms, thinking. “He didn’t, really. Left it to me. Like everything else concerning her. It’s like – he had to appease her or something. Got to me at times. But....” Her voice trailed off and she glanced at me, as though sensing she’d said too much.

“You’ve been protecting me, haven’t you?” I asked in a flat voice.

Something flashed in her face then vanished. “Both you and Kirk.” She slid her feet into slippers and stood. “Gotta run. My bedtime.”

“Wait,” I stood. “Why did you feel you had to protect Kirk?” Dread pounded my heart like tom-toms.

Callie whirled to face me, eyes ablaze. “Because, I hated to see that floozy destroy what you and Kirk have worked so faithfully to build. Roxie would blow this ministry to confetti without as much as a backward glance.” Her features slid into sadness. “You were always the good girl. I was the bad. I’ve done lots of things wrong in my lifetime.” Moisture gathered in her onyx eyes. “I want to do this right. If you two hadn’t taken me in and helped me onto the right road, I don’t know where I’d have ended up.”

She hugged me fiercely. “Thanks, Neecy. I couldn’t let Roxie get away with what she was doing. I just couldn’t.”

My voice caught on a sob. “T-thank you, Cal. I hate to see you go, but I understand.”

She gazed at me, humor breaking over her face. “I’m just going home to
bed.”

I playfully smacked her shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah. I reckon I do. It’ll all work out okay. You’ll see.”

I waved from the door as her car spun away and then dressed for bed, listening for Kirk and the kids to come in. Propped in bed, I read my Bible verses and thought on Callie’s divulgences. With Roxie’s threatening presence gone, I realized I could think more clearly, could assimilate truth from fiction
– Or could I?
I had not heard Roxie’s lies, thanks to Kirk and Callie’s barricade that Sunday to hush her up. How could I judge something I did not know?

Something on the deepest gut-level told me I did not want to know.

Truth was, I wanted my life with Kirk back. The one before Roxie.

I could no longer tune out the litany going round and round in my head since. Was too tired to fight it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

There were in those post-Roxie days, two of me. Amid a self-diagnosed, self-treated mental breakdown, I grappled for wisdom via past-experiences-survived. Following my daughter’s tragedy, I’d splintered into several of me who tackled survival in varied, necessary ways. I sought counsel and took it. There was no easy way to recover, but I tried to heal in as healthy a way as possible.

Now, I faced another scenario entirely. Oh, the devastation of both experiences slashes to the bone and leaves lasting gnarled scars. Difference being that losing Krissie captured the sympathy of the world at large while the hovering scandal transferred to my account shame and secretiveness
. I could see no wholesome way to survive this.
To reveal that my husband – a man of the cloth – had been tempted to stray would compromise my self-worth in such a way as to annihilate me.

It would substantiate my subterranean unlovable-self-image. Oh yes, add
ugly
to unlovable, compliments of Roxie-O. Even now, after all that’s happened, I feel a little guilty doing Roxie-sarcasm.

I never liked to denigrate dead people.

It happened the day after my conversation with Callie.

Kirk had gone to the office for a while and the kids were off doing their things, Toby riding his bike, Heather out at the cemetery shade, no doubt.

The phone rang, interrupting my vacuuming. “Hello.”

“Janeece – ” a woman screeched my name on a frantic note of hysteria. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, Janeece. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you but I need – ”

The wind
swooshed
from my lungs and I croaked, “Roxie?”

“Yes. I-is Kirk home?” I heard the plaintive hesitancy.

“Roxie – ” I wanted to tell her where she could shove her request, but my inner-guide stopped me. “No, he isn’t.”

“Please –
please, Janeece.
I need help.”

I took a deep breath to calm my trembling. “Did you try his office?” I’ve
got to be crazy to be talking to her. Okay, Lord, I know, I know.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll tell him you called when he comes – ”

“Oh,
god!”
she wailed on a long breath. “Tell him I need help.”

“Okay, okay, Roxie. Calm down. Okay?”

I could hear her harsh strident breathing on the other end. “Please, forgive me?” I heard sobs.

My heart relented. “For what, Roxie?”

Snubbing. “E-everything.”

“It’s all right, Roxie. Everything will be all right. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“N-no.” A fresh burst of sobs. “They’re going to do it, Neecy. Tell Kirk
they’re going to do it!”

“Who’s going to do
what,
Roxie?” I cried as her terror transferred to me. I felt, smelled, tasted it. “For goodness sake,
tell me!”

Click.
The connection broke. I pushed the button frantically as the front door slammed upon Kirk’s arrival. “Hi! Anybody home?” he called good-naturedly, tossing the Solomon Daily Crier on the counter.

“Mama?” yelled Toby. “What’s for dinner?”

Kirk’s laughter trailed. “Don’t you ever think about anythi – ” He stopped and gaped at me still holding the receiver. “What’s wrong, honey?”