No Dark Valley (44 page)

It was after that, on the way back down from the quarry, that Ansell, in a silent fury, drove his car off the side of the road. The ditch wasn't very deep, but there was no getting out of it. The tires spun hopelessly in the soft earth. Celia didn't even remember what happened next, except that Glenn had ended up delivering her home in his father's pickup truck sometime after three in the morning. He had walked her to the front door, and through the crack where the window shade didn't quite cover the pane, she saw that her grandmother was asleep in her recliner in the living room, her chin resting on her breastbone, her Bible spread open in her lap.

Strangely, Celia couldn't remember how things had ever returned to normal with Ansell after that. If she had had an ounce of sense in her head, their relationship should have been over at that point. But it wasn't. The disappointment of prom night, the blowup at the end, the wrecked car—somehow the whole failed evening had evaporated like fog, and within days they were back together as if nothing had happened. It was impossible to believe she had been so easy to manipulate.

The only reference ever made to prom night was sometime the following summer when Ansell had dropped her off in the driveway one night and said casually, “Wait until I get you away from this place.” He had glanced toward the house, where Grandmother, hands planted on her hips, had appeared at the front door, scowling out into the night toward the car. “That old woman won't be around much longer to play games with your mind.” Celia had opened the door to get out. “I'll show you things up at Blackrock,” Ansell had added in his slow drawl, “that'll make you wonder why you pushed me away that night.”

Interstate traffic was heavier than she expected for a Wednesday, but finally she made it around Atlanta and got on I-85 toward Greenville. She passed the exit to Lawrenceville, where she used to live as a child. How long ago it seemed now.

From the interstate, she kept looking out over the Georgia countryside. The sun was high in the sky, and all looked green and peaceful. “All o'er those wide extended plains shines one eternal day.” She had sung those words at Bethany Hills just three days ago when she had returned for the evening service on Sunday night, something she never would have done if Denise Davidson hadn't coerced her into it. She thought of the preacher's wife now, sitting beside her in the pew, smiling over at her as she joyfully sang, “Oh, who will come and go with me? I am bound for the promised land,” her vivid blue eyes almost making you forget how extraordinarily homely she was.

22

No Other Fount

As she pulled into the Stewarts' driveway and parked at the back of the house, Celia felt a great flood of relief that she was finally back home. Realizing how exhausted she was, she allowed herself a sudden silly wish that someone would bring out a stretcher and carry her inside her apartment. The output of energy required to get from her car to her apartment, not to mention transferring her suitcase and all the other stuff, was more than she wanted to think about right now. Maybe she should roll down the windows a little bit, tilt her bucket seat back, and take a nap before tackling it.

She actually did close her eyes for several long moments, during which a swift succession of images flashed through her mind of things she had seen and done over the past few days. If by some weird contortion of time she had to go back and repeat those days the way that guy kept having to do in the movie
Groundhog Day
, she knew she'd rather die. She tried to pep herself up by saying these words aloud right there in her car before she opened the door: “You will never ever have to return to Dunmore, Georgia, again as long as you live. It's all over.” Spoken aloud, they didn't sound quite as satisfying as she expected them to, so she said them again a little more forcefully.

Aunt Beulah was the only one she would miss seeing, but she could call her whenever she wanted. As for all those others, she was more than glad to be rid of them. She would never again have to walk inside that little box of a house that held all the echoes of all the arguments she and her grandmother had ever had and all the collected smells of all the bad cooking, or hear the clucking tongues of all her other aunts, or drive past her old high school and remember the droopy faces of her disappointed band director and other teachers, or glance out the front door of Grandmother's house and see the little steeple of Bethany Hills Bible Tabernacle down the road. She wouldn't have to plan her errands around town so as to avoid the road leading out to the old rock quarry, or the street where Ansell's parents still lived, or the cemetery where Grandmother was buried.

And she would never have to look into those disconcertingly blue eyes of Denise Davidson again and hear her ask nosy questions such as the one she had asked last Sunday night after the evening service, which Celia still couldn't figure out why she had attended when she had been so glad to escape that morning. Celia had been in even more of a hurry to leave that night, to get back to her motel room and wind down, maybe get a bite to eat and watch something on television to help her relax and drive today's sermons out of her head. If she was lucky, she might be able to get some sleep later on, and if it was too long in coming she had her pills with her. She had two busy days ahead of her, and she was most eager to finish it all up so she could get out of this sorry little town once and for all.

When she had tried to slip past Denise that night, however, she felt a hand on her arm. “Wait, Celia, let me walk you out to your car,” Denise said, and though Celia thought of a dozen ways to decline, none of them came out of her mouth. “Newt and I are going up to see his mother for a few days tomorrow, so I probably won't see you again,” Denise said behind her as they threaded their way past the people crowding the aisles and heading toward the door, and Celia had to bite her tongue to keep from saying, “Well, I certainly hope not.” Someone called to Denise, asking her if she'd heard how somebody's surgery had gone, but she answered, “I can't stop right now, but I'll be back in a jiffy to talk to you!”

Out in the parking lot Denise kept up a steady trickle of talk as they walked toward Celia's Mustang, mostly predictable platitudes about how happy and fulfilled she always felt on Sunday night after the blessings of the Lord's Day and how thankful she always was when people visited their church and how
especially
glad she was that Celia had come to
both
services today. But she dropped the trivia and got down to business when they finally arrived at Celia's car. It was not quite seven o'clock yet, so it was still light outside. And besides the light, Denise and she were almost exactly the same height, meaning that Celia got the full effect of Denise's eyes when they turned on her, a straight-line view right into the heart of those two hot, steady blue torches.

“I can't let you leave without asking you something, Celia.” Denise clutched her Bible against her as if afraid someone was going to try to steal it. “I owe it to your grandmother to do this. She was so worried about you before she died. She couldn't talk about anything else those last couple of days.” She looked down at her feet quickly, then looked back up and took a deep breath. Celia was tempted to open her own mouth and recite the words along with her, so sure she was of what was coming. But she would have been wrong, for Denise put it a different way from the old standard “Are you saved?” Instead, she said, “Have you ever truly trusted in the blood of Jesus to wash away your sins?”

Perhaps it was the way she always approached people when casting her net for lost souls, or maybe she used a different line every time. Maybe this particular cliché was inspired by one of the hymns they had sung in church tonight: “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” The song leader had gotten creative, directing the women on the first stanza to sing the question and the men to respond with the rousing answer, then reversing it on the second stanza, urging the women to “really raise the roof” on the repeated phrase: “Nothing but the blood of Jesus!”

It had struck Celia that the sound of women's voices alone had a sadly empty, shallow sound—nothing that came anywhere close to raising the roof. She remembered the way her high school band conductor used to complain when the low brass played too timidly: “I don't hear any
bottom
!” he would bellow. But the song leader at Bethany Hills hadn't seemed to notice. He had even given the children a special stanza all their own, which sounded even more bottomless and tooty, like a little choir of flutes and piccolos.

But now, to answer the question. Denise's blue eyes were boring into hers, glowing with concern, waiting for a reply. It was a sticky night, thick with humidity, and Celia suddenly felt so closed in that she wasn't sure she could even frame a complete sentence. Some children were playing chase nearby, and their squeals and laughter filled her with sorrow. How many of them would have heavy hearts by the time they were her age? How many of them would stumble and make horrible decisions they would regret for the rest of their lives? She felt like running over to them right now, shaking them one by one and saying, “Listen here, be good! Don't do anything stupid! Think a good long time before making important decisions!”

But the question—it was still hovering in the air, and Denise was still waiting. Celia's mind spun around and around. She glanced to the left of the parking lot, at the little white house that served as the parsonage. Put a steeple on that roof and it would be a miniature of the church itself. She looked back at Denise, holding her Bible in front of her like a shield against fiery darts. So many pictures and allegories in this religion. Pastor Davidson—wasn't he a picture of God shepherding his little bleating flock of stupid, compliant sheep? And here was Denise, stepping into the role of the Holy Spirit, trying to stir up Celia's conscience with her probing blue eyes like tongues of fire.

If Celia answered no, then an earnest invitation to let Denise take her Bible and show her the plan of salvation would follow. If she said yes, she'd be treated to a sermonette about backsliding, getting right with God, rededicating her life, manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, and all those sorts of things. And if she said, “I don't want to talk about it, and it's really none of your business”—well, she might think that, but it would be awfully hard to actually say it.

Denise reached out imploringly with one hand. It was such a little hand, no bigger than a girl's. “Jesus can make you white as snow, Celia.”

“Oh, precious is the flow,” said Celia.

Denise cocked her head and came a step closer. “What? What did you say?”

Celia shook her head. “Sorry, I was just thinking of that song.”

Denise still looked puzzled. “Well, I'm not—”

“You know, ‘Nothing But the Blood,'” Celia said. “The one we sang tonight.”

Denise's face cleared. “Oh. Why, yes. That's a wonderful old song.” She smiled. “And it's so
true
! ‘No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.' We can try all kinds of different ways of getting to heaven, Celia, but the fact is, there's only one way, and that's by believing in Jesus' shed blood on Calvary. I know you must have heard all this before, but I just feel like I have to say it anyway. Sometimes the things you've heard all your life are the hardest to believe.”

Celia felt a little shudder go through her. “You know, there's an awful lot of blood in that hymnbook,” she said. She wasn't trying to be a smart aleck. The words just popped out. “I wonder how many songs there are about blood.”

Denise's forehead wrinkled. Her blue eyes were still fastened on Celia's face. “A lot,” she said. “A whole lot, Celia. And there's a reason for that. It's the whole foundation of everything we believe. Jesus' death wasn't a pretty one. He didn't just close his eyes and die peacefully at home in his sleep one day. It wasn't quick and easy, either. He didn't have a heart attack where he was alive one minute and dead the next.” She shook her head. “I'm not meaning to be disrespectful, but I just want you to see how God had it all planned out. You see, there
had
to be blood spilled, like all those animals sacrificed in the Old Testament. The Crucifixion shows us just how much Jesus loved us—that he was willing to go through the most horrible, gruesome kind of death for us. The wounds of his hands and feet testify to that great love.”

Celia should have interrupted her, but at the same time she was thinking of what she could say to stop her, she was also thinking about how clearly and convincingly Denise Davidson spoke. No doubt she taught a Sunday school class, probably a ladies' Bible study, also. Maybe she had even been a schoolteacher at some point.

“I bet you homeschooled your kids, didn't you?” Celia said, immediately wishing she hadn't. Usually she measured every word so carefully before speaking, but here she stood, saying anything that sprang to mind.

Denise's eyes flickered away from Celia's for a moment, but she looked back quickly. “No,” she said. “I would have loved that, but, well . . . Newt and I never had any children.” Though she was trying for a light tone, there was no mistaking what was underneath. Celia was angry at herself. She never
ever
brought up the subject of children with other people, always fearful that the questions might be turned back on her, so why had she done it with this woman she hardly knew? She felt reckless and, now, altogether unkind and lowdown.

Neither one of them seemed to know what to say next. So part of that deep ocean blue in Denise's eyes was sadness, Celia thought. For the first time, it came to her that maybe she had something in common with this woman besides being short. They were both childless, sure, but it wasn't just that. She didn't know the circumstances behind Denise's childlessness, and she certainly had no plans to open it up for discussion, but as the seconds passed, the thought grew stronger that maybe the sadness she felt over what she had done all those years ago was in some small way similar to what Denise felt about having borne no children.