Orchard of Hope (32 page)

“But bad things do sometimes happen even when we pray that they won’t.”

“They do,” her father admitted.

“Even when people aren’t doing anything wrong?”

“Even then.” Her father’s fingers tightened on Jocie’s shoulders. “But remember, the Lord never leaves us even when those bad things happen. He’s there right beside us to help us make it through whatever life throws at us. You know that firsthand after the Lord took care of you in the tornado.”

“But I caused that. Well, not the tornado, but being in its path. If I’d done the right thing and not run away, me and Wes wouldn’t have been there.”

“You’re going to have to forgive yourself for that, Jocie. Nobody else has ever blamed you for what happened to Wes.”

“That doesn’t change it being my fault,” Jocie said matter-of-factly. “But Noah and his family aren’t doing anything wrong. They ought to be able to live anywhere they want.”

“Yes, they should.”

“Then it doesn’t seem fair that they have to worry about bad things happening if they haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Jocie didn’t want her father to agree with her. She didn’t know what she wanted him to say, but something to take away the echo of the sound of boots hitting on Hollyhill’s Main Street. She concentrated on the rain hitting the front windows, an answer to prayer.

“Maybe we should thank God for the rain,” she said after a minute.

“We should,” he said. “And we can pray for the Hearndons, that the Lord will protect them and keep them safe.”

“Can we do it right now?”

Jocie wanted to pray for the Hearndons now. Not wait till Sunday or bedtime. The bad things might not wait that long.

“We certainly can.” Jocie’s father kept his hands on her shoulders as he looked up at the ceiling and shut his eyes.

“Dear Lord, thank you for the blessings of the rain. You are a great and mighty God, and we look to you for all our needs. Help us to know your will and to follow your leadership. Watch over Noah and Myra and Cassidy and Alex and Elise and Eli this day and every day. Keep them safe in your mighty hands.” Jocie’s father’s hands tightened again on her shoulders. “And thank you for this child you have given me to love and call my own. Amen.”

33

Tuesday morning Zella left her house even earlier than usual to walk the five blocks to the
Banner
offices. She’d always been an early riser. The best time to work on her roses was in the morning as the sun was coming up. Not that there’d been much she could do with them lately except watch them dry up. In spite of all the thunder and lightning, the rain the night before had come and gone too quickly. Her rain gauge only showed two-tenths of an inch. Not enough to give a dandelion a good drink.

Of course, Zella’s father used to say that once any kind of rain broke the drought, it was easier for the next rain to come. And thunderclouds had been building in the west nearly every evening for the last couple of weeks. Last night’s was the first shower from any of the thunder, but maybe the next thunder would bring some real rain.

That was what the preachers needed to pray for. Not just a rain that wet the sidewalk and was nothing but a misty memory as soon as the sun came back out. A real rain. The kind that set in and stayed awhile. Though now the preachers might better spend their time praying away the other storm that was trying to settle over their town. That storm had nothing to do with the weather, but it was lying there on the horizon, dark and threatening.

Zella didn’t understand why David was being so blind about it all. It was one thing to be in the middle of the storm just because that’s where you happened to be when the storm hit. It was a whole different matter walking right out into the dark cloud and standing there daring the lightning to strike you.

She’d told him hiring that boy was a mistake. Not that she saw anything all that wrong with the boy other than being a bit disrespectful at times, but that probably had more to do with him being around Jocelyn than what color his skin was. And that other girl who had been coming in to see Jocelyn after school every once in while, that Rev. Boyer’s daughter. She was nice as can be. Zella could only hope some of that girl’s good manners would rub off on Jocelyn. She’d told Jocelyn as much just last week.

But not everybody in Holly County was as forward thinking as Zella was. A lot of people were just out-and-out prejudiced against colored people. That was simply the way they’d been brought up, and they hadn’t ever seen any reason to change. Not Zella. She thought it was fine that the schools had been desegregated. It was high time. The state was going to make them do it anyhow. And she had no idea why three people had canceled their subscriptions because David put the story about Francine Rowlett on the front page. It wasn’t like he put the colored teacher’s picture on the top fold.

David said that surely wasn’t the real reason they canceled, even after he read their letters saying it was. He said they must have already had some kind of problem with the paper or him. Sometimes David just closed his eyes and wouldn’t look to keep from seeing the bad in people. That’s why he’d never known what was going on with Adrienne. The day she drove out of town was everybody’s lucky day.

But praise the Lord, David had opened his eyes and seen Leigh Jacobson at last. Zella had been pushing the girl in front of him for months. And now he was not only seeing Leigh, he was calling her, finding reasons to walk down to the courthouse to talk to her, taking her to dinner—even if it was just to the Family Diner here in town. The man surely lacked any romantic instincts. And after Zella had told him he needed a restaurant with candles on the tables.

Still, things were progressing. Zella could tell that by the way Leigh’s face colored up when she asked her straight out if David had given her a good-night kiss after they went out to eat. And if they’d kissed, David was definitely serious. He wasn’t the type of man who would casually throw his kisses around without caring who he might hurt.

Of course the two of them still had plenty of obstacles in their road to romance. Jocelyn for one. Jocelyn always wanted to be right in the middle of everything. She’d been right in the middle of what went on the day before up at the Grill.

Leigh had called last night and filled her in on what had happened, since Zella walked on home after she’d found David at the courthouse. She wasn’t about to stick around town and watch everybody make fools of themselves, swinging their partner and doing some sort of do-si-do dancing out in the middle of Main Street. Besides, the storm was coming up.

She hadn’t realized the other storm was coming. She heard rumors about the Klan, but she never thought they’d just put on their sheets and march right down the middle of Main Street. Where in the world was the sheriff? She knew where the chief of police was. He was up at the Grill trying to get that Myra Hearndon to quit sitting where Grover Flinn didn’t want her to sit while she tried to order a soft drink. And Zella could still hardly believe what Mary Jo had done. People could surprise you sometimes.

But somebody, and not just Mary Jo, should have been out there telling that bunch of hoodlums to take their sheets elsewhere. From what Leigh had told her, the men weren’t even from Hollyhill. Not that there weren’t men in Hollyhill who might be in the Klan. Zella knew a few who liked to get in your face and spit all over you while they told you giving coloreds the same rights as whites would be the downfall of the country. Some men could be such idiots. Thank the heavens above she didn’t have to look at one of them over the breakfast table every morning.

As she passed by the Christian Church, the bells began ringing out the hour. The hymn wouldn’t play until eight o’clock. Tuesday. That was “The Lily of the Valley.” Or maybe that was on Wednesday and today was “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” She heard them every livelong day, whether she was at the newspaper or at home. Even down at the Baptist church where she went, those songs started playing, she heard them. She ought to know them all by heart, but the songs didn’t sound right being bonged out the top of a church. It would have been plenty good enough to just let the clock chime out the hours.

Zella picked up her pace. She was a block away. She didn’t really think Wesley would beat her into the office. It would take him awhile to get up and going with that big cast on his leg, but he’d always been an early riser too. She didn’t want to take the chance he might clump down the steps and be in the office before she was.

Of course even if he did beat her into the office, he probably wouldn’t mess around her desk, but then you never knew. And there were things she didn’t want him to see. She’d stuck the letter under her typewriter pad. It wasn’t in plain sight or anything. Still, that would be the first place Zella would look if she was searching for something at somebody else’s desk.

Not that she would poke around somebody else’s desk. Except for David’s. If she didn’t check his piles of stuff every little bit, some bill would go missing and then they might not get their newsprint on time or the electric company would turn off their lights. And she always put back anything of a personal nature in the exact same spot she found it. The first time she’d found Leigh’s name and telephone number on a scrap of paper slid halfway under David’s phone, Zella had wanted to shout. It just made her feel so good when things turned out the way they should, and if a person had to prod a little here and there to get things to go the way they should, then there surely wasn’t anything so wrong with that.

That’s all she was doing with Wesley. Making things turn out the way they should. A man needed family, and Jocelyn saying she was family didn’t count. Blood family was what was important. Relatives had to see to you when you needed help. Just like Vera Louise, Zella’s niece, might have to someday see to Zella’s needs whether she wanted to or not. It would be her obligation since Zella didn’t have any children of her own to take care of her when she got old.

She unlocked the front door of the
Banner
and went inside. No sign of Wesley or David. She went straight to her desk, stuffed her purse in the bottom drawer, and took a pink tissue out of the box on top of the desk to dab the sweat off her forehead. If another shower hadn’t come before evening to cool things off, that pressroom was going to be hot as blue blazes when they had to start folding the papers. She sat down and lifted the cover off her typewriter. Then she lifted up the pad and pulled the letter out.

It had come in the mail last week. She’d made sure she was the first to go through the mail ever since she’d written to the address she got from the friendly clerk up in Pelphrey, Ohio. Zella hadn’t told the woman the whole truth, but she hadn’t exactly lied. She just said there might be an inheritance, and that was true enough. Wesley had been at the point of death for a while, and Zella supposed a motorcycle and a bunch of books might constitute an estate. Besides, for all she knew Wesley could have a sock full of money hidden away somewhere. Just because she herself hadn’t found it when she was up there in his apartment didn’t mean it wasn’t there. She hadn’t looked everywhere.

She slipped the letter out of the envelope, then sat still and listened to make sure she was still alone in the offices. No sound from the back. In fact, she could hear Wesley clomping around on his crutches over her head. She supposed she’d have to tell Wesley about the letter sooner or later. But she was waiting for the right time. There wasn’t any hurry. The boy who’d written wouldn’t show up on anybody’s doorstep until she wrote back to him, and she hadn’t done that yet.

Zella unfolded the letter and looked at the neat handwriting there. Wesley had neat handwriting too. A person wouldn’t think it from looking at him, with his hair that sprangled out in a dozen directions and printing ink stains or grease spots on his shirts all the time. But he wrote notes in small precise letters. Not exactly like this boy’s, but a person could see a likeness if she looked for it.

Dear Mrs. Curtsinger, . . .

Everybody always assumed a woman was married, as if being unmarried was some kind of unnatural state. Zella shook away her irritation and went on reading.

I was very excited to receive your letter regarding
Wesley Green. I think he may be my grandfather. He left
here over twenty years ago and my father has always told
me that he must be dead. So your letter was a surprise.
My father is still not sure that this Wesley Green is his
father and would like to have more information. The
name, Wesley Green, is not that unusual, and before any
of us make a trip to your area, we would like to be sure
this man is really our father and grandfather. If he has
recovered enough from his injuries, please show him this
letter and ask him to write us.
    
As far as your question about my grandfather perhaps
having some sort of legal problems, my father is unaware
of anything of that sort. We couldn’t be completely
sure since he has been gone so long, but no one has ever
contacted us looking for him until we received your
letter. My father feels my grandfather’s grief over the
tragic loss of his wife and daughter in an automobile
accident may have led to my grandfather leaving home.
    
I will look forward to hearing from you or from my
grandfather if he is indeed the right Wesley Green. I am a
college student majoring in science education, but if this
man is my grandfather I would like to come see him at my
first opportunity and perhaps write to him prior to that.
    
Thank you so much for contacting us.

Sincerely yours,
Robert Wesley Green, Jr.

So much for being from Jupiter, Zella thought. She folded the letter and carefully stuck it all the way in the back behind a pile of envelopes in her top desk drawer as she heard Wesley stepping out of his door up above her head. She would tell Wesley in time. Just as soon as she figured out how.