Soaring (13 page)

I went out and bought a pad of paper.

I came home and made a to-do list.

Several of them.

I also spent hours taping paint chips up on the walls, changing them out, rearranging them, standing back and assessing, moving them to another area with different light.

I was off and running.

* * * * *

I was crazy.

Even knowing this, I did a U-turn on the quiet street (my fourth) and drove past the church again.

Definitely crazy.

I kept driving.

Then, like they were someone else’s hands and feet, mine executed another U-turn and this time I didn’t drive past the church.

I parked in front of it.

I looked up at the white building with its stained glass windows and high bell tower.

I’d never had a job. Not once. I didn’t even work in a local ice cream shop as a teen just for fun.

I’d gone to college at Stanford where my father went, got a liberal arts degree, studying English Literature because even I could read.

I’d done well. I’d graduated
cum laude
. My father had been
summa
, but as I was a girl, he didn’t expect much and he’d been pleased with my standing.

I didn’t go to work after. Girls like me didn’t work. I had a job I would fulfill, a job my mother had chosen for me: being the wife of a wealthy man, keeping his home, raising his children, continuing my ultimate role of being a Hathaway, and sitting on as many volunteer boards of appropriate charities that would have me.

Before I met Conrad, I’d lived off my trust funds and I had a good time. I absolutely did. I went out in little black dresses with my girlfriends. I drank cosmopolitans. I flirted. I dated.

I did all this appropriately. It wouldn’t
do
for me to get a reputation. It wouldn’t
do
for me to have the kind of fun an early twenty-something might wish to have.

So I didn’t.

When I met Conrad, I’d been at a charity ball, wearing a fabulous evening gown. We’d been standing by a stone balustrade on a back balcony of a fabulous estate. I’d gone out to get away from the oppressive heat of a crush of bodies and he’d gone out to get away from the oppressive company.

For me, him so beautiful in his well-cut tuxedo, his hair slightly overlong, a quiet rebellion I found titillating, it was love at first sight.

He’d told me he’d felt the same thing.

Now I was thinking it was my cleavage and, although they weren’t long, they had been shapely, my legs through the slit in my dress.

We’d dated. We’d become involved. We’d gotten engaged. We’d married. And I’d done what I was supposed to do.

I became the wife of a wealthy man, took care of his home, raised his children, and sat on every board of an appropriate charity that would have me.

In other words, I was good for nothing. I couldn’t find a job outside of entry level even if I tried.

I knew it.

But I couldn’t shop for furniture to fill my eternity. I couldn’t bake because there was no one to eat it but me, and I loved doing it, but didn’t have a taste for eating it. I couldn’t read entire days, weeks, months, years away.

I needed to
do something
.

On that thought, resolutely, I pushed out of the car and walked to the church.

Once inside, I found being in a church in the middle of the day for no reason was not like it was in the movies. A well-meaning pastor didn’t show up nearly instantly to sit with you in a pew, listen to your worries and share his wisdom.

Although the church was open, no one was around.

I gave it time then went wandering. Down a side hall and back, I found a small sign that said “Office” with an arrow.

I followed the arrow.

At the end of the hall, a door was opened. I turned to it and stopped in its frame.

It was definitely an office, a relatively nice one, not huge, not tiny, an official-looking desk with a small but beautiful stained glass window behind it, a woman at the side of the desk leaning over it, scribbling on a piece of paper.

“Um…excuse me,” I called.

She jerked straight and turned startled eyes to me.

“Sorry to startle you,” I murmured.

She shook her head as if to pull herself together and shifted to face me. “Not at all. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’m looking for the pastor,” I told her.

She nodded, her lips curving up slightly. “Reverend Fletcher, my husband, isn’t here.” She suddenly appeared concerned. “Was he expecting you?”

“No, no,” I assured her, shaking my head. “I just popped in. Actually, I’m new to Magdalene and he doesn’t even know me.”

She rested her thigh against the desk, lost the concerned look, her features moving back to friendly and she asked, “Maybe I can help. Or I can leave a message for him or set an appointment, if you need to speak with him.”

I took a step in, looking at the pastor’s wife, knowing the woman behind such a man was probably just as good.

Or better.

“I’m thinking perhaps you can help,” I said.

Her friendly look became friendlier as she invited, “Try me.”

I nodded and strangely found I didn’t know what to do with my hands. It was like I was at a job interview, coming there wanting, being found lacking, and I hadn’t even presented my résumé.

I clasped my hands in front of me.

“Okay, as I mentioned, I just moved here, however, I’m…well…” I licked my lips, pressed them together and rolled them before I admitted, “independently wealthy.”

She nodded, appearing to take that admission in stride, and said, “Welcome to Magdalene.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled, cleared my throat and continued, “I’m here because I thought…well, it’s a church and I figured churches need volunteers and I don’t work, or have to work, or really know…” I trailed off then bucked up and started again, “Anyway, I know my way around a computer and I’m really organized…” Again I had to let that hang because I couldn’t think of any other skills I had. Therefore, I was forced to finish feebly, “Do you need someone to help with things around here?”

She smiled and I knew the careful, gentle way she did it meant she found my résumé seriously lacking.

“We have a small congregation, it being a small town, but we’re lucky because they’re also very generous. We’re covered when it comes to volunteers,” she told me.

I bit my lip and nodded.

“How much time to you have to volunteer?” she asked.

All the time in the world
, I thought.

“I’m not really sure,” I said. “Maybe two, three days a week for two or three hours?” I suggested, like she could tell me what I was able to offer.

“Are you good with senior citizens?” she asked and I felt my head twitch with surprise at that question.

“I’m sorry?” I asked back.

She straightened away from the desk and took a step toward me, slightly lifting her hands out to her sides before she grasped her opposite elbows in her fingers loosely in front of her. It was a strange stance. Strange because it wasn’t cold and shut off but somehow welcoming, as if she was folding something lovingly in her arms.

“We have a nursing home run by very kind people. People who are overworked and underpaid. They do the best they can and they do it because they genuinely like their jobs. Or because for them it’s not a job, it’s a calling. But there’s always a good deal of work and they can’t seem to keep some of their staff or volunteers. Probably because they can’t pay much and volunteers find the work difficult, sometimes tedious, at times heart wrenching, but all the time constant. They called a few days ago, saying that a volunteer had quit in order to go back to college and another one simply stopped showing. They asked us to keep a look out. I’m going to help until they find some people to do so and do it regularly. But if you have time and don’t mind hard work, they could use your help.”

I had time but I didn’t know if I minded hard work. I’d never had to do any. Growing up, we had actual live-in maids and cooks and the like. The rest of my life, I’d had services take care of everything.

There were times when Conrad and I would move, before I found cleaning services, that I did the cleaning, and right then, new to Magdalene, I’d been doing it at Cliff Blue and I liked it. I didn’t want to do it for eight hour days, five days a week, but it wasn’t terrible. And it felt nice to accomplish something.

No, it felt nice just to
do
something. Something needed. Something real.

And I’d never thought of senior citizens but I didn’t have an aversion to them. All my grandparents had loved me, so had Conrad’s. They’d really,
really
loved me. In fact, anytime we were together, I’d always end up sitting with them or off somewhere with them, talking, sharing, joking, laughing. I liked my grandparents and Conrad’s a whole lot better than my own parents (and, incidentally, Conrad’s) and I’d been devastated as, one by one, we’d lost them all.

Maybe that was something else I had a talent with.

Still, I said to the pastor’s wife, “To be honest, I would need to discuss what was needed of me but I can clean. I can cook. I can talk. I can tidy. I can organize. I can look after people. And I like doing all of that. So I’d like the opportunity to discuss it.”

Her eyes slightly narrowed, not in an unkind way, but in a speculative one when she said, “I wouldn’t like to introduce these people to a volunteer who isn’t interested in helping out how they need it, and just as importantly, for the long haul.”

“I would agree,” I replied. “That’s why I think I should know what I’m getting into so I can know if I can give them what they need. However, I do want to find something I enjoy doing, something that’s useful, and do it for the long haul.”

I drew in breath as I bought time to say the words I needed to say without lying in a house of God.

Then I said, “My children are older. They don’t need me as much anymore and my husband and I are divorced so I actually don’t have them all the time. I’ve never worked, but with an empty house, I need something to fill my life. I think I might like it filled with some elderly who are doing me a return favor by keeping me company.”

She studied me a moment before she said softly, “I like that you think of it that way.”

“I’m glad,” I replied then introduced myself. “I’m Amelia Hathaway.”

She lifted her hand and started to me, with me meeting her halfway. “Ruth Fletcher.”

We clasped hands and her hold was firm and warm. “Lovely meeting you, Ruth.”

“And you, Amelia,” she replied.

We let go and she motioned to the desk. “How about you give me your telephone number? I’ll call Dove House and we’ll set up a meeting with Dela Coleman.”

“Excellent,” I agreed, moving with her to the desk.

I left my number, we said warm good-byes and I went back out to my car.

I didn’t dally in front of the church wondering if I’d done the right thing.

I drove away, thinking volunteering at a nursing home could mean anything, and a variety of those things could be unpleasant.

But I wouldn’t want to volunteer and demand that I got to read stories or oversee craft time.

I’d want to
volunteer
and do what was needed.

Which could mean cleaning up a number of messes, changing sheets, doing laundry, who knew?

And as I drove home, something strange stole over me. Something strange and new and unbelievable.

Because my mind was filled with all of the things that could be required of a down and dirty volunteer at a nursing home, and all I could think was that I hoped like heck they liked me.

Because I couldn’t wait to start.

* * * * *

“Praise be to Jesus!” the woman behind the desk at Dove House called to the ceiling, her hands lifted up there, her plethora of black braids shaking. She dropped her hands and her eyes hit Ruth, sitting across the desk in a chair beside me. “Call up the good Reverend”, she jerked her head my way, “and God sends a miracle.”

Ruth beamed.

“I’m hardly a miracle,” I mumbled.

“’Scuse me?’ Dela Coleman, Director of Dove House Retirement Home, asked me. “Did you just say you didn’t mind bed pans, changin’ sheets, lookin’ after dentures, wipin’ up half-chewed food, vacuuming, dusting? Not to mention folk who call you other people’s names and swear up and down for hours that you’re their own child or the girl who stole their boyfriend back in the day and they might come tearin’ at you, fingernails bared?”

“I did say that I didn’t mind that,” I confirmed.

“And did you say you could give me three days a week for three hours a day and I don’t have to lay cash on your behind?” she went on.

“I said that as well,” I told her.

“Then if you actually show up those three days a week for three hours a day and work and don’t take off and become a no show or tell me you’re,” she lifted her hands and did air quotation marks, “goin’ back to college at age fifty-six, then you…are…a…
miracle
.”

“People do go back to college at any age,” Ruth put in and Dela turned her eyes to her.

“Ruth, honey, I saw the woman at The Shack eatin’ omelets and suckin’ back coffees with her biddies and she did not have a laptop in front of her, workin’ on coursework for her online classes to become a graphic designer,” she stated bluntly. “Now, I got old folk attemptin’ the great escape every day, and they may be old but they are not stupid. So it’s touch and go we shut them down or we gotta go to Wayfarer’s to stop them shufflin’ down the aisles in their slippers. Loretta is not gonna be a graphic designer. Loretta was tired of cleaning up half-chewed food and havin’ Mrs. McMurphy shout at her every time she saw her to keep her hands off her man.”

I gave big eyes to my lap, doing this to stop laughing.

“I need to trust you.”

I lifted my eyes when I heard Dela say this.

It was quiet, but it was full of meaning.

“You’ll note you didn’t have to beat off old folk with a stick in order to get in here,” she carried on. “They don’t wanna be here. You’re here for a day, you’ll know why. We do our best with this place but this is not home. This is where you go before you die if you can’t take care of yourself any longer and you have no one who can take care of you. This is a sad place. We do all we can every day to make it less sad. But that’s a losin’ battle, Amelia. You gotta be on board with that, know it and keep a smile on your face and your commitment to me, to them, so we can all count on you. Because they need me makin’ their stay here a wee bit better, not sittin’ down with person after person like you who’s got good intentions, and we all appreciate it, but who’s gonna turn tail and go the minute it gets too much.”