Suncatchers (8 page)

Perry wondered what Dinah and Troy had done this past weekend without him. She was probably exhausted. He thought about Troy's small face and bright pleading eyes, the shock of blond hair that refused to lie down. He had no doubt that Troy could live without him, but he wondered again how he was going to face each day without Troy.

He had heard the car start in Jewel's driveway next door about an hour ago. He had been up for a good while already and by then was on his third cup of coffee. He had watched through the kitchen window as Jewel opened the back of the station wagon and Joe Leonard hoisted in his tuba. He heard Jewel say something, and they both laughed. Then while Jewel started up the station wagon, Joe Leonard had run back into the house and come out carrying his backpack. The car sputtered and died once, but Jewel started it again, gunned it backwards, and they were gone. He remembered Beth saying Jewel was a teacher, but he realized now that he didn't have any idea what she taught.

Looking out the side window now, Perry imagined Eldeen sitting by the gas heater inside the house smearing her feet with Vaseline, a box of Hefty Baggies nearby.

He sat down at the computer. The screen was blank except for a heading he had typed in before the phone rang.
GOSPEL LIGHTHOUSE
. That would be his new name for the Church of the Open Door. For a project like this he had to use fictitious names in accordance with the standard ethics for sociological research, and he had discovered years ago that it helped to choose the names for everything and everyone right at the very beginning. It was an easy way to get something down on paper, and even if he went back later and changed the names—which he often did—he still had the feeling of having begun his research in a substantial way. He had already decided that Jewel would be Julie, Harvey Gill would be Gilbert Hadley, and Brother Hawthorne would be Brother Franklin. There were others he hated to give up, though. Eldeen, for one. He thought he might go with something like Lorena or Ila. Or maybe he could play off the word Vaseline. Valina? Evaline? Salveena? Lavinia? Surely something would come to him.

He typed a list of names as he thought of them, then closed the file and named it
Name Bank
. He knew he had to get his first impression of yesterday's services down before the day passed, so he opened another file. He had taken notes inside his Day-Timer, and he got those out now. He could still see Eldeen's nod of approval as she had watched him writing in church yesterday. “I filled up a whole heap of notebooks in my day,” she had whispered, “but it's harder to write now on account of my arthritis, so I just listen real close.”

Perry started typing, and the screen quickly filled. After Joe Leonard's tuba solo in the morning service, the congregation had sung a song titled “Must I Go and Empty-Handed?” and then a plump redhead had stepped out of the choir and stood behind the pulpit. She had a pretty face, one of those fresh, guileless faces you'd see in ads for milk or Ivory soap. “That's Brother Hawthorne's wife, Edna,” Eldeen whispered. “She's got a voice like a angel.” And it
had
turned out to be a nice voice—a cross between Dolly Parton and Julie Andrews, Perry thought, and she sang so earnestly, leaning forward to scan the faces of the audience. “Have you any room for Jesus, He who bore your load of sin? As He knocks and asks admission, Sinner, will you let Him in?” Brother Hawthorne stared up at his wife pensively while she sang. Perry wondered what he was thinking.

Many people indicated their approval again with hearty amens after Edna Hawthorne finished. The choir then got up and filed down to sit in the congregation while Jewel played another verse of Edna's song. Edna Hawthorne sat in the front row with three young children who had caught Perry's eye earlier. The little boy, probably four or five, had received numerous pokes from his sisters seated on either side. Now he moved over to sit on his mother's lap. Perry tried to imagine how soft that must feel.

Jewel returned from the piano and sat beside Perry, with Joe Leonard next to her. Brother Hawthorne moved to the pulpit and bowed his head for a moment of silence that stretched out so long Perry wondered if someone had forgotten a cue. But then Brother Hawthorne began praying aloud, quoting phrases from all the songs they had sung and heard that morning, weaving them together into an eloquent supplication for mercy. It was almost poetic. Perry tried to see if he was reading his prayer from a script but saw only a closed Bible on top of the pulpit.

The sermon that followed wasn't at all what he was prepared for. Cal had led him to expect a ranting stream of rhetoric, ludicrously illogical in content and clumsy in style. Brother Hawthorne did not rant, although he did speak with intensity and briskness, and he gestured frequently. He sucked in his breath audibly before making a major point, cleared his throat after making the point, was fond of the phrase “by the way,” and maintained close eye contact with his listeners. At one point he stopped talking and gazed sternly at his son in the front row, who, having crawled out of Edna's lap, had slapped a hymnbook shut with such a loud smack that Eldeen said, “Mercy me!” right out loud.

In a way, Perry thought, the sermon
was
ludicrously illogical. The title of it had been “Ten to Two” and had dealt with what Brother Hawthorne called “The distillation of the Law of Moses.”

“If you obey these two commandments,” Brother Hawthorne had said, “you will have no trouble keeping the ten that were engraved by the hand of God onto the stone tablets at Mount Sinai.” He had first read three verses from the book of Matthew in which Jesus answered a question posed to him by a Pharisee: “Which of the commandments is the greatest?” He had then gone on to read each of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20 and had explained briefly how each would be obeyed, first of all by loving God with all your heart, soul, and spirit, and second by loving your neighbor as yourself. And in obeying these laws, a man could find what Brother Hawthorne called “a purpose and joy in living.” It sounded so neatly formulaic.

Perry stopped typing and looked into the mirror in front of him. He saw the reflection of his fingers resting lightly on the keyboard. He stared at them a moment, wondering what thoughts would flow through them and onto the computer screen in the form of words and sentences over the course of the next several months. He often saw his life as something projected back at him from a mirror—not the real thing but an image, light rays bouncing off the flesh-and-blood reality and reflecting only a painted still life.

His life as husband and later as father had always troubled him for this reason. It had never seemed totally real. He had seen himself in a role, his name in fading letters on a script, his lines recited with amateurish inflections. He had often stopped in the middle of something when the three of them had been together—once during Dinah's birthday dinner at a restaurant, he recalled—and pictured what they must look like from a bystander's perspective. He imagined his words being recorded by a foreign movie director and then played back for analysis: “This is a typical American male speaking to his wife and son. Notice the phrasing of the dialogue.” Even his work as a writer seemed a step removed from reality. He was always a spectator of life, never a participant.

He read over what he had just written. The sermon had been so simple, and Perry couldn't help marveling that he had been seated in the midst of over a hundred people who by all appearances truly believed life was this easy. Do this and this will happen. Push that domino and all the others will respond in swift, orderly succession. Be good and you'll be happy. Love God—how did you do that anyway?—and he will enfold you in his embrace. Love others as yourself—now there was a hefty assignment, or was it? Perry had never in his life felt anything approaching fondness for himself, at least not on a rational, conscious level. Of course, he had no doubt that he would struggle to survive as fiercely and instinctively as the next person if his life were endangered, but somewhere deep in the core of his soul he seriously questioned whether his life would be worth saving. Anyway, where was he? Oh, yes, love others as yourself, and God would smile upon you. He would rock you in the lap of his approval, a lap of privilege as warm and soft as Edna Hawthorne's.

There was no doubt about it. These people really believed happiness was permanently attainable, like some kind of medal you earned and then pinned on your chest to show you had accomplished a basic skill. They seemed to put so much stock in every moment, every action, every thought. What a simple way of looking at life, yet complicated, too. How could you ever get through a day if you stopped to weigh the consequences of everything you did?

He was still staring at the keyboard in the mirror when he heard a knock at the door, followed immediately by the door buzzer.

“I'm not staying but a minute,” Eldeen said when he opened the front door. “Don't worry, I know authors need their private time, but it dawned on me while I was having my devotions a minute ago that you might not of gotten anything at the store to eat yet and might like some of Jewel's muffins she made this morning.” She held out a tin pie plate covered with foil. “I was reading in Romans 12 about feeding your enemy if he's hungry and giving him a drink of water when he's parched with thirst, and I know you're not my enemy, of course, but all of a sudden it hit me: ‘Now I wonder if Perry's fixed hisself any breakfast.' Did you?” She looked at him longingly, with the transparent plea written all over her face: Please say you didn't, that you're about to starve to death and were just this minute wishing for some homemade muffins.

“Well, I did have a little something,” Perry said. “But not enough to satisfy my appetite,” he hurried to add when her eyes clouded. Her face wrinkled with delight, and she held the plate out farther. “Oh, here,” he said, “come on in. Here . . . I'll take those . . . thanks,” and he stepped back, motioning her in.

“They're still warmish,” Eldeen said, walking inside. “They've been setting on top of the stove.”

“Thanks. I'm sure they'll be good . . . thanks. Come on in.” He knew he was repeating himself.

“They're best with a smidge of butter—do you have any?” Eldeen's gaze darted to the kitchen. She had on the same gray cape she had worn yesterday, and under it a long pink chenille bathrobe hung down to the toes of the black boots. Her stiff gray hair stuck out from behind one ear as if pulled by a magnet.

“I'm going out this afternoon,” Perry said. “I'll get some then. But I'm sure the muffins will be . . . well, just fine without it . . . the way they are. Thanks.”

“Here, look at them,” Eldeen said, reaching forward and yanking back the foil covering. “Aren't they the nicest little muffins? Jewel's the only one I know of that makes them kind of muffins. And there's a surprise in the middle.” She clamped her hand over her mouth. “Now there I go ruining it.”

Perry didn't know what to say. What did she mean, a surprise? They looked good—small golden brown domes rising above the crinkled pastel papers.

“Go on, taste one,” she said, and as he bit into one, her eyebrows lowered, and her face tightened into its painful-looking grin.

“See? See there? I
told
you it was a surprise, now didn't I? That's what they're called—Surprise Muffins.” And she clapped her large hands together as she laughed.

It was jelly. There was a dollop of blackberry jelly right in the center of the muffin. The muffin itself was sweet like cake, and the jelly spread inside Perry's mouth like warm thick syrup. He nodded his head and smiled.

“It's good,” he said. “Very good. I like the surprise. It's good.”

Eldeen was still laughing. “I get the biggest kick out of seeing people bite into them jelly centers.”

Perry could picture her, walking around the neighborhood handing out Surprise Muffins, then waiting around for a response.

“Well, I need to get back home,” Eldeen said. “I don't want to miss out on Brother Hawthorne's radio talk at nine-thirty. And you need to get back to whatever it was you were doing.” She looked around for signs of his work, then slowly turned toward the door. Seeing the musical globe on the small table beside the door, she pointed. “I always liked them little things. Someday I mean to get me one.” She picked it up carefully and shook it around a little. “Oh, now that's a shame,” she said. “That little feller's done gone and broke off inside of there. He's just floating around with the snowflakes.” She studied the little figure gravely, then shook her head. “Wouldn't that feel funny? I always wished I could go up in a space rocket just once to see how it'd feel to drift around like a feather.” She set the snow globe on the table and walked to the door. “It's still a pretty thing—mighty,
mighty
pretty—even with the little person broke off that way and all.”

“Thank you for the muffins,” Perry said. “I'll have another one with some coffee . . . thanks . . . they're good.” He opened the door again, wider this time, and Eldeen stepped heavily across the threshold onto the porch.

She turned back toward him. “Did you say you were going out this afternoon? Well, I know you did say that. I heard you with my own two ears. But what I mean is if you need somebody to show you the best place for groceries, I could. Fact is, I need to use up a couple of coupons before they expire, and Jewel's not going to the store again until payday a week from Friday. She tries to stretch it out so she just does one big trip instead of lots of little ones. Me, I'd like to go ever' day if I could. Grocery stores are such interesting places!” She drew her eyebrows together and studied him hopefully.

He didn't know what to say. How could he tell her that he'd rather look around Derby by himself? That he didn't want to be slowed down by someone the age of his grandmother? He didn't know anything about old people really. He was a little wary of them in general. He remembered as a child going with his mother to a nursing home in Chicago, only once, to visit an elderly aunt who had thrown her lunch tray at one of the aides. He remembered his mother's blanched face when the aunt had let loose with a string of profanity.