The Scent of Lilacs (12 page)

“Why?” Jocie asked.

Aunt Love hesitated before she said, “Adjusting to being back here. Getting used to us.”

“You mean laughing at us.”

“I guess I did seem pretty odd to her. But then everybody thinks I’m pretty odd.”

Jocie trotted out her new attitude. “No, Aunt Love. Maybe eccentric, but not odd.”

“I think if you look those words up in the dictionary, you’ll find they mean close to the same thing, Jocelyn,” Aunt Love said, but she was smiling.

“Where’s Jez—uh, Sugar?” Jocie asked to change the subject.

“Napping already. She was restless all night. Half had me worried, but I decided it was just a new person in the house.”

Or dog
, Jocie thought. “I’ll go see if I can round Dad up for breakfast. Don’t fix me an egg. I’ll just eat biscuits and jam.”

“You don’t eat enough, child. You turn sideways, you’ll disappear,” Aunt Love muttered as Jocie went out the back door.

Zeb was waiting on the back step with a grin as if he hadn’t seen her for a month instead of just being shoved out the door fifteen minutes ago. Jocie grinned back and let him lick her fingers. “Good dog.”

Aunt Love came to the door. “Careful. He’s smelling the bacon grease on your hand. Who knows with a stray like this? He might take a bite.”

Jocie ignored Aunt Love and headed toward the rock fence at the end of the yard. She stepped into the coolness of the two old oaks that stood sentinel on either side of the gate that went into the apple orchard. The top hinge of the gate had been broken for years, and the iron gate stood open, its bottom iron pieces embedded in the grass and weeds. It didn’t matter. They didn’t have any cows or horses to keep out of the yard.

A few more rocks had bled down out of the wound in the fence. Jocie picked up one of the rocks and tried to place it back, but as soon as she turned it loose, it slid back to the ground. Her father said there was an art to placing the rocks so the fence would stand without mortar. He had tried to find someone to teach him, had
even advertised in the
Banner
, but the fence had been built over a hundred years ago, and the men who knew the secret of placing the stones had all long since died out in Hollyhill.

Jocie usually found her father sitting on the flattest rock where the fence was spilling its guts as he contemplated the necessary arrangement to rebuild the fence. But today he wasn’t there, so Jocie climbed through the gap in the fence to the orchard. The rocks still held the cool of the night.

The apple trees might not be as old as the rock fence, but they were gnarled and twisted by years of withstanding the weather. A couple had blown down, but enough of the roots still clung to the earth that the trees had leaves and sometimes apples. Jocie loved walking through the trees in the spring when the petals were floating in the breezes.

But the petals had fallen weeks ago, and small round apples dotted the limbs now, promising a bumper crop. One of those mixed blessings her dad sometimes talked about. It was good to pick up an apple to chomp whenever she walked this way, but Jocie dreaded the long hours peeling the apples for Aunt Love to can. Of course, stewed apples for supper beat stewed cabbage hands down.

She was about to give up and head back to the house, when she spotted her father at the far end of the orchard. He waved when he saw her.

She stopped and waited for him. He looked taller as he came through the trees with the sun at this back. He wasn’t half bad looking for somebody his age. Not that he was all that old. She’d never really thought about what her dad might look like to other people, but Wes talking about stepmothers had sort of knocked her eyes open a bit. She could see why Leigh Jacobson might drive all the way out to Mt. Pleasant Church to listen to his sermon. Still, the idea sort of scared her. She and her dad had managed for a long time together.

Aunt Love hadn’t changed that. They managed in spite of Aunt Love. She didn’t know whether Tabitha would change that. But she was pretty sure Leigh Jacobson would change that if she became her stepmother. Still, she might know about bras. It didn’t look like Tabitha would. She hadn’t been wearing one.

D
avid lengthened his stride when he spotted Jocie and the dog at the other end of the orchard. He hadn’t intended to walk so long, but his prayer line to the Lord had been clogged with worries that had nothing to do with Mt. Pleasant Church. He’d hardly been able to think of anything but Tabitha. He hadn’t slept well, and at the first gray light of dawn he’d gone to stand in Jocie’s bedroom door to watch Tabitha sleep.

It seemed appropriate that the light was new. It was all going to be new, getting to know this daughter so long missing from his life and finding a way to help her. And she was going to need help. She hadn’t ridden a bus all the way across the plains states because she was tired of California. Something was wrong.

But until she trusted him enough to tell him what it was, he’d have to be patient. Who knew what had happened to her over the years. Obviously there had been no thought of church. Of course, it wouldn’t be all gone—the Bible teachings she had learned before she left. After all, she had been thirteen. Way past old enough to know right from wrong. And she had made a confession of faith when she was twelve, had been baptized, had joined New Liberty Church. Still was a member there, he supposed, unless the church had taken her off the roll. Not many churches did that anymore. No cleaning house just because a member no longer occupied a pew.

They would have to talk. He’d have to find out if the decision
she’d made as a child meant anything to her now. He’d have to know if she loved the Lord. That was something he’d never had to wonder about for himself. He knew, had always known, the Lord was with him long before he felt his touch on his shoulder in the submarine. He hadn’t always made the right decisions, but he’d never doubted the Lord was there rooting for him to choose the right path.

He wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision this morning walking through Herman Crutcher’s cow pasture. He’d prayed. He’d tried to put what he wanted aside. He’d listened and heard nothing but a baby calf bawling for his mother. But sometimes that was the way the Lord answered prayers. With no sure push one way or the other.

He could have asked for a sign. He could have prayed, “Lord, if you want me to keep preaching at Mt. Pleasant, let me hear a meadowlark call,” but who was he to push the Lord for signs? And it didn’t matter that three minutes after having the thought he had heard a meadowlark. He might have heard one earlier and that was what had given him the idea to begin with. He trusted the Lord to lead his thoughts, to lead him. Not just in what to do about the Mt. Pleasant vote, but in everything he did from what he published in the
Banner
to what he said to the people he talked to on the streets of Hollyhill. Wes told him that sometimes made him a sorry editor of a boring small-town paper not good for much more than lining dresser drawers.

At times David wished he could liven up the
Banner
a bit, but the facts were that Hollyhill was the town he had to write about and the folks in Hollyhill were upstanding, regular folks who didn’t go around shooting one another. At least not very often. Thank God. The bank had never been robbed. As far as anybody knew, no city official had ever stuck city funds in his own pocket. The mayor might not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but the Hollyhill folks were comfortable with him and had elected him
three terms running. The chief of police spent the better part of his day writing parking tickets.

There were scandals, of course. Junior Jackson’s wife had just run off with the high school track coach three weeks ago. And there was Bennie Adams who’d been fired at the bank because he’d come to work drunk. Not to mention the Harrisons’ divorce after little Stevie was born. Cutest baby in town, but gossip said the baby didn’t look a thing like Seth Harrison for a reason. Several names of possible fathers had been bandied about, but David couldn’t print that kind of news in the
Banner
. He’d been that kind of news when Adrienne left. Tabitha coming back might bring the story back to the gossip buzz line. If so, nobody would need to wait for the
Banner
to come out to get the scoop.

“Hi, Dad,” Jocie said when he got close. “Breakfast’s ready.”

He was glad she didn’t ask about his decision about the church. “And I’m ready for breakfast,” he said with a glance at his watch. “I didn’t mean to be out so long. Wes will wonder what’s happened to us.”

“Wes won’t, but you’ll hear it from Zella for being late. You’d think she was never late for anything.”

“I doubt if she has been.” David had inherited Zella Curtsinger from the last editor, who’d made him promise to keep her on. The
Banner
was all the family she had. Not that David would have fired her anyway. She knew where everything was. She sent out the bills on time, kept up with who paid and who didn’t, made sure the paper sold enough ads to pay them to put it out. Without her, David would have sunk in red ink years ago.

“Of course, I left Aunt Love alone with the eggs,” Jocie said. “We might not even have a kitchen to eat in by now. She needs to teach Jez—I mean Sugar—to yowl when something starts burning. I’ll bet Zeb would do that.”

“If he were allowed in the house.” David looked straight at Jocie and almost smiled when she ducked her head. The child
had never been good at hiding anything from him. Even as a four-year-old, if she jumped in a mud puddle with her Sunday shoes on, she’d run straight to show him. He knew every recess she’d lost for talking too much. She hadn’t tried to hide the broken pieces or glue them back together when she’d broken Aunt Love’s favorite candy dish. She’d faced right up to the music. The dog was no different.

“I know I didn’t ask, but I let Zeb sleep beside my bed last night. You don’t care, do you? I mean really care.” She looked up. “He was good.”

“If Sugar shows up on the porch in the middle of the night, we’ll have World War III.”

“Then he can keep coming in? I mean at night.” Jocie’s eyes were hopeful.

“If you can keep the peace. If war breaks out, it’s outside. Sugar was here first.”

“Deal,” Jocie said. “But we shouldn’t tell Aunt Love, should we? No need upsetting her for no reason, and I’ll keep the porch clean.”

“Agreed. Of course, I’m going to claim ignorance if war breaks out. You’ll be on your own.”

“Oh, Dad. You wouldn’t do that. That would be lying.”

“You call it what you want to. I’m calling it self-preservation.” David laughed and put his arm around Jocie. “Preachers learn that early on. What you don’t know you can’t be blamed for.”

Aunt Love hadn’t forgotten the eggs. Breakfast looked good. David waited until after Aunt Love said grace to make his decision announcement. He buttered a biscuit half and said, “I’ve decided to accept the vote. We’ll be at Mt. Pleasant Church for the summer at least.”

“That’s great, Dad. I can surely be nice to Ronnie Martin that long. With prayer and the Lord’s help, of course,” Jocie added as she broke up a piece of bacon to fit on her biscuit.

Aunt Love was briefer. “Good,” she said.

David smiled. That’s the way it was with decisions half the time. You wrestled with them. Let them keep you awake at night. Studied and pondered. Then the decision was made and life went on with barely a ripple in the surface of the day. “I’ll call Matt McDermott when I get to the office.”

“He’d be at the barn milking now anyway,” Aunt Love said. “Do you want me to just let Tabitha sleep?”

“That might be best. She was worn out,” David said.

“I can’t wait to tell Wes. He’ll never believe it. The dog prayer and now the sister prayer,” Jocie said. “It’s okay if I go to work with you, isn’t it? I left my bike there the other night, and I promised to help Wes with those Bible school ads this morning. He has five to set up.”

“Dorothy McDermott was talking about Mt. Pleasant’s Bible school yesterday. I think they’re expecting you to be there to lead the assemblies,” Aunt Love said.

He’d have to figure out a way to handle the newspaper deadlines and drive to Mt. Pleasant Church every day. He didn’t mind. It was a good problem to have again.