The Scent of Lilacs (6 page)

But no, Jocie was a loner. Her best friend in the world was Wes, who was nearly five times her age. Of course, she had friends at school but none she invited home for the weekend. That’s the kind of friend she needed. One she could hook pinkies and share secrets with. One she could be silly with. Wes said she needed a stepmother.

David tried not to think about that. Not with the sermon to deliver in a few minutes. But his eyes drifted to Leigh Jacobson, who had slipped in the back door during the opening hymn and settled in the back pew. She wasn’t a member of Mt. Pleasant. She went to the First Baptist Church in town, but she’d said last week she might come listen to him preach sometime. He wished she’d picked some other morning. Any other morning.

It was beginning to look as if Wes was right about Leigh. Even Aunt Love had noticed, telling David that girl had her hat set for him, when they’d run into Leigh at the grocery store last week. David hadn’t decided whether to be pleased or panicked.

Leigh was pleasant enough, but she didn’t set his blood to boiling the way Adrienne had the first time he’d laid eyes on her at his father’s funeral. Of course, his submarine had just come in for maintenance when he got word of his father’s heart attack and was given leave to go home for the funeral. After months at the bottom of the sea, the sight of any female started the blood to pumping.

But it had been more than that. He’d seen Adrienne at the funeral home, and she’d invited him to her house the next day. He’d found her in the backyard in a red swimsuit working on her tan. She’d asked him if he believed in love at first sight, and when he’d said yes, she’d challenged him to marry her—not later after they got to know one another, but that very day.

He’d just seen his father’s body lowered into the ground. His mother was grieving. His older brothers and sister and their families had come in from Ohio and Texas for the funeral. He hadn’t seen them for over two years, had laid eyes on a couple of their grandchildren for the first time the day before. He and his brothers and sister had never been very close. They’d all been grown before he’d come along and surprised his parents when his mother was forty-three and his father fifty. Still, they were family, and he had obligations. Adrienne had smiled and said
now or never. She hadn’t even wanted him to call his mother, but he had done that at least. They had driven south across the state border, found a justice of the peace, and drove back the next day. His brothers and their families were gone. His sister, Esther, was still there, a frown fixed between her eyes every time she looked at David. The frown grew even deeper when she looked at Adrienne. But his mother had smiled and welcomed Adrienne into her house and heart when David had to catch the plane back to his submarine. David thought she was glad of an excuse not to go to Texas with Esther.

Of course, nobody had known then that Tabitha was already on the way. God’s plan, his mother would write him later. He hadn’t been so sure then, but that was before God had put his hand on his shoulder and called him to preach. That had come later in the bowels of the submarine with the ominous blips of the radar signaling death coming. Adrienne had never wanted him to preach, had refused to believe his call was real.

David watched the deacons coming back down the aisle to set the offering plates on the altar table. He spotted some fives and a ten sticking up through the ones. At least they’d have enough to pay him the full amount for today’s sermon even if they didn’t vote him in. That was good. His car needed tires. The last two Sundays he’d preached, they’d given him only half pay, since the church was having some financial problems. Aunt Love told him to preach on tithing, but he told her the Lord hadn’t laid that message on his heart. Thank goodness. He doubted any preacher anywhere had ever been called to a church after preaching on tithing.

David spread his hands flat on the pages of his Bible and shut his eyes as if he could absorb the words and the message God wanted him to deliver. Jessica Sanderson hit the last notes of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and stood up to go back to her seat two rows back. The wives of the men who had taken up the collection were scooting over to make room for them in the
pews, and that sudden expectant silence fell over the church, almost as if the people had sucked in their breath in unison and were afraid to breathe out again as they waited for God’s message to come through him.

The silence stretched. David’s throat tightened up, threatened to close off completely. He thought that was why preachers told jokes—to get past that first moment, but he was singularly untalented at telling funny stories. Of course, as long as he kept his eyes closed and his head bowed, the people would think he was praying instead of panicking.

And he was praying. Desperately.
Help me, Lord, to say something to help these people
. He paused and waited for some words to come. His mind was still blank. He could almost feel the Lord out there with the congregation, waiting. A few people began stirring in their seats as the wait stretched out too long. His prayer got more desperate.
Help me to say anything!

There was a loud cough in the back of the church. He knew even before he looked up that it was Jocie. She was making her wide-mouth-and-eyes face, and he couldn’t keep from smiling. The first line about a little boy with a lunch of five loaves and two fishes popped into his mind. He pushed it out of his mouth, and as always, the Lord took over and did the rest.

Jocie watched the people in front of her and tried to judge how her father was doing. Most of the people seemed to be listening, except a couple of toddlers who were banging their hands on the pew backs and making eyes at the people behind them. Her father wouldn’t be worried about that. He liked babies in the church, even if they did draw attention away from the sermon sometimes. He was always saying that God could deliver a better sermon through the love of a baby than any he could ever think up.

The little boy and his lunch had been a good choice. Her father was telling the story so that all the church was trailing along
with the little boy. Jocie wished Wes was there to hear her father, but as usual he hadn’t shown up. Leigh Jacobson had. Wes must be right about her. Thank goodness she hadn’t seen Jocie and scooted in beside her. Jocie would have rather sat by Aunt Love and let her pinch her arm if she noticed Jocie’s eyes getting the least bit droopy.

She tried to keep her mind on Andrew bringing the boy and his lunch to Jesus, but Zeb pushed the Bible story right out of her head. She’d left him stretched out happily on the front porch, but what would happen when they were gone all day and into the night? He might drift off to another house in search of some leftover biscuits. But God wouldn’t answer her dog prayer and then let the answer disappear after just one day. Zeb would be there.

She’d told her Sunday school class about the Lord answering her prayer and sending Zeb. She figured since the Lord had been good enough to answer her prayer, she ought to give him credit. A couple of boys had snickered, but Miss McMurtry had silenced them with a look as she’d said, “That’s a wonderful story, Jocie, and a good lesson for us all. God wants us to pray about everything—the big and little things.” And then she’d passed out some chewing gum before she told the Sunday school story about Jesus healing a blind man. The one where he made mud and smeared it on the man’s eyes. It always seemed funny to think about Jesus spitting and making mud like any ordinary person instead of commanding down a splash of rainwater to make the mud.

Jocie scooted over a few inches until she could see the watch on Mr. Snyder’s arm stretched out on the pew in front of her. Five minutes till twelve. She wondered if she should make the slit throat signal so her dad would know to stop. No matter how well you were preaching, the folks wanted to be home in time to take the roast out of the oven. She hoped there was a roast in Mrs. McDermott’s oven and not just a kettle of cabbage on top
of the stove. Maybe she could even beg a bone or two for Zeb. The McDermotts had dogs, but they probably got bones all the time.

Her father must have peeked at his watch, because he began winding up the points of the sermon and making his appeal for people to come down the aisle if they had any decisions to let the church in on. Jocie hoped a couple of people would join church to make a few extra points in her father’s favor, but nobody walked the aisle, and they quit singing before they got to the last verse of the invitation hymn. Her father didn’t allow much time for working up your nerve.

Still, everybody was smiling as they headed toward the door to shake her father’s hand on the way out. Ronnie Martin, one of the boys who had laughed at her in Sunday school class, stopped at Jocie’s pew. He was older than her, already in high school and always bragging about playing varsity football the next year.

He blocked her in the pew. “Aren’t you a little old to be praying for puppy dogs?”

“What’s it to you what I pray for?” Jocie glared at him. He was too big to shove out of her way. She might as well try to move a rock wall.

“You ought to be praying for boyfriends.” He let his eyes drop down to her chest. “With your equipment it might take some heavy-duty praying.”

Jocie’s face got hot. She was already raising the hymnbook still in her hand to pop him upside the head when just in time she remembered the vote and Ronnie’s deacon father. She took a deep breath and tried to think of one of Aunt Love’s Bible verses to zap him with. She couldn’t, so she made one up on the spot. “Foolish words spout out of a fool’s mouth and propel him along the road to destruction. Proverbs something.”

“You sound like a preacher’s kid.”

“I am a preacher’s kid.” Jocie stepped up on the pew. She wasn’t going to let him block her in a minute longer.

“Yeah, but where’s your mama, preacher’s kid?”

As ladylike as possible, Jocie vaulted over the back of the pew. If Ronnie was right, she didn’t have any “equipment” worth showing anyway. Her feet hit the floor hard enough to draw attention from the few people who hadn’t made it out the door yet. She didn’t dare look toward her father. Instead she glared at Ronnie and said, “Take a hike.”

“Your little doggy can come with me.”

Miss McMurtry was suddenly beside Jocie. “Is everything okay, dear?” She looked at Ronnie. “Are we having a misunderstanding?”

Jocie smiled her best smile. “Not at all, Miss McMurtry. Ronnie was just suggesting some new things I might pray for.”

“Well, that was helpful of him, I’m sure.” Miss McMurtry darted a sharp look his way. “Maybe we should have a little prayer right now, just the three of us.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ronnie said.

Jocie didn’t see any way to escape, so she bowed her head and let Miss McMurtry pretend to talk to God while she was really preaching at her and Ronnie about getting along and being brothers and sisters in Christ. At least her prayer was mercifully short. Ronnie must have felt the same way, because he was out the door the second Miss McMurtry whispered amen.

Miss McMurtry gave Jocie an extra pat on the shoulder and said, “He was probably just picking on you because he likes you.”

“Oh boy. That makes me feel loads better,” Jocie said before she thought. “Sorry, Miss McMurtry. It’s just that I don’t think Ronnie’s my type. To tell the truth, I don’t think I have a type right now.”

Miss McMurtry laughed. “You’re way too young to worry about it just yet, dear. The Lord will send the right type along when it’s time.”

“Good. I’ll just trust him on that one.”

Miss McMurtry put her arm around Jocie’s waist and walked her toward where her father was waiting.

People were still gathered in clusters under the big oak tree out front. Jocie stayed by her father’s side as they made the rounds one more time before joining Aunt Love, who was already in the car. She even managed to smile sweetly at Ronnie when they passed by the Martin family sharing fishing stories with the Sandersons.

A
fter Sunday dinner, David and Mr. McDermott left to visit the sick. They figured to be gone all afternoon, since it had been a busy week at the Mt. Pleasant Church, with a gallbladder surgery, a sprained ankle, a broken arm (Herbert Haskins had been painting the eaves on his house when wasps dive-bombed him, and he’d taken the direct route to the ground), a new baby, a root canal, and a teenager threatening to run off to sing country music in Nashville.