Son of a Preacher Man

by Karen M Cox

  “Good morning, Mrs. Long. What can I do for you today?”

  “I need my tea for my rheumatism.” She leaned forward and whispered, “This handsome young man you’ve got working here is very well-mannered, but I’m afraid he’s not too bright.” She touched a gnarled finger to her temple. “He doesn’t seem to know what I’m talking about.”

  Dr. Miller winked at me. “Well, Mrs. Long, I’m afraid I don’t have your tea here.”

  She sat up straight—well, as straight as she could. “You don’t?”

  “Mrs. Gardener makes your tea for you, remember?”

  She sat for a second. Then she laughed. “That’s right. You’ll forgive an old, forgetful woman, won’t you, Doc?”

  “To be sure.” He patted her shoulder gently. “In fact, I’ll go one better than forgiveness. How about if you wait here in the office where it’s nice and cool, and I’ll send Billy Ray out to fetch it for you?”

  She cracked a big smile. “Oh, that would be lovely. It’s so hot today.” She fished in her purse. “Here, young man. Here’s the money for it.”

  Doc pulled me aside and scribbled something on a scrap piece of paper. “Mrs. Gardener’s house is at 212 Adalia Street.”

  “What on earth”—I pointed to Mrs. Long—“is she talking about?”

  “Mrs. Gardener is the local midwife, and she brews up some of the old Indian and folk remedies and sells them.”

  “You’ve got to be joking! Sir,” I added hastily.

  He chuckled, amused at my indignation. “I don’t use her concoctions for everything, and I know that some of the effects must be placebo, but many of them do seem to help my patients with chronic symptoms, like Mrs. Long. I check up on the ingredients and the mixtures to make sure they’re not harmful, and then I look the other way.”

  I thought the world had just turned upside down. Dr. Miller, a man of science and medicine, advocating the use of potions and other pharmaceutical chicanery?

  “Don’t be so shocked, my boy. Do you really think I’m arrogant enough to insist I know everything under the sun about healing the sick?” He patted my shoulder. “Now, get going. It’s quiet here right now, but you never know what the next hour will bring.”

  I walked out into the hot sunshine—four blocks down to the intersection of Cavanaugh and Adalia—and began counting house numbers. I remembered that I’d run across Lizzie Quinlan walking down this street a couple of days ago. We had nodded and greeted each other, and when I turned back around, curious to see who she might be visiting, I saw her disappear into the house I was standing in front of now.

  Mrs. Gardener’s house was a pristine, white dwelling with blue shutters and a picket fence. No sinister wisps of smoke or noxious odors greeted me when I stepped up to the porch, so I knocked on the door.

  Through the open window, I heard a melodious alto call out. “Can you get that door for me, honey? I’m elbow-deep in brew right now.”

  The door flew open.

  “Billy Ray!”

  “Lizzie?”

  “Um, hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to pick up something for”—I looked down at my note—“Mrs. Long.” I handed her the paper. “Doc wrote it down for me.”

  She took it and stepped back from the door. “Okay, I’ll let Mrs. G know. Come on in.” I followed her, taking in the pretty, blue sundress she wore and the ever-present bouncing ponytail. It looked like she had new shoes too, some kind of strappy, white leather with a buckle.

  “You look nice.”

  She smiled, and I was rewarded with sparkly, fireworks eyes. “Thanks.”

  A woman, maybe forty years old with a few wisps of gray scattered through her otherwise black hair, stepped through the doorway, drying her hands on a clean, white towel. She had a calming, pleasant smile, which she directed at the two of us. “Can I help you, young man?”

  Lizzie gave her the note. “Doc sent him to get this for Mrs. Long.”

  Mrs. Gardener read it and shook her head, chuckling. “She always forgets that she’s supposed to come here instead of the doctor’s office.”

  “Here’s her money.”

  She counted and pocketed the coins I gave her. “Interesting that she can’t remember where to get it, but she always remembers exactly what it costs. I guess it’s no coincidence that Doc’s office is a shorter distance from her house, either.” She paused, but I was looking at Lizzie and didn’t notice right away.

  “You two know each other?”

  Lizzie looked from me to the lady of the house. “Oh, sorry. Mrs. Gardener, this is Billy Ray Davenport. He’s Reverend Davenport’s son, and he’s working at Doc’s office this summer.”

  “Nice to meet you.” She held out a hand and shook mine. It was clean and soft and smelled of lavender.

  “Billy Ray’s gonna be a doctor, too, just like Doc.” Lizzie smiled up at me in a rare display of honest admiration.

  “Doc Miller’s a good one to learn from. They don’t make many like him anymore.” She turned and went back into the kitchen.

  Lizzie and I stood there, looking at each other and then at the ground. It was an awkward silence but sort of pleasant too.

  Mrs. Gardener came back in, a mason jar in each hand. She looked down and checked the labels. “Here’s yours, Lizzie.” She handed her one jar. “And here’s Mrs. Long’s.” She handed me the other. “Well, I got to get back in the kitchen and then out to the garden before dinner.”

  “Thank you for this, Mrs. G. It seems to help Mama.”

  “You’re welcome, child. Good to meet you, Mr. Davenport.”

  I nodded. “Mrs. Gardener.”

  I opened the door for Lizzie, and we went back out into the heat.

  She picked up a bag sitting beside the door and drifted down the steps. She had this light, graceful way of moving that made me expect her to start floating a couple inches above the ground any second.

  “I’ll walk you to your turn-off today. Cavanaugh Street is on my way back to Linden.”

  She held open the gate for me, and I nodded and smiled at her as I passed. She didn’t move for several seconds, staring at me, until I turned around to face her.

  “What?” I asked, walking backwards and grinning.

  She looked away and shook her head, trying to hide her expression. “You really have no idea, do you?”

  “About what?”

  The gate banged shut behind her as she fell in step beside me. “What that smile of yours does to us girls.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It melts us till we’re just puddles on the floor.”

  I flushed a hot, bright red and turned back around, walking forwards again. How was I supposed to react to that?

  “It’s a good thing you don’t wield that smile too often, Billy Ray. You’d be spoiled rotten with all kinds of womanly favors.”

  I blushed hotter and kept walking.

  “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  “You didn’t embarrass me,” I lied.

  We walked almost a block in silence.

  “Why are you all dressed up today?”

  “Oh, this old thing?” She laughed. “It really is an ‘old thing.’ Mrs. G found it for me at a second-hand shop. I don’t think it looks second-hand though, do you?”

  I cast my eyes quickly to the side. “It’s pretty.”

  “Mrs. G says it suits my figure better than Jeannie’s old dresses. Jeannie’s the oldest girl, you know, so I get a lot of her hand-me-downs.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “But Jeannie’s smaller around the chest, so her dresses don’t always fit so well. See, this one has a v-neck, and it crosses over in the front, so there’s more room.”

  I picked up my pace a bit. I didn’t have much to contribute to a conversation about how girls’ clothes fit across their…

  I glanced quickly at Lizzie. She wasn’t looking at me as if she was teasing though. She just a
s easily could have been talking about the weather or her breakfast. She paused when she noticed I wasn’t talking anymore.

  “At least, that’s what Mrs. G says.”

  I kept looking at the ground in front of me as I walked.

  “The shoes came with it. Are these shoes more practical than my other ones, Billy Ray?”

  “Do they hurt your feet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then I guess they’re more practical.”

  “It’s real nice of you to get Mrs. Long her tea.”

  “Doc didn’t want her walking in the heat.”

  “Makes sense. She’s about ninety years old, and she forgets things like drinking enough water. That’s another reason the tea helps her. It keeps her fluids up. I think that’s one of the things about the tea that helps Mama too. This stuff”—she held up the jar—“is supposed to help her milk production, but Doc and Mrs. G say the extra water helps as much as anything.”

  “I was surprised that Doc sends his patients to a wise woman.”

  Lizzie nodded. “It’s unusual, I guess, for a doctor to do that. But there are a lot of people around here needing help, and Doc is just one man. I think he learned that folks were better off if he worked with Mrs. G rather than against her.”

  “I see.”

  “That really started after Mama had Jeremiah. Doc almost lost her, and Mrs. G helped him save her with that squaw vine mixture that helped the baby come out. That shook him up some, you know. They started talking with each other more after that happened. Mrs. G told me though, that she would’ve lost Mama too if it hadn’t been for them antibiotics he give her when she got the childbed fever.”

  Lizzie Quinlan said the darnedest things sometimes.

  “It takes a mighty big fella to ask for help when he’s at a loss and everyone’s looking to him to make it all right.” She looked at me pointedly. “That’s what makes Doc a great man.”

  “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s from Psalm 121. My father says although all help comes from the Lord, sometimes it takes an unexpected form, and we need the Lord’s guidance to see it for what it is. I guess that happened to Doc and Mrs. Gardener—and to your mama.”

  “Do you have an answer for everything in that Bible of yours?”

  “It’s your Bible too.”

  “Hmmph.”

  “I have yet to find a problem or question I can’t use the Bible to help me solve. Big, meaningful questions, I mean. Not like two plus two.”

  She giggled at my joke. “You think about things real deep, don’t you?”

  My shoulders lifted in a half-hearted shrug. “I just try to make sense of what I see, that’s all. And traveling around with my father, I’ve seen a lot.”

  “I imagine you have.”

  We reached the turn off to Cavanaugh Street. “Well, here’s my street.” I paused my stride and she turned to face me. “I’ll see you later, Lizzie. I hope your mama gets to feeling better.”

  “Thanks.”

  Given what she’d said about my smile earlier, I didn’t grin until she turned and walked down the road. But then I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Her fine eyes and her unique outlook just made me smile.

  Chapter 5

  From the time I was a little boy, I always liked Westerns—movies, comic books, TV shows like Gunsmoke and Northwest Passage, and, of course, Western novels. Some of my friends thought they were boring and predictable, but to me, forging new territory in the untamed West seemed like an exciting adventure. Then again, I liked the familiar feel of the stories, comforting as an old blanket—mountains and prairies, cowboys and noble Indians, determined settler families, and gunslingers. Everyone knew good from evil and was clear on which side he stood. When my father saw me with another book in my hand or heard I was going to see a Western movie, he’d just smile and shake his head.

  “Those stories make the right thing seem crystal clear, but it isn’t always so easy to discern in real life, Billy Ray.”

  And I’d just smile and say, “You’re right, Dad.” I knew that the real Old West wasn’t quite as exciting as the stories. After all, I’d been to college. I knew my American history. But my Westerns—those stories had rules: rules for how men behaved toward women and how women behaved toward men, rules that made it easier on all the townsfolk to get along and unite against the outlaws, and the bad guy always lost in the end. I found no better escape than a well-told cowboy story.

  There was no TV in Doc’s office, of course, and no bookstore in Orchard Hill, and I was really missing my Westerns that summer. I could have spent my evenings in the Millers’ living room watching television, but I didn’t. I had grown tired of Marlene’s snide gossiping by the close of the first evening after Dad left town, and by Thursday of that week, I’d had it with her.

  By that time, I had already learned to claim the wingback chair to the side. The sofa had the best vantage point for watching TV, but when I sat there, Marlene couldn’t resist all that open sofa space beside me.

  Thursday was Zane Grey Theater night, and it was an anthology series, not one continuous story like Gunsmoke, so you had to pay attention to know what was happening. As the opening credits faded from the screen, and I got ready to lose myself in the story, Marlene started in over and above the sounds of gunfire on the show.

  “Who’s that girl on TV?”

  “Diane something-or-other,” Louise answered. “I think she’s pretty.”

  “I don’t like the look of her. She reminds me of that Sheila Robinson down at the dress shop. You know who I’m talking about, Louise. The girl who acts like she’s better than everyone else because her mother was a Thompson, of the Bedford Thompsons.”

  Marlene looked at me expectantly. I suppose she was waiting for me to ask about the Thompsons from Bedford, but I couldn’t care less, so I ignored her and leaned toward the TV set.

  “She might be related to the Thompsons, and her uncle might be a state senator, but that sure doesn’t make her the envy of every girl in Orchard Hill. Her teeth are crooked, and she has a face like a donkey’s.”

  Mrs. Miller glanced at me. “That isn’t kind, Marlene.”

  “But it’s true.”

  Her mother pursed her lips and let out a little sigh of frustration as she jabbed her needle into the fabric she had stretched tight across some kind of round frame. Her face looked as tight as that fabric, but she made no reply.

  Marlene scooted over until she was sitting at the corner closest to my chair. She leaned over the sofa arm and twirled her ponytail around one finger. “Besides, if the Robinsons are so important, what are they doing here in Orchard Hill anyway?” She sat back. “I certainly wouldn’t live in this tired, old place if I could live over in Richmond or London. Would you, Billy Ray?”

  For me, not wanting to live in Orchard Hill had more to do with Marlene being there than anything else, but of course, I couldn’t say that in her mother’s living room after I’d just eaten from her table.

  “Once I’m through school, I’ll have to move anyway. I probably won’t have much choice in the matter.” I turned back to the TV set.

  After a couple of minutes of blissful silence, she tried to engage me in conversation again. “And look at that actress’s hair! My goodness, what a mess! Reminds me of the way that Lizzie Quinlan’s hair looked on Sunday—all wild and sticking out all over.”

  I felt an involuntary jolt at the name. Casting a quick look at Marlene, I saw her watching me closely. “But then again, there probably isn’t a comb in the whole Quinlan household.”

  I still said nothing.

  “Or maybe she was still disheveled from a tumble with some fella in the churchyard.”

  Louise snickered, and Mrs. Miller implored her daughter to desist. “Marlene, please!” She laid her needlework to the side and stood up, desperate to provide a distraction. �
�Billy Ray, would you like a scoop of ice cream?”

  “No, thank you, ma’am. I’m still full from dinner.”

  Louise piped up. “I’ll have some.”

  “None for me,” Marlene replied without looking toward her mother.

  Mrs. Miller stared between the three of us for a second and went into the kitchen.

  Marlene leaned toward me and lowered her voice, so her sister couldn’t hear her. “You sure disappeared fast after church on Sunday. Did Lizzie Quinlan haul you off behind a bush too?”

  I stood up.

  “Oh, sit down, Billy Ray. Don’t get all in a huff. I was only teasing.” Her smile was bright, but it had a cruel undertone to it.

  “I’m going to bed. I’ve gotta work early in the morning, and I’ve missed the first part of the TV show anyway.”

  “Suit yourself then. Goodnight. Sleep tight.” Marlene leaned back against the sofa. She looked confused, and if I read her right, a little miserable too. Then a smug smile crossed her face. “Think about me.”

  Mrs. Miller was standing at the doorway with Louise’s ice cream in her hand. Her eyes widened at Marlene’s remark, but she didn’t respond to it.

  “Turning in so early, Billy Ray?” She managed to ask a question over her embarrassment.

  “Yes, ma’am. Big day tomorrow. Thank you for dinner.”

  “You’re welcome, of course.”

  As I left the house, I could hear the strained voices filled with family strife as Mrs. Miller scolded her daughter. I couldn’t make out the words, but then again, I didn’t try too hard.

  I was still trying to clear my head of the image of Lizzie Quinlan hauling me behind a bush.

  I tried a couple more times to join the Millers after dinner, but then I gave up. Without a preacher’s presence to rein her in, Marlene was merciless regarding parishioners from church, the store clerks in town, and the young women who worked at the bank. Even the seventy-year-old postmistress didn’t escape her sharp tongue. I was confident that Doc wouldn’t have let her get away with talking like that, but he was usually in his office reading, so he didn’t hear her, and Charlie was hardly ever home, spending more and more evenings at the Quinlan’s house visiting Jeannie—not that he corrected his sister even when he was home. Louise agreed with everything Marlene said, and Mrs. Miller tried her best to ignore the venom spewing from her daughter’s lips as she sat in a stuffed rocking chair, working on her mending or knitting or some kind of needlework she called crewel. Poor Mrs. Miller—I almost felt sorry for her in spite of my opinion that she didn’t exert her parental authority nearly enough. Periodically, she would sigh at some egregious remark, and then she would cast me a nervous glance, probably wondering what I was telling my father in my letters. Marlene made her mother so uneasy that I began to wonder if the gossip was an unusual occurrence, something done for my attention. I decided to take Doc’s example and find myself a nice, quiet place to read.