No Less Days

by Amanda G. Stevens

  His grunt must be an affirmative. “Look, we don’t even know the man’s name.”

  “No, but I think he drove here, which narrows the search radius considerably.”

  “Hmm.”

  While Simon mulled, David settled into the stuffed chair in the library and ran the tips of his fingers over the hair that covered the stitches.

  “He wouldn’t have gotten that gun through TSA,” Simon said at last. “Even checked luggage, if he was crossing state lines. And with ammo—forget it.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And if there are others, if he’s acted in their stead …” Simon huffed. “There can’t be many of them. Look how few we are.”

  “But we need to know.” David stared across the room at the stately rows of books on their shelves. “How many and how they came to be.”

  “And what they mean to do about us.”

  “I thought perhaps with your background …”

  “I’d need something to go on, David. Anything. A name, a city, a trail of some kind.”

  “What about the gun?”

  Another moment of quiet and then Simon said, “It’s an artifact. Anyway, you glimpsed it for a few seconds while under duress.”

  “If I saw it again, I’d recognize it. And it might have a history.”

  “You mean registered?”

  “I mean historical.”

  “Not sure how that would help us.”

  Silence wrapped around David as a path failed to emerge from their words. Wasn’t he supposed to do something about this? Identify the man, pursue him, deal with whatever threat he presented?

  Only show me the path, Lord, and I’ll step forward.

  “I don’t think we’ll encounter him again unless he initiates it,” Simon said.

  “You could be right.”

  “You saying you want to be included if I come up with something?”

  “Who called whom here?”

  Simon huffed. “Right. Well … I’ll keep you looped in, then.”

  “Thank you.”

  “If we get a lead on him—yeah, I was a cop, but my colleagues and contacts are retired or dead now. And it’s not as if I could go to them wearing a face that hasn’t changed in fifty years. Fifty? Forty?” Simon grunted. “It blurs sometimes.”

  “It does,” David said.

  The quiet now held a weight that had been missing before. Perhaps because Simon had been veiling it. David stretched his legs in front of him and settled back in the chair. Perhaps this conversation was the path God had set before him. For tonight, anyway.

  THIRTY

  He sat in his Jeep in the parking lot for ten minutes before finding the courage to get out. By then it was 5:55 p.m., and he had five minutes before church started. He marched up the walkway like a soldier to a drill, steps crisp, arms snapped to his sides, eyes trained ahead of him, shoulders back. It was the only way he’d make it through the door.

  The L-shaped information desk was manned by a woman about fifty years old. Five stacks of paper lined the desk in front of her, and more brochures were spread to the side. Programs, opportunities, ways to invest one’s time and talents in other people. David’s feet slowed.

  I can’t. A sudden image of himself—dragged by the collar, kicking and flailing, and the hand dragging him was God’s.

  Not right. But the feeling didn’t ebb. He stopped ten feet from the desk and shut his eyes one quick second.

  Aye, Lord, it’s been forty-three years. You see I’ve come back home tonight.

  “Good evening,” the woman said with a smile. “Can I help you find a class?”

  “First I’ll have to pick one, I suppose.” The voice that came out was American and calm. Pleasant, even. “Are you visiting?” He nodded.

  “Our fall electives are in progress, but you’re welcome to jump into any one of them.” She chose a sheet of paper and nudged it across the desk to him. “You can read over the options, and I’ll direct you to the right room.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Sure thing.”

  No one else came to the desk while he scanned each choice. He glanced up once to find the woman studiously not watching him and had to smile.

  “Where’s Romans?” he said. Good topic to measure the church’s teaching, though its status as Tiana’s home church was the surest recommendation he could ask for.

  He was directed down a hallway, made a right, and found room 441 down another hallway. Fewer than twenty people sat at the round tables fringed with folding chairs. His breath constricted. Too few of them to blend in. He took a seat at the back of the room.

  His phone buzzed against his thigh. He pulled it out as a few more people filtered in and sat, one or two at his table, offering him a smile or a nod.

  A text from Tiana. COFFEE DATE?

  He texted her back. I’M AT CHURCH.

  WHICH?

  YOURS.

  I DON’T USUALLY GO WEDNESDAYS, BUT I WOULD HAVE.

  Would have been natural to ask her. He tapped his finger on his knee, choosing words, before replying. I DON’T KNOW IF THIS MAKES SENSE, BUT IT HAS TO BE ME AND GOD TONIGHT.

  The man to David’s left turned from another conversation to half squint at David. “You’re visiting?”

  David nodded.

  He thrust out a long-boned artist’s hand and shook David’s. “Larry Scott.” He motioned to the woman beside him, blond and glowing, heavily pregnant. “My wife, Karen.”

  “David Galloway.”

  “Good to have you. Hey, everybody, meet David.”

  Waves, grins, nods, and a few hellos. From there the class came to order and began taking prayer requests as David’s phone buzzed. He glanced down. Tiana again.

  I’M PRAYING FOR YOU. AND I’M PROUD OF YOU. Followed by a blue heart.

  He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.

  The prayer requests continued, human banalities and crises and triumphs. A man had twisted his ankle running a 5K. A young woman had last week lost her third baby to miscarriage. An older woman had been present when a long-prayed-for uncle professed himself a new follower of Christ. There was laughter at the story of a child’s lost tooth. Tears at the story of a niece enslaved by drug addiction and prostitution. Elements of each one’s story, individual notes in a divinely composed sonata.

  Their lives were sacred. So would be their deaths.

  Colm, the evil in what you did. They were not yours to take.

  David listened to them, watched them kid and comfort one another. Friendship. Filling the room like a fragrance.

  His chest stayed tight the full hour and a half. The teacher, a rail-thin and bespectacled man around forty years old, elucidated the text with skill and then served as a facilitator. Various people commented and asked questions.

  Not until the group was filing out of the room in twos and threes did David’s shoulders relax. He looked down at his hands in his lap. They were clenching.

  A few people greeted him on their way out. He stood and mingled a bit, told them he lived in the area and was searching for a church, and every last one of them said they hoped to see him again. The sincerity soaked into him, but in a few minutes, he had to retreat. Too many people.

  So he had a bit of reacclimating to do. An expected result of four decades of abstaining from human relationships.

  The hall held only people coming and going, no one lingering. David took a moment to stand in the relative quiet, back to the wall, and roll tension from his shoulders and neck. Larry and Karen Scott were two of the last to exit the room.

  “Oh, hey, David.” Larry shook his hand again. “Will we see you next week?”

  Everyone else had worded it as a hope, not a question. “Possibly.”

  “I’ll take that.” Larry grinned.

  “What did you think of Al’s teaching?” Karen said.

  Not a typical question for a visitor. For all they knew, David would take the opportunity to criticize. But they seemed curious. Open
.

  “He’s knowledgeable,” David said, “and skilled at drawing people into the study.”

  “Feel free to chime in next time,” Larry said. “You only said two words, and they were your name.”

  Karen nudged him with her elbow, not attempting to be subtle.

  Larry chuckled, but his face reddened. “Not that there’s anything wrong with listening.”

  “That’s where I prefer to start,” David said.

  They made small talk another minute, looked ready to move away, but Karen turned back. “David, you know Christ, don’t you?”

  It wasn’t a question but a confirmation. “I do.”

  “I hope you won’t see this as prying, but I’d like to pray for you.”

  Larry’s expression sobered, and he seemed to measure David more carefully based on his wife’s words.

  Casual. Surface. Keep it there. Lord, when I asked for help, I didn’t mean …

  “If you like,” he said. Surely she meant later.

  But Karen and Larry motioned David to the corner near a fire exit door. He went with them and stood with his back to the corner. Prayer with Tiana was one thing. Strangers, something else altogether. A wall inside him quaked. He had meant to take this one step at a time.

  He cooled his expression, drew his shoulders back, posting his KEEP OUT signs. But Karen put her hand on David’s left shoulder, and Larry planted his on David’s right, as if David had no signs, no walls. When they bowed their heads, he did the same.

  “Dear Father,” Karen said, “thank You for bringing David to church tonight. Please be his comfort and his peace, and please brighten his path as he seeks to honor You. And I pray You’ll bring him back for more fellowship next week. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  Her words were arrows and ointment in equal measure. He lifted his head, and Larry dropped his hand to his side, but Karen kept hers on David.

  “How did you …?” David’s voice came out hoarse.

  “You seem like you could use some peace,” Karen said. “That’s all. And everyone can use some fellowship.”

  His KEEP OUT signs were falling to the ground. Cracks formed in the walls, but he needed those signs, needed those walls.

  “Is there anything specific we can pray for you this week?”

  So many things, if he could but share them. If he didn’t have to pretend to be so young.

  “Thank you, but that will suffice.”

  Karen smiled, not the least put off. “Okay.”

  “Maybe we’ll see you next week,” Larry said.

  They turned to go, but when David cleared his throat, they turned back.

  “If you …” Finish the sentence, you bumbler. “If you want to pray for me in those terms again, I would appreciate it.”

  A deeper glow suffused Karen’s cheeks as her smile grew. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  They left David standing in the corner, where he remained until the hallway emptied, despite a few long glances in his direction. Then he shadowed the waves of departing people, keeping a few feet behind them until they passed the church sanctuary. There he stopped.

  He faced the broad oak doors, shut now. He listened for choir practice or any other sound behind them, but there was only silence. He looked one way then another, tugged open one of the doors, and slipped inside.

  He was alone. The lights were set low. Burgundy carpet, oak and red-upholstered pews, the aisle sloping down to the front platform and the orchestra pit. Ah, glory, an orchestra at morning worship. To the far right of the stage sat a grand piano—cover closed, shiny and black and beckoning him as the blank canvas beckoned the painter.

  David strode down the center aisle, veered right, and stood beside the piano. He rested his hand on its cool side, stroked the length of its curve. He walked all the way around it, scanned the auditorium again, but no one had entered after him. He slid onto the wood bench and looked down at the keys, hands resting at his sides. His first piano had been a simple upright, the keys real ivory. He lifted his hands and poised them, lowered them, with his right thumb played the G two octaves above middle C, then with his left the F two octaves below it. The instrument was tuned perfectly.

  Forty-three years since he’d entered God’s house, and forty-three years since he’d touched a piano. He flexed his fingers. He stumbled on his first run over the B minor scale. He didn’t stumble on his second. Muscle memory—young muscles, young memory, forever. He might be the only musician alive for whom playing his instrument was like riding a bike.

  He played a quiet trilling arrangement of “Loch Lomond” while tears rolled down his face. He wiped them away, composed himself, and began again, and the music poured out of him. Hymns. Concertos. Modern praise choruses. Classic rock ballads. Melodies gushed out of him, each one so strong he couldn’t stop or pause as he blended Chopin into Scott Joplin into Elton John. He played and played and played. His soul bathed in song, sipped it like wine, gulped it like water.

  The fervor of his fingers became a conscious thing again as he was picking out a soft jazz arrangement of “You Are My Hiding Place.” He faded it to pianissimo and stilled his hands on a minor chord that left the melody open. He looked out across the pews.

  No longer alone. The lights from the stage obscured the woman’s face. David stood up, stepped away from the bench.

  “My apologies. I …” His face grew hot. He had no right to this instrument. He strode up the aisle to her. “I didn’t mean to disturb anyone.”

  It was Karen Scott.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll go.”

  “Wait. Please.” She stood and stepped into the aisle to look up at him. “Larry’s waiting for me in the café. I told him I wouldn’t leave until you finished playing.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Nine forty.”

  Church had ended more than two hours ago. David shook his head. “I—I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

  “Please stop apologizing, David. I’ve been playing here for the last six years. I was raised in this church and taught by our old pianist, who toured professionally, and I collect solo piano music, and …” She shook her head. “It’s not your technique—I mean, don’t get me wrong, your technique is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. You just played classical and ragtime and jazz and—and I don’t know how many other styles—all equally well.”

  “I’ve been playing a long time.”

  “All your life, I would think.”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “But it’s not that. It’s the spirit of the songs. It’s like … like every song is a person, and you’re introducing us to him or her, personalities and moods….” She passed her hand over her belly as tears filled her eyes. “Sorry. Hormones. But saying you have a gift is not saying enough.”

  He ought to respond. Thank her, at least. But the music was still there between them, notes he hadn’t thought anyone else was hearing, some of them raw and open. Had she heard that? He looked down at the carpet. All this was too much for one night.

  “I’m so glad you snuck in here,” Karen said. “And that I was walking by.”

  He tried to nod, but he wasn’t glad. He didn’t know what he was.

  “They’ve been looking for a replacement for me. I’m stepping down when the baby comes, at least for a year. If you decide to make us your church, maybe pray about it, see if it fits into your life right now.”

  “All right.” No other polite reply.

  “Anyway, Larry’s texted me twice. I told him to stuff it, but I should go now.”

  To this, he could nod.

  Her hand settled on his shoulder. “And I want you to know I’m going to pray hard for you this week.”

  “Thank you.”

  A squeeze of his shoulder before her hand withdrew. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  She trundled out into the hall, and David followed her. Larry was sitting on one of the stools at the coffee bar, chatting with a
man David hadn’t seen in their class. Karen turned to wave as she headed over to them.

  David stood alone in the vestibule, turned a full circle. A few voices drifted from down another hall, likely the direction of the offices. Maybe Karen had been the only one privy to his concert.

  He sank down on a sofa along the wall near the front doors. Bowed his head. Sat that way a long time while the music continued to reverberate inside him.

  THIRTY-ONE

  By mid-Thursday, in the moments between helping customers and answering phone calls, David had filled Tiana in on the main details of church last night. He left out Karen Scott’s suggestion that he play piano for them. He’d share that part when he’d sorted out what he thought of it.

  From noon till six, certainty grew. He checked a few stores for their hours and found one open until eight. While he and Tiana locked up, David asked if she had plans. As far as he knew, her Thursdays were usually free. This one was too.

  “I want to go into Traverse City,” he said. “For some shopping, followed by dinner.”

  “Shopping?” Tiana arched one eyebrow. “What do you shop for?”

  “Would you like to find out?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re terrible at being mysterious.”

  David got her coat and held it for her. “You’re hoping feigned indifference will con the details out of me. It won’t work, love.”

  She gave him that one-sided smile. “Let’s go shopping.”

  On the drive she guessed a few times, always wrong. Then she shifted in her seat and looked away from the passing landscape, to him.

  “When did you hear from them last?”

  “I talked to Simon Monday,” he said, the words sitting on him with a weight that wasn’t new. “He’s back in Florida. Nothing from Moira. Or Zac.”

  “It’s only been a few days.”

  “I know it.” From Moira, he didn’t expect to hear anything in the next weeks and months. From Zac …

  “Has Zac left for Denver yet?”

  David signaled for a turn and shrugged. “Not that he’s said. I think he’s just wandering northern Michigan.”

  Alone. Or perhaps he had departed, after all, but surely he’d let David know. David had texted him Monday and got no response. He was choosing to respect Zac’s space, but Zac didn’t seem the solitary type even in crisis. Especially in crisis.