by Dean Hughes
“I’m glad you said that, Jeff. Like most bishops, Bishop Harrison has a tendency to take care of too many things himself—family problems and all those kinds of things—but his first priority is always supposed to be to the youth of the ward. Your presidency can take care of a lot of things he’s doing now and give him more time with the youth.”
“To tell you the truth, President, that sounds exciting. I need to feel like I’m serving others—the way I did on my mission—and not thinking quite so much about myself all the time.”
President Crowe was nodding again, looking pleased. “I’ve been worried about this call, Brother Lewis, but now I see the inspiration in it. We have another counselor to call today, and then we will make this change next Sunday in your elders quorum meeting.”
Jeff saw inspiration in the call too. He had thought for a long time that a ward should be a little section of Zion, and this was the best opportunity he could imagine to help that happen.
Jeff walked home, up Mulholland past all the little stores and businesses, most of which were closed on Sunday. He loved the small-town feel of Nauvoo. Everyone he saw along the street—even passing in cars—waved at him, whether they knew him or not. He turned south on Warsaw and walked past the Methodist church and down through a little valley with a creek at the bottom. The woods had turned all shades of green in the last few weeks. In people’s yards, fruit trees were blossoming, pink and white, and birds were setting up a noisy chatter. He really did love this place, and he was pleased that the stake president would put this new trust in him.
Of course, Jeff did find himself wondering how he was going to get everything done. Abby needed his help with William, and the house wasn’t quite so close to finished as he had implied. Still, he liked to think about all the good he and Malcolm could do.
• • •
On the following Sunday the new presidency was sustained and set apart, and then on Tuesday Malcolm called a presidency meeting. Larry Garner, a man at least twenty years older than Jeff and Malcolm, would serve as second counselor. He was a quiet man, rather insecure about being a leader, and Jeff guessed that part of Malcolm’s reason for calling him was to give him some experience. That meant, even more, that Jeff would have to watch himself and not do all the talking. But the meeting went well. Malcolm came in with an agenda and some thoughts about what they needed to do, and Jeff and Larry agreed with his priorities.
They also agreed that they would all three go out together the following evening and visit some families that Bishop Harrison was worried about. Jeff knew that he and Malcolm probably would have spent that time working on some final touches in Jeff’s—or actually Harv Robertson’s—kitchen, but at least the place was no longer torn up. Abby had a kitchen to work in, and she loved what Jeff and Malcolm had done. When Jeff had told her that he wouldn’t have as much time to work on the house, she had told him, “Just finish the kitchen when you can. The Robertsons will be thrilled when they see this place.” But Jeff still had work he wanted to do in the bathroom, and he also hoped to start changing out the single-paned windows for double panes.
Malcolm took his truck on Wednesday evening, and Larry and Jeff crowded into the seat with him. They rode to Niota, a little town up the river from Nauvoo. The men didn’t know the family they were about to visit, nor did the bishop, but their records had been sent to the ward. The family was named Doherty, and the husband, Garret, was thirty-eight and an elder. He and his wife, Eva, had five children, but two of them were named Talbot, apparently from an earlier marriage.
When the presidency located the address they were looking for, the place seemed much too small for a family of seven. It was a frame house with white paint peeling off, revealing gray, weathered siding. A picket fence was in the same condition, and one section had fallen over. The lawn was in bad need of cutting. “Wow,” Malcolm said. “Do you think this is the right place?”
“All we can do is ask,” Jeff said, but he hated to think what kind of family they were about to meet.
The three walked to the door, and Malcolm tried the doorbell. When there was no sound and no response, he knocked. The door came open after a few seconds. A little boy, maybe four, was standing behind a tattered screen door, staring up at the men. “Is your dad here, or your mom?” Malcolm asked.
The boy was wearing only a shirt and oversized underwear that hung to his knees. He nodded, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t go off to find anyone. Before long a woman appeared at the door. She didn’t look nearly so ragged as everything else, but Jeff thought she looked tired. She had blondish hair that was a little scattered, and she had gentle eyes, sort of blue, maybe sad. She looked out at the presidency curiously, as though she couldn’t imagine why a white-shirted, tie-wearing threesome would be at her door.
“Sister Doherty?” Malcolm asked.
Her eyes took on a little more life. “Yes,” she said, and nodded.
“We’re the elders quorum presidency, from Nauvoo. We just received your records. Did you move in recently?”
“Not really. We’ve been here a while. We haven’t ... made it to church yet.” She pushed the hair back from her eyes. “I’m sorry. If I’d known you were coming I’d have ...”
But she didn’t finish her sentence and Malcolm was quick to say, “No. It’s our fault. We didn’t have a phone number for you, so we just drove up to see if we could meet you. Is Brother Doherty home?”
“No.” Her little son was leaning against her now, and she put her hand on his messy hair. “I guess you could say we’re separated. Or ...” She shrugged. “Or at least he’s gone—somewhere.”
“Can we help you?” Malcolm asked.
She took a long look at Malcolm, and then tears spilled onto her cheeks. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”
That night the presidency learned a lot about Sister Eva. She had been raised in the Chicago area and had married very young. Not long after, she had had a baby and then another. But her husband had never really been able to provide for his family, and he had used all the money he could get his hands on to buy drugs. Eva had done some of that herself in her younger years, but she had tried to be a decent mom. She had finally divorced that first husband, worked as a secretary, and gotten by without any child support. It was at her job that she had met a man named Doherty who was entirely different from men she had known before. He had a good job, dressed well, took care of himself, and he treated her beautifully. He told her he was a Mormon and had been a missionary. She had never taken much interest in religion, but she took the missionary lessons and joined the Church, and the two had married. Some good years had followed. Her husband had been transferred to Burlington, Iowa, and their family had kept growing. Then one day he had told her he no longer believed in God, didn’t love her, and didn’t want to be married. He had packed up and left that night. She didn’t know where he was, and he had never sent her a penny.
Eva had found a minimum-wage job and managed to sell the house Doherty had left her with. But the house hadn’t moved quickly, and by the time she got it sold, she was way behind on payments. What equity was left in the house had mostly been lost. She had found this house in Niota, which cost very little to rent, and she was working across the bridge in Fort Madison at a grocery store, but she barely made enough to pay her rent and buy groceries. Her car was dying, she feared, and gasoline cost so much that she could afford little more than to make it to work each day—and pay the $2.00 fee to cross the bridge.
It was Jeff who finally asked, “Would you like to come to Church, if someone could give you a ride?”
She took a long look at him. “I don’t think so,” she said. But she didn’t explain.
“What can we do to help you?” Malcolm asked.
“Nothing, I guess. I just can’t come to church—at least for now.”
“But we can’t abandon you now that we know your s
ituation. I know this house is rented, but would the landlord mind if we made it more livable?”
Eva had some fairly nice furniture—from her previous life, Jeff assumed—but the interior of the house was a mess, with gouges in the sheet rock, curtain rods bent and broken, a door on the kitchen cabinets missing. “The landlord told me that if I wanted to fix it up, he would give me credit on my rent. But I don’t have any tools, and I’ve never—”
“All right. Don’t worry. That’s what we’re good at. We’ll get things looking better, so you’ll all feel better. But what about food?”
“We get by. Pretty much.”
“Eva, we won’t let you go hungry. There’s no need for that. Would you mind if the Relief Society president came up? I think the sisters would like to help too.”
“No, I don’t mind. But ...”
“What about clothes for your kids? Is that a problem?”
“Well ... yes.”
“Is that why you don’t feel you can come to church?”
She hesitated, as though ashamed, and then she nodded, and tears rolled down her cheeks again.
“Would it bother you if we worked on that, too?” Malcolm asked. “I know we could get some things for your kids—even if it’s just hand-me-downs.”
Eva didn’t answer; she leaned over and cupped her hands over her face, and she sobbed. By then, Jeff was shedding tears himself. Part of it was having the chance to do something for this family, and part of it was watching Malcolm, who knew exactly what to say and do.
Over the next month Malcolm and Jeff and Larry—or more often, just Malcolm and Jeff—spent several evenings with the Dohertys. They repaired cabinets and plumbing and splintered woodwork; they patched walls; they caulked around windows and fixed doors that wouldn’t shut right. And then on a Saturday they brought a big crew from the ward, both men and women, and they painted the house, inside and out. The Relief Society got involved and collected nice outgrown clothes from families in the ward—not only for the kids but for Eva. Young men and women from the ward came on another Saturday and worked on the yard, and a brother got Eva’s car running better, but even after that, members of the ward took turns driving to Niota, nine miles, to bring the family to church on Sundays.
There were other families that needed help, and Malcolm and Jeff found themselves putting their own home projects mostly on hold, but they were still working together, more than ever, and all of it felt good to Jeff. “I love to imagine Zion,” Jeff told Malcolm as they were heading home from visiting one of the less-active elders, a young man named Dave Quarry. “But this is the first time I feel as though I’m part of making it happen.”
“I know. I was thinking the same thing tonight,” Malcolm said. “It’s really frustrating that we can’t do anything for some people—like Dave. But we’ve made a difference in a few cases. We really have.”
That night Dave had come to the door, taken a look at the men, and said, “I know who you are. I grew up in the Church, and it’s a good thing if you’re into that kind of stuff. But I have ... other interests.” He laughed, and then he shut the door. Inside, there had been a burst of laughter as several people—all young, it seemed from the sound of their voices—enjoyed the moment.
Jeff understood. The guy had a right to go his own way. He knew that was always a problem—that some people received the chance to glimpse Zion but never embraced it. Still, it felt so good to try, to work at it, and not just talk about the concept. Jeff had found himself speaking less and less in Church discussions and doing more and more during the week. He knew he would always be sort of annoying to a lot of people, but he felt better about himself than he had in a long time.
• • •
Abby didn’t complain about Jeff being gone in the evenings. She knew he was doing good things, and he came home full of stories about the elders quorum presidency and the things they were doing. Some nights the men still worked at Malcolm and Kayla’s house, since that kitchen still needed more work. When Jeff went there, Abby usually went along and spent time with Kayla.
One thing Abby had certainly learned was that a baby was demanding—no matter how thankful she was for him. Little William didn’t supply a lot of two-way conversation, and his lungs hadn’t been damaged by his heart defect. The boy knew how to cry—and he didn’t let up when he felt himself wronged.
The hardest thing was that he wasn’t sleeping through the night. But he was only three months old, and he had started small, so she knew she had nothing to complain about. Still, she longed, more than anything, for a full night’s sleep, and that never happened. Kayla kept saying, “Just wait until you have some rug rats around. At least now, you can catch a nap when he naps during the day. Once you have more babies, there’s never a chance to sleep.” Abby assumed that was true, but right now everything seemed hard enough without imagining bigger challenges.
What Abby had learned was that she really didn’t know how to do the things that so many “mothers in Zion” had learned to do. She loved to read, and she tried to find time for novels when she got a chance. She was working from a list of “great books” she had been given by a college English professor, but she was missing so many days between reading sessions that she usually couldn’t remember what she had read the last time.
And she wished she had more household skills. Her mother had always had someone come in and clean once a week, and she had never sewn at all. She was a good cook—Italian style—but she hadn’t taught her daughters. Instead, she had kept pressure on them to do their homework and practice their piano lessons. So Abby had left home without much domestic training, and she hadn’t improved any at Stanford. Her interest in home decor had been inspired more by her love of art and architecture—all learned from books—than by practical application. She was finally starting to decorate the house; she had done some painting with Jeff and had bought new carpets and drapes and curtains—with Brother Robertson’s money. She liked seeing the house take shape now that the dirty work had been done. But she didn’t know how to repair Jeff’s church pants when a seam split.
That was the great thing about Kayla. She had cooked and sewn all her life and knew how to alter clothes, replace zippers—almost anything. What Abby was starting to learn was that some of those things weren’t really so difficult. It was just a matter of being shown—and practicing. But it was also amazing how much better she felt about herself as she found she could take care of herself and her family—and save some money in the process. Jeff was making a decent salary now, but not so much that they had money to throw around. She was learning that they didn’t need all that much when they handled their money carefully.
One afternoon, when Jeff came home from work, he told Abby that he was actually going to be home all evening. “Honest,” he said, “I’m home to stay. I like Malcolm and all that, but a night home sounds great. Maybe we can put Will down early and get to bed early ourselves.”
“That would be great. I really need the sleep.”
“Well, yeah. Me too. But you know—that wasn’t entirely what I was thinking about.”
Abby laughed. She had known that, of course.
Abby had made a stab at an Italian dinner: ravioli with marinara sauce, garlic bread, and a green salad. Of course, the ravioli was from a package she had bought in the frozen food section of the grocery store, and the sauce was out of a bottle. All the same, she knew Jeff loved ravioli, and she was pleased when she saw him dish out a second helping.
“I’ve noticed something about you lately, Jeff,” Abby said.
“What’s that?”
“You seem happy.”
Jeff looked up from his food. “What?”
“You’ve seemed happier than usual lately.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” He sat for a time, not eating, and
seemed to think about the question. “I do love spring. I hear those cardinals singing outside in the morning and I don’t mind getting up. And then—I don’t know—I’ve had some good stuff happen lately.”
“You mean the things your presidency is doing?”
“Well, yeah. We’ve been a little too busy, but the work we’re doing is satisfying. What I was thinking about, though, was the way work has been going the last little while.”
“Work? Really?”
“Yeah. Yesterday, Linda, the boss’s administrative assistant, called me. She was trying to get a project finished and she was really frustrated with her computer. She was trying to cut and paste some data into a spreadsheet, and the program had jumbled everything up. She couldn’t get the columns to line up, and ... well, anyway, she was coming apart, actually crying.”
“Did you know what to do?”
“Not immediately. But I told her to take a break, and I sat down at her computer. She came back about fifteen minutes later and I had everything working. It was just unbelievable how thrilled she was. She brought a plate of cookies to me today.”
“So that’s why you’re happy? Cookies? Where are they?”
“I couldn’t get them away from the place. All the guys decided it would be nice for me to share.”
“Oh—thanks a lot. Great guys!”
“Actually, they are good guys. It’s taken them a while to get used to me, but I like most of them now, and they seem to like me.”
“So this job’s working out okay. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Jeff took some time again before he said, “No. The job’s about the same—and not very exciting. But Linda really appreciated what I did for her.”
“Is she in love with you?”
Jeff shook his head in mock disgust. “She’s old enough to be my mom,” he said.
“Maybe so. But I’ll bet she’s in love with you. Every woman in the world is. That doesn’t matter. I got you.”