“Everything changed again when she died. I was truly alone then. My father had long since decided his business was more important than raising his daughters and with just me left, it was easier to turn me over to the care of his brother and sister-in-law than it was to tend to me himself. Needless to say that kind of reasoning translated into a warped attitude toward you folks … on my part, I mean. There were other reasons I’ve treated you so badly and you folks deserve to know what they are, but that will have to wait for a few minutes.” She looked around the room. “Please bear with me.”
Here and there, folks nodded.
Emma folded her hands on the lectern and leaned forward. “Here’s the important part. My mother taught my sister and me to love the Lord. She did her part. By the time she died, we’d been to church and Sunday school classes and our evenings were spent hearing Bible stories and saying our nightly prayers. My mother did what she could to make us children of God.” She looked around the room. “But then she died. And with her death came the first blow to our faith.”
“I don’t say these things to betray the memory of my father. It’s no secret what kind of a man he was, and that’s something he had to sort out with the Lord upon his death. But my message today is meant to remind you that a flower will wither on the vine if that vine is pinched off, if that bloom is robbed of the life-giving nutrients and water it needs to stay healthy, to thrive. Needless to say, I withered. And I stayed that way for a long time. In the meantime, I blamed everybody around me—my mother for dying, my aunt and uncle for their harshness, my father for refusing to have anything to do with me after my sister’s death and for not allowing any of you—or your parents—to be a part of my life.
“Eventually, everyone I could blame either died or drifted away. I became a recluse. And then I found someone new to blame. God. Perfect! The One Who was supposed to love me no matter what, to be with me every minute of the day and night, protect me from evil. Obviously none of that was happening, so God must not have been doing His job. Simple. At last I knew. God hated me and because of that, He took away everyone I loved, every bit of confidence and self-esteem I might have had, everything I needed to become a useful member of society.
“And so it continued. Year after year, my disgust with my life and everything in it festered. It wasn’t until Melanie here …” she gestured to Mel who nodded her head in encouragement … “taped Hugh’s sermon from this morning after our little town’s brush with the seedier side of life last week—that I began to see things in a different light. Figuring out just who Pastor Foster was referring to in his sermon wasn’t hard. Me, of course. I didn’t come to church this morning, despite his urging, but Melanie, smart woman that she is, took matters into her own hands and asked Bristol to bring the tape to me after church. At first I refused to listen to it, but Bristol kept after me, and eventually I relented. He’s a relentless one, that Bristol.” A few people in the room chuckled; Bristol just grinned.
“Finally, out of self-defense more than anything, I listened—really listened—to the tape. Hugh and God were able to do what poor Pastor Parry’s been attempting to do for the past forty years.” She looked over at the older pastor. “Sorry about that, Pastor. Not your fault. Just wasn’t my time, I guess. Anyway, my time has come now and here I am.” A smattering of applause broke out. Pastor Parry jumped to his feet and jabbed the air with a triumphant fist.
Emma held up her hands. “Thanks, folks. Believe me, I’m a new person. But as great as it is that I’ve accepted Jesus, let’s face it, you still haven’t heard what you’re dying to hear. And don’t be ashamed about that. Being ashamed is my job. I’ve deliberately left you in the dark all these years because I didn’t want to live up to the guilt I felt—and justifiably so—for the death of Rachel River.”
Emma took a deep breath and after a pleading glance to both Melanie and Hugh, she continued. “I’ve known for a long time now that most everyone in town feels, or suspects, at least, that I killed Rachel. At least one of you has tried to confront me with my guilt over the years, and all she got for her concern was a seventy-year feud.” Emma pointed at Sadie and everyone’s eyes followed her finger. Sadie’s face turned hot pink, and she wouldn’t look at anyone around her, but her eyes bored into Emma’s.
Emma returned her stare then looked back at the crowd. Everyone in the room held their breath in collective anticipation. “Sadie Simms knows—and has known all along—that I did indeed kill Rachel River.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
All righty then. Things had settled down for a full week; I suppose another crisis was due. But to admit to killing your twin sister—in front of the entire congregation, no less? Right on the heels of accepting Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior? Good grief. Nice timing, Emma.
On the other hand, what was accepting the Lord all about if not confessing your sins and asking for forgiveness? Obviously, Emma sought understanding and pardon from her neighbors for the shabby way she’d treated them during the past seventy years, but affirming long-held rumors of killing your sibling seemed a strange way to go about achieving that goal. Nevertheless, that’s what she had just done. I turned to Mel, expecting to find a look on her face that matched my horrified visage, but as usual she surprised me. She was smiling up at Emma. She clung to my hand so tightly I wanted to groan.
I patted her arm. “Honey. Honey, lighten up a little, okay?”
She immediately relaxed her grip. “Whoops, sorry about that. But isn’t it wonderful?”
My superior intelligence kicked into high gear. “Uh …”
Mel didn’t seem to notice my eloquence. “Sh-h-h. Listen up.”
Emma raised her hands and motioned for the crowd to simmer down. “Hold on, folks. There’s more to come.”
I groaned. What? You know something about Amelia Earhart maybe or the Kennedy assassination? Area 51?
“Before you get all hot and bothered and start accusing Sadie of harboring a criminal all these years, let me say this,” Emma continued. “I was aware Sadie knew my sordid story, and I pleaded with her to keep my secret. She thought I should come clean and when I refused, she and I had quite a falling out. She didn’t agree with my conspiracy to keep the truth from you folks and washed her hands of me. Can’t say as I blame her any.”
“So why’d you do it, Emma?” Dewey yelled from the back of the room.
“Why’d I keep it from you or why’d I kill Rachel?”
That stumped him. “Well, uh, both I guess.”
Emma pursed her lips and nodded. “Fair enough. I kept the truth from you folks all these years because of a chance remark I overhead the night my sister died. It cut me to the quick. Remember now, I was only eleven years old. My mother had died two years earlier, my father wanted nothing to do with us, our aunt and uncle were distant to say the least, and then my sister died. I was devastated, alone, and scared silly.”
Sadie stood up and as one, every head in the room turned to look at her. “Tell them what you heard, Emma. It’s time they knew the truth.”
Emma nodded. “I know, Sadie. I know.” Sadie sat down, and Emma continued, “I was sitting on the grand staircase where my sister and I used to eavesdrop on Aunt Louanna’s knitting club.” She smiled at the memory. “My aunt and our housekeeper, Lydia, were talking—arguing, actually. My aunt said some hurtful things about my mother and Lydia tried to defend her. In anger, Aunt Louanna said that God had taken the right girl when he allowed Rachel to die, that at least she and Uncle George were left with the quiet one, the one who didn’t cause them any problems, the one who deserved to live.” Emma stopped to swallow hard. “She said ‘good riddance.’”
The calm in the sanctuary was shattered with shocked murmurs and outrage. Ruby Mae jumped to her feet. “That woman shoulda been horsewhipped, Emma. Nobody says something like that. Nobody. It’s just not right. It’s wrong, it’s hurtful, and it was a downright lie.”
“Thank you, Ruby Mae. But Aunt Louanna spoke the truth. Ra
chel was a wild and unruly child. She did love to disrupt their lives and disobey every chance she got. Aunt Louanna and Uncle George wanted peace and quiet. With Rachel dead, and with only Emma, the quiet one, left to raise, they could have order in their lives.” She threw her hands up in the air. “And so, I gave them exactly what they wanted. A dead Rachel.”
Did I hear what I thought I heard? She gave them what they wanted by killing Rachel? But that didn’t make any sense. Rachel was already dead when Emma’s aunt made her nasty remarks. What was I missing?
I didn’t have to wonder long.
“You see, folks,” Emma said as she stepped out from behind the pulpit and stood at the top of the steps, “It wasn’t Rachel who died that day. It was me.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
I was getting a headache. A big one. The shocked murmurings of a moment ago swelled to a tsunami-like roar. What on earth was she talking about? If Rachel didn’t die, that meant Emma did. But Emma was standing right in front of us. I looked at Mel.
No help there; in fact, she looked supremely satisfied. Why am I never in the loop?
But I wasn’t alone. Somebody screeched, “What on earth are you talking about, Emma River?” Sounded like Winnie, but it could’ve been anybody since every last person in the room was mouthing the same question in one form or another. “Huh?” “What in the…?” “I don’t get it.” “What’s she talking about?” And my personal favorite: “Okay, I’m outta here.”
Emma let us ramble on dimwittedly for a few seconds then raised her hands for quiet. “Confused?” she said. Not waiting for the obvious answer, she continued, “My twin sister, Emma, died that day on the staircase. And no, I didn’t push her. It was indeed a tragic accident—a horrible misstep—and one that I’d have given my own life to have prevented. But it was over and done with, and there was nothing I could do to change that. At least I didn’t think so. After she fell, I was immediately sent to my bedroom, so when I overheard Aunt Louanna later that night, I realized she, and apparently everybody else, thought I had died.”
“I was the troublemaker; I was the one they couldn’t abide. It was always my idea to change our dresses to fool them. You know those wretched colors they made us wear to tell us apart. Such a simple thing for them to figure out, but they never did. So when they saw my sister in my dress lying at the bottom of the stairs, they assumed it was me.” Her shoulders slumped and she looked down. “Maybe this whole mess was my doing.”
Sadie jumped out of the pew again and said, “No, it wasn’t your doing, Emma. They never figured it out because they didn’t care enough to figure it out.” She turned to the folks seated around her. “Those two didn’t know enough about those girls to tell them apart—even in death. For crying out loud, even I knew that Rachel had a birthmark on the back of her head.” She pointed to the indentation below her own hairline on the back of her neck. “And then to hear that her aunt was actually glad it was her who died. No wonder she did what she did.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Just what was it you did, Emma… er, Rachel?”
She smiled. “It’ll take some time, won’t it? I did the only thing I thought I could, or should do. What I had to do. I kept my mouth shut … and I let Rachel die. When I heard my aunt say that God would take a little girl’s life because she was unruly, something inside me shriveled up. I vowed at that moment that Rachel would indeed die and that I would live Emma’s life for her. If nobody wanted Rachel, then I’d give them what they did want. I gave them Emma.”
I was thunderstruck. “You lived Emma’s life? What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I turned into Emma. I gave up all that I loved—being outside, the study of nature, rough and tumble stuff, being anything that was … well, me. And I became who I thought Emma would have become had I been the one to die. I tried to give her my life.” She chuckled. “Looking back on it, it was a stupid thing to do. But I thought I was giving Emma a life she had been deprived of by a God Who didn’t care about either one of us. Then as the years rolled on, it grew more difficult to ’fess up. It would’ve been embarrassing. I antagonized everyone around me because I was afraid someone would guess the truth. Of course, Sadie already had, but I swore her to secrecy, and it cost me dearly. I lost my twin sister, myself, and my best friend.”
Mel stood up, walked to Emma—well, Rachel—and put her arms around her. “You don’t have to pretend anymore, honey.” She looked up. “Does she, folks?” More murmuring, more muddled questions, but mostly “You can say that again,” or “You betcha.”
I joined Mel and Emma/Rachel—this was going to get some taking used to—at the top of the steps and hugged them, then faced the audience. “Ladies and gentleman, can you think of a better way to end our Christmas Eve service than to welcome into our midst one of the newest members of the Lord’s family?” My remark was greeted with enthusiastic applause. “Folks, I introduce to you tonight—Rachel River, child of God.”
“Talk about reborn,” I said to Mel later that evening as I watched the members of my congregation welcoming Rachel into their midst. Sadie, by her side the whole time, delighted in raising Rachel’s hair from the back of her neck and pointing to the birthmark that distinguished one twin from the other. I tossed the last of seven of Sadie’s cookies into my mouth and washed it down with the last of my second cup of hot chocolate. I could see some serious dieting in my future. “Why’d she choose tonight to spill the beans?”
“What better night?” Mel said. “First, the night our Savior was born,” she held up one finger, then another, “and secondly, the night Emma—well, Rachel—was re-born. Makes perfect sense to me.”
I mulled that over. “You’re right, it does. But I’m still struggling to make sense of it all. Remember, you had the advantage because you already knew. When did she tell you, by the way?”
“She didn’t. I guessed. There was just something about the way she said she killed Rachel. I knew she didn’t have it in her to have actually pushed her sister. At first I thought it was guilt, that she felt she contributed to Emma’s death in some way, but then I realized she meant she’d killed herself. She’d squelched her desires and her personality to live the life that Emma would have had if she’d lived that day. Do you know she even wrote two books under Emma’s name after college?”
“Books? On what?”
“That was the giveaway. Nature. All about the wonders of the outdoors—flowers, trees, rivers, mountains. I knew Rachel—when I thought Rachel was the one who died—didn’t care for the outdoors like Emma did. Our Emma, I mean. Well, the one we thought was Emma. You know what I mean.”
“Oddly enough, I do. But what made you put two and two together?”
“Nothing in particular.” She laughed and gave my arm a light punch. “It’s a woman thing, Hugh. Just a woman thing.”
I prepared to get everyone’s attention and send them home to spend the rest of their Christmas Eve with their families. I heard a commotion from the front of the church and looked up just in time to see a small four-legged creature stumbling down the two steps from the pulpit, dragging a blanket behind him. A lamb. A teeny-tiny lamb. “What on earth?” I said. “Who let a lamb in the church? And why?”
Mel laughed that laugh again, the one that fairly screams, “I know something you don’t know.”
Bristol came up behind me. “He was born just after I brought them home from Richmond the other day. Kinda wish I’d known mama was expecting.”
“But I thought lambs…”
“I know. Springtime. Some breeds lamb at different times. Apparently this is one of them. Anyway, we still didn’t have everyone cast yet, so he sort of fit the bill.”
“I didn’t see him outside during the stampede. How’d he get in here, anyway?”
“I brought him in. He was sleeping, and I hated to have him outdoors in this cold, so in he came.”
“But where’s he been?”
Bristol looked at Mel and grinned. “In the manger, Hugh.�
� The lamb tottered up to us and Bristol picked him up and held his fuzzy face to mine. “Meet our Baby Jesus.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
The next few days brought even more change to Road’s End. Bristol announced he’d received a reward for the capture of I.B. and his nasty buddies-in-arms. He donated all of it to the church’s restoration and repair fund. Donations and ticket sales for the live Nativity program also brought in some much needed revenue. Last I knew, Sadie was still pounding on doors threatening to withhold her baked goods from anyone who hadn’t honored their IOU.
We earned enough to pay Sherman DeSoto for the use of Sophie and a little extra to pay for gas and, of course, the dynamite he used to blow up the Hummer. “That stuff don’t come cheap, Pastor,” he said when he accepted our check and grateful thanks.
We’re not in the clear yet, but at least the financial urgency has eased and the Christ Is Lord Church of Road’s End, Virginia, will hang on for another few years.
Newly-renamed Rachel is gradually making inroads into the hearts and minds of her longtime neighbors. Mel tells me she’s invited any and all of her friends to spend a few weeks this coming spring with her at River’s Bluff, an interesting place she’s been telling us about a little at a time. “I can’t promise a resort atmosphere, but you’ll be getting back to nature,” she said. Mel and I enjoy getting to know the real woman who lives on the hill at Rivermanse. I have a feeling there’s a lot to learn.
Misstep (The Road's End Series Book 1) Page 30