by Ann B. Ross
“I’m hoping you know him well enough to give me some advice. I’ve discussed this with my senior pastor but, frankly, he was little help. You see, Mr. Jones has started coming to services at First Methodist, and of course we’re all pleased to have him. I understand that he’s never been a regular churchgoer, but he’s been coming every Sunday for a few weeks now. But this past Sunday, something happened that really distresses me and I’d like to put it right.”
Well, this intrigued me because I’d never known Thurlow to darken the door of any church, and although I’d not noticed any change lately in his demeanor or in his actions, going to church might eventually result in changes to both. At least we’re told it will have that effect.
“What happened last Sunday?” I asked.
She sighed, looked down at her hands, and said, “I had the sermon, only my second since I’ve been here, and I guess I upset him. We’d just finished the presermon hymn and as the congregation sat down, I went up into the pulpit and announced a prayer. Just as I started, Mr. Jones closed his hymnal shut with a loud bang, shocking everybody because it was so quiet. Then he stood up and made his way to the center aisle and walked out, slamming the door behind him.”
“My word,” I said, picturing what that would’ve looked and sounded like in a church where the congregation was on its best behavior. There’d been plenty of times I would have liked to have walked out on Pastor Ledbetter, but good manners and fear of a spectacle had kept me in my seat. “That would be upsetting, but maybe you veered from the usual service in some way? You know how people get so accustomed to doing things a certain way that they can’t adjust if you add a hymn or move anything around.”
“No, ma’am, everything was just the same. But I’m pretty sure it was the prayer I started to read. I thought it was beautiful and inspiring, but I guess he didn’t.” She sighed again. “I was just wondering, because you know him so well, if you would intercede for me. I’d love to talk with him, but when I called to see if I could visit, he told me he’d had a bellyful of women in the pulpit who didn’t know what they were talking about. Of course,” she went on, frowning, “there’s nothing I can do about being a woman. But I thought if he got to know me, he might be more amenable to putting up with my preaching once a month or so. It’s still hard to believe that I could’ve run somebody out of church.”
“Well, Pastor, uh, Poppy, it doesn’t surprise me that he walked out. What surprises me is that he was there in the first place. But let’s think about this. You say you hadn’t gotten into your sermon. So you weren’t actually preaching, just starting with a prayer, which is certainly appropriate and shouldn’t have offended him. But Thurlow doesn’t mind making a scene, so maybe it was something in your prayer that upset him.”
“I really don’t see how. It was beautiful, if he’d only stayed long enough to hear it all. It started out, ‘Oh, Father, forgive us; Oh, Mother, nurture us,’ and went on from there. I found it on the Internet.”
I just stared at her. As lovely as she was in the face, I couldn’t help but wonder what was in her head. “Well, there’s your problem,” I said, thinking that I might’ve been tempted to walk out too if I’d had such as that prayed over me.
“What? You mean because it came off the Internet?”
“No, I mean because of the Mother business. God the Father is male, not a female and therefore not a mother. Although,” I added hastily, “he certainly has some female attributes—he would have to because he created them in women. I’m talking about his kindness, compassion, mercy, and, yes, nurturing and caring, all of which women have in abundance but are rarely observed in men. I guess, though, that Thurlow was outraged to have the idea sprung on him like that.”
“You think that was it? That I referred to God as Mother?”
“Oh yes, I’d say so. And what really surprises me is that he was the only one to walk out.” I touched her arm in sympathy because she looked so distressed. “Look, new ideas have to be introduced slowly in a town like this. Maybe give some Scriptural background first—if you can find any.” I patted her arm in an encouraging manner. “I’m sure you’ll do fine, just stay away from family members for a while.” I smiled at her, and she managed a weak one back at me.
“I’ll try, though I just hate the thought of running somebody off. If you get a chance, would you ask him to talk to me about it?”
“If I get a chance, but I assure you that I am not close to Thurlow and usually avoid any contact with him.” And she’d do well to do the same, but I didn’t suggest that. Who knew, she could be the agent of change for him, although I’d believe it when I saw it.
When Mildred came by to ask if we wanted more tea, she stayed to chat awhile. While she and Pastor Poppy talked, I got a glimpse past Mildred of Madge Harris putting on her coat, and across the room I saw Miss Mattie Freeman with a hand clasping each arm of her chair, rocking back and forth to build up enough spring to get her to her feet. That was my cue for leave-taking, so I rose from the chair and made my courtesies.
Shivering all the way home in a frigid car, I was also trembling inside from what I had heard. My name was certainly being linked to Thurlow’s, first by LuAnne, who’d heard it from Velma, who’d heard it from a client, which meant everybody who’d had a hair appointment had probably heard it too. And all because Thurlow and his smelly dog had been seen leaving my house early one morning. And come to think of it, which I did, the same thing had been implied about Miss Petty’s leaving Thurlow’s house early one morning.
I declare, for a confirmed bachelor Thurlow Jones was really making a name for himself by being out so early on two mornings, and if my name hadn’t been involved, I could’ve laughed about it. But I wasn’t laughing, because if Sam heard the latest, his suspicions would be confirmed.
And then there’d been Pastor Poppy, who’d been told that I was close enough to Thurlow to intercede for her. That just frosted me good, and I wished I knew who’d told her that. I couldn’t blame her, for she was so new in town that she couldn’t know the ins and outs of who knew whom, and why and how little they knew them. Or something like that.
As I pulled into the drive at home and crawled out of the car, practically frozen, I decided that something had to be done. It simply wasn’t like me to let rumor and gossip run rampant. It was one thing to ignore the talk if Sam and I could laugh about it together. It was another to allow it to further alienate us. And I’d bet my bottom dollar, if I’d been a betting woman, that if James heard any of it, Sam would soon know it too.
“Lillian,” I said as soon as I walked in the door, “you have to help me.”
“Yes’m, that’s what I always do.”
“Yes, I know you do, but I’m really depending on you now. Where are the girls?”
“They all nappin’ ’cause the babies is sleepin’. They have to get it when they can.”
“Well, come sit down and let me tell you what happened. I am just sick about it and something has to be done.”
So I told her all the implications I’d heard at the tea about a special relationship between me and Thurlow Jones, getting more and more agitated as I spoke.
She wasn’t particularly impressed, saying, “That don’t sound like much to me. You ought not let it bother you.”
“You don’t know the women in this town the way I do,” I said, frowning. “Although it was James who started the whole thing by telling about Sam’s being gone. And see, that just opened the door. Because it’s human nature to figure that if a husband is out of the picture, another man must be in it. But who would’ve ever believed that they’d put Thurlow Jones in a picture with me?”
“Well, look like to me you jus’ have to raise yo’self above it an’ make out like none of it have anything to do with you.”
“No, Lillian,” I said, laying my head on my arm as it rested on the table. “What I have to do is get Sam back home.”
I stayed that way for a minute or so, as a wave of despondency swept over m
e. Then something else swept over me and I raised my head to look at Lillian. “I just realized something, which I should’ve done a long time ago. I really don’t give a rip what they say about me. I am past caring if they think I’m involved with that lunatic Thurlow Jones or that I was financing Richard Stroud or that my hair’s a mess or my silver’s tarnished or I’m crazy for being Hazel Marie’s friend or I have too much money.” I sat up and straightened my shoulders. “I don’t care if they laugh at me for being a fool over that boy of Wesley Lloyd’s or for disapproving of women who wear dresses so short you can see Christmas. Lillian,” I went on, as my eyes filled as full as Emma Sue’s ever had, “all I care about is having Sam home again, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to convince him of that.”
“Now that’s the Miss Julia I know,” Lillian said with a nod of approval. “You got to put first things first an’ let the rest of it jus’ pass you on by.”
I stood up, feeling renewed and rejuvenated. A spate of talk by the uninformed, no matter how widespread, was not going to get me down. “I’m going to see Sam.”
“Good! That’s what you shoulda already done, but ’fore you go,” Lillian said, “I got to tell you they’s not a spot of tarnish on any silver in this house. It all polished within a inch of its life.”
Chapter 35
After assuring Lillian—several times—that I had meant no offense, that my reference to tarnished silver had been merely a figure of speech, an example of the less-than-monumental worries that often cluttered my mind.
My explanations didn’t do much to reassure her, because she went to the pantry and brought out a bottle of Wright’s silver polish. Setting it on the kitchen counter, she mumbled, “I look at it all again, soon’s I get time.”
Hurriedly putting on my coat before I lost heart, I said, “I wish you wouldn’t worry about it. Right now I wouldn’t care if every piece of it was black with tarnish. I’m going to see Sam and get this mess straightened out.” Just as I opened the door to leave, I turned back. “I just thought of something, Lillian. One thing that’ll surely bring Sam home is for Mr. Pickens to get back here.”
Lillian looked up from the sandwiches she was making for lunch. “That jus’ add to who all’s already here. How you figure Mr. Sam wanta be here with a house full?”
“No, I mean it’ll be Mr. Pickens who’ll want his family in their own house—Sam’s house. At least that’s the arrangement they’ve made, which means that Sam will have to vacate his house, and where else will he go except back here?”
Lillian screwed the lid back on the mayonnaise jar, saying nothing until she’d put the jar back in the refrigerator. Then she turned to me and said, “That mean Lloyd goin’ with ’em too, don’t it?”
Oh, Lord, a pain in my heart stopped me in my tracks and I put a hand on the door to steady myself. “I guess it does,” I managed to say. How had it come to this—that I’d have to lose one to regain the other?
Sitting in the car, shivering while it warmed up, I had to resolutely put out of my mind the thought of losing Lloyd. Oh, I knew I wouldn’t be losing him—he’d be only four blocks away, but I liked having him around, liked sharing a secret smile with him, liked watching him grow into the fine and decent young man I knew he would be.
But, I sighed, first things first, as Lillian had said, and the first thing was to put my marriage in order. And I was ready to do whatever it took to accomplish that. If it took groveling, then I’d grovel. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost my pride and the high horse I’d been riding on.
Then, as the heater began to put out a little warmth, I felt the onset of a better idea. If there was one thing Sam enjoyed, it was analyzing and solving a problem. He was good at it too. And didn’t I have a problem? I certainly did, and what better way to engage his interest than to ask his help in solving it.
That’s what I’d do. I’d lay everything on the table—no holding back on anything, even the fact that I’d invested with Richard Stroud, which he already knew anyway. I’d tell him about slipping out at night with Lillian and finding that knothole in the toolshed—figuring out what Richard had been doing would be a fine problem for Sam to solve. I certainly hadn’t been able to.
And if things went according to plan and Sam began to mellow, I might tell him about Ronnie’s night wandering and where he’d ended up. Sam would have a good laugh over that, although he might wonder how I could mix Ronnie up with him.
Yes, I thought to myself as I put the car in reverse and backed out of the drive, I wouldn’t hold back anything. I’d let him see that I was being open and honest, freely admitting any missteps I might’ve made, even when they reflected badly on me.
That was the way, perhaps the only way, to break through the wall between us. He wouldn’t be able to resist untangling a knotty problem, and while he was doing it, maybe he’d smile at me again. And maybe he’d reach for my hand, and maybe . . .
Oh, I could see it all: Sam and I would be a couple again, laughing and talking together, whispering in the night and being close to each other.
I stepped on the gas and headed for his house, my heart pounding with eagerness to get there. But, I cautioned myself, I couldn’t go in expecting great and wonderful things immediately. I’d have to approach him as someone in need, someone asking for his advice calmly and rationally because he was the best one to give it. I’d have to be a petitioner, like a client seeking an attorney’s help. Then, well, if in giving the help, his heart began to melt, then one thing could possibly lead to another.
As I pulled to the curb at Sam’s house, I was surprised to see James picking up fallen limbs and litter that the wind had strewn across the yard. He was wearing a heavy coat and an aviator cap with dangling earflaps against the cold. I was pleased to think Sam was giving him enough jobs to keep him busy and out of the grocery stores. But at the thought of the tales he’d spread around town, I could feel my mouth tighten. Taking a deep breath, though, I calmed myself down and focused on what I’d come for. James could be taken care of later.
“Hello, James,” I said as I stepped out of the car and approached him. “It’s a cold day to be out, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is,” he said, his eyes blinking furiously. “How you doin’, Miss Julia?”
“Why, I’m fine, and hope you are too.” I started to walk around him because he was standing in the middle of Sam’s walk. “I’ve come to see Sam. Is he busy?”
“Um, yes, ma’am. He, ah, he real busy. You might wanta come back a little later. That be better, Miss Julia.”
I stopped, realizing that James was blocking my way and still not moving aside. “Well, I certainly don’t want to interrupt his work, but I’ve come on a matter of some urgency. Unless,” I said, looking toward the house, “there’s some reason he’s unavailable.”
“That’s it,” James said, nodding as if he’d found the right answer. “Mr. Sam, he’s not ’vailable right this minute. He havin’ his lunch, an’ he havin’ a guest eat it with him.”
“Oh, I see,” I said, stepping back. “Well, he’s probably interviewing someone for his book or somebody wanting him to run for the town council. Or maybe from the church.”
“Yes, ma’am, uh-huh,” James said, bobbing his head in agreement. “That’s mos’ likely it. Yes’m, I’d say that’s what it is.”
“Then I’ll have to come back another time.” I turned to leave, deeply disappointed, but knowing that I needed to see Sam when he didn’t have a luncheon guest. I’d simply chosen an inopportune time.
Back in the car, I leaned forward to turn on the ignition, noticing as I did that James was still standing in the middle of the walk, watching me. He’d acted strangely from the moment I’d driven up, but I assumed it was because he knew he’d talked out of school and was worried about what I’d do. I smiled to myself: let him worry.
As my eyes swept the yard to see how well he’d cleaned it of debris, I caught sight of the back end of a car that was parked behind Sam
’s house, almost but not quite hidden.
Something dropped in the pit of my stomach, leaving a hollow and aching place. The breath caught in my throat when I recognized what I was seeing.
If that wasn’t a white Volvo between the house and the garage, I’d eat my hat.
I arrived home a changed and chastened woman, so undone by Helen Stroud’s being Sam’s luncheon guest that I wasn’t sure I’d ever draw a painless breath again.
Lillian looked up from the counter where she was working. “What he say?”
“Nothing,” I said, removing my coat as I walked through the room. “He was unavailable. I’m going upstairs for a while. I need to rest.”
“Well, you need to eat something first. Everybody else already had they lunch, so set on down an’ I fix you something.”
“It’s all right, Lillian. I had plenty at Mildred’s.” I pushed through the door into the dining room. “I think I may be coming down with something.”
She kept talking, but I kept walking through the dining room and the hall and up the stairs where I could close the bedroom door and let the blackness descend.
I thought of crawling into bed with the hope that sleep would stop the pain, but I didn’t make it that far. I collapsed in one of Hazel Marie’s pink velvet chairs by the window and thought I might never get up again. Helen! Helen, again.
Right after everything began to come out about Richard’s fraudulent investment schemes, Helen had leaned on Sam. How well I remembered seeing Sam’s car at her house—and right when I’d intended to visit and offer my support as a compassionate friend. Needless to say, I’d whizzed on by without stopping, even though I’d had one of Lillian’s pound cakes to give her. I’d been shaken to my core to learn that Sam had been the one—the only one—she’d turned to in her distress, and Sam himself had not been all that eager to share that information with me. She’d wanted legal advice, he finally said, and according to him, the little he could do for her hadn’t been worth mentioning to me.