Miss Julia Stands Her Ground

by Ann B. Ross

I almost smiled. What an easy way to be rid of him and call another pastor, who’d be more amenable to the way I thought a church should be run. But did I want to be an elder? Did I want to tangle with a group of men every month who didn’t want me in their midst? Did I want to be a spiritual leader of the church and have to watch every word out of my mouth and every step I took and be an exemplary model for every soul in the congregation? Not that all the current elders were, but that was their problem.

  Lord, I’d hardly given it a thought—too busy with more urgent matters close to home. But I couldn’t tell the pastor that my decision had not been uppermost in my mind, especially since it had been in his.

  I bit my lip, wondering what I should do.

  Pastor Ledbetter, picking up on my hesitancy, leaned closer. “I think we need to pray, or maybe you need a little more counseling?”

  “No,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him. “I’ve had my fill of both here lately. Pastor, it’s like this. I know it’ll upset the church, but I’ve decided that . . .”

  “Wait, Miss Julia, you can’t. You don’t know what this will mean. You can’t imagine how you will tear up the church. Do you want that on your conscience? I beg you, please don’t run, because I know you’ll win a seat on the session and it’ll mean the end of the peace I’ve worked so hard to maintain.”

  The man was sweating. As I watched him struggle to come to grips with what he assumed would be my decision, I almost felt sorry for him. He was convinced beyond any reasonable argument that my presence on the session would mean the end of our reformed, Biblically based congregation of faith. I didn’t know I had such power just by being a woman.

  “Put your mind at rest, Pastor,” I said, “because I do not choose to run. I don’t want to be on the session and have nothing but church wrangling on my mind for the next however many years.”

  He stared at me in wonder, then collapsed against the back of the sofa. A tiny smile hovered around his mouth, as he murmured, “Thank you.” He may not have been speaking to me.

  “But if you think,” I went on, “that this is going to keep the peace, you are wrong. A lot of people will be unhappy with me because they wanted me to run, and unhappy with you because they’ll think you talked me out of it. You’ve escaped having a woman on the session this year, but over half of the congregation will not be stopped. You might as well come to terms with it and prepare yourself for next year. No telling what I might do then.”

  He sprang from his seat, relief spread all over his face. “Tomorrow will take care of itself. Miss Julia, with the Lord’s help, you have made the right decision. Bless you, and may the Lord keep you and make his face to shine upon you.”

  “Amen,” I said, getting to my feet. “Now, Pastor, I hate to rush you, but I have matters of some urgency to take care of.” Then hearing a car turn into the driveway, I went on. “That’s probably Lillian and Little Lloyd now. I know Emma Sue has dinner waiting for you, so I won’t keep you.”

  Having gotten his way, he had no reason to linger. So he left with a smile on his face and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a song in his heart. He forgot his umbrella, but I doubt a raindrop touched him.

  I started toward the kitchen just as I heard a jumble of voices and laughter come through the backdoor. Out of the commotion, one unmistakable high-pitched little voice pierced the walls of the house, and I knew Lillian’s great-granddaughter, Latisha, was among us.

  Before I got in the kitchen good, Lillian began explaining. “I had to bring her, Miss Julia. That after-school place she go to closin’ early ’cause of the weather. But she gonna mind herself, ain’t you, Latisha?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am,” Latisha said, as sure of herself as she ever was. Her neatly braided hair bobbed up and down as she nodded her head. “I always do, even when I don’t ’spes’lly feel like it.”

  Lillian snorted as she began turning on overhead lights, hood lights, and undercounter lights. The dusk outside blackened the windows, but it was now bright and warm inside.

  I smiled at Latisha, noting again how tiny she was even with a heavy sweater and boots that looked a size too large for her. She was no bigger than a minute, but she could eat Sam under the table any day.

  “It’s good to see you again, Latisha,” I said. “What did you learn in school today?”

  “I got my numbers learned up to a hunderd and two,” she announced, “but I don’t never say ’em on weekends.”

  I could only smile at that, and turning to Little Lloyd, I asked, “And how was your day, honey?”

  “It was okay,” he said, then grinned at Latisha, who was hunched over, covering her mouth with her hand.

  Laughing behind it, she said, “She call you honey. You don’t look like no honey to me. You look like a big ole boy what need a snack. Like I do.”

  Lillian said, “Well, come on over here, an’ I give you some grapes.”

  “I don’t b’lieve I want no grapes,” Latisha said, swinging her little pink book bag back and forth. “I b’lieve I ruther have a b’loney sammich and a big ole glass of milk. With some cookies to go with it.”

  Little Lloyd laughed. “Latisha, you’ll ruin your supper. Come on, let’s have some grapes, and go upstairs. I’ll show you that video game I told you about.”

  “Well, okay. But I tell you right now, they ain’t nothin’ gonna ruin my supper.” She accepted a napkin filled with grapes from Lillian, turned it around in her hand, and eyed it suspiciously. Then, on the way to the back staircase with Little Lloyd, she turned to me. “Thank you, Miss Lady, for lettin’ me come play an’ eat at your house.” Then she cut her eyes at Lillian. “How’s that, Great-Granny? Is my manners gettin’ any better?”

  “Your manners are perfect, Latisha,” I said, forestalling comment by Lillian. “And we’re always happy to have you. Now, you two run on up and play, and Lloyd, don’t disturb your mother. She’s had a hard day and needs her rest. Run on, because Lillian and I have some things to talk about.”

  “Well, I can put off playin’ for a while,” Latisha said, “ ’cause I’d like to lissen in on what y’all talk about.”

  “Latisha!” Lillian said. “Get on up them stairs. Lloyd, honey, take her on up an’ keep her there till I get my cookin’ done.”

  Little Lloyd was so tickled by this time that it was all he could do to urge Latisha up the stairs. Her boots clomped on each step, as her voice reverberated down the stairs. “It’s black as pitch up here. I can’t see where I’m goin’.”

  “We’ll turn the lights on in my room,” Little Lloyd told her. “But we don’t want to wake up Mama, so be real quiet.”

  As their footsteps receded above us, Lillian looked at me. “What us got to talk about?” she asked, frowning, her hands propped on her hips. “ ’Sides Miss Hazel Marie an’ why she have a hard day, an’ where Mr. Sam and Mr. Pickens, an’ what that Brother Vern do when he here, an’ about two dozen other things that nobody tell me about?”

  “Oh, Lillian,” I said, leaning against a counter. “There’s something we have to do that is just beyond belief.”

  “Oh, my Lord, what you got to do now?”

  Taking a deep breath, I reached out to her. “Prepare yourself, Lillian, because it looks like we have to exhume Mr. Springer.”

  “Zoom him! What you mean?” Lillian’s eyes about popped out of her head.

  “No, I mean, . . . well, I mean we’re going to dig him up.”

  Her mouth fell open and a look of horror spread across her face. “No, you not. That’s not right, Miss Julia. Don’t be ’sturbin’ a man what been put in the ground. No tellin’ what you stir up, you go foolin’ with the dead.” Then, as she thought more about it, she frowned and asked, “What you gonna do with him when he dug up?”

  “We have to test his bones to prove that he’s Little Lloyd’s father.”

  “Who say he ain’t?”

  “Brother Vern, that’s who. And he’s found a man he thinks will swear that he’s the boy’s father. An
d you know what that would say about Hazel Marie.”

  “What it say?”

  “Think about it, Lillian. It would tear us all up if Little Lloyd’s not who she says he is. So we have to prove he is. And the only way to do that is to compare whatever the child’s made up of with whatever Mr. Springer’s made up of, and to do that we have to get him out of the ground and test him. But don’t say a word to Little Lloyd. He doesn’t know anything about this.”

  “Well, I don’t neither, but look like you come up with something better’n a dead man what oughtta be left molderin’ in his grave, like he ’spose to be.”

  “I wish we could. Lillian, I tell you, I’ve beaten myself over the head a dozen times because I threw away everything the man owned. If only I’d kept some things—things he personally handled—we could’ve used them instead of having to take this drastic step.”

  She studied on this for a while, a concentrated look on her face. “You mean, Mr. Springer could of rubbed hisself off on his b’longin’s, an’ if he did, you wouldn’t have to go robbin’ his grave?”

  “That’s what they tell me. Well, not on just anything, but he could be lingering on some things.” Which was why I hadn’t wanted to keep his belongings in the first place, although at the time I hadn’t known quite how scientific I was being.

  Lillian cocked her head to one side, her eyes moving slowly back and forth, a look of concentration on her face. I could tell she was in awe of the extraordinary measures I was willing to take in order to preserve our family. Makeshift though it was.

  “Well, Lord he’p us,” she mumbled. “I never heard the like.”

  Chapter 45

  After calling Mr. Pickens on his cell phone and learning that he and Sam were drinking coffee at McDonald’s, I expressed my displeasure in no uncertain terms.

  “Lillian, I declare,” I said, hanging up the phone. “Here I thought they were out searching for Hazel Marie and Brother Vern, and they’ve been sitting around wondering what to do next. Well,” I went on with a shrug, “at least they found each other, which I guess is something to celebrate.”

  “Talkin’ ’bout celebratin’,” Lillian said, her back to me as she worked at the sink. “It comin’ up Christmas pretty soon, an’ you oughta be puttin’ yo’ mind to it. Y’all be eatin’ all day long what with folks droppin’ in an’ all, an’ I need to know what you want me to fix.”

  “I can’t think about a menu now. Not with this heavy burden hanging over me. Lillian,” I said, collapsing in a chair and leaning my head on my hand, “I feel as if I’m between a rock and a hard place. We could leave Mr. Springer in peace, accept Hazel Marie’s word for it, and hope Brother Vern can’t get his hands on Little Lloyd’s assets. Or we can create a public spectacle by digging up Mr. Springer—because even if it’s done in the dead of night, people will find out about it. But that way there’ll be no doubt, no doubt at all. So my quandary is, is exhuming Mr. Springer worth it to have complete peace of mind?”

  She didn’t answer, which was all right because I was mostly talking to myself, anyway. Instead, she turned off the water in the sink and began to dry her hands with a dish towel.

  “When Mr. Sam an’ Mr. Pickens get back here?” she asked.

  “Any time now. They were going to stop by the sheriff’s office first and tell them that the lost have been found, then come on home. And when they get here,” I said with determined resolve, “I’m going to tell Sam to get that disinterment order, because I have made up my mind. There is no need for us to have to live with a cloud over our heads. We’re going to settle this once and for all, even though I’ll have to explain to everybody my renewed interest in Wesley Lloyd Springer.” I looked up as Lillian started to walk out of the room. “Where’re you going?”

  “I got to get something.”

  And out she went, leaving me somewhat taken aback at her lack of interest in my worries. I heard the run-down backs of her shoes flapping on her feet as she walked through the dining room and down the back hall.

  In a few minutes she was back, holding a shoe box carefully in both hands. “Miss Julia,” she said, her face creased with concern, “I know you tole me to th’ow ever’thing what Mr. Springer own in the trash, or give ’em away, or do what I want with ’em, but I didn’t, an’ I know you might get mad at me, but I save some things for that little boy, ’cause I don’t think it right he don’t have something from his daddy.”

  My eyes got big, and my heart leapt in my chest. “You saved something? Oh, Lillian, I can’t believe it.”

  “Yessum, I know. I ain’t never do what you tell me not to do ’fore this, but maybe it he’p you outta the hard place you in now. Seein’ how you say you wish you didn’t th’ow it all out.”

  “Oh, my Lord,” I cried, wanting to fling myself on her and hug her to death. “Lillian, you are the most wonderful person in the world. Bless your heart, and God love you. What’s in the box?”

  “Jes’ some things what ought to go to Little Lloyd, even if you don’t want ’em to.”

  She put the box on the table, and it was all I could do not to snatch the lid off. “I don’t care about that anymore. He can have anything he wants. Where’ve you kept it all this time?”

  “Round an’ about. I move it when anybody look like they gonna start plunderin’. It been way up on the top shelf of the linen closet goin’ on three years now, back of the Windex an’ the Johnson wax. I know you never get in that, so it been settin’ there with nobody botherin’ it.”

  I let that slide, too intent on the contents of the box to remind her that I did so do some occasional cleaning. “Let’s see what’s in it.”

  I took the lid off and saw several small jewelry boxes and tissue-covered odds and ends inside. Lifting out a box and opening it, I couldn’t help showing my disappointment. “His gold and onyx cuff links. They won’t work, Lillian.”

  Opening another box, I came across a gold tiepin that I recalled had been given to Wesley Lloyd by the bank employees one year for Christmas. He’d never worn it. Then there was a box filled with ten-, twenty-, and thirty-year pins for faithful Sunday school attendance. I stirred the contents and saw his gold college ring with a garnet stone, which he rarely wore, and the plain gold wedding band, which he might as well have never worn. I snapped the box closed and discarded it. Unwrapping a tissue-wrapped oddment, I saw three handkerchiefs, all nicely ironed and folded.

  “Why did you save these?” I asked. “You can purchase handkerchiefs anywhere.”

  “They got his ’nitials on ’em, an’ they same as Little Lloyd’s, so I save ’em.”

  “Huh,” I said, ready to sling them aside. Then I stopped. “Lillian, this could be the very thing. Sam said the laboratory could use any kind of bodily fluids. If Wesley Lloyd blew his nose, which he did a dozen times a day, and used these, why, they could be the answer to our prayers.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said, frowning. “He have to blow real hard, ’cause I soak ’em in Clorox ’fore I put ’em up.”

  “Oh,” I said, discouraged again. “Well, who knows what modern science can do. What else is in here?” I opened a black, hard-shell case, giving her a sharp look at the same time. “Why in the world would you save his reading glasses?”

  “They got gol’ rims,” she said. “An’ I save ever’thing got gol’ on ’em.”

  “They Lord,” I murmured, putting aside the glasses. “But it was thoughtful of you, and I’m sure Little Lloyd will be glad to have them. But, Lillian, I’m not sure any of this will work for testing purposes.”

  “I put Mr. Springer’s Bible in here, too,” she said, lifting out a small, leatherbound King James version with onion-skin pages. “He carry it to church a lot, so maybe it pick up something offa him.”

  “Not unless he sneezed on it. Or maybe he licked a finger when he turned a page, except that’d probably be too old and dried out by now. But we’ll show everything to Binkie. She’ll know what’s testable and what’s not.” I
wadded up tissue paper that had been stuck in the corners of the box. “Is there anything more?”

  “This the last one,” she said, handing me up a square leather box.

  I opened it and saw Wesley Lloyd’s gold pocket watch and chain that had come down from his daddy, and his granddaddy too, for all I knew. He’d worn it every day of his life, the gold chain strung across his vest for everybody to see. It was so much a part of the man’s attire that the funeral director had urged me to allow it to be displayed on Wesley Lloyd’s chest during the viewing. The watch and chain had been given back to me when the casket was closed, since Wesley Lloyd had no longer had any use for them.

  I smoothed my fingers over the ornate engraving on the back of the watch, recalling how Wesley Lloyd had taken such inordinate pride in removing it from his vest pocket. He would pull it out with a dramatic flourish, as he consulted the time, the fob attachment dangling from the chain.

  “Well, Lillian,” I said, handing the timepiece to her and sinking morosely into a chair. “It was a good thought, but there’s not a thing here that’ll do us any good. It’s all come down to having to dig him up, and I’m just sick about it.”

  Lillian carefully placed the watch back into its box and smoothed out the chain alongside it. “You mad at me for savin’ Mr. Springer’s gol’ pieces?”

  “Goodness, no. I couldn’t be mad at you if I tried. No, Little Lloyd’ll be happy. . . . Lillian!” I sprang from my chair and snatched the box from her. “I just thought of something!” Fumbling with the catch on the box, I said, “I can’t get this thing open, and there might be . . . Oh, I hope. Look!”

  I pulled out the watch and held it up by the chain, peering at it as it twirled and sparkled in the overhead light. Then grabbing the fob, or charm, or whatever it was that was attached by a tiny gold link to the chain, I said, “Look here, Lillian! You know what this is?”

  Lillian shook her head. “No’m. Look like a gol’ tooth to me.”

  “It is! It’s a tooth that he had dipped in gold.” I held it up in my fingers, both repulsed and delighted by the find. “Have you ever heard of such a thing? So vain, carrying around a gold-plated wisdom tooth strung across his midsection on a watch chain! The man put an immoderate value on anything pertaining to himself.” Except his wife, I could’ve added, but didn’t. “Lillian, I know they can test teeth for DNA, Mr. Pickens said so. And that means we may just be in business.” Relief spread throughout my system until I thought on it a little more. “But I’ll tell you one thing, if the gold plate he put on this tooth has ruined it, I’m going to be vengeful enough to dance on his grave. Right before they prize him out of it.”