Blessings of Mossy Creek

by Debra Dixon

  I helped him through the door. He thanked me, then froze with his eyes on Amelia. A wistful smile tugged at his craggy skin. “Your wife reminds me of my Janey about fifty years ago.”

  I gazed at the target of his admiration. “She’s so beautiful, inside and out. I still can’t believe she married me.”

  With a dreamy expression, he seemed a million miles away. Or maybe just fifty years away. “Every living thing becomes beautiful when it’s loved. Janey always said that.”

  “Yes. I’m sure she was right.” Amelia laughed at something Eustene said. “I do know that my wife is loved.”

  Foxer put his hand on my arm. “I’m glad. She’s a brave soul. If she can survive this roomful of biddies, she’ll do okay in Mossy Creek.”

  * * * *

  Eventually, the house was as packed as a church on Easter Sunday. It seemed everyone decided to show up during the first hour — the mayor and police chief included. Having insisted on using her grandmother’s cut glass punch bowl set instead of paper or plastic, Amelia had already had to run to the kitchen to wash a load of punch cups.

  When I caught up with her in the kitchen, she was beaming, rosy-cheeked from the heat of the oven — the only warm place in the house. “Oh, Mark, it’s going so well.”

  “The food looks fantastic, honey. Everyone’s having a good time.”

  “You-know-who hasn’t made a peep,” she whispered.

  “Did you ask if she’s been doing a lot of Bible reading lately?”

  She laughed. “Stop. You won’t believe it. She even grudgingly complimented me on the artwork I hung yesterday. And the Adele brigade seem pleased.”

  Her face glowed with pride. She hadn’t seemed so happy since we moved. “It’s all your doing,” I said. “You’re a success.”

  “Thank you.” With a quick peck on my cheek, she was off to refill the punch bowl.

  The living room was freezing. Guests were shivering and rubbing heir hands. I headed to the hallway to turn up the heat.

  And there stood Mal Purla Rhett, Superintendent of the Thermostat, staring at the darn thing. As she started to jot something on the screen of her Palm Pilot, I reached past her and turned the lever up to seventy-five degrees just to aggravate her. Then I said, “We can talk right here, or we can go out back where we won’t make a scene.”

  She huffed. “Why would our talking make a scene?” But her face was flushed, and her eyes darted around as guilt washed over her features. Everything about her demeanor shouted caught in the act.

  “Last chance to go out to the back porch where you won’t be publicly embarrassed.”

  She stuffed the electronic notepad into her alligator purse, then viciously snapped it closed. “I was just making a note of the brand name on the furnace.”

  “I’ll be happy to jot down all the information for you.”

  “No, thank you. I got everything I need.”

  “And why would you need that information?”

  As if she’d just chomped down on a lemon, her lips formed a sour little sun. “It’s for some research I’m doing.”

  “Would that research have anything to do with my electric bill?”

  “Why, uh, well . . . yes, it would.” She ratcheted her chin up a notch. “I called the EMC and found out that if you keep your thermostat set at sixty degrees through the fall months, then the monthly bills shouldn’t be more than —”

  “You what?” I roared.

  I admit my voice tends to carry, even when I’m not in the pulpit. When everyone nearby turned toward us, I hesitated. But it was time for the showdown. No waiting until the finance committee meeting.

  Mal’s forehead glistened with a sheen of perspiration. She clutched her alligator purse tighter and said, “I’m only doing research. I was afraid something was wrong with your thermostat.”

  “I assure you that nothing is wrong with it other than the fact that you don’t like where we’re setting it.”

  “You don’t need to get so upset about it. It’s part of my job.”

  “Monitoring our bills is not part of your job.”

  “I’m the church treasurer.”

  “Yes, you are. And you’re supposed to monitor the church’s bills, which you do well. But you’re not my keeper. And I won’t have you upsetting my wife by spreading nasty comments about how we spend our own money.”

  With her face gleaming like a waxed and buffed red apple, she sputtered, “I did no such thing.”

  “Then why did you call former Pastor Hickman to see how he kept his thermostat set?”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. She sputtered. I charged ahead. “I want you to know that at the next finance committee meeting I’m asking them to turn the bill-paying over to Amelia and me. It’s our business what we spend on utilities. And I insist that you apologize for embarrassing my wife.”

  For the first time, I noticed the silence around us, not to mention the crowd of gawkers. Adele Clearwater had her head craned like a small, hyper-alert hen. Amos Royden chewed a smile on his lower lip but stood posed as if ready to intervene in an assault. I could see the headlines now: Pastor Arrested for Terrorizing Church Treasurer over Thermostat.

  I sighed. “Look, everyone. I’m sorry about airing my dirty laundry here at the party.”

  “That’s okay, Pastor,” Foxer Atlas said. “It’s nice when a man’ll stand up for his wife.” Then he glared at Mal. “Girl, you should be ashamed of yourself, terrorizing the pastor’s wife.”

  “I’m merely doing my job.” With a loud huff — huffing must be a regular part of her vocabulary — Mal pushed her way through the crowd, chin held high, and marched right out the front door.

  Someone started clapping. I looked around until I found the source. A sweet-faced young woman, Geena Quill, who’d been done out the decorating award by Swee Purla, grinned. “Ms. Rhett is a lot like her sister. She needs to be put in her place. Thanks from one of the Purla victims.”

  The mayor walked up to me. Her expression was neutral, her voice, formal. But her green eyes twinkled. “I’m glad you have God on your side. You’ve just dissed a Purla sister. In public. You’re going to need all the help you can get.” She smiled. “I’ll attend the finance committee meeting. Even though I’m a Baptist, I have some clout. You’ll be fine.”

  Conversations resumed; guests mingled back to the family room and kitchen. A sense of relief, and even pride, stole its way through me, easing the constant pain in my gut. Only one person to locate now. Now that I had defended her, maybe I would see The Look on her face once again.

  I searched until I found her leaning over dirty punch cups in the sink, scrubbing at a smudge of lipstick on one.

  “Honey?”

  Her hair hung down over her face. “I can’t believe you just did that,” she whispered, then her shoulders began to shake.

  My heart crashed to my feet. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I know this party means a lot to you. But everything will be okay now. She’ll leave us alone. And she still owes you that apology.”

  I pushed her hair behind her ear and discovered her laughing. “I thought you were crying, you rascal.”

  “I’m still mortified.”

  “Look at the bright side. You don’t have to worry about making a scene at the finance committee meeting. I’ve already done it.” Once she made eye contact, I winked at her.

  After setting the freshly-scrubbed punch cup back into the soapy water, she turned to face me and stifled a laugh as she glanced around the room. “I think you took care of making a scene quite well. Thank you for taking up for me. You’re my hero.”

  My puffed up ego carried me through the rest of the afternoon.

  * * * *

  All in all, we had about 150 people drop in for the open house. And all 150 talked about The Incident to every person who came by too late to witness it personally. The story was passed along like that old game called Telephone Line. By the time the last guests left, I heard Buck Looney tell Hank Blackshear
that I had yanked the thermostat off the wall and stuffed it in Mal Rhett’s alligator pocketbook. I hoped that version would stop circulating when visitors noticed the thermostat still hung intact in the hallway.

  As Amelia headed to bed that night, she picked up her worn leather Bible. I found her on the bed sitting in her nightshirt, face scrubbed clean of makeup, hair pulled back in a headband, with the open Bible on her lap.

  I could see the yellow highlighted sections.

  “What are you studying, Amelia?”

  “Matthew.”

  And I knew exactly which verses.

  “Therefore I tell you . . .” she began to read. “. . . do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing . . .”

  I’d embarrassed her in front of a house full of people. In front of leading members of our congregation. Even though they seemed to find it amusing — and even admirable — I hadn’t exactly demonstrated my qualifications to be a spiritual leader.

  I sat down beside her on the bed. “I’m sorry. I know you’re worried about me losing my job. About us getting by. But they can’t up and fire me. At worst, they can ask that I be moved somewhere else. And if that happens, then so be it. I just don’t want you feeling bad about the life we have.”

  She reached for me and started to speak.

  “Wait,” I said. “I want to say what’s been on my mind since we moved.” I ran my finger over the tissue-thin pages of the chapter in Matthew. “I know you’re disappointed in me. You had no idea, when you fell in love, that I’d earn so little money. Believe me when I say I never imagined how little I would earn, either. But I’d hoped I could make it up to you in other ways. I had hoped —” My throat stopped working. A big lump of pride clamped it closed.

  “Oh, Mark —”

  “I had hoped that our love would be enough. That I would be enough.” My eyes stung, and I had to blink. As she set the Bible aside and climbed into my lap, I said, “I borrowed your Bible and found these verses you’ve highlighted. About not worrying. About trusting God for all that you need. I guess you needed to reassure yourself because I —”

  She put her fingertips over my mouth. “That verse was for you. You worry all the time. I was claiming it while I prayed for you.”

  Love poured out of the look she gave me. The Look. I basked in it, yet couldn’t grasp it. How had we gone from my apologizing about failing her to her praying for me not to worry about failing her? “You know, sometimes you just leave me standing in the dust behind you,” I said. “Tell me what’s inside you. Make me understand why you sob in the shower. Why you cry in bed at night.”

  “You heard?”

  “I know you need more.”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t need anything but you. You’re the one who’s needed more.”

  “I’m still here in the dust.”

  She smiled and put her hand on my chest, right over my heart. “I wanted you from the moment I first heard your laugh. It didn’t matter what your dad did for a living. It didn’t matter what you were going to do for a living. I wanted a man with the kind of joy in life that you had. I wanted a man who was firm in his convictions, a good man.”

  “Have I changed? Is that why you’re not happy?”

  “You don’t trust God to take care of us anymore. You’re trying to do it yourself.”

  I let that sink in for a minute. Could she be right? “I thought you wanted more . . . things. A better car. Clothes that don’t come from Wal-Mart.”

  “The only reason I cry is because I want you back. The old you.” She clasped her hands in front of her and looked down, nervous. “And I want us to start our family.”

  “But we don’t have enough saved to —”

  “Stop right there. Think about how God has provided for us before. How paychecks seemed to stretch and stretch until we couldn’t figure out how it happened, but we somehow made it through until the next one.”

  “But a baby?”

  “A big, loud, loving family is what I want more than anything. With you as the dad.”

  She really wanted to have a baby with me. Something that would tie us together forever. “There’d be no backing out once we have a baby.”

  “Is that what you’re afraid of? That I’ll leave you?”

  “You could do a lot better.”

  “You know, a kind older man told me something tonight at the party,” she said as she placed her soft palms on my cheeks. “‘Every living thing becomes beautiful when it’s loved.’ And you’re about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  The Look. She was giving me The Look. And it didn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

  As she kissed me, the knot in my gut finally let go for good.The furnace kicked on. It was a fine, cozy autumn night.

  A perfect night for starting that family.

  Blessings.

  The Mossy Creek Gazette

  215 Main Street • Mossy Creek, Georgia

  From the Desk of Katie Bell, Business Manager

  Lady Victoria Salter Stanhope

  The Cliffs, Seaward Road

  St. Ives, Cornwall TR37PJ

  United Kingdom

  Dear Vick:

  These are the only two interviews I did that made me cry. Imagine. A tough, professionally quaint award winner like me. Crying and smiling at the same time. Don’t tell the newspaper awards committee. I’m not just quaint. I’m sentimental, too.

  Katie

  Chapter 12

  In Mossy Creek, men learn pretty quick that there are two ways to argue with a woman, and neither one works.

  House of Straw

  Chapter 12

  When Isaac walked into the kitchen for breakfast, it was like seeing a stranger walk into the room and click a lock behind him. Nothing seemed quite real between us anymore.

  He sat down at the table, but instead of eating, he picked up the Mossy Creek Gazette. Day was barely breaking on our farm just outside town, in the Lookover community. The only sounds were a bird singing, coffee trickling as I filled Isaac’s cup, and his newspaper rattling. Like a shield, he kept his paper in front of him and felt for his cup. I said nothing. Neither did Isaac. Mostly, it had been that way for a couple of months now.

  Enough, I thought, as I set the coffeepot back on the stove. We’re in this situation together. “Would you put that paper down a minute?”

  He didn’t answer or move.

  “Look at me.”

  Not looking up, he pushed his plate away and his chair back.

  About to explode, I banged on a pot.

  He put the paper down, an irritated look on his face.

  I jabbed a finger at him. “Cut me out if you want, but I took you for better or worse, and I’m not leaving.”

  “Nancy, I’ve fought and I’ve lost. This farm is gone. I know it. You know it.”

  “You had nothing to do with the weather over the summer or the price of corn,” I countered. He had no comment this time. “I have a stake in this place too, you know . . . and in our marriage and any children we might have.”

  Isaac glared. His face was set, his mouth clamped, and his eyes fixed. Looking at him, I shriveled a little. “There won’t be any children . . . at least not here.”

  Though they shouldn’t have, his words came as a shock. I crossed my arms and faced him. “Are you saying that if there were, you wouldn’t want them?”

  “Stop putting words in my mouth. I said, there won’t be any.” He glanced at the broom straw I kept in a crockery jug in the corner. “Like a house of straw, our life has fallen down around us.”

  I couldn’t give up. “What about the pumpkin crop? Won’t that tide us over?”

  “It will be too late.”

  “Other farmers around here lost their crops over the summer, and they didn’t give up.” Trembling, I went around the table to comfort him. When he lifted up his eyes, the pain o
f failure flickered there.

  He put up his hands. “Nancy, talk is useless. Hugging is useless. Even if we do make a crop, it’ll come in too late.”

  “Isaac, don’t give up. Not yet.”

  He rubbed his hands over his face as if he were hearing the same song, second verse.

  “Your family made it through wars and hard times and didn’t resort to moonshine like some of the neighbors. We’ll make it.”

  “Don’t spout your positive thinking at me. Lot of good that does.” He reached for a piece of toast. “Isn’t that right, Nancy?” His brow lifted, waiting. I hungered to put my arms around him, to give him comfort, but I knew it was useless. He’d push me away again. With that piece of toast in hand, he hurried out. The door slammed behind him.

  I watched as he walked past the kitchen window on the way to the barn. Then I turned away. If I’d let him handle his pain in his own way, he wouldn’t be working all morning doing heavy farm work with no breakfast.

  His words about not wanting children rang in my ears. Sighing, feeling useless and forgotten, like someone unwanted, I swallowed hard and tried to stop the tears that ran down my throat and seeped from my eyes. He didn’t mean it. He loved me, but he felt he’d failed me as well as family who’d gone before us. We’d made it through other hard times. There had to be a way now. Puzzled as to how to end this stalemate, I sipped my coffee.

  Still flushed with maudlin thoughts, I stared at that sink and cabinet stacked with dirty dishes and thought of the laundry room piled with dirty clothes. I used to keep a spotless house until our finances went downhill and I’d started sewing to help pay the bills.

  The old farmhouse had a long hall. Isaac had put a wall and a door in the hall, leading to a backroom where my big, commercial sewing machine and worktables shared space with bolts of fine fabric. I made good part-time money sewing custom drapes and bedspreads for Swee Purla’s interior design business down in Bigelow. Just not good enough.

  Weary from finishing a king-sized duvet cover late the night before, I blinked my tired eyes and looked over the list of what was yet to do. If I worked hard, I could finish the duvet’s matching pillow shams and bedskirt today. Isaac hardly seemed to notice anymore what I did or where I was anyway, as long as he had a meal on time. I set to work. The time flew by. I stopped in late morning to make Isaac a thermos of hot tea.