The Church Ladies

by Lisa Samson

  “What happened?” My hands, filling with heat as they gripped the receiver, began to shake.

  “A hazing accident. It’s all I was told.”

  “Is she there?”

  “They’ve left already.”

  “I’ll go, too. If you hear from her, tell her I’ll be there as quickly as possible.”

  I hung up the phone and opened the suitcase, my heart beating wildly, my face flushing as I sought release. It didn’t matter what I took to wear, I guessed, throwing in only some underpants, a bra, and a pair of jeans. Did this even require a suitcase? We were just going up to make arrangements to bring the body home.

  The body? Oh, God. The body. Not the body. Josh. Just Josh. The horrible fact dropped from my head to my heart. My stomach heaved, and my eyes finally overflowed as I shook from each joint.

  Pelting sobs erupted, saline tears squeezed upon my hands as I ground my palms into my eyes and knelt down beside the suitcase.

  Oh, Josh!

  “Poppy!” Duncan ran into the room. He pushed the suitcase aside. “What’s going on? It was just a little fight, sweetie. I didn’t mean anything by what I said.”

  I couldn’t look at him. Somehow I managed to grunt, “Josh is dead.”

  “What?”

  I couldn’t say anything else. The phone rang again. Duncan caught it, and a conversation ensued for the next few minutes. “I’ll tell her. Yes, I’ll tell her that, too. And, Gary, I’m so sorry. We’ll be waiting at the house when you get there.”

  He hung up the phone softly.

  “Did Gary tell you what happened?”

  He moved the suitcase to the floor, sat down next to me, and put his arms around me. “Yeah. Apparently Josh climbed up the tower on Television Hill. He slipped.”

  I wailed.

  Duncan wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “They think he was dead well before he hit the ground.”

  “What was he doing up there?”

  “Maybe a fraternity thing. Several of the guys watched it happen. But there wasn’t anything they could do.”

  “Was he drunk?”

  “Nobody knows yet. The autopsy is this morning. Gary wants us to be at his house tomorrow morning when they come back. He also asked if you and I could begin to arrange the funeral.”

  “So they don’t want me to come up then?”

  He shook his head. “Poor Josh.”

  “Yeah.” I got up and found a Kleenex. I should be doing something. “Should we tell Robbie now or in the morning?”

  “I’ll tell him now. He’d be upset if we waited.” He swallowed his emotions, I could tell, by the way his nostrils flared and he squeezed his eyes closed for two brief seconds. And I let Duncan take over wondering how my friend was dealing with this right now. Trying to picture her there in the car or at the airport or wherever. I didn’t even know how they were getting up to Baltimore. She was crying now, though. I knew that. Chrissy never had been the type to force down emotions.

  Chris doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t, Lord.

  And Gary. My cousin. His only son gone in an instant. One minute they’d been sleeping, the next their son had died. No transition. No “You’d better get to the hospital quick.”

  After unpacking the hastily thrown together suitcase, I sat on the edge of the bed and wept some more, then felt the sudden emptiness that a death brings. No more picnics or fun times with Josh. No vacations at the beach. No more watching him and his dad throw the lacrosse ball around and hearing Chris shout, “Hey, you guys!” when the ball knocked over the pitcher of red-dyed Kool-Aid she inevitably brought along.

  I’ve always thought of a death as a sudden dent in the universe, a concave emptiness in the atmosphere you couldn’t see, but you knew was there. I think it takes the world a little while to fill in the dent, to smooth out the giant wrinkle one human life, when snuffed out, leaves. And for some, it takes longer than others.

  With hands still shaky and eyes still blurred, I made another pot of coffee and sat at the kitchen table. Robbie didn’t come down, but I heard his restless pacing, and I heard stifled wails. I tried to pray as I sat there, but just then I realized that sometimes it’s okay to just lean on the everlasting arms, that at times like these God comes to you and not the other way around.

  The sun began to rise several hours later, and I watched as Duncan prayed on his knees in his office, elbows bent and digging into the padding of his desk chair. He tugged at my heart then, so skinny and pale, bright pink patches of grief on the cheek facing me.

  “How’s Robbie?”

  He just shook his head. “I don’t know. I stayed up there. But then he asked if he could be by himself a while. I think I’ll have a cup of coffee if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll make another pot.”

  “Okay, I’ll just be a little longer.”

  And he placed his face back into his palms.

  Duncan had taken over, thank God, and I meant that more literally than ever before, a new appreciation for my spouse settling my nerves.

  The IGA would open in a few hours, and I’d pick up the ingredients for a chicken divan casserole. Nothing spicy would do for a grieving family; something creamy and bland was the proper accompaniment to grief. According to The Proper Christian Ladies’ Handbook, chapter 11, “Sorrow,” anything else seems disrespectful. And to some extent, I must agree.

  Ten

  You been so busy taking care of that family that someone’s got to take care of yours.” Mildred LaRue began pulling Gladware containers out of a grocery bag. “I’m on my way out to a gig for the weekend, but this should see you all through supper-wise until I’m back.”

  “You don’t have to feed us, Miss Mildred.” I took a sip of my coffee. “There’s plenty of casseroles left over from the Knight’s house.”

  “Well, that’s a big church. And he is the pastor. That best friend of yours say anything yet?”

  “Not really.” I shook my head and examined the cheerful walls of my kitchen. They mocked me now, and I thought maybe an antique white might give everyone a fresh start. The funeral took place a week ago; all family members on both sides had come and had already returned to Maryland. Due to the autopsy, Josh had been dead over a week by the time we laid him in the modern cemetery out near the mall. As promised, we met Chris and Gary when they came back from Baltimore, but Chris just said, “I’m sorry, Poppy,” and ran to the basement of her house—to Josh’s room. Gary just cried and cried.

  When a strong man weeps, it is a terrifying thing to behold.

  Mildred placed the last tub of food in the freezer. “Shame she’s cut herself off from the people who love her. Can’t blame her, though. I’ve been praying.”

  “Thanks, Miss Mildred.”

  “Well, these knees aren’t what they used to be, but they work well enough. Herman’s waiting outside in the Impala.”

  “Atlantic City this weekend you said?”

  “Uh-huh. Some little dive somewheres. But I’m hoping people from Caesar’s come on in. Maybe they’ll like what they see.”

  I stood up and put my arms around Miss Mildred’s long neck. “Maybe?”

  Mildred held me close. “Yeah, well, you take care of yourself this weekend, baby. And eat up that good food. I even made chicken-fried steak for you. Those other casseroles will sit fine in the freezer.”

  Mildred’s soft kiss on my cheek felt like lotion on December hands. I waved my friend away from the front porch. The crocuses had just started to bloom. Purple crocuses. Guess spring decided on an early arrival this year.

  I poured another cup of coffee, walked down to the dock and sat in the hard breeze, trying my best to believe Paul actually penned Romans 8:28 for situations like this: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Josh knew better than I did about that now. Josh sat with the heavenly host while his mother sat in his old bedroom bearing a weight of a grief I couldn’t begi
n to imagine.

  Duncan’s face wore a wearier expression than usual as he let the screen door bang behind him. As he set his briefcase and a small white bag on the butcher block, I noted that the gray in his hair had thickened even since Christmas.

  “You’ve got to stop sitting at that table, Popp. You haven’t schooled Angus for almost three weeks.”

  “I know. It’s just so hard. If Chris would talk to me, maybe I could do something. But I just feel paralyzed by the fact that she’s over there in that little house all by herself. And poor Gary. It’s not like he doesn’t have his own grief to deal with.”

  “Yeah. But at least he’s talking.”

  “To you.”

  “Yeah. I’m worried about Chris, though.”

  “Is she eating?” I asked.

  “Not much.”

  “I should take her a latte from Java Jane’s. She’ll drink those.”

  “Maybe that would be a good idea.”

  I glanced at the clock. Six-thirty. The girls at Java Jane’s had already closed up for the night and were probably busy leading cool, funkily dressed lives. Dinner party with friends, perhaps, each bringing an odd ingredient like jicama or ugly fruit. Or perhaps right now they sat in an old theater in Richmond listening to Nanci Griffith strum her guitar with the Blue Moon Orchestra. What had once seemed so free and fun three weeks ago had turned to Ecclesiastes in a matter of seconds.

  “What are you doing home so early?” I asked, careful to intone my voice so he knew it made me glad.

  He picked up the bag. “I’m tired of casseroles. I got a pound of crabmeat from Barnacle Bill’s.” Charlie Dickens lets Duncan have anything for half price—one of the kudos of having church members who owned businesses like Barnacle Bill’s.

  “You want me to make you some crab cakes?”

  “No. I’ll do it. Why don’t you go out to your studio this evening?”

  “I don’t feel like painting.”

  “That’s why you need to go. Go on, Popp. Even if you don’t paint, at least get out of the kitchen.”

  I looked down at the cold coffee in my mug. “I guess a change of scenery wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I’ll bring your dinner out to you.”

  But I didn’t paint anything. Not even a sky. Just sat some more and listened to the transistor radio I’d duct taped to my easel years before. I never could get into the preachers or the roundtable discussions with the token woman on board. Chris loves those shows. I desperately want to.

  However, just then the Christian station played a soft, panpipe arrangement of one of the old tunes I recognized from the hymnbooks of my childhood. I’d rather have Jesus than anything.

  I stared at the bland block of paper before me and could think of nothing that would improve the rough white expanse. And after eating my crab cake and complimenting Duncan on his cooking, which has always been good, I stood under the shower, washed my hair with ivory soap because I hadn’t been to the store since I’d run out of shampoo, then went to find Angus.

  He and Robbie were laid back on Robbie’s bed up in the attic. Both boys jumped with surprise and sat up straight. Robbie set the book aside they’d been reading. Some science fiction book that they both knew would give Angus bad dreams.

  “Tomorrow things will be different, okay?”

  Angus nodded. “Can I sleep with Robbie again tonight?”

  Robbie put his arm around his little brother’s neck. “Fine with me, Mom.”

  “All right.”

  I turned to go and made it to the door. I looked back at my sons. “Robbie, you’ll say prayers with him?”

  “Sure.”

  I set my alarm for five-thirty. I’d start my walks again tomorrow, too. Stop by Java Jane’s and make that two. And maybe Chris would open up and talk, or maybe she’d just drink her latte in silence. That would be okay, too.

  But the next morning I hit the snooze twice and finally turned off the alarm altogether.

  Miss Poole inched toward me on feet that overlapped the tops of her pumps in fluid pillows of flesh. Potstickers in shoes. I have to admit the woman has style. She doesn’t sway beneath hats with jiggling floral appendages or squeeze herself into QE2 suits in shades of aqua or robin’s egg blue. She doesn’t hang pocketbooks from the crook of her arm or clip sparkly beaded earrings from 1964 to her soft lobes. This woman inched toward me with a diamond dragonfly clip in her smooth silver pageboy, a fringed black shawl draped over a severe black pencil dress, and a little Bohemian, beaded, drawstring bag looped around her fragile wrist. Only her shoes gave her away. Boots, of course, would have completed the outfit perfectly, but I’d heard that Miss Poole never wore them. I’d never heard why, and honestly, some things I’d just rather not know.

  Her servant, Ira, an older gentleman with the build of farm equipment, stood to the side, pretending to read an outdated issue of Our Daily Bread. His height went right along with his build. I gauged him to be at least six foot five, which, when he was a teen back in the late thirties, must have been astoundingly tall. He doesn’t serve officially as a deacon or an elder or anything, but Ira always helps put away the chairs and tables in the rec hall downstairs, and he always arrives first at the town festivals to set up our booth.

  Ira is the kind of man who helps move the piano when a local family needs help loading the moving van. He doesn’t grab a small box of non-perishables every five minutes and drink coffee the other four.

  Duncan is that kind of guy, too. I have always been proud that he moves pianos and highboys, and doesn’t balk at the Maytags or Frigidaires either. To my thinking, that says more about a man than almost anything.

  “Penny!” the hip maven shouted, waving a bulletin. “Have I heard correctly?”

  I straightened my pearls and felt my left earlobe to see if I should be embarrassed by my earrings. No, just the little pearl drops hung there today. “It depends on what you’ve heard, Miss Poole.”

  “That we actually agree on something.”

  “Are you talking about the window?”

  “Of course! Now, Penny, I want you to do all you can to convince Duncan to let me pay for the restoration.”

  “You mean you’ve offered to pay for it?” I’d kill Duncan at brunch. The headline of the Mount Oak Sentinel would read “Local Minister Slain at Home. Wife Flees in Putty-Patched Van!”

  “I certainly have! It would be a tragedy to let that go! It’s been there since I was a little girl.”

  “Maybe you could try negotiating with him, Miss Poole. What if he says yes to the window, and you say you won’t interfere with getting new hymnbooks?”

  Miss Poole looked thoughtful. “I’ll have to think about that. But I do know we can’t let the PCA Presbyterians downtown have beautiful windows and us just have plate glass! I mean, they’re the ones that pulled out of the denomination in the first place!”

  “They’ve got new hymnbooks.”

  “Really?” Miss Poole regathered her shawl around her shoulders. “Well, fine job on the bulletin today. No typos.”

  And she walked into the sanctuary on her polelike legs, stiffened by arthritis and black support hose.

  Sometimes I actually like the woman. I sighed and made my way to the fifth pew on the left by the window aisle. The choir filed into their seats up at the front. What selection would they sing today? I opened up the bulletin and silently groaned.

  “And He Shall Feed His Flock” by Handel. Oh, brother, another wonderful song being led like a lamb to the slaughter.

  Eleven

  I can’t get through to her. I’ve been over there every day for three weeks, and she won’t see me.”

  “Robbie’s still alive is why.” Mildred LaRue’s eyes saddened and drooped more than the underdrawers on my clothesline. “Poor baby.” She looked older today for some reason, and I couldn’t tell why. Memphis housed Mildred LaRue and the Star Spangled Jammers for a week-long engagement at some rib house and now we sat at the hoosier sharing a rack Miss Mildre
d brought home with her. Dry ribs. I will never truly enjoy sloppy bones again.

  Mildred wiped her fingers. “You got to give her time, Penelope.”

  “But this isn’t good for her.”

  “I know. At least I guess I know. I’ve never even had a child to lose.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table. Miss Mildred and I talked a lot, but one never knew who she could really voice big doubts to: the big, eternal scary you-shouldn’t-even-be-thinking-such-things-let-alone-talking-about-them kind of doubts. “How could God do that to a nice boy like Josh? And to parents like that who’ve sacrificed their entire lives to serve Him?”

  “That’s the big question, Penelope.”

  “It doesn’t make me think very kindly of God.” I looked up for some kind of lightning bolt.

  “Maybe God respects us enough to let our decisions be our own.”

  Miss Mildred believes in free will. I’m more of a predestination type of gal. I make it a rule never to discuss theology with her because she knows her Bible, that woman. And although I can remember what verses say, I couldn’t begin to tell you what book they’re found in.

  “If you saw your child running toward the edge of a cliff, wouldn’t you stop him?” I asked.

  “Or climbing up a TV tower?”

  “Yeah.” My eyes burned with tears.

  “I’m not God, baby. All I know is that there is pain and suffering in the world. The first step to dealing with it is to accept it as a fact of life.”

  Angus looked up. “Jesus suffered on the cross.”

  I pictured the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane: Jesus praying, His beautiful face torn by anguish, glistening with a mixture of sweat and blood. Not My will, but Thine. Even Jesus asked if it were possible that God would take the cup of suffering away from Him. And God said no.

  I sat here at my kitchen table questioning His love because of that refusal.

  “ ‘He spared not His own son,’ ” Mildred quoted.

  “But it seems so easy to say because God spared not His own son that it’s okay for Him to take Chris’s away from her.”