by Lisa Samson
Everybody figured that was where it started—the drug and alcohol abuse escalating exponentially.
“I’ve seen this before,” Sister Ruth said the next day, after Eli had gone, showered and in a set of Claudius’s old clothing. “It breaks my heart. It’s like he’s had a complete personality change. He was such a good boy.”
May had wanted to laugh. Sister Ruth didn’t know him at UK! He could outdrink everyone at the Fishtank, night after night. Then again, Sister Ruth didn’t know May at UK either, and May was glad for it.
It was the very next week the killings had taken place, leaving them all in shock. Eli Campbell? And now he sat on Death Row at the penitentiary in nearby Campton, refusing to appeal his sentence.
May waved Sister Ruth down the drive as she drove their flowers off to Lexington, where she’d sit on a bright blue sideline chair with the UK Wildcats screen-printed on the back. In the last few years Sister Ruth had become a raving Wildcats fan, listening to the AM radio station that discussed the doings of University of Kentucky sports with the same fervency as the talk radio crowd discussed taxation, the war, and whatever else May chose not to care about anymore. Sister Ruth still dabbled at the lottery too.
Poor Eli. Maybe she should write to him. But when she thought about how frightened his victims must have been there in that convenience store in Clay City on a windy fall evening, she couldn’t imagine communicating with him. She knew how that man and his daughter must have felt when he turned on them from his position at the counter where the attendant was scooping together as many bills as quickly as he possibly could.
Two shots.
And down they went.
Poor Eli?
She knew she should feel compassion. She knew the basic series of events that had led him from decorated vet to someone killing two people while committing a felony. She knew you couldn’t use up a person then cut him loose.
But May couldn’t forget his victims, either. And when she thought of Eli, she thought of them, a father and his eight-year-old daughter, and fear gripped her throat, strangling her with feelings, reminding her of events she was still desperately trying to forget.
She entered her kitchen, made a cup of tea, and sat down to write her father. Maybe he’d suggest a way that might give her the strength she needed to reach out. If anybody could do that, it was her dad.
• 3 •
Pastor Marlow sat back in Claudius’s easy chair and rested a wing-tipped shoe atop a wide pinstriped knee as May settled with a stiff spine onto the arm of the sofa. Used to be, Harmony Baptist only came out to the place once a year. May figured the rest of the time Sister Ruth told them everything they needed to know. She didn’t ask for any further information. She only had so much room left in her brain these days.
Changes were afoot at Harmony Baptist, though. Sitting catty-corner from her now was not the old pastor who’d waved his handkerchief over her face when she fainted years ago at the back of his church. Pastor Jenkins had died the year before of heart disease. He and May used to sit and chat for a couple of hours during his visits. He was an interesting conversationalist, a generally caring person, and May always enjoyed the fact that he was content to leave her alone there on the property.
But Pastor Marlow, sipping on his iced tea, brought heat to her scalp like she imagined people on trial felt when they entered the witness-box.
He’d come in with plans just two months after Pastor Jenkins’s death. Sitting right in that same chair, he’d run a hand over his shaved head. “You can’t live here for free. I do not believe that’s what Brother Claudius meant. You at least need to tithe with the money you make off your business.”
May had no idea how much he thought she made, but she was relatively sure his guess was way out of proportion.
“But I’m already giving the church half the proceeds.”
“Are you tithing personally?”
“What does that even mean?”
“Ten percent of your income must go to the Lord.”
“But I don’t attend your church.”
“You live on our good graces.” He set his foot down and held up the palms of his large hands. “Not that we mind reaching out to a woman in need. But you’ll need to keep a careful accounting of your expenses, and we’ll need to look them over every couple of months.”
“Okay.”
And now, every few months, Pastor Marlow, gold-frame glasses winking in the light, sat in Claudius’s chair, drilling her about productivity and still expecting a few dozen eggs at the end of it all. For free. Made her mad. But she presented him with a tithe to keep him happy.
May knew what Claudius’s will said. Basically, she was to treat this farm as her own until she left or died. She paid the property taxes, too, in order keep as much autonomy as possible. She didn’t have to split her proceeds with the church. Legally she could have just stayed here and run her own business, but she didn’t want to be beholden to anyone, so from the beginning she had given the church half of what she made.
She’d never told Sister Ruth about Pastor Marlow’s demands. Ruth would fly into such a snit, that poor little church on the riverbank would never be the same. And Ruth would make May stand up to Pastor Marlow, thinking maybe this would be good for her, help her to realize she had a lot left in her, and so on and so forth.
She’d rather just deal with Marlow her own way.
Hmm. She liked that. She’d just call him Marlow from here on out. In her head, at least.
“I want to tell you something about the plans the church is making for the farm.”
May sat up. “I didn’t realize there could be changes. According to the will—”
He straightened the knot on his claret silk tie, though it had sat there perfectly beneath the evil twin of his Adam’s apple. “Well, the church, as you must have heard, is growing. Beattyville needed a dynamic, Spirit-filled ministry with powerful anointing. It isn’t any surprise the people are flocking in and giving all they have. We need to build a new church.”
“Here?”
“It’s land we own. On a good road. The board thinks it’s just the right place to do it.” He set his tea on the side table.
“Well, I don’t use all the fields. I’ll bet we only use about ten acres out of the forty.”
“We’ve talked about that.” He waved her words away like a fly. He still wore his college football ring. University of Louisville.
“And?” She set down her glass and pulled the knees of her work pants into her fists. She missed Father Isaac right now, and Claudius, such a fine Christian man, even more. She’d even give Pastor Jenkins a big kiss if he showed up from beyond the grave.
Powerful anointing. What did that even mean, coming from a person who’d drive you off your farm, steal your livelihood, and buy a nice suit with it?
“It simply wouldn’t do for the members to have to drive through your farm to get to the church. And we’d like to remove the trees there”—he pointed out the window to the wooded, downward slope that hid the farm from Route 11—“and place the building in such manner as to have good visibility from the road.”
“Where the barn is, I’m assuming.”
“No. That would eventually be the activities building. Where your house is.”
May pulled at her bottom lip. “When?”
“We want to begin demolishing the place a year from now. Next June.”
“Where am I going to live?” She had no idea why she was asking the man.
“You have to admit, the church has given you plenty of time to build a new life, May. Maybe too much. You haven’t been off the place—”
“Yes, I know! I know that better than anyone.”
He cleared his throat. “We have our doubts.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me. The board.”
“So, let me get this straight. You’ve known I was here in spiritual and emotional distress, and you’ve actually talked about it, but nobody came up to care for me
except for Sister Ruth and Sister Racine?”
“I’ll admit, we’ve enabled you. And those two are more than capable.”
“Enabled me?” May rose to her feet. “What does that even mean?” She grabbed her glass, then set it back down again. “Here’s the deal, Pastor Marlow. You can’t get me off of this place without going against Claudius’s will.”
He settled more firmly in his chair. “We’ve thought of that. We have to do what’s best for the church. And we’re fully prepared to do what needs to be done. And May, we’ll help you find a new place.”
“But my livelihood! Where will I find a place to grow flowers?”
“There are a lot of other things you can do.”
“This isn’t right.”
“Yes, it is, May. You’re not seeing sense. More people will be helped with this church than by your flowers. Don’t you want to be a part of that?”
She couldn’t believe this. “You can’t do this without breaking the terms of the will.”
“You going to take us to court?”
“I might hire a lawyer, yes.”
“With what money? I know how much you make here now, don’t forget. Frankly, I’ve got to admire your thriftiness. You live pretty well even though your profits keep you below the poverty level.”
“Somebody will help me pay.”
“Who? Who do you know now?”
“Okay. But I don’t want you on this place until June 1 of next year. Can you at least let me make as much as I can without your intervention, so I’ll be able to move on?”
He hesitated.
“Come on!” May said. “Use some of that powerful anointing to meet me in the middle here.”
He sighed. “Oh, all right. I guess it’s what Jesus would want us to do.”
May wanted to lift him up by his lapels and give him a good, full-footed Holy Spirit kick in the pants right into the back of his Ford SUV, an arching missile flying headfirst in a suit and tie like something in a cartoon. Yep, that would feel just right.
She had known this day would come. But she’d hoped.
She sat down to write her father. While she asked him about good advice on reaching out to Eli, she would also have him list some good ideas on how to move on.
Move on? If anyone had ever felt sick at a thought, it paled to the dread that settled in May’s stomach at that moment.
May thought Sister Ruth was going to have a stroke right on the spot. She almost wished she hadn’t told her. She had thought about keeping it a secret, as she had Marlow’s other dealings, but she couldn’t.
“I just can’t go through this alone, Sister Ruth. I’m sorry to put this on you.”
They sat on the back stoop, bowls of melting French vanilla ice cream in their laps, not eaten, just swirled around with their spoons.
“Oh, hush! I can’t believe he’s been treating you like this for almost a year and you never said a thing! And calling it a tithe! More like the lunch money bully is what I say. He doesn’t know how many flowers you give away to the hospices and assisted living homes, does he?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Her mother had always taught you don’t advertise those small acts of charity. “Let God and you have that secret between yourselves,” she told May every Christmastime when they’d shop for baby clothes and diapers for unwed mothers.
“No. You wouldn’t tell him. But I’m glad he doesn’t know; he’d want to take credit for that too. Mercy, child! I’m so mad at that man I could spit. He’s always talking about money and faith and equating how much you give of one with how much you have of the other. He makes twice as much money as poor Pastor Jenkins and still isn’t satisfied.”
“He’s done a lot for that church, though. Sister Racine’s pretty fond of him.”
“Bigger isn’t necessarily better. Sometimes it’s just bigger. That’s all.” Sister Ruth stuck out her bottom lip.
May laughed and put her arm around her, squeezing her closer. “Look at it this way. Maybe this is the opportunity for me to ‘move on’ you’ve been praying for.”
“I still don’t like it. He had no right.”
“No, he didn’t. But he could. You know what my father says?”
“I like that man. Tell me.”
“He wrote to me once that sometimes when people think they can do something, they ought to. Just because we can doesn’t mean it’s right.”
“What was he talking about when he wrote that?”
“Torture. Embryonic stem cell research. Nuclear arms. Cloning.” May blushed. “He’s Catholic. They’re against all that stuff.” She knit her brows. “At least I think so.”
“Ahh. I see. He’s right.” Ruth set the bowl on the concrete next to her. “There’s always people who make bad decisions for good reasons. Or even the opposite way around too. But God always calls his children back home, doesn’t he?”
“I don’t know.” May knew Sister Ruth was going to funnel the broad down to the personal.
Sister Ruth patted May’s knee. “Don’t worry. I won’t preach at you, honey. I’m still too mad at Pastor Marlow.”
Marlow.
“Thanks. Tomorrow morning we’ll start making plans on how I’m going to figure all this out.”
“You can count on me.”
“One thing I’ve never doubted.” May squeezed her arm again and laid her head on Sister Ruth’s shoulder. Her best friend in the whole world.
It was big out there. But she had a year, right? A year was a long, long time. Anxiety began tunneling through her chest cavity.
“You know, Sister Ruth”—she raised her head—“Claudius didn’t think I’d be here this long. Really, I think he’s probably a little shocked up there that I’m still here. Maybe I shouldn’t be mad. Maybe I was wearing out my welcome and just didn’t realize it.”
“I don’t think our brother would have looked at it that way at all.”
“No. But he’d be sad I’ve come no further.”
“Yes. That he would. Neither he nor I has done you a bit of good. We’re too soft.”
“You just don’t know what to do with me.”
“It’s more than that. It’s like what a doctor must feel when she has to decide to amputate.”
May winced at the word.
Sister Ruth continued. “What if you decide too soon? What if there was the slightest chance it was going to heal on its own, and you cut it off before you needed to?”
“I’d hate to be a doctor, for those very reasons. I think I’d lie awake at night second-guessing everything I did.”
“I know I would!”
“In my case, I’d say healing hasn’t happened on its own.”
“No. You’re right about that. Definitely right about that.”
May took a couple of bites of the ice cream made from Louise’s tasty offering and one of the chicken’s eggs. A neighbor’s honey too. Everything from their ridge.
“I’m dead,” she whispered later, as she wiped down the kitchen sink for the night. At the very least, turned to stone.
And how could a stone get up and walk?
• 4 •
Long ago Violet Borne asked her husband, Garland, to build her a small, ladylike writing desk for their living room. It sat on a small hooked rug to the right of the front door, beneath a window, and always had, according to Claudius. Violet liked to sit in the ladder-back chair, her spine taut, and write letters to friends and relatives who’d moved on from Beattyville, copy her recipes, or write in her gardener’s journal.
May followed in her shoes. Every afternoon around two, chores finished, a bit of time before tending the animals for the evening, she sat in Violet’s chair. She wrote her father, of course, and copied recipes from Sister Ruth’s copy of the Lexington Herald-Leader—recipes she rarely made. The gardening journal, naturally, took first priority.
Today, however, she slipped out a pad of paper—one of those flip-top pads, bright white paper with blue lines that inhabit the stationery section of t
he grocery store—and set it on the walnut surface beneath her hands.
All right.
Eli Campbell.
Maybe this was a good first step in leaving the farm. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed, at the very least, like it wasn’t a step backward.
May 15, 2003
Dear Eli,
I’m sure you’re surprised to get this letter. I wonder if you get many letters. I suspect you don’t. But Sassy told Sister Ruth that you were feeling lonely there and that maybe I should write to brighten your day.
I don’t know how much this is going to brighten your day, though. I’m not exactly a ray of sunshine these days myself, but I figure, why not? Isn’t it strange that our paths have taken us to such places? You’re a murderer, and I’m an agoraphobic. There, I wrote that “out loud.” But after what happened to you, I’d be foolish not to take this opportunity to be completely truthful. I haven’t been off the farm in years. Did you hear about what happened to me in Rwanda? I know we didn’t talk about it when we saw each other after you got out.
Guess maybe I am the right person to write to you. We’re both in prison, right? Remember that night our senior year? We looked hot, didn’t we? The hot girl and the football player laughing and dancing, and we were going to graduate and do cool things with our lives. I still remember what you were wearing: jeans, faded atop your thighs, and a Western-style shirt, but not too Western. Just right. You always had nice hair, too, Eli, so thick, and it just went the right way; you weren’t one of those jokers who blow-dried and gelled. Sister Ruth says they call those guys “metrosexuals” these days. I’m so out of things now, I don’t even know why that’s so funny, but she laughs her head off! Now look at us. Pretty pathetic and eerie the way life will spin you around and kick your butt in a direction you never intended to go.