by Lisa Samson
Heads turned, and the stares from their eyes burned into her skin. She gazed back at them, her eyes filling with tears for their pain, knowing death only stops the pain for the dying.
She took Father John’s arm, head bowed, and slipped into a chair. The reporters murmured, and so did the other occupants of the room. May tried to block out their conversations as she prayed over and over again, “Give him peace. Give him peace.”
The cry of “Dead man walking!” echoed in the hallway, slipping under the space between door and floor.
“Oh, dear Jesus,” she whispered. “This is really it, isn’t it, Father?”
“Yes, May. I’m afraid so.”
They whispered as quietly as possible.
The best thing she could do was be brave. Eli wanted to give the family closure. Her slobbering all over and making this about herself wouldn’t be doing right by Eli.
“Do you know how this is done, May?” Father John whispered.
She shook her head.
“Well, they’ll lay him on the gurney, secure his wrists and his ankles, and get the IV started. They put one in each arm to administer the drugs. What’s strange is that the tubes go through a hole in the wall into another room where the medical personnel are.”
“They’re not right in the room with him?”
“No. A doctor will be with him to verify he’s died and proclaim the time of death.”
“Is it a one-way window?”
“No. He’ll see you, May.”
“That’s good.”
They sat for a couple of minutes, listening to the victim’s family talk about the terrible Eli Campbell, the maggot who was finally getting what he gave. And she couldn’t blame them. But they didn’t know Eli. And they honestly couldn’t, really could not care that he’d become a good man, a kind man, the man who wrote her faithfully. To do so would dishonor the deaths of their relatives. At least that’s the way most people would see it. Or so she thought. How could she know what they felt any more than they could understand what was going on inside of her?
“Now, I’m not sure about Kentucky, but in some states, they have several people administer the drugs, but only one set ends up in Eli’s veins, the others go into a dummy bag. That way the executioners don’t know who was the one to end his life.”
“Great. So they can all think they probably did it.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”
Her blood pounded the sidewalls of her arteries, and she was so aware, so aware, so aware of being alive, and knowing she was going to be alive in ten minutes, because the clock said 11:55 and in five minutes it would be May 29.
The curtains swished to the sides as if it was early morning and somebody was opening them to let the sun in as the coffee brewed.
There he lay, the head of the bed raised, a sheet covering his body.
The warden said, “Mr. Campbell, would you like to make your final statement?”
“Yes, sir.” Eli Campbell, thirty-three years old, cleared his throat, the back of his sandy hair mussed against the pillow, the recessed lighting catching the blue in his eyes and warming his skin, paled to the shade of skim milk. “I realize that I can never bring back Roger and Faye, so all I can do is offer myself up. It won’t make Christmases any better, it won’t stop you from you weeping on their birthdays, especially Faye’s, or keep you from wondering how big she’d be, or what she’d look like.”
Faye’s mother sobbed.
“I know I’ll never have your forgiveness. I haven’t forgiven myself, not that that matters. But the only way I can let you know how truly sorry I am, how I’d give anything to make up for it, is to give everything I can. May God grant you all peace. That’s all I can ask for any of us, I guess.” He looked at the warden and nodded. “That’s it, I guess.”
The pencils of the reporters behind her scratched furiously on their small writing pads.
Eli looked May in the eyes, nodded, and slowly blinked a thank you. She didn’t know how she knew that was what he was telling her, but she was sure of it. She tried to fill her eyes with love and gratitude. She laid her hand on her heart.
He settled his head back and closed his eyes as the doctor approached the gurney. The warden checked his watch.
Two more minutes.
Every part of May’s body stiffened, waiting for the death of the man who brought her back to life.
“We live in one great big paradox, Father,” she whispered.
“That we do, May.”
“Come on, come on, come on,” a young man nearby grated through his teeth at the clock. “Let’s wipe this scum off the face of the earth.”
She curled her fingers around Father John’s arm, the only sign of her strain, the tears drawing slow, wet stripes down her face. She swallowed again and again as the seconds ticked down. Eli kept his eyes closed, and she wished she could crawl inside his head and know his thoughts, or crawl on that bed, curl around him, and hold him as he died.
Several minutes passed.
A nurse ran in from the next room, where people were waiting with drugs to stop a life. She pointed to the door, gesturing as if she didn’t know what was going on.
The doctor leaned down to Eli’s face, pulled out a penlight, opened his eyelid and checked his pupils. Eli didn’t move. It was like he didn’t even notice the examination. The guards remained in position as the warden followed the physician into the next room.
Eli lay there. Serene, still, an expression of peace on his face. How could he remain so calm?
The warden poked his head through the doorway, motioning to a guard who hurried over to the window and snapped the curtains shut.
“What happened?” She turned to Father John.
“I have no idea. Maybe there was a malfunction in the equipment. I don’t know.”
The angry young man let out a string of expletives while Roger’s wife sobbed into her hands. “I shouldn’a come. I knew I shouldn’a.”
An elderly woman, her mother, May supposed, put her arm around her. “Let’s go, Becky. Come on.”
“She’s come all the way from Chicago, Ma,” the young man snapped. “Leave her be.”
The woman mumbled something back, but they settled back into their chairs, the fluorescent light greening their complexion further.
The door to the observation room opened and the warden entered, his face red with stress. With knit brows above pursed lips he stood by the window. “Well, folks, there’ll be no execution tonight.”
“What?” the young man yelled, standing up and tugging on his UK sports jersey. “Did the governor call at the last minute?”
“No.” He turned to me. “Mrs. Campbell, I know you were expecting your husband to die tonight, and he has. We don’t know what happened. After his statement, he lay back, and while the minutes were ticking down, he … well, he just died, ma’am. His heart just stopped.”
Father John placed his arms around her as she wept. “God took him,” she said into the black of his suit. Tears of sorrow mixed with tears of joy.
When May returned to her home around one o’clock, Pastor Marlow was waiting on the front porch.
“May.” He stood up.
“Hi, Pastor Marlow.”
“Call me Darius.”
She put the key in the lock and turned. “Come on in. If I ever needed a cup of tea, it’s now.”
He followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the counter as she set the kettle to the boil.
“John called. Told me what happened,” he said.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” She pulled down two teacups from the cupboard.
“Have a seat, May. Let me take over from here.”
She took his offer. “Thank you.”
A few minutes later they sat face-to-face at the kitchen table, cups of tea between them.
“I need to apologize,” he said. “To you and to God.”
She remained silent, wanting to he
ar the rest.
“Here you were, up here on this farm, suffering in sorrow, and all I could see was the property.”
“I didn’t make it easy for anybody to reach out.”
“That wasn’t your job.”
She sighed. “I guess not.”
“Even when you started coming to the church—”
“For totally selfish purposes.”
He laughed. “Well, yes. But it’s not that anymore, is it? You sit with old Brother Ben every Sunday, and you don’t have to. Sister Racine even told me you asked about joining the choir.”
“She was supposed to keep that a secret until I decided for sure.”
“Be that as it may, it still proves my point.”
“Okay. I’ll concede. I love the people at Harmony.”
He drained the small cup in one go. “I’ve talked to the board and the congregation, and everyone agrees. You can stay on the land, May. Keep your part in Borne’s Last Chance, and we’ll move to the back of the property. In fact”—his eyes danced—“we’re thinking of building right atop the ridge, the world spread out like a map outside the windows.”
May knew she should dance and sing but, still drained from the events of the evening, all she could do was press her hand on top of Pastor Marlow’s. “Thank you.”
“I figured you could use one good piece of news today, May.” He stood. “I’d better go. We’re praying for you. All of us.”
May believed him.
• 27 •
Three months later
The hall of St. Thomas Episcopal Church was filled to the brim with Episcopalians, Baptists, Catholics, and even the Methodists, all hearing about May’s plans. They came to feast.
Callie rushed into the church kitchen. “Can you believe it? Three hundred people!”
The women of Harmony Baptist bustled from oven to worktable, plating fried chicken (the birds donated by a farmer up the road from May), sausage stuffing, and corn pudding. Savory greens simmered in pots on the stove, and Buell was frying up tomatoes by the dozens. Arranged down a long table in the hall were pies of every sort, donated by Father John’s parishioners.
Sister Ruth had flown back for the occasion. She grabbed May and wrapped her wiry arms around her, kissing her on the cheek. “Violet’s recipe book delivered once again, honey! The biscuits were perfect!”
Callie had taken May’s favorite recipes and made a beautiful booklet she titled Violet’s Recipes from Borne’s Last Chance, filling it with her artwork and selling them for five dollars apiece. “Five dollars!” she said. “Can you believe people would pay that much?”
But after they tasted the meal, they did indeed. Every book was gone by the time they cleaned up and turned out the lights. They’d made enough for the down payment on ten acres. Harmony Baptist said it wasn’t necessary, but May knew better. She needed her own place to grow and become and sow and gather.
Father John and Lynn greeted the guests, Pastor Marlow in their wake, shaking hands and refilling glasses of tea and lemonade. Even Glen showed up with his buddies from the post office. She heard more good wishes and promises of prayer in that afternoon than she’d heard her entire life.
“I wonder if my skin is glowing, the way it feels?” she said to Callie. They’d both dressed in white dresses and wore flowers in their hair. Callie now lived in the other bedroom upstairs, next to May’s.
“Oh, it is, Miss May. It really is!”
Returning home, May walked what would soon be her land. Already the new coop housed forty chickens of at least five different breeds, since May couldn’t decide on just one.
She made sure the new cow, Weezie, was in for the night, and she counted her chickens, thankful for each one. Flower seemed to grin and so did Laurel, her new buddy. She’d made it through, watching as May and the old place came to life once again.
May laughed.
She walked up to the ridge where the fresh grave of Eli lay beneath the night sky, next to Claudius.
The stars looked down upon her, and when they flashed she knew that all the people she’d loved who had come and gone were still with her, living on, not just in the faith they knit in her heart, the rosebushes they planted, the barns they built, or the children they sired, but they went on and on, like the universe God held in the palms of his hands.
• acknowledgments •
To all who serve the work at Thomas Nelson, especially my editor and friend, Ami McConnell, whose input made this book so much the better, my sincere thanks.
With gratitude to Chip MacGregor who helps me remember what’s important.
I’d especially like to thank Phillip Elmore, on death row in Ohio, who wrote many letters and gave of himself in the midst of a death sentence. I pray your appeal comes through and that God keeps you in His tender care.
To my friends and family, especially Will, Ty, Jake and Gwynnie, well, you bring me resurrections daily, and for that I’m most grateful.
With thanks to the triune God I serve inconsistently but with hope.
For all who know life isn’t about busyness and stuff,
experience the simple beauty of Quaker Summer.
Biting and gentle, hard-edged and hopeful …
a beautiful fable of love and power, hiding and
seeking, woundedness and redemption.
Mary-Margaret yearned to dedicate
her life to the Lord.
Jesus had another idea.
CHRISTY-AWARD FINALIST FOR
BEST CHRISTIAN-FICTION NOVELOF 2009.
LISA SAMSON is the award-winning author of twenty-six books including Quaker Summer, Christianity Today’s Novel of 2008, and Justice in the Burbs, which she co-wrote with her husband, Will, a professor of Sociology. When not at home in Kentucky with her three children, one cat, and six chickens, she speaks around the country about writing and social justice, encouraging the people of God to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” She loves nothing better than sitting around her kitchen table, talking with family and friends, old and new.