A Place Called Hope: A Novel

by Philip Gulley

  It fell to Miriam Hodge to phone Sam and invite him to return to Harmony for a farewell sermon.

  “That’s not necessary,” he said. “We’ve made the separation, no need to belabor it.”

  “We didn’t get to give you a proper good-bye, and we’d like to make it up to you.”

  Sam thanked her for the kind thought, but declined her offer. Desperate, she called Sam’s mother, who phoned Sam and ordered him to show up at the Harmony meetinghouse two Sundays from then unless he wanted to be responsible for her dying from a broken heart.

  Ruby Hopper was cleaning the meetinghouse when Sam arrived the next morning to work in his office.

  “I’ve been invited to return to Harmony for a good-bye Sunday,” he told her. “I tried declining, but my mother called and insisted I come and you know how mothers are.”

  Ruby feigned ignorance and told him she’d have to check with the others, but that it shouldn’t be a problem, provided it was only one Sunday. Hank Withers had been itching to give a lecture on Frank Lloyd Wright; perhaps he would consent to go long and fill in Sam’s sermon time, too. Ruby would ask him.

  The following Sunday at Hope Meeting, Sam delivered a message on generosity, making a few oblique hints about the joy of supporting the Lord’s work, then Wanda Fink gave a talk about various wall-painting techniques—stenciling, striping, sponging, and rag rolling. Wanda’s lesson was well received, with several people standing at the end of worship confessing to sloth, vowing to begin long-delayed painting projects. They sang a hymn and Sam gave the closing prayer, asking for safe travels as they returned to their homes, and thanking God for the hands that had prepared that morning’s coffee, which they were all free to stay and enjoy. There were nine visitors, all of whom remained afterward to chat with Wanda. Ruby announced that Sam would be gone the next Sunday, returning to his hometown for a visit, but that Hank Withers had agreed to bring a message on the history of architecture, which she was certain everyone would enjoy.

  “Not that we don’t enjoy your messages,” she said, turning to Sam. “I didn’t mean it that way. No offense intended.”

  “None taken,” Sam said. He had grown used to the idea that the lectures given by various members of the meeting were a bigger draw than his sermons. It was kind of Ruby Hopper to pretend otherwise.

  46

  Sam took Monday off, visiting Charley Riggle at the hardware store to discuss pocketknives and why things weren’t made in America. They chewed on politicians and CEOs for a while, which left them feeling invigorated. Then he stopped past Drooger’s Food Center for milk and bread. Since Barbara had taken a full-time job, the grocery shopping had fallen to him. With the boys gone, their grocery bill had dropped in half. Sam was eating more fresh vegetables and fewer Cocoa Puffs. He felt better, but was still suspicious of vegetables and cheerfully pointed out to Barbara newspaper articles about people dying of E. coli poisoning from bad spinach. So far as he knew, Cocoa Puffs had never killed anyone. He spent a half hour in the Food Center reading the magazines, boning up on various celebrities, should their names arise in polite conversation.

  He arrived home in time to clean the house and start supper, then went on Facebook to spy on his sons. Seeing pictures of his sons with strangers never failed to alarm him. He wondered about the strangers, where they were from, what their parents were like. The people in the Facebook pictures never looked like Quakers. They looked like people who no longer attended church and didn’t seem to miss it. He recognized Levi’s apartment in one of the pictures. There were beer bottles in the background. Empty. A distant relation of Sam’s had been a drunkard, so he thought about that for a brief while, got himself worked up, then sent Levi a text message telling him to straighten up.

  He’d been nervous as a cat since Miriam had phoned asking him to speak at Harmony Friends. While it would be nice to see certain people, he dreaded the thought of crossing paths with Dale Hinshaw and Fern Hampton again. He turned his mind toward his sermon, fiddling with the opening, thinking of an appropriate Scripture reading, considering various passages about returning sons, and thought of the Prodigal Son. But that son had left of his own volition and had gone to the city to sin, while Sam had been tossed out on his keister for no good reason. Then he recalled Jesus’s advice to his disciples—If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. That had a certain appeal to it. A rousing shaking-the-dust-off-his-feet sermon would let them know where he stood on matters. He read that Scripture aloud, but couldn’t do it without yelling. As tempted as he was to use it, he decided instead to try the wise-as-a-fox-but-gentle-as-a-dove approach, a less volatile bit of Scripture also recommended by Jesus.

  It took three days for Sam to write his sermon, nudging it into shape, getting in a few digs, but on the whole being charitable. He took Friday off and drove to Purdue to visit Levi and remind him of his Christian heritage. On Friday evening he went with Barbara to the movies. He was feeling magnanimous and let her pick the movie. It was about a woman dying of cancer whose husband and children had been unappreciative until she died, then had realized how wonderful she had been and felt bad for the rest of the movie. Barbara had sobbed through the entire movie and had become upset with Sam for falling asleep; she accused him of insensitivity.

  “It’s a movie. It’s make-believe. How can I be insensitive about something that didn’t happen?” he asked.

  But it was the principle of the thing, Sam’s indifference to a dying woman who had married an insensitive clod. They stopped at a Baskin-Robbins for ice cream, which mollified her somewhat, and by the time they reached home, she had settled down altogether and admitted the woman in the movie had been overly dramatic and even a bit of a whiner.

  “To be honest,” Barbara said, “I was kind of relieved when she died. She was starting to annoy me.”

  They left for Harmony Saturday morning, arriving at Sam’s parents in time for lunch. Chili with grilled cheese sandwiches and milk, Sam’s favorite meal after Cocoa Puffs. Sam and his father took naps afterward, his father stretched out in a recliner, Sam sprawled on the couch. Sam’s mother and Barbara walked to the Legal Grounds Coffee Shop for nonfat mocha lattes and pumpkin muffins. They went to bed early, Sam and Barbara in his old bedroom, on a mattress of unclear origins, passed down from a long-deceased relative. It had been Sam’s mattress as a child and had formed an even deeper trough in the middle than their mattress at home, causing Sam and Barbara to roll into one another, which led to something else, which led to squeaking, which led to his mother tapping on their door and asking if anything was the matter.

  The sun rose in a clear blue sky the next morning, a glorious fall day, so they walked to the meetinghouse, arriving fifteen minutes before worship. The parking lot was full, and the streets around the meetinghouse were choked with cars.

  “It looks like Christmas or Easter,” his mother said. “Look at all these cars.”

  “Maybe I should stay out here and direct traffic,” his father said, always looking for an excuse to get out of church. He was a pacer, not a sitter. A man of action. “Yes, I believe that’s what I’ll do. Wouldn’t want any fights or road rage. You never know with traffic like this.”

  They heard the crowd while still outside, the throb of laughter and excited chatter inside the meetinghouse.

  “That looks like Ruby Hopper’s car,” Barbara said.

  “Can’t be,” Sam said. “She’s leading worship at Hope this morning.”

  As they climbed the meetinghouse steps, Matt the Unitarian pastor fell into step beside them.

  “Look who came slinking back into town,” Matt said. “Good to see you, Sam.”

  “What are you doing here?” Sam asked, shaking Matt’s hand.

  “Heard you were going to preach, so I took the Sunday off, and here we are.”

  “If it weren’t for you Unitarians, I’d still be working here,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, you know us, we�
��re just troublemakers. But look at the opportunity we gave you to be prophetic. You’ll go down in history as the first Quaker minister to perform a same-gender marriage. A hundred years from now, everyone will think you were a saint. You should thank us.”

  They entered the meetinghouse together and people began thronging around Sam and Barbara, welcoming them. The Iverson twins presented Barbara with a bouquet of flowers. The scent of chicken and noodles rose up through the floor grates. It was like a dream. Sam felt woozy.

  “What in the world is going on?” he asked Miriam Hodge, who had materialized beside him.

  “We’ve come to thank you for being our pastor,” Miriam said. “And to wish you God’s blessings in your new ministry at Hope.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Ruby Hopper said, appearing at Miriam’s side.

  And indeed they were, all of Hope Friends Meeting, even the Finks, who at the moment were supposed to have been hearing a lecture on architecture, but instead were clustered around Sam and Barbara in the Harmony Friends meetinghouse.

  “The Unitarians are here, too,” Matt said. “We closed down our church today and told everyone to come here. We wanted to thank you for sharing your ministry with us.”

  Chris and Kelly were there, the lesbians with gender-neutral names, who had been the calm and gracious center of this hurricane. They stepped forward and embraced Sam and thanked him for his compassion on their special day.

  “Now this is your special day and we wanted to be with you,” Chris said.

  “We very much appreciate what you did for us,” Kelly added. “Sometimes it takes real bravery to be kind. We are grateful for your courage.”

  “I was happy to do it,” Sam said. “It was an honor.”

  “Let’s worship,” Miriam said, taking Sam and Barbara by the arms and guiding them down front to the facing bench. “Sit up here in your old place. Barbara, you sit with him. We want to honor you, too.”

  Everyone took their seats, sliding over and making room. It was tight, but everyone fit. They entered into silence, their heads bowed. Sam peered around the room. Almost everyone he knew and loved was there. Looking at them, he felt something release inside him, a stone of resentment lodged in his spirit, breaking free.

  One by one, out of the silence, people stood to speak, thanking Sam for all he had done for them. Ralph Hodge, recalling his long struggle with alcohol and how Sam had stood by him, driving him to AA all those years ago. Jessie Peacock reminding the congregation how Sam had rushed to the hospital when Asa had had his heart attack. She didn’t mention it had taken three days for Sam to get there. No need to bring that up. Harvey Muldock rose to his feet and thanked Sam for his ministry to their family when they discovered their son was gay.

  “We appreciate that you didn’t judge him,” Harvey said. “It meant a lot to us.”

  After Harvey spoke, Hank Withers gave a brief lecture on the Akron church design. Others stood, recalling their history with Sam and Barbara. It was like leafing through a picture album. Reminiscing and laughing and treasuring. It went on and on. When it came time to preach, Sam dispensed with his notes and thanked all present, even Dale and Fern, who admitted they had gone a little overboard and that if Sam wanted to come back and be their pastor, they wouldn’t mind.

  Then Miriam Hodge invited the members of Hope Friends Meeting to come forward and asked Sam and Barbara to stand before the congregation. She took Sam and Barbara by the hand and thanked God for their lives, then passed them along to Ruby Hopper and the people of Hope, who thanked God for bringing Sam and Barbara to them, then everyone said amen and Sam began to bawl and only stopped when Miriam said it was time to go downstairs and eat. She asked Sam to offer a meal blessing, which he did, with great enthusiasm.

  He thanked God for chicken and noodles and the hands that prepared them, that rolled out the dough, that cut the noodles, that boned out the chicken, that laid out the noodles to dry. He thanked God for Chris and Kelly and wished them a happy future, and asked God to bless all the marriages of everyone, then thanked God for various people who had died, but were looking down on them from heaven at that very moment and were no doubt pleased by their reconciliation. Then, unsure how to wind up the prayer, he thanked God that they lived in a free country where people could worship as they wanted, or not worship, whichever the case may be. Then Barbara squeezed his hand, he stopped blabbering, and looked up just as Bob Miles took their picture for the Harmony Herald. They went downstairs and ate chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans, and yeast rolls, with pies for dessert, freshly baked by Ellen Hadley and the Hope Friends Meeting pie committee.

  It was the best day Sam had ever had, even better than his wedding day, when he’d been so nervous he’d vomited on his grandmother in the receiving line. The day felt like a movie, like the final scene in It’s a Wonderful Life, when the townspeople came to George Bailey’s house and gave him money to save his bank, and sang “Auld Lang Syne.”

  They stayed afterward to help wash dishes and clean up, pausing now and again to hug people and wish them well. Finally, it was down to them and Ellis and Miriam Hodge, who walked all the Gardners home, where Sam and Barbara climbed in their car, waved good-bye, and headed toward Hope.

  47

  They heard from both their boys that evening. Levi called just before supper to ask for money, and Addison phoned from Fort Sill to tell them he was alive, that basic training was going well, that everyone was nice to him, especially his drill sergeant, and joining the army was the best decision he’d ever made.

  “Is the drill sergeant standing next to you?” Sam asked. “If he is, ask how Grandma is doing.”

  “How’s Grandma?” Addison asked.

  “Did he tell you to say you were okay? If he did, ask about Grandpa?”

  “How’s Grandpa?” Addison asked.

  “If you want us to break you out, ask to speak to your brother.”

  “Can I talk to Levi?” Addison asked.

  Sam covered the mouthpiece with his hand and said to Barbara, “They’re holding him against his will. He wants us to come get him.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Barbara said, taking the phone from Sam.

  “Hi, honey. Joining the army was your idea, not ours. We are not driving eight hundred miles to rescue you, so suck it up.”

  Just a year ago, she had wept when they had deposited their older son at college. Moaning and wailing and gnashing her teeth. Gone was the sentimental mother and wife, replaced by a stern librarian who brooked no nonsense, who whipped recalcitrant males into shape with a snap of her fingers.

  My Lord, Sam thought, she’s become Miss Rudy.

  Miss Rudy, the former Harmony librarian, had single-handedly held off a siege of the town council bent on cutting her funds. She had locked the library doors and hid the only key in her bra, living on water from the toilet tank after the town had shut off water to the building to drive her out. She ate paste to keep up her strength. Oh, they had underestimated her. On the fourth day, the men of the council had capitulated, apologizing for cutting the funds, begging her to open the doors and come out. But she had stayed in the library an extra day, just to show them one could live on books, then marched out at noon on the fifth day, her head held high, and three pounds heavier. She had gained weight! When word got out, her picture made the cover of American Libraries magazine. Admiring letters poured in from librarians around the world—beaten down, beleaguered librarians who had drawn strength from her bravery. She answered each one in flowing, Palmer-method, handwritten script.

  Sam looked at Barbara, as if seeing her for the first time.

  “You’ve become Miss Rudy,” he said.

  “And don’t you forget it, buster,” she said.

  Sam had always gotten along well with Miss Rudy. In fact, he had always admired strong women. Strong men annoyed him, because of their tendency to confuse arrogance for strength. But strong women, well, strong women intrigued him.

  Later th
at evening, after a brief interlude of pleasant activity, Sam studied their bedroom ceiling.

  “That was some morning,” he said.

  “Yes, it was,” Barbara said, snuggling closer.

  Snuggling! A strong woman who snuggled. Sam was woozy with adoration, and fell to sleep, for the first time in a long time, looking forward to life.

  Praise for Philip Gulley

  “Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor from Indiana with a charming sense of small-town life—and a shrewd sense of life in general… A self-deprecating narrator… he knows how to exaggerate in a witty way.”

  —The Wall Street Journal

  “Gulley’s work is comparable to Gail Godwin’s fiction, Garrison Keillor’s storytelling, and Christopher Guest’s filmmaking… in a league with Jan Karon’s Mitford series.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The biggest collection of crusty, lovable characters since James Herriot settled in Yorkshire.”

  —Booklist on The Harmony Series

  “The tales Philip Gulley unveils are tender and humorous… filled with sudden, unexpected, lump-in-the-throat poignancy. Through deft storytelling and his own irresistible brand of humor, [Gulley] explores the depths of the Heartland’s heart. A masterpiece of Americana.”

  —Paul Harvey Jr.

  “Philip Gulley is a beautiful writer.”

  —Charles Osgood, CBS News Sunday Morning

  “Gulley is a splendid storyteller… his books abound with shrewd insights into human character.”

  —Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

  “Gulley’s stories get at the heart of the simple joys, stranger-than-fiction humor, and day-to-day drama of small-town life.”

  —American Profile

  Turn the page for a preview of the next novel in Philip Gulley’s Hope series

  A Lesson in Hope

  Available from Center Street in 2015, wherever books are sold.