Good Heavens

by Margaret A. Graham

  Lester had got out of the car by himself and wouldn’t let us help him get to the porch. Once we were on the porch, Lester sat on the bench and we sat on the railing. Through the screen door I could see inside the kitchen. There was a woodstove in there with a pot on it, a sink, a dishpan, a straight-back chair, and some things on a table covered with a dishcloth. It looked neat enough.

  I wanted to wait to see if he was well enough before we left him. He was breathing okay but he was still pale. I took him to be a man in his late seventies. He had a good face and was lean with a back that bent forward. Whit leather was no tougher looking than he was. I was wondering if there was somebody who might look in on him from time to time.

  “You got any neighbors around here?” I asked.

  “One or two.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “Up the Boone Fork.”

  “How far?”

  “Eight or ten crow-fly miles.”

  Hardly neighbors, I thought.

  I looked at Dora to see if she had any idea about what we should do, but I couldn’t read what she was thinking any more than I could read Lester’s mind. Two of a kind.

  “I see you have got grapevines growing on your fences,” I said just to make conversation. “What kind are they?”

  “Concord and Catawba.” He shifted on the bench and leaned forward to show me which were which. “Them down yonder on that bottom fence be blue, and the ones a-goin’ up t’other way be red. Come fall, bring some buckets and help yourselves.”

  “Thank you, we will,” I said, pleased as punch at the prospect. With enough grapes we could make jelly and jam to last us a winter.

  “Come summer there’ll be blueberries,” he was saying, “an’ you can pick all you want o’ them as well. Come afore the birds take over.”

  “You sure?”

  “I got little use for ’em. Bring ever’ bucket you got.”

  Lester’s color was getting better, and I figured if we were going to leave, we better go. No doubt Ursula was already on her ear wondering what was keeping us. We’d just have to give up on finding a tractor until another day. “Well,” I said, “I guess we have to be going. You sure you’re going to be all right?”

  “I’ll be all right,” he said.

  “Promise me you won’t do nothing for a day or two.” He didn’t promise.

  “Well, don’t be foolish,” I told him. “Take care of yourself.”

  I was already down the steps when he called after me, “Say you could use a tractor?”

  “We could sure use one.”

  “Well, I ain’t got no tractor . . . but if you’ve a mind to, you can borrey the horse I got and the plow.”

  I thanked him but said we were looking for a tractor and a man to drive it. I turned to Dora, but she had jumped off the porch and was bounding down the hill to where the horse was. What in the world?

  I walked over to the edge of the bank to see what she was up to—she was unhitching the horse! “Now look here, Dora,” I yelled. “We got no way to get that animal up the mountain!”

  She wasn’t listening. I looked back at Lester, hoping for help.

  “She can ride him,” he told me.

  I tell you, I was flabbergasted! “Ride that horse all the way up the mountain? We got no hay—nothing to feed him.”

  “You got grass, he’s grass fed,” Lester said.

  I could not believe what was happening. Dora hitched the horse to the apple tree and was getting ready to load the plow in my Chevy. “Drive on down here,” she told me.

  If ever a body was floored, it was me! But I did as I was told; got the car down there, turned it around, and opened the trunk.

  Dora and I got the plow and tackle half in and half out of the trunk, but the lid wouldn’t close. That didn’t bother Dora. She led the horse alongside the bank where it would be easier to mount up, steadied him, then threw her leg over his bare back and was astride him in less time than it takes to tell it.

  I climbed back in the car and drove slowly around the apple tree and back onto the rutted road. With the trunk lid up, there was only a narrow space I could see through to the back. Dora was following right along behind.

  Above Lester’s yard, I leaned my head out the window and yelled down to him, “How long can we keep him?”

  “Long as need be,” I heard him say.

  I thanked him, still shocked at what was happening, and put the car in gear. Dora flicked the reins, and we were on our way. I drove at a snail’s pace and kept looking in the rear through that little gap to make sure Dora was coming along okay. Even bareback, she was riding as natural as if she and that horse were lifelong friends.

  Once I was sure we were underway okay, I tried to think of what I would tell Ursula. She might just make us turn around and take the horse and plow right back to Lester. Of course, I had to believe this was the Lord’s way of helping us make a garden, but convincing Ursula of that would take all the gumption I had got.

  As we were rounding those curves climbing back up the mountain, suddenly all this struck me so funny I started laughing historically! I could just see us riding up at Priscilla Home with all those girls sitting on the porch watching—wide-eyed and open-mouthed, probably wondering if they were having the D.T.s. This had to be about the funniest thing that had ever happened at Priscilla Home, and if this didn’t make them laugh nothing ever would. At least we would give them some excitement.

  But Ursula? Ursula would never see anything funny about this.

  5

  When we arrived back at Priscilla Home and the women saw Dora riding that horse in back of the Chevy, they came sailing off that porch like a flock of wild geese and followed us around to the back laughing their heads off. “Hey, Miss Ursula, lookee here!” Linda hollered. Ursula must have been in her office and not able to hear Linda.

  “We didn’t find a tractor,” I told the girls, “but Dora here can plow with this horse, so we borrowed it for a few days. Here, can you help me get the plow out of the trunk?”

  They were quick to get hold of both ends and heave it over the end of the trunk. Evelyn lifted out the tackling. Even though her meat and drink, vodka, had reduced her to skin and bones, she always jumped to do her share of the work, and that made me worry that she would do too much and get down sick.

  Dora slid off the gelding and led him in back of the garage to where there was water. “He needs a rest,” I explained. “Besides, Dora can’t start plowing until we clear out the rocks in that patch.”

  “Not me!” Linda exclaimed.

  “Yes, you,” I replied. I told myself, There’s no way that big strong girl is going to shirk doing her part. “And now’s as good a time as any to get going on it.”

  “I didn’t come here to do farm work,” she argued.

  “Neither did I,” I told her, “but your stay at Priscilla Home is free, so it’s little enough to ask you to help out wherever you’re needed.”

  “That’s right, Linda,” Angela told her. “Every other rehab costs a lot of money, and since you don’t have insurance, where do you think you could go? You ought to be glad there’s a place like Priscilla Home.”

  “Aw, shut up!” Linda said as she picked up a hoe and followed along behind the other girls. They were headed for the place by the road where we planned to plant. Once they got started working, I went inside to face the music.

  Ursula was on the phone, so I went in my bathroom to wash up. In a few minutes she called me. “Esmeralda, Dr. Elsie is on phone.” Oh, I was glad to hear that; I was very anxious to talk to her. Ursula handed me the receiver and left the office.

  “Dr. Elsie?”

  Always to the point, Dr. Elsie answered, “Esmeralda, I called to tell Ursula my check is in the mail. We’ve been busy here, and I neglected to send it on time.” She paused; I tensed up; more was coming. “Esmeralda, you can help that girl, Ursula. She’s a newborn Christian, came to know the Lord her last year in grad school.”

  T
here! I knew it! Ursula had complained about me to Dr. Elsie. Smarting from that knife in my back, I listened, wanting nothing more than to give Dr. Elsie an earful about that snake in the grass. But Dr. Elsie was breezing along, giving me this song and dance about Ursula.

  “Ursula was saved through one of those campus ministries, I forget which one, and I doubt she’s had much nurturing.”

  I picked up on that “nurturing” business, and Dr. Elsie, who’s about as plainspoken as a body can get, explained, “You’ll have to wet nurse this one.”

  “On the ‘sincere milk of the Word,’ I suppose,” I snapped, still smarting.

  She caught my drift and pressed on making a case for Ursula. “Esmeralda, she’s the only Christian in her family, and her parents were not in favor of her taking this job. They both teach in a university and from all I can tell, they’re agnostics. They have ambitions for their only daughter and Priscilla Home is not one of them.”

  “How in tarnation am I supposed to teach that woman anything—she’s so educated, so high and mighty—half the time I don’t know what she’s talking about!”

  “You’ll find a way,” she said, as confident as always that I am some kind of wonder woman. “I have to go now,” she said and hung up.

  I stormed back in my room, furious and ready to pack my bags.

  In a few minutes I heard Ursula come back in the office. When she called me in, she could see how mad I was. “Esmeralda, I can help you with anger management. There’s a protocol—”

  “Ursula, it strikes me that you, too, have a temper.”

  She ignored that remark. “Let’s not quarrel,” she said. “We have more to worry about than our personality conflicts. The mail came, and there was only one contribution. It’s from the youth in your Apostolic Bible Church. They had a car wash and sent us the profit, thirty dollars. If they washed all the cars in South Carolina it wouldn’t bring in what we owe. Esmeralda, we’ve waited long enough for a miracle. I’ve decided to do something.”

  “We still have a few days before we have to come up with the money. There’s some reason we’re having to wait.”

  “Chapter and verse, please.”

  It took me a few minutes to come up with something. “For starters, what about Mary and Martha?”

  “Mary and Martha?”

  “Right. After they sent word to Jesus that their brother was sick, they waited and nothing happened. Even after Jesus got the message, he stayed where he was two whole days before he left to go to them. His staying away like that and making them wait had a purpose. He was waiting so Lazarus would die and be buried because he wanted to raise him from the dead.”

  “So what’s the point?”

  “Ursula, there’s always some good reason why we’re made to wait.”

  “Maybe for you but not for me. Tomorrow I’m going to the bank, so don’t plan to go anywhere. One of us has to be here at all times.” She stood up. “Oh, by the way, did you get a tractor?”

  “No,” I said and left it at that.

  “There’s a letter here for you.” She handed it to me as she was going out the door.

  The letter was from Beatrice, and I took it in my room to read it. Feeling like a string of spaghetti left in the pot, I sat down and waited for what was sure to happen. The minute Ursula discovered that horse and plow, the fat would be in the fire. I tell you, this place was getting to me.

  Well, I opened Beatrice’s letter. As you know, Beatrice is my lifelong friend, and I missed her. That is, I missed having her look to me for every little thing. She had Carl now and didn’t need me that way. Beatrice had changed more than any one person I had ever known. Sometimes now, instead of me telling her what was what, she told me—actually jerked a knot in me one time about Percy Poteat.

  Beatrice’s letter was all about the Grand Canyon and other places they had visited. I wasn’t much interested in all of that. At the bottom of the letter were Bible references. She never did that before. It must be Carl’s influence, I thought.

  I heard a commotion outside under my window and got up to see, knowing full well what it was. Ursula was down there with several of the women all talking at once, excited about what must seem to her to be proof positive that I am a wacko. I didn’t see Dora. The horse was alongside the garage eating grass.

  Ursula was coming back inside, banging the door behind her. I braced myself and went back in the office to face this cyclone storming up the steps.

  She burst in, her face red as a beet. “Esmeralda, what in the world have you done?”

  “You mean the plow?”

  “The horse!”

  “It’s for plowing the garden.”

  “I assumed as much. Whatever made you think I would put up with having an animal on this property?”

  “I didn’t give it the first thought,” I said just to aggravate her. “There’s no reason we can’t make a good garden up here, raise our own vegetables and can stuff for the winter. Self-help is better’n begging.”

  She ignored that last dig. “Did you tell the ladies they would have to clear the ground of stones?”

  “I did. A vegetable garden is not a rock garden.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” she snapped.

  I was getting a kick out of nettling her. “Don’t your books tell you work is good therapy?”

  “Therapy or not, it’s time for Group and they must all assemble in the day room!”

  But she didn’t ring the bell. She sat down and looked across at me, those dark eyes sparking. “From whom did you buy or rent that animal and plow?”

  “It’s borrowed. Lester Teague let us have it for nothing.”

  That took some of the wind out of her sails. I believed I was winning, but I’m not the kind to gloat.

  “And pray tell, who is Lester Teague?”

  “He’s a mountain man lives below us on a side road.” I went on to describe him.

  “Sounds avuncular,” she said. “Don’t think you won’t have to pay that man one way or another.”

  “Oh, we’ve already paid him.”

  “With what?”

  So I told her the whole story. By the time I finished, she had calmed down; didn’t say anything more about the horse, just started in on her kind of business. “Did Dora open up to you?”

  “Well, I don’t know if you’d call it opening up, but she did talk. Some of it made sense, some didn’t.”

  “For instance?”

  There was no way I was going to tell Ursula all the strange things Dora had said. I shrugged my shoulders and passed it off, saying, “Oh, this and that.”

  “Nothing of consequence?”

  I shook my head.

  For a few minutes neither of us spoke. Then she swiveled in her chair, started in on another paper clip, and began again. “I think you should know something of Dora’s background. The sheriff and her sponsor brought her here under a court order. What led up to her arrest is a long story. Some years ago, Dora was driving under the influence with her three-year-old boy in a pickup truck when she sideswiped another vehicle. She was driving on a dirt road on the side bordering a steep incline. There had been heavy rain that night, and the edge of the road gave way under the truck sending it over that embankment.”

  Something about this seemed familiar, and as Ursula kept talking it came to me that maybe this was why Dora had acted a little strange when we were riding down Lester’s road. She had braced against the dash and leaned away from that side of the road next the embankment.

  “The truck rolled over several times,” Ursula was saying, “before it finally came to rest. Dora had only cuts and bruises, but her son suffered head injuries and lay in a coma for five years before he died.”

  Ursula’s voice was as flat as a stone.

  “During those years her child was in a coma, Dora became increasingly dependent on alcohol, and to pay medical bills she grew marijuana and sold it.”

  Only a body who has never had any pain in their life could t
ell that story with no more feeling than Ursula had. Again she swiveled around in the chair, taking her nerves out on that paper clip. “An attorney took the accident case to court, and even though Dora had been driving under the influence when the accident occurred, he won an enormous settlement for her. The trouble is, Dora will not take a penny of that money. The attorney, with his entire family, is now on an extended cruise.”

  “You mean he took the money?”

  “One would assume that he did. Dora foolishly refused the settlement and continued growing marijuana to pay the bills. As might be expected, she was apprehended, tried and convicted, but the judge knew her story and sent her to Priscilla Home rather than to prison. If she’s not rehabilitated here, incarceration is inevitable.”

  I remembered Ursula had said Dora would be sent home if we didn’t get a breakthrough soon, so I had to speak up. “It seems to me Dora has had a lot in her life to make her closed-mouthed. Even if she don’t talk much, I for one think we should keep her here as long as it takes for the Lord to do his work in her life.”

  “Doesn’t talk much,” she said, correcting me. “Ethically, we have no choice. Dora needs to go through the grieving process, but since she won’t talk to me, she has not taken the first step. It would be unconscionable to keep her here when we have a waiting list.”

  I determined right then and there that I would do everything in my power to see that Dora stayed at Priscilla Home until she found victory in Jesus. That meant I had some big-time praying to do!

  Ursula rang the bell for Group. I followed her downstairs to the day room, where the girls were straggling in from the garden. We arranged ourselves in a circle with Ursula and her clipboard in the leader’s chair.

  “Where’s Dora?” she asked.

  “I’ll fetch her,” I said and got up to go look for her.

  I found Dora in the garden, swinging a pick, digging out a huge rock. “Dora, Miss Ursula’s beginning Group.”