After all, I told myself, I don’t have nothing in common with Albert Ringstaff except love for the Lord . . . Live Oaks is a long way off from New York City and all the places he’s lived and traveled to.
Of course, I knew that all along but, being a fool, I had just shut it out of my mind. I have played the fool, haven’t I, Lord? Maybe those two were made for each other—her and him. . . . They have lived most of their lives in that world of highbrow music—traveled all over the world and met all kinds of stylish people. I wouldn’t fit in with all of that. Now that he’s alone, he really needs somebody, and she needs somebody, too.
I didn’t need a husband. I had my work to do, and a man would just be in the way. Well, maybe not in the way . . .
Somebody was knocking on my door. Now, who can that be?
I went to open the door. It was Ursula, and she had been crying.
“What’s the matter, Ursula?”
“It’s Linda, Esmeralda. I caught her with her hand in the petty cash.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Here, sit down.”
She sat on the other chair and was sniffling. She could hardly talk. “Esmeralda, I don’t know how I could have been so stupid as to trust her. . . . It’s just that she has so many problems and I was confident I was making progress with her. . . . Now I must dismiss her, send her home no better than when she came.”
I put my hand over hers. “Well, Ursula, you must remember, when a person hardens their heart, there’s nothing a body can do. The Lord don’t go against nobody’s will, but he cries over them same as you. You ever read that verse in Isaiah where God says about hard-headed people, ‘All day long I have stretched out my hands unto a disobedient and a gainsaying people’? Now, that’s what he’s saying about Linda.”
“I know,” she said, “but I feel so foolish. Why couldn’t I see that she was playing games with me? She deceived me, Esmeralda!”
“Well, Ursula, don’t feel bad. Sooner or later everybody in this kind of work gets conned.”
“It’s not only that, Esmeralda. What grieves me most is taking her word against yours about Portia. That was unconscionable. I should have listened to you and investigated thoroughly before making my decision.”
“We all make mistakes, Ursula.”
“Not like me. Priscilla Home is a different place since you came here. Morale has never been this good. They love you, Esmeralda, and I love you, too.” She came over and put her arms around me and was just sobbing. “I guess it’s . . . it’s just my nature to be nasty.” I held on to her, stroking her hair and trying to make her feel better. She really was a pitiful case—probably never had no mothering, no normal kind of life.
I held Ursula in my arms like that for a long time. When she got hold of herself, she got up and, still sniffling, talked some more. “I know you will forgive me, but I doubt the ladies will.” She blew her nose and walked toward the door. “Tomorrow, I’m going to call them all together, confess how wrong I was about Portia, and beg their forgiveness.”
“They’ll forgive you,” I said.
Standing with her hand on the knob, her shoulders drooping, she looked back at me. “Esmeralda . . . thank you.”
“You go along to bed, Ursula. Get a good night’s sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
Long after she was back in her apartment, I sat there thinking about the whole situation. I was feeling even more guilty than Ursula. As much as I hated to see Portia leave Priscilla Home, I hated all the more to see Linda go. After all, Portia took the Lord with her, but Linda was yet a far cry from being a believer. I had failed that girl miserably. Failed to love her, failed to say the things I might have said. I felt so bad I couldn’t ask the Lord to forgive me, I just asked him to have mercy on me.
The temptation to resign was mighty strong. Life would be so much easier back there in Live Oaks where there were no life-and-death problems—where I could live out my days without a care in the world and forget all about Albert Ringstaff.
I tell you, I mulled that over for some time before I got up to get in bed. I was about to turn out the lamp when I noticed the poem Portia had framed for me hanging on the wall above the TV. “Only one life . . .”
It came to me all at once. There’ll be other Lindas. It made me think maybe the Lord was telling me something. It was true, there would be other Lindas, other Portias, and Evelyns, and Nancys.
I turned out the lamp and rolled over, satisfied that the Lord had laid claim on me for the rest of my life.
The next morning I was up by 4:30 and in the kitchen making Albert’s fried apple pies, and I was singing:
What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
I looked up. There she was leaning against the doorframe. “Good morning, Dora.”
Epilogue
Dear Beatrice,
Since you and Carl faithfully support this work, you deserve to hear how the Lord has worked here. I came to Priscilla Home four years ago, and the women who were the first ones I knew have now had time to prove themselves one way or another. As you know, Lenora married Albert Ringstaff, and they seem happy. She doesn’t know much about making a home for him, but they have their music. He asked me to teach his wife how to make fried apple pies, but she never got the hang of it, so I still make them for him. For my birthday they gave me a leather-bound King James Bible.
Portia is still using my old Bible. She works at a fish cannery, and she asks me to pray for the workers she’s trying to win to the Lord. Every time she gets paid she sends us five dollars.
I don’t know much about Linda. She talks to Ursula, tells her she’s collecting money to buy us a tractor. So far she hasn’t sent us anything.
When Boris Krantz and Lucy brought the youth group up here on a mission trip, Angela started flirting with Boris. Poor Lucy, she was no match for that blue-eyed blonde with the cute figure. Angela packed up and went back with the group to Live Oaks. She and Boris got married, and now they have a baby. Clara tells me it’s a rocky marriage.
The board hired Nancy to be on staff as my assistant, and she’s doing a good job. Martha comes back for a visit every summer and brings her little girl. Samantha is in the third grade now.
Melba went back to her old job as a beauty supply salesman. Before she left, she told us she had done some modeling. Her hands are the ones you see on packages of press-on nails, and her legs are pictured on a hair-removal product. The good thing is, because Emily has such pretty red hair, Melba persuaded her to try out as a model for hair color products. Well, Emily was hired, and with the money she got modeling, she’s opened her own aerobics studio. Her sister handles the book work, and their business is getting off the ground. The last time I talked to her, she said she had not only kicked heroin, but she had also quit smoking.
It hurts me to think about Evelyn. While she was here she had a serious crisis—she was bleeding so bad we had to rush her to the hospital. Ursula called her parents, and they came that night. Ursula had a conference with them and told them the major cause of Evelyn’s disorder was due to their controlling her. Evelyn’s daddy got so mad he yanked Evelyn out of Priscilla Home and took her home. We never heard another word about her until some months later when Wilma saw her obituary in the newspaper and called us. Albert led a memorial service for her in the parlor, and the Valley Church trio sang.
Before Wilma left P.H., she told me she needed a job that gave her more time at home to be with her thirteen-year-old daughter. She had never taken the child to church, and because she was a long distance truck driver, there was no way she could. But she said she couldn’t afford to quit, that trucking paid more than other jobs she could get.
Well, a funny thing happened. Wilma had a delivery to make in New York City. She made a wrong turn and wound up going the wrong way on a one-way street! That blocked traffic for some time and cost her company a big fine, so t
hey fired her. Wilma was out of work for a year, except for driving a school bus. But now she’s got a good job delivering the mail. She and her daughter never miss a service at church.
You remember Brenda is a hairdresser. Well, a preacher come in the shop to have his hair cut. That’s when it all started. She went back to the Methodist church where he preached, they courted, and when the bishop moved him to Virginia, they got married. She lives up there now.
Now let me tell you about Dora. When she graduated, Albert gave her a harmonica that he ordered out of New York and told her it had all the notes she would need to play anything she wanted. I didn’t think much of that. Dora could have used the money a lot better. Albert had given P.H. a recorder and a lot of tapes with high-class music, and since Dora was the only one who ever listened to them, I told her to take them home with her.
Before she left, we had a good talk about how she was going to pay those medical bills now that she wasn’t going to grow pot. She had it all planned. Said she had beehives and would sell sourwood honey and that there was “wind-throwed” trees on her property that she was going to saw into firewood and sell by the truckload. And there was still ginseng growing up on a slope and some other herbs she could sell.
It wasn’t everything, but maybe it would bring in enough to keep paying along on those bills.
Well, it didn’t work out so good. She wrote that by the time she got home, a bear had robbed the hives. The next thing we heard, somebody had sneaked onto her property and harvested all the “sang,” as she called it. Still, that winter she managed by selling firewood. That is, until her truck broke down.
For more than a year we didn’t hear one word from Dora. Then one day here come a money order from her for five hundred dollars! As glad as we were to get the money, it worried me a little. In a few weeks here come another money order for one thousand dollars! My worst fears had to be true—Dora was growing pot again!
As time went on, we continued getting money from Dora. Finally, Ursula and I agreed this had to be drug money, and she decided to ask the board if we should accept it.
Then one day I was in the garden when Ursula flung open the window of the apartment and yelled for me to come up there immediately. I dropped the hoe and went flying up the steps. Ursula was standing wide-eyed before the TV. “It’s Dora! Dora’s on TV!”
Lo and behold, it was—our Dora standing on stage, still wearing that old hunting coat!
“That’s Carnegie Hall,” Ursula told me. “It’s some kind of festival. Shhh, they’re introducing her.”
I was so excited I don’t remember all that the announcer said, but it was about her being a recording artist. Then the orchestra started playing, and Dora put that mouth organ to her lips, closed her eyes, and laid into making music such as you won’t get no other place but heaven. It was strong music, and in my mind’s eye I could see that old chimney standing against a gale; I heard the roar of the falls and felt the wet cold of that day. And then the music changed. It was gentle and sweet, warm as the little candle flickering inside of her.
When her playing ended, people jumped to their feet clapping and hollering—whistling through their teeth. The man in a tuxedo came out and stopped Dora from going off stage. He held her there waiting for the applause to die down. They just kept on clapping!
Finally the man got them quiet, and they sat down to hear what he had to say. By then Ursula had out her clipboard to write down what he said. “Ladies and gentlemen, this young lady has given us the rare gift of musical genius.” More applause. “Since Miss Dora’s first recording was released, musical critics have been mesmerized by her astounding interpretive rendition of the classics. PBS is offering her a contract for a solo concert next season, but she has not decided whether or not to sign.” A ripple of laughter went through the audience. “She may not! In fact, it took considerable coaxing to persuade this artist to leave her home in Tennessee to come to this city and perform in this historic hall.” He turned to Dora. “Miss Dora, it is you who have made history here tonight. Never again will the harmonica be relegated to hobo camps, prisons, and cowboy campfires.”
The people stood up, cheering and still clapping when the camera turned to a commercial.
Well, Beatrice, it’s almost time for Praise and Prayer, so I’ll sign off. Tell Carl not to take no wooden nickels.
Yours very truly,
Esmeralda
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Franz Mohr, author of My Life with the Great Pianists, for technical information on the Steinway piano, with apologies to Elizabeth, his wife, for modeling a character after her husband!
Jennie Free and Elizabeth Dagley, my sisters, and two friends, Alvera Mickelsen and Jean Abrahamsen, read the manuscript and offered significant insights. Without my agent, Joyce Hart, who put me in touch with Baker/Revell and facilitated the business between us, this novel would never have been published.
No matter how good a book may be, without the expertise of acquisition people, editors, copyeditors, artists, publicists, production personnel, and sales representatives, it would not be successful. I am indebted to the gifted Baker/Revell staff who have worked hard to give Good Heavens such a splendid send-off: Karen Steele, Karen Campbell, Lonnie Hull Dupont, Twila Bennett, Sheila Ingram, Kristin Kornoelje, Cheryl Van Andel, Ruth Waybrant, Marilyn Gordon, and Chris Tobias (the artist who created the eye-catching cover).
Margaret Graham is the author of seven nonfiction books, one juvenile work of fiction, and three novels, including Mercy Me. She conveys her deep love of the Scriptures as a speaker, Bible teacher, and newspaper columnist. Graham resides in Sumter, South Carolina.
Good Heavens Page 24