Miriam's Well

by Lois Ruby

  There was perfect harmony in that ancient symphony, and I knew, at last, that God meant this as a sign that I had been healed.

  And then it was just a matter of waiting patiently for whatever would happen to get me home for Christmas.

  In the morning, I told Brother James, “I’ve had another sign.”

  “My prayers have been answered, child.” I saw the hint of tears in his eyes. “Now, you must be ready, for your time is at hand. Be vigilant, Miriam.”

  I was vigilant. Hours crept past. Finally, Brother James brought me some clothes and shoes in a grocery sack and told me to put them on, with the robe as cover on top. “Just move quick as lightning, and do whatever I say.”

  Hadn’t I always? In my little bathroom, I slipped into the familiar blouse and skirt that smelled of Mama’s iron, glorying in the freedom of something as simple as having street clothes to wear. Someone down the hall—Uncle Vernon, as Brother James explained hurriedly—was creating a hullabaloo.

  “You can’t do that!” a nurse yelled. “Dr. Gregory, this man’s going into everyone’s room and pumping up these poor unfortunates with Jesus talk. My God, they’re going to be pouring out into the halls hollering out hallelujahs and hosannas!”

  I heard Dr. Gregory’s voice clearly, though he was way off down the hall. “Officer Baylor, give me a hand here. We’ve got to remove this man before he upsets our patients.” Officer Baylor ran down the hall; I heard her keys jangling. At that moment, Brother James whisked me out the door and down the stairs to the loading dock of the hospital, where Uncle Benjamin was waiting with his car running. We drove off into the blinding snowstorm, the blue norther that the weatherman had warned of. Cars were stalled all over, but Uncle Benjamin had put chains on his tires, and we tore recklessly through the streets. He took the most roundabout route to avoid stoplights, though driving down the side streets, even with our chains clanging, was like gliding across glass.

  I didn’t believe I’d survive the trip. Brother James murmured prayers for us all. We spun into a driveway, narrow as a panel truck, in front of an unfamiliar little house with cement steps leading up to it. “Can’t I go home?” I cried.

  “Well, Miriam, I’d sure like to be taking you home to your mama, but that’s the first place they’ll look for you,” Brother James explained. “I’m hiding you out here, where you’ll be safe and where we can have a nice old-time Christmas together.”

  “What is this place?” I asked, trying to dispel the feeling that I’d been kidnapped and taken to a hideaway where Adam would never find me.

  “Trust, child,” Brother James admonished. I was shivering, for I had nothing but the robe over my thin clothes to keep me warm. With his gloved hand, he clutched my arm, and my shivering stopped for a second. He opened the car door and shepherded me up the cement steps. The front door opened just a crack, then was closed so the chain could be slipped off.

  The room was blazing with warmth that I was greedy for, though it smelled faintly of gas. I was afraid to breathe deeply. Two little girls peeked out from behind their mother, and Marylou Wadkins said, “Praise the Lord!”

  Marylou was with me every minute. I slept with her in her big double bed, remembering that her husband had died there no more than a year before. His picture was the first thing I noticed when I awoke, or maybe I hadn’t slept at all. I lay there with my head on a hard, foam rubber pillow, staring at the yellow spot on the ceiling where there’d been a leak. The little girls were singing in the next room. Thin walls separated us.

  Marylou made some babylike sounds as she was waking up, too. “Are you up already?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  She shot up in bed and felt my forehead. “You’re not sick again, are you?”

  I laughed. “I thought sick was something we didn’t get.”

  “Purely a reflex action. I used to be a nurse, you know, before Brother James found me. Big hospital emergency room. I worked the graveyard shift, when all the night action took place. I saw enough people stabbed, babies burned or kicked down stairs, drug overdoses—sweet Jesus, it just about made me crazy.”

  “And that’s when you came to the church?”

  Marylou sat on the bed with her long legs tucked under her. Even though the corners of her eyes were crusted with sleep, her face glowed at the thought. “One day, after my shift ended? Brother James found me in the park, just down from St. Francis Hospital. It was about seven-fifteen in the morning. I was sobbing and carrying on because I thought no one else was in the park. He appeared out of nowhere. Put his arms around me. Imagine, I cried on the shoulder of this total stranger in a city park. But I knew he was good. He said, ‘God woke me this morning before the sun came up and sent me here to this park.’ Well, I was saved, in more ways than one.”

  “What would we do without Brother James?” I said, forgetting for just a moment how angry I was about being here.

  “A-men. Anyway, he found me a job at Boeing, in personnel, and that’s where I met Billy. I hired him, in fact. He was a machinist. Darlene came along, then Annie, and then Billy, well, he died, he went on to the next world.” Tears filled the corners of her sandy eyes. “Well, I can’t mope about it, can I?” She swung her legs over her side of the bed. I wondered which side had been Billy’s.

  The room was way overheated. I longed for a crack of fresh air, even though the snow was swirling around outside the bedroom window.

  “It’s awful hot in here, isn’t it?”

  “Why not? Utilities are included.”

  “After breakfast I’m going to call my friend.”

  Marylou shook her head firmly.

  “Anyway, I have to call Mr. Bergen. He’s my lawyer.”

  “Brother James says no phone calls. We can’t take the risk, not just yet. You want to get in the bathroom before I go?”

  I wanted to get out. If this was my rescue, I wanted out.

  There was a loud thumping on the other side of the wall. “That’s Annie, working her crib across the room. You should see what it does to that wood floor. My word!”

  Marylou went into the girls’ room and brought Annie back to our bed. The older girl, Darlene, peered at me from behind the thumb she was sucking. “Go to the pot, go on,” Marylou urged her.

  I’d watch for an opportunity, when Marylou was busy bathing the girls, maybe, and I’d get to the phone then. I could be patient just a while longer.

  Annie smelled. Marylou held the diaper pins in her mouth, while yanking a sopping wet yellow thing out from under Annie’s bottom.

  “Besides,” Marylou said, “until I get a little bit ahead on my bills, I’m not going to be able to afford a phone. We haven’t had one since a month or two after Billy died. It’s a good thing Brother James stops by now and then, to see if we’re hurting for anything.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Told by Adam

  The University of Colorado Buffs were trying to work the ball down K.U.’s field in a blinding snowstorm, while my father and I crunched popcorn in front of a fire and watched the uniforms gets blacker. The phone rang, and the call shot a lazy afternoon of football all to hell. I only heard his end of the conversation.

  “How long ago? What’s left in the room? Who was on the floor at the time? Where was Security? All right. Call my service if you need to reach me.” He slammed the receiver down. “I could have predicted it would all turn to bilge water before Christmas. Those goddamn fanatics. Haven’t they ever heard of the season of peace and goodwill?”

  I turned off the Buffs. “What happened?”

  “Your little girlfriend flew the coop. Or, more precisely, Brother James put a ring in her nose and led her out to pasture.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Who the hell knows? We’ve got a blizzard raging out there. She could be under nine feet of snow, or she could be clear down to the Oklahoma border, if they’re stupid enough to drive in this stuff and take her across state lines. And they are. They’ve go
t brains the size of chick-peas. These are my clients I’m talking about. Trust in the Lord. Jesus will provide. All you got is fish? No problem, he’ll turn ’em into loaves. Water in the way? He’ll just walk across it. He’ll cure the blind and the lame; he’ll cleanse the lepers. I’m telling you, he’s better than the Wizard of Oz.”

  “I hope she’s okay.” What else was there to say, with my father ranting like that? He must have said ten times that he never should have gotten into the case. It wasn’t the time to tell him how much I agreed. “What do we do now?”

  “Feel like freezing your butt off?” He tossed me a pair of gloves from the front hall chest. “Grab a coat and something to cover your ears, and let’s go.” I guess it didn’t matter that I was still grounded for the essay felony.

  Our first stop was the hospital, where my father scanned every inch of Miriam’s room with his professional eye. She’d left a few things behind, but no clues. No addresses, no phone numbers, no notes or photographs, except the picture of Him, which had taken a temporary backseat to the Christmas tree.

  Our next stop was Miriam’s house. The snow had drifted almost as high as the doorknob, and we beat it off with our gloves just as Miriam’s Uncle Vernon opened the door.

  Squinting to recognize us in the blowing snow, he said, “She’s not here.” Mrs. Pelham huddled behind him, and Uncle Benjamin behind her, with his massive hands on her shoulders.

  My father said, “I know she’s not here. But your church is paying me a pretty hefty sum of money to represent her, so doesn’t it make sense to let me know where she is?”

  “I can’t do that,” Uncle Vernon said. “I thought Brother James told you we’re not needing a lawyer anymore.”

  “Listen, Mr. Pelham, you’re going to need a lawyer worse than ever now. Kidnapping’s a serious offense, and if they’ve taken her across to Oklahoma or Missouri, it’s an FBI matter. Look, it’s freezing out here. Can’t we come in and talk?”

  Uncle Vernon didn’t budge an inch.

  “Mrs. Pelham, you’ve got a mother’s heart. You must be worried sick over the girl. The weather’s vicious, the roads are impassable. Wouldn’t it comfort you to know she was somewhere safe and warm?”

  “She is. She’s in the Lord’s hands. Now please, go and leave us. At least give us Christmas.”

  Uncle Vernon began inching the door shut, until I felt only a thin strip of warmth.

  My father shoved his foot in the door. “Will I hear from you after Christmas? If you make me a promise, maybe I can keep the police off her trail until then.”

  “‘The Lord is my shepherd,’” Uncle Vernon said, and, as the door closed, we heard the voices swell like a church choir inside, “‘I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.…’”

  In the car, my father hung his head on the steering wheel. “Think, THINK!” he commanded himself. “Can you name any of her friends?”

  “She doesn’t have any, besides me.” I thought about that guy she wrote to, the missionary she met at church camp. Did he live in Emporia? Abilene? Was he even from Kansas? And if she ever mentioned his name, I sure didn’t remember it.

  “Brother James has got to be hiding her at the home of someone in the church,” I said. My teeth were chattering; my father probably couldn’t understand a word I said. “Let’s head home, Dad.” He started up the car, and for one sickening moment we felt the wheels spinning in the ice. My father jerked the car from one gear to the other, until he loosened it from its rut. “You gotta be more careful, Dad.” Ironic. Every time I walked out of the house, one of my parents said, “Be careful, drive safely.” Here I was telling my father the same thing.

  As Dad pulled into our driveway, I struggled to pick out faces and names among the church people in my memory. There was the polyester guy over the punchbowl. Edwin, Elvin, something like that.

  The automatic garage door opener was sluggish in the subzero temperature, but finally we were out of the snow. The door from the garage into the kitchen stuck, as usual. I thrust my weight against it, and it finally gave. The house was warm and hazy with soft winter light. My mother wasn’t home from work yet. We’d have to go through the whole explanation with her.

  Edwin, Edgar? No last name, of course. In fact, people who called each other brother and sister wouldn’t bother much with last names.

  Except one. One woman was introduced as if her first and last names went together like beer and pretzels. Brother James was standing there. He had something heavy in his arms at the time; the picture was coming to me. She was somebody special, judging by the way his eyes followed her. And Miriam had told me later that she thought Brother James might marry her after Christmas. Mary; Mary Lou. Marylou Wadkins, yes, the one with the pesky, cookie-crumb kids.

  Then I was sure Miriam was at Marylou Wadkins’s house. I ran to the phone book, looked up Wadkins; no listing. I tried Watkins, which was in the books, but didn’t show a Mary, Mary Lou, or even an M. I tried every possible variation on the spelling and finally had to slam the book shut.

  I flipped on my radio, tuned to the best classic rock station, and got “Jingle Bell Rock.” A fake cheerful voice warned of zero visibility and noted the travel advisories. The DJ would be spending the night at the studio, I guessed. Where was Miriam spending the night? And why didn’t she call me?

  The sun woke me up. It was the kind of day when the sun bursts out after a threatening night of snow, and the rickety trees are coated with ice that melts in the sun, and you just know that by lunchtime the snow will be wet enough to hold together for a snowball fight. A perfect Kansas day to teach Miriam the aerodynamics of killer snowballs. Then I remembered: she was gone.

  It was Sunday, December 23. The bells of St. Thomas were calling Catholics in our neighborhood to mass. Suddenly I had a brilliant idea and sat up in bed. She’d go to church!

  But in a cooler second, I realized that was a dumb idea. If I’d thought of it, half the state of Kansas would, too. I plopped my head back down. But why not go to her church and see if I could find out anything about the Marylou Wadkins person?

  The last time, it was standing room only, but that was for Miriam’s great performance. This time there were only about sixty people in the church, maybe half of them small, noisy children. Marylou Wadkins was not there. That was a sure sign. I waited in the back where no one could see me. Mrs. Pelham and the uncles sat in the second row, with their backs to me.

  The door behind the altar opened, and Brother James appeared. The whole atmosphere became charged. What power this guy had. The mothers tucked their sons’ shirts in and hushed the girls, and the men slid into the pews beside their families. I quickly walked down the side aisle and joined a family of people with dark hair, so I could blend in.

  Brother James’s voice was a low rumble. He caressed the microphone and delivered his words into it as if he were—I swear—seducing a beautiful woman. “The Holy Spirit is here this morning. Can you feel it, brothers and sisters?”

  “It’s here!” someone cried out.

  “I feel it!”

  I didn’t.

  “The Holy Spirit is strongly with us this morning, because we have come through the valley of the shadow of death, we have come through the dark night. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath nowhere to lay his head.’ But I tell you, the daughter of this church laid her head down in a place of safe harbor last night.”

  “Praise the Lord!”

  “Paul himself said, ‘For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of the Son.’” Brother James’s voice rose and fell like ocean waves. “The key word here is witness, brothers and sisters. The Holy Spirit is with us this morning. Who will bear witness to its awesome power to move and heal us? Who among us?”

  Brother James stopped, caught sight of me. “We have a guest, my friends. God led him into our simple tabernacle this morning to witness. Yes, I feel it. Do you feel
it, brothers and sisters? There is an important message seething under the skin of this boy.”

  I looked for the nearest exit; there was nothing between the altar and the back door of the sanctuary. Suddenly the family around me was urging me to my feet. A thin woman with a flowered hat smiled, pressed a Bible into my hand, and motioned for me to go forward. Her sons each took me by the arm and steered me to the altar, like prison guards to the electric chair. I stood where Miriam had stood that day, on the steps facing the congregation, holding the Bible to my chest the way she used to hold her schoolbooks.

  Brother James said, nearly whispering into his microphone, “This is Adam Bergen. This is not his first time to visit Sword and the Spirit Church. Tell us, son, what moved you to return?”

  “He’s comin’ back to Jesus!”

  “Thank the bountiful Lord!”

  What was I supposed to say? There was a certain frenzy in the air that was unmistakable. For a minute I understood fully how kids could be sucked into a cult—swamped with love and attention, they were given an airtight system of belief that appeared to explain away everything they’d ever wondered or worried about.

  “A-dam, A-dam, A-dam,” the people chanted. Someone shouted, “The first man God created. Tell us what’s in your heart, Adam.”

  “It says somewhere,” I stammered, with no clear idea of where I was going. It worked in debate, I kept thinking, maybe it would work here. I tried to avoid Mrs. Pelham’s gaze. “It says that God takes care of widows and orphans. Doesn’t it say that in”—what did they call the Bible? miraculously, it came to me—“in the Book in Gold Leaf?”

  “Many times, in many ways,” Brother James said.

  “Well, I want to do something for the widows and orphans of this church.”

  “The Holy Spirit is in the boy this very morning,” an old lady cried.

  “So, uh, last time I was here, I met a young widow with two little children.” (Oh, I was warming to this performance. It was worth a nomination, if not an Oscar.) “Two precious orphans. And I sensed the poor woman’s, the poor young sister’s struggle.”