Miriam's Well

by Lois Ruby

  “The milk’s expired,” I said. “It’s December 23 milk.”

  “Smells okay.” Brent took the next step of his feast to our pantry, for a Hostess apple pie. “Lighten up, Bergen. It’s just a holiday. So now, the cops are out looking for the girl?”

  “I guess so. I’ve got to call and tell them where she is.”

  “You’re holding out on the cops? Jesus, Adam.”

  I knew I should have called an hour ago, but somewhere in the heroic pit of my stomach, I wanted to be the one to rescue Miriam. Dumb. I wasn’t even sure she wanted to be rescued.

  “What are you gonna do after you go out to Whitewater tomorrow, big shot?”

  The conversation was turning as sour as old milk, and I wasn’t sorry when Brent stuffed the last half of the Hostess pie into his mouth and mumbled, “Well, I gotta go. We’re putting out our luminarias as soon as my dad gets home. Me and my brother have to fill up about a hundred lunch bags with sand. But it sure looks beautiful when the whole neighborhood’s lit up at dusk. It just isn’t Christmas without luminarias. How come you guys don’t put them out? Every other house on the block does. It doesn’t mean anything, just candle lights.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement,” I said. It was an expression I’d learned from Diana, in debate. For a second I missed Diana deep in my belly, the way you feel after your first dog croaks.

  “Well, let me know how it turns out with the big rescue mission mañana,” he said. Suddenly, inspired by the luminarias, he was sliding into fourth-grade Spanish.

  “Yeah, right.”

  I pulled my arms up inside my T-shirt, fuming about what a crappy friend Brent had turned out to be. Or maybe I was having a severe case of the yellow-stripe-down-the-back Bah Humbugs. Or maybe I was missing Diana’s TV room and being pressed up against her on that curvy couch. Anyway, I was completely miserable as I followed Brent to the front door.

  A dribble of apple pie sat on his shirt collar. What a slob. How come I’d never noticed before? He put on his ski jacket and trudged through the snow, digging deep Nike trenches between my house and his. As sort of a last tribute to our friendship, he shouted from his porch, “Feliz Navidad,” and someone shoveling a driveway across the street yelled back, “Merry Christmas to you, too!”

  I shut the front door. The air was hot inside. The furnace roared its way through probably its last winter. “Merry Christmas,” I muttered to myself. “Happy Chanukah. Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Holiday-of-Choice.”

  I flashed on a picture: Diana in Acapulco, sunning on a beach. Bronze-chested beach boys would be bringing her frosty drinks with Christmas bows and a sprig of mistletoe tied to the straws. She’d be wearing a suit that was—what did she say?—revolutionary. I wasn’t in the picture.

  I sat in front of the window, watching my neighbors put out the sacks of sand, carry in packages, rearrange a string of lights on a pine tree on the front lawn. I turned on the radio. Perry Como’s smarmy voice promised, “I’ll be home for Christmas.…”

  Lights were coming on all over the neighborhood, as darkness hit with December suddenness. “… If only in my dreams,” Perry promised. And that got me wondering, What did Diana dream about for Christmas that she didn’t already have three of?

  And wherever she was, what was Miriam’s dream? That she’d be around for one more Christmas?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Told by Miriam

  What a glorious night! I had never, not even in church, felt such an outpouring of love as I felt on that Christmas at the farm. After we buried the blackbird, we went back to the kitchen. Brother Timothy sat a little apart from the rest of us, listening, thinking. Mr. and Mrs. Hobart swayed to and fro in their maple rockers on opposite sides of the fireplace, their outstretched toes nearly touching. Mrs. Hobart’s face glowed like a bride’s. Across the table from me, Mama looked like she’d come home at last, and Uncle Benjamin and Uncle Vernon seemed relaxed and jovial and full of Christmas spirit.

  Brother James held one little girl on each knee, and Marylou sat on the floor, leaning against his legs ever so lightly.

  The image of the small bird in its soft, patchwork nest came to me: Dear God, help me to remember that hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. In that moment I almost believed that the words had come from Scripture.

  Then Brother James led us all in prayer, and we asked for peace on earth, goodwill toward all men, as He would have wanted. “Silent night, holy night,” we sang, with only candles and the fireplace aglow. Brother James spoke barely above a whisper, and we all reached for every word. I thought he looked so blissful, with Marylou at his feet and the little girls’ heads resting on his shoulders. I envied how they fell asleep to the humming of his body as he spoke.

  One by one, people went off to bed. The unmarried men were to sleep in the front parlor, and Uncle Vernon and Uncle Benjamin went off to lay out their bedrolls. Brother James carried the little girls upstairs to the bed I would share with them later. I knew he meant for me to stay downstairs after the others had gone, and so I waited.

  When he came back, there were only small fingers of fire left. Brother James stirred the embers and threw on another log, and I knew it was to be a long talk. He motioned for me to take the rocking chair opposite him.

  “This is a Christmas I will always treasure, Miriam.

  “Me, too, Brother James.”

  “Might have been more appropriate for Easter, though, because I see that you have been renewed, just like the buds that burst forth on the trees of spring.”

  “I feel stronger than ever,” I told him.

  “I don’t doubt it.” We rocked quietly, as I wondered what would come next.

  “About the boy,” Brother James began.

  My heart sped up. “Yes?”

  “It won’t work, child. You’re fish, and he’s fowl.”

  I blurted out what was on my mind: “Do we have to hate people who aren’t like us, Brother James?”

  “No, child. We don’t hate them, any more than we hate the snow that made that poor bird hit our window. Remember, God said, ‘This I command you, that you love one another.’ But we surely worry about them.”

  I did not think Adam and his father needed our worrying. But then I thought, Not in this life, maybe, but what will become of them in the next life?

  “You see, we love them so much that we want to bring them along with us, but it troubles us that they haven’t found Jesus yet. Miriam, you know the church teaches that we have a God-given obligation to save them. ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation.’ You’ve been tied up in your own problems so long, maybe you’ve forgotten what God expects of you.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but I felt myself tensing up as I waited for the next words.

  “I want you to make this Adam Bergen boy your personal mission, Miriam. Saving a thousand strangers isn’t as precious as saving one troubled soul you know only too well.”

  “I’ve meant to, Brother James. I’ve promised Jesus, and I’ve thought and prayed about it. I can’t get any kind of a foothold. Adam’s not very religious, but anyway he seems pretty comfortable with his own faith.”

  “Comfort? What’s comfort got to do with God’s word? We’re talking souls here, child.”

  I’d thought comfort had everything to do with God, but perhaps Brother James meant something else.

  “If you like the boy, bring him around to our door. Look at the joy in the face of Brother Timothy’s mother. Don’t you want the same for Adam?”

  I wanted to tell him that I’d brought Mrs. Hobart to Jesus, just by causing all these people to be together on Christmas, and wasn’t that enough? But of course I could not boast that way, and I didn’t want him to think I was trading Mrs. Hobart’s salvation for Adam’s.

  Brother James said, “I want the boy’s soul for Jesus. As it says in the Book in Gold Leaf, ‘Be a fisher of men.’ Reel him in to us, child, and that’s ho
w you can thank the Lord for the miracle He’s performed for you. And let me remind you about First Corinthians, ‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.’ Is he worth it to you?”

  I was reminded of Adam’s father asking, “How much is it worth to you to be pain-free?”

  I couldn’t answer right away; I don’t think Brother James expected me to. His words hung in the air, gradually trailing off like the scent of vanilla in Mama’s kitchen.

  “I’ll think about it,” I promised, and he reached across and patted my hand which was clutching the arm of the rocker.

  “That’s all I ask, Miriam. Just give it some thought. Now, I’ve given some thought to Marylou Wadkins and me getting married.” There was a thick pause. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to respond. It was inconceivable that he was asking my advice. I rather thought he was measuring my reaction.

  “She’s a kind woman,” I said.

  “She needs someone to look after her. We could build a home together—Marylou, her little ones, and me.”

  Yes, but did he love her? Did she love him? If comfort had nothing to do with God, was it also true that love had nothing to do with marriage?

  “Do you think she’s put Billy Wadkins behind her?”

  Why was he asking me this? Surely he had a friend, someone in the church he could discuss all this with, even Uncle Vernon.

  “You must have some idea. You spent the night at her house. Does she keep a picture of him beside her bed?”

  “I—I don’t know what to say.”

  He turned his face away, staring into the fire. All at once it came to me: Brother James was lonely.

  “I think she likes you a lot,” I said tentatively.

  “At times, she does seem to.”

  “And the little girls adore you.” As I had adored him, when I was a little girl.

  “I’ll be thirty come April. It’s time I had a wife and family.” He rocked, I rocked; the only sound in the room besides the crackling fire was the thumping of our chairs on the worn linoleum.

  “Well, I expect I’ll be asking her before long,” he said quietly.

  I moved Annie over closer to Darlene and slipped in between the cool, crisp country sheets. I knew they’d been starched and ironed by Mrs. Hobart, maybe weeks ago, just in case someone stopped for the night. Little did she know she’d have a house full of strangers for Christmas. I thought about the passage in Hebrews that said, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Brother James, of course, was the only one of us who came close to that description, but who knew what the Lord had in mind for Annie and Darlene? I tucked the covers tight around them.

  “Has Santa been here?” Darlene asked, her voice still slurry with sleep.

  “Not till you and everyone else goes to sleep,” I whispered. But I could not sleep. I lay there, watching the thin organdy curtains billow in the breeze from the heater, watching a crack in the high ceiling, counting the lilacs on the wallpaper, and thinking.

  I had made a promise that I would try to convert Adam. It was what Brother James wanted. It was what God wanted of me. After all, wasn’t I supremely grateful? It was the least I could do.

  There was a gentle knock at the door, and Mama came in.

  “Baby, are you awake? Marylou’s fast asleep, and I’ve been waiting up for you.” Mama, wrapped in an afghan, lay her pillow across the foot of my bed, and we whispered, so as not to wake the little girls. “What did you and Brother James talk about so long?”

  “About Adam,” I said. It was partly true; I couldn’t tell her about the Marylou part, because it would have been a betrayal of Brother James’s confidence in me. “He wants me to bring Adam into the church.”

  “That would be the answer to my daily prayer,” Mama said. “I know how much you like the boy.”

  “I feel like I’m starting over, Mama. I know I’m healed. It’s like having a second chance. I have to live my life the way God intends me to.”

  Mama said, “If only we always knew what God intended.”

  Then we sort of drifted back and forth from conversation to sleep, like slumber party girls, and before I knew it, the sun was coming in through the curtains on Christmas morning.

  Somehow, there were presents for everyone. The uncles gave me a pink leather billfold with lots of pockets and slots for pictures, and Mama’s present to me was a thin volume of American poems. “I never heard of any one of these people,” she admitted, “but I know how you dearly love verses.” She’d given me the book earlier that morning, while Brother James and Marylou were taking a walk out in the brittle morning. Of course Brother James wouldn’t have approved.

  The little girls were showered with gifts from everyone—crayons, and clothes for their dolls, and Wedgwood-type teacups, and, for Darlene, her first pair of roller skates, with thick plastic wheels. Mrs. Hobart gave each family a jar of preserves and a jar of green beans, corn, or beets she’d put up herself; each jar was tied with a crisp red bow.

  And after we were done oo-ing and ah-ing over everybody’s gifts, Brother James made an announcement:

  “This is a fine day, brothers and sisters, to share some wonderful news with you. Annie, Darlene, come stand by me. Marylou?” He extended his arm, and she, tall as she was, fit right under it, as if he were her umbrella. “Sister Marylou Wadkins and I are going to become man and wife.”

  Oh, everyone went wild! All the men pumped Brother James’s hand, and we women hugged Marylou and each other. Darlene and Annie danced on Brother James’s feet.

  “When? When?” we all cried.

  “When is after we get everything settled with Miriam and the doctors, maybe February. Does February sound good to you, Marylou?”

  “Just fine,” she said, beaming. I wondered if she’d go home and pack away the picture of Billy now.

  “And who will perform the ceremony?” Mama asked.

  “Well, I don’t know. Mr. Hobart, you think your preacher might do the honors?”

  “We’ll just ask him, Reverend. We’ll just call him up and ask him,” Mr. Hobart said, as if he were proud to be an instrument of the Lord. “He’s a Baptist, though.”

  “We’ll not hold that against him,” Uncle Benjamin said, sounding much more jolly than usual. “Vernon and me, we were Baptists once, but we got over it.”

  Then everyone was laughing and clucking about wedding colors and bridesmaids and, of course, flower girls. And while I was just as happy as everyone else, every few minutes it flashed across my mind that Brother James didn’t know that Marylou Wadkins was still in love with Billy. And, I’ll admit it, some moments I resented that all the attention had shifted to Marylou. I had come to expect to be the center of attention. I remembered the words from Proverbs: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Told by Adam

  “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing, Dad?” It was maybe the twentieth time I’d asked, as the Jeep crawled along the snow-packed road to the house out in Whitewater. I’d insanely flown over this road the day before, and I wondered if a person could suddenly develop an adult sensibility or if it came on slowly like a crippling disease.

  “You have to notify the police,” Dad said. “It’s the law, because she’s under court jurisdiction and she’s been abducted. But since you never said anything to me about this until this morning—”

  “I couldn’t. You’re her lawyer.”

  “Anyway, the police have already lost about twenty-four hours in the search, so what’s another couple of minutes?”

  It was a fantastic day, like so many Kansas mornings after a vicious blizzard. The snow hunkered in peaceful banks along the road, and the sunlight made it glitter with rainbow colors. Even to someone like me, who only thinks of weather for its entertainment value, it was a day designed to take your breath away.

  Though we both wore shades, we squinted; that’s ho
w dazzling the morning was. “There’s the Quik Trip you told me about,” Dad said. “What is it, about six or eight miles from the house?” We slowed up. “It looks locked up tight.”

  “Well, it’s Christmas, Dad. Even McDonald’s closes.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a pay phone outside, so you can make your call there. Remember, Adam, the truth.”

  I dialed the number I’d repeated over and over in my head through the ride out into the country. “Can I talk to someone who’s working on the Miriam Pelham case.”

  “The who? We’ve got a lot of cases,” the cop said. He sounded as though he’d have preferred to be someplace other than the Wichita Police Department for Christmas.

  “Pelham,” I said. “The girl who was kidnapped.”

  “The church case, you mean?”

  “That’s the one.” People didn’t think of Miriam as a real person anymore. She was the cancer patient, the kidnap victim, the church case.

  “I can take the information,” the cop said, sounding bored by the whole thing.

  I gave him directions and the description of the house outside Whitewater. He seemed to be writing everything down, only grunting during my pauses. Finally he said, “Well, that’s not WPD jurisdiction. That’s Butler County Sheriff. Jesus Christ, it’s Christmas.”

  “Aw, too bad,” I said, but the sarcasm was lost on him.

  “Who are you, some kid? How old are you? I need your name, your address, and your phone number. What’s your connection to this case?” I answered all his questions, offering as little information as I could. I was standing in a foot of snow that had drifted into the phone booth, and I hopped from foot to foot for some warmth. There were long pauses while the officer wrote everything down. A wobbly heart had been carved on the wall of the phone booth:

  BECKY JASON

  Always and Forever

  I traced the heart, wondering if Becky and Jason were debaters I’d met at a tournament. Suddenly I thought about Diana and how she’d love an adventure like this one. Her eyes would be fiery, her eyelashes would be jumping like windshield wipers to keep every detail clear. She’d be wound up and ready to spring.