Just Shy of Harmony

by Philip Gulley

  “Well, I imagine she feels awfully bad about what she did and just wants to put it behind her.”

  “I don’t like dwelling on it myself, but I do think we have some talking to do, and she won’t,” Wayne said.

  “It’s none of my business, but I think Sally owes you an explanation and owes it to you and the kids to get some counseling.”

  “I agree. We’ll see what happens.” He rose and put two dollars on the table. “There’s for the coffee. Can you tell Deena hi for me?”

  “Sure, I’ll tell her, Wayne.” Mabel stood and gave Wayne a hug. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you and Deena.” She paused. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Deena’s got a job offer from a law firm in the city, and she’s thinking pretty strong about taking it.”

  Wayne drove home to the trailer. The kids were playing outside. Sally was sitting on the steps, bundled in a jacket, watching. He sat down beside her.

  “I’m only going to say this once, Sally, so listen close. I’m calling Sam to set up a time we can talk with him. If you don’t go with me, we’re through.”

  Sally began to cry.

  “We need help, Sally. Will you talk to him or not?”

  The kids had stopped playing and were watching. Katie began to cry.

  “You’re upsetting Katie,” Sally said.

  “And your running off for over a year didn’t trouble her at all?”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “What were they? You owe us that much. Why’d you leave us? Tell us now or we’re through, Sal. So help me God, I’ll throw you out.” He was shaking with anger.

  Sally sobbed.

  He stood to his feet. “Come on, kids, we’re leaving for a while.” He reached in his wallet and pulled out forty dollars. He placed the money on the step next to Sally. “You take this. I’m going with the kids into town to the playground. I’ll be back in one hour. I want you gone when I get home.”

  Sally shook with the crying. “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand that you cheated on me.”

  “I never did. I never once did.”

  “You expect me to believe that? Everyone knows about it. That’s why they look at you the way they do.”

  “I never once cheated on you.”

  “Then why’d you go away? Why’d you leave us? Tell me.”

  Sally wiped her sleeve across her face, then spoke in a whisper. “I’m sick. Bad sick.”

  “Sick? What do you mean you’re sick? What are you talking about?”

  “Remember last year when we thought I was pregnant and I went to the doctor to be tested? Well, I wasn’t pregnant.”

  “I know. You told me so yourself.”

  “But what I didn’t tell you was that one of the blood tests came back wrong.”

  Wayne sat down on the step. “What do you mean one of the tests came back wrong?”

  “It was my white blood cells. The count was way up. They ran a few more tests, and I’ve got something bad wrong with me. It’s some kind of leukemia.”

  He felt the breath go out of him. “Oh, Sally, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to put you and the kids through all that. That’s why I let it out that I was gonna run off with someone. I figured if you was mad at me, it’d be easier to get on with your life.”

  Wayne reached over and pulled Sally to him. It was the first time in over a year he had really touched her. She felt small and fragile in his arms, like a caught bird. “My Lord, Sally, why in the world didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped you.” He pulled her closer so her head tucked under his chin. “I could’ve helped you.”

  “I was scared. Scared of worrying the kids. Scared of being a burden. Scared of dying. Scared you’d stop loving me.”

  “I’d never have stopped loving you. You should’ve told me. We’d have made it.”

  “I can’t tell you how hard the past year has been for me. I’ve missed you and the kids so much. Cried myself to sleep every night thinking of you. Worried myself sick wondering how you and the kids were getting along.” She began to cry again.

  “We’re together now,” he said. “That’s all that matters. You watch, this will all work out.”

  Katie was staring at them. “What’s wrong, Daddy?” she asked in a small, wounded voice. “Why’s Mommy crying?”

  He pulled little Katie to him with his other arm. His mind was racing. This is too much. Lord, why are you letting this happen?

  “Mommy’s sick,” Wayne said, as calmly as he could. “But don’t you worry. The doctors are going to make her well. Don’t you worry.”

  “Is that right, Mommy?” Katie asked. “Are the doctors going to make you all better?”

  “They sure will, honey.” Sally wiped her eyes and stood up. “Let’s get cleaned up from playing and I’ll make you some lunch.”

  After lunch, Wayne, Sally, and the kids piled into the truck and drove to the park in town. Then they went grocery shopping and for a drive through the country. They ended up in Cartersburg at the Dog ’n’ Suds for supper, the kids sandwiched in the truck between Wayne and Sally, eating their hot dogs.

  Winter was coming. It was a little after six, and the sun was dropping. The wind had a chill to it. Wayne reached over and turned the heater on. The smell of burnt dust filled the cab.

  He started the truck, backed out, and drove down the highway toward home. They gave the kids a bath, then Sally read them a story and put them to bed.

  She came into the living room and lay on the couch with her head in Wayne’s lap. He stroked her hair.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  “I talked with Doctor Neely last week. He’s going to refer me to a doctor in the city for some testing.”

  Wayne felt like crying. “How much longer…uh…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the question.

  “He wouldn’t say. He said it’s the slow type of leukemia, and that they know a lot more about it than they used to. Can we not talk about it right now? I just want you to hold me.”

  Wayne held her to him. “Would you mind if I move back into our bedroom?” He asked in a quiet voice.

  “I was hoping you would.”

  “We don’t have to…you know…I can just hold you, if that’s all you want. I’d be just as happy holding you.”

  Sally smiled. It was the first thing he’d loved about her. Her smile.

  “We can start with holding, but I think we should be open to further possibilities.”

  “Well, Mrs. Fleming, if that’s your recommendation, I will honor it.”

  Outside the trailer, winter was coming on. A skiff of snow blew across the fields. A car drove past on the highway. The driver looked at the sagging, tired trailer, saw the lights go off, and felt the cold push of a northern wind nudge his car toward the shoulder.

  “Wouldn’t you hate living there?” the driver said to his wife.

  “I can’t imagine anything worse.”

  But back in the trailer, on that night of love reborn, there was no other place Wayne and Sally would rather have been than in their little trailer, with all the world at bay.

  Fifteen

  A Beautiful Week

  It was the week of Thanksgiving, and it had been beautiful. A strong north wind blew through on Monday, bringing down the last of the leaves. The rest of the week was crisp and sunny. People put on their flannel shirts and blue jeans and took to their yards to rake the leaves out to the gutter and burn them.

  Harvey Muldock left work on Saturday afternoon and went for a walk through town. Autumn is Harvey’s favorite season. He likes the smell of it, the pungency. Especially the burning.

  Bob Miles had written an editorial in the Herald opposing leaf burning and cautioning against global warming. Harvey was going to write an anonymous rebuttal exposing the myth of global warming, but it had been such a beautiful week he let it pass—the kind of week where you don’t want to argue with a
nyone for fear it will blemish the perfection.

  Besides, Harvey’s mind was fixed elsewhere. It was his week to bring the message at Harmony Friends Meeting, and he’d been pondering what to preach. He was thinking of talking about how autumn is the season of dying, but that spring brings new life and thus is God’s encouragement for us to remain faithful in the face of death. A depressing topic for such a beautiful week, but something worth bearing in mind.

  The Sunday before Thanksgiving, Asa Peacock had preached on being grateful. Asa is a grateful man these days. He and Jessie have been enjoying their lottery money. They get their check on the twenty-seventh of the month, lay it on the kitchen table, and pray over it, asking the Lord to lead them in its use. They’ve given money to feed children in Africa, donated fifteen thousand dollars to a Romanian orphanage, and paid for Opal Majors to have her hammertoe corrected.

  That Tuesday, Asa went to visit Dale Hinshaw to apologize for taking back his chicken. He returned the chicken to Dale, and it felt so good not having anything against anyone. He felt so noble.

  He and Jessie got another check the day after Thanksgiving. They’re not sure how to spend it, but they’re praying about it.

  “Lord, show us who to help,” they pray. “Open our eyes.”

  They’ve been giving Sam Gardner a thousand dollars a month. They thought money worries might be one reason for Sam’s discouragement. He doesn’t earn much money being a Quaker pastor, and every time he brings up the subject of a raise Fern Hampton says, “I thought Quaker pastors were supposed to live simply.”

  Fern is an advocate of simplicity so long as it doesn’t involve her.

  With the children in school, Sam’s wife had interviewed for the receptionist’s job at the mental-health center, but was told she had too much education. They gave the job to Sally Fleming instead.

  Sam hadn’t realized how resentful he’d grown over the years. Even with all his college, he’d never earned more than thirty thousand dollars a year. He didn’t mind the low salary when he was starting in the pastorate, but he’s grown tired of telling his boys “We can’t afford it” every time they ask for something.

  “Just once,” he’d said to Barbara, “I’d like to buy them new bicycles. Just to see the look on their faces.”

  Then one Sunday in October, as Sam was shaking hands at the door after church, Jessie slipped him an envelope with a thousand dollars in it. There was a note in the envelope telling Sam how much they appreciated his ministry and that they’d be giving him a thousand dollars a month. He couldn’t believe it. In a moment of prideful dignity he was going to turn it down, but then he changed his mind. Instead, he bought his boys new bicycles, bought Barbara a new dress she’d been admiring, and paid down their bills.

  What Sam appreciated most was the quiet manner in which the Peacocks gave him the money. The Christmas before, the church had given Sam a check for twenty-five dollars. They’d handed him the money during church, in front of everyone, expecting him to gush over it.

  “The tightwads,” he’d complained to his wife that night. “I work sixty hours a week. I’m on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I didn’t get all my vacation this year. And they expect me to slobber with gratitude when they hand me twenty-five bucks?”

  It’s one thing to spend your life in a noble cause, but another matter entirely to be taken for granted.

  Sam has been sitting in the fifth row with his family while the elders have been preaching. It feels odd sitting there. People watch him to see if he closes his eyes during the prayers. Everyone in the church knows of his struggle. Fern Hampton let it slip in the October meeting of the Friendly Women’s Circle. She hadn’t intended to tell, but it was such a marvelous secret—a pastor’s loss of faith!—she couldn’t help herself. She told Bea Majors, who wrote about it in the church column in the Harmony Herald:

  The elders at Harmony Friends Meeting will be preaching until Sam Gardner believes in God again.

  All over town, folks have been talking about it. The old men down at the Coffee Cup ruminate about it over their bacon and eggs. An atheist pastor. Some of them are thinking of going to church just to see what happens.

  Some people are no longer speaking to Sam, which has been the only blessing of this whole ordeal. Dale Hinshaw has quit asking his help on the Scripture egg project.

  “Nothing personal, Sam,” he told him. “I just can’t afford to anger the Lord by letting a pagan help me. I can’t risk the taint.”

  They prayed for Sam at the November meeting of the Harmony Ministerial Association. It was their meeting to nominate new officers. The month before, they had asked Sam to be the new president, but after reading the Herald they retracted their nomination.

  When they’d first asked Sam to serve, he’d been reluctant. “I’m busy enough as it is,” he’d told them. “I don’t think I have the time for such an important job.”

  “Oh, it’s not that important,” they’d said. “You pretty much just run the meetings, that’s all.”

  But when they learned of Sam’s struggle, they told him, “The president of the association is a symbol of our community’s faith. We need to find someone the town can look up to. Besides, some of the churches are going to cut their donations if you’re the president. We’d hate for it to come down to a vote, so if you could just withdraw your name, we’d be grateful.”

  So he did.

  The pastor of the Harmony Worship Center wanted to kick Sam out of the association altogether.

  “Nothing personal,” he’d told Sam. “But it sends the wrong message to our children to have an unbeliever in the association.”

  Sam was tired of hearing he shouldn’t take things personally. “I’ve been called a pagan and a threat to children, but I’m not supposed to take it personally?” he complained to Barbara.

  “I told him to keep quiet about it,” she told her mother on the phone the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. “But, no, he thinks he has to be a man of integrity and tell everyone what he’s thinking. For crying out loud, they even put it in the paper.”

  That’s what had really set her off. She had marched down to the Herald office the day the paper came out.

  Bob Miles was sitting behind his desk by the front window. He could see her marching down the sidewalk, clutching the paper. There wasn’t time to hide.

  She flung the door open and stepped into his office.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, before she’d even spoken. “I missed it. Bea sent it over, and Arvella typed it in. I never saw it or I’d have left it out. I’ll run a retraction if you want.”

  Barbara didn’t say anything. She just stood there shaking, then stormed out of the office, muttering under her breath about pastors’ families living under a microscope.

  Other than that, it had been a beautiful week.

  Asa and Jessie Peacock’s daughter, Susan, flew in Wednesday for Thanksgiving. Asa met her at the airport in the city. She lives in Colorado and is married to a lawyer. They decided early in their marriage not to have children. They have a cat instead.

  Susan and her mother were doing dishes after the Thanksgiving dinner.

  “Any chance of me becoming a grandmother?” Jessie pried.

  “I don’t think so, Mom. Mark and I enjoy being child-free.”

  That night Jessie complained to Asa, “You’d think children were a disease, the way she talks about them. Child-free! What kind of talk is that?”

  “Maybe they don’t think they can afford children.”

  “If that’s all it is, let’s give them money.”

  Asa thought about that for a moment. “That doesn’t seem right to me. Paying our daughter to have children.”

  Jessie sighed. “No, I guess not.”

  Their son, David, and his wife want to have children but can’t. It has something to do with David.

  “Have you tried wearing boxer shorts?” Jessie asked him one day. “I heard on Oprah that boxer shorts can, uh, help things in that
area.”

  She’s thinking of buying him boxer shorts for Christmas.

  Jessie goes to the Friendly Women’s Circle on Tuesday mornings to roll out noodles. When the ladies take a coffee break and pull out pictures of their grandchildren, Jessie just sits quietly, sipping her coffee.

  “You need to get your kids going on some children,” Fern Hampton says.

  Jessie just smiles.

  Their daughter stayed until Saturday, then Jessie and Asa drove her to the airport so she could fly home to Colorado. They stopped for lunch at a Big Boy Restaurant along the interstate just outside the city, then came on home.

  They passed Harvey Muldock as he strolled through town. Asa eased to the curb and rolled down his window.

  “Hi, Harvey.”

  “Hey there, Asa. Hi, Jessie. What brings you all into town?”

  “We’re coming back from taking Susan to the airport,” Asa said. “What’re you doing?”

  “I’m thinking about my sermon. Tomorrow’s my turn to preach.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Well, it’s not so bad. You’ll come up with something. Just remember to keep it short.”

  Harvey laughed. “You got that right.”

  Asa put the truck in gear. “Good luck tomorrow, Harvey. We’ll be thinking of you.”

  “Appreciate that, Asa. I really do.”

  Asa pulled away from the curb. Harvey stood on the sidewalk, inhaling the scent of burning leaves and thinking.

  When Miriam Hodge had volunteered the elders to preach, he’d been opposed to it. “That’s what we pay Sam to do,” Harvey had complained to his wife. “Why can’t he just fake it?”

  But now he doesn’t think it’s such a bad idea. He especially liked Miriam’s message a couple weeks before. She talked about the sympathy of God, how all through the Bible people struggled to believe and how gracious God was to deepen their faith. Harvey was glad to hear that. He’s getting older. Sometimes he thinks about dying and wonders whether everything he’s been taught about heaven is true.