by Gary Parker
Connie slumped down, overwhelmed by all the questions. Too many riddles. She needed to concentrate on what she sensed as the most basic fact of all. Push aside the extra details, the mysteries. Focus on what gripped her most completely.
She closed her eyes and let her mind sift through things. What did she believe at the heart of all this? Simple: Those two men killed Jack. Morrison knew something about Jack’s death, and they killed him to keep secret what he knew.
Another reality seeped through her. The men might try to kill her. Though she didn’t know who they were, she had seen them drive away from a murder. But that didn’t prove anything. The men, though, didn’t know how ignorant she was.
Connie nibbled at another shrimp. The men might come to Jefferson City. That would place Daniel and Katie in danger. She laid her fork on her plate, and her stomach knotted up into balls of fear. Within seconds, the fear shifted to rage. They had already taken Jack, they would not harm her babies!
But then a wave of helplessness washed over her. How could she stop them? They had already proven their killing skills. To stand up to that, she would need help. But from whom?
She thought of Tick and Tess. They would do anything she asked. But could she bring them into this danger? Quickly, she answered her own question. No, she couldn’t. Involving them only widened the circle of those who might get hurt.
Luke Tyler came to mind. He told her to call if she needed anything. But, again, that widened the circle. Worse maybe, she felt guilty for not telling him everything from the beginning. He wouldn’t help someone who obstructed his work by not fully cooperating. Besides, he might not see the same connections she saw between the two men and Jack. He had decided to shut down the investigation, and it would probably take more evidence than she had to get it started again. Connie sighed. As far as she could see, this mess lay in her lap and her lap alone. Unfortunately, hers wasn’t a very big lap, and she didn’t know if it could hold everything the last two weeks had placed there.
Her shoulders sagging, she paid her bill, left the restaurant, and climbed into the van. Two hours later, she pulled into her driveway and eased into the house, exhausted and confused. Mrs. Everhart greeted her at the kitchen door. If curious about Connie’s trip, she didn’t show it.
“You’re back early,” she said, her purse on her shoulder as she headed to the door.
“Yeah, finished quicker than I thought.”
“The kids are asleep. Best I get home and do the same thing.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Everhart, you’re the kindest woman I’ve ever met.”
“Don’t tell that to Mr. Everhart. He’ll expect me to treat him that way.” Both women laughed, then went their separate ways.
Changing quickly into nightclothes, then locking all the doors, Connie tumbled into bed. For fifteen minutes, she kept her ears tuned to the night, listening for some threat to emerge from the dark. But then the weariness of the day defeated her fears, and she dropped off to sleep. The hours moved past, one after another, and she slept through them all, the sleep of the depleted, a dreamless sleep marked only by the movement of the hands of the clock by her bed. Outside her windows, the night lay still, not a stir of wind anywhere. It seemed as if the air had worn itself out blowing winter away and now took a respite before another season began.
In her bed, Connie lay still as a stone and never turned over. Only when the sun climbed through the beige and blue flowers on her drapes did she stir. It took more than twenty minutes for her to pry open her eyes. When she did, a cough suddenly shook her body. Clearing her throat, she rolled to the side and sat up. The cough hit her again. She started to lie back down, but then remembered she had to get up and prepare the kids for school.
For the next hour, through breakfast with the kids, through helping them dress, through seeing them out the door to their buses, the cough continued. Weary beyond anything she had ever felt, she took one glance at the dirty dishes on the dining table, then shook her head. The dishes could wait. Another coughing spell rattled her chest, and she headed back to her room and crawled under the covers.
For the next three days, she followed the same pattern. Staggered from bed and assisted the children, did just enough housework to keep the place livable, then climbed back into bed. At night, she fixed supper, then rolled back into bed. She skipped the family devotions at night, claiming sickness as her excuse. She wasn’t lying either. Her cough lingered into the weekend, a hacking, empty cough that rejected the remedies of cough syrup and cold medicine. Nothing worked to make it better. She considered going to the doctor but simply didn’t have enough energy to drive. The cough, though, didn’t keep her in bed. Her depression did that.
Connie recognized the symptoms pretty fast, and though it looked the same as the bout after the funeral, the cause was completely different. The earlier spell had been pure weariness and grief—a season of respite from the world. This one, though certainly tinged with sadness, came more from a sense of utter helplessness. She had seen a murdered man and the murderers drove right past her and she couldn’t stop them. If the killers came after her and her family, she would feel equally helpless.
A desire to sleep overwhelmed her, and a dull anxiety jabbed at her soul. The anxiety didn’t cause her adrenaline to pump and energize her actions. Instead, it acted as a molasses of the mind and spirit, a sticky weight that pulled and pulled, so heavy it snuffed out hope.
The onset of the depression came as a shock to Connie. To this point, she had avoided the bleak seasons her mom so often endured, the bleak seasons caused by an absent husband and solved by an ever-present bottle. Now, though, the blackness descended on her with a ferocity that seemed bent on making up for lost time. The days stretched out and out, unending hours. She functioned enough to placate Daniel and Katie, but no one else. Tess dropped by every day, and Mrs. Everhart called to see if she needed anything, but Connie hardly spoke. Luke Tyler called once, and Johnson Mack twice, but she knew it only because she heard their voices on the answering machine. She refused to answer the phone.
She didn’t cry much, not like in the first days after Jack’s death. Crying took emotion, and her body felt devoid of even the energy for that. She lay in bed and slept, or lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, or lay in bed and imagined what death would feel like.
She assumed she would die soon. If the two men in the Mercedes killed Jack and Morrison, they would kill her too. Killers killed, as simple as that.
In an odd way, the idea of death intrigued her. If the men murdered her, she would go straight to heaven and see Jack again. She thought a lot about heaven, a place of joy—no more death or tears or pain. She liked that notion. Heaven meant the end of some things and the beginning of others. Though she couldn’t imagine the exact form heaven would take, she trusted God to provide whatever created total joy, whatever offered total completion. Of course, she knew what would do that for her—Jack. Heaven meant eternity with Jack. How bad could that be?
Yet, in spite of her longing to join Jack, she didn’t exactly want to die. Even in her depression, she remembered that her children needed her too much for her to seek death. But she didn’t see any way to avoid it.
On Saturday Daniel spent all day at a baseball tournament, then asked to spend the night at a friend’s house. Breaking the family rule that everyone slept at home on Saturday so they could go to church together on Sunday, she let him go. Why not? At fourteen, he deserved some freedom.
Seeing her brother breaking the rule, Katie demanded equal treatment. Again relenting, Connie walked her down the street to a playmate’s home for the evening.
Alone, Connie closed the door, slipped back into a nightgown and headed toward her bed once again. The phone rang. She started to ignore it, but her innate politeness made her pause. Maybe it was Tess. Or even Mrs. Everhart. It rang again. It seemed so rude to walk away and not pick it up. She stepped to the phone.
“Yeah, Connie, this is Tess. What’s shaking?”
�
��The salt,” she said, though without laughter.
“That cough gone yet?”
“Not completely, but it’s better.”
“You need anything? Want me to come over for a while . . . bring a movie?”
“No, I’m okay, just tired.”
“Your Vegas trip?”
“Yeah, it took a lot out of me.”
Tess hesitated, and Connie knew she wanted to ask about the mysterious trip, why she went, what she did there, why she had come back and fallen into such a state. But she didn’t. “You coming to church in the morning?” Tess asked.
Connie hesitated. She had debated that all day long. Everyone expected her to return tomorrow. This was the third Sunday after Jack’s funeral, and she really had no good reason to stay away. Her cough gave her an excuse, but not a very good one. But she didn’t want to go. Attending church required so much energy, and she had no reserves in her batteries.
“I don’t know, Tess, it still seems too soon. I don’t know if I can . . . can do it, you know . . . go sit down and look up there and see the altar where . . . where Jack was . . . in the casket. I don’t know if I can go back to our pew and listen to the sermon and not just break up . . . lose it all right there. I don’t want to be a spectacle, you know that, have everyone staring and whispering behind my back.”
“We’ll support you,” Tess comforted her. “If you break down, so what? People will understand. We’ll help you if that happens.”
“But where will I sit? I don’t think I can sit in our pew without Jack beside me, but I don’t think I can go and not sit in our pew either. You know what I mean? Both choices seem wrong. I guess that’s the worst of it, I just can’t decide where to sit. Isn’t that the craziest thing you ever heard? I don’t feel like I belong anywhere.” She was close to tears as she finished, and her voice choked up.
Tess sighed. “I would hug you if I was there, I really would. Look, no one can make these decisions for you. You know I’ll help if I can, any way you need me. I hope to see you in the morning, but if you decide not to come I won’t judge you. Just remember this—the longer you stay away, the harder it will be to come back. An action soon becomes a habit and a habit becomes a way of life. I think you need the church, and I know the church needs you. I know I need you. Okay?”
Connie wiped her eyes on her sleeve and sniffled into the phone. “I know, Tess, I know all that. But I just don’t know. It all seems so hopeless, so . . . so confusing. Just pray for me, will you? Pray that I can find my way, find my way . . . back, back to . . . where I need to be.”
“I’m already on that job, don’t you ever think otherwise. We all are. Now get some rest, and I’ll see you in the morning at church.”
Connie dropped the phone into its cradle and stepped toward her bed. The phone rang once more. Expecting to hear Tess’s voice, she grabbed it.
“Hello.”
“Connie Brandon?”
“Yes, this is Connie.”
“Your husband got what he deserved. Don’t meddle in business that doesn’t concern you.” The line went dead.
Connie slowly lay the phone down. Who was he? Jack’s killer? A hired hand of Blacker or Mack? Sandra Lunsford’s husband? Or just a pro-gambling citizen who wanted Jack out of the way?
She sighed, then decided it didn’t matter. Whoever the caller was, he need not worry. She didn’t plan to meddle in anyone’s business but her own for the rest of her life.
*****
Tess and Tick walked into the sanctuary of the River City Community Church on Sunday morning at 10:32 and took their places on the sixth pew from the front on the left side. Tick wore the houndstooth check suit that looked so good with his blond mustache, and Tess had on a burgundy silk blouse and a black skirt. Her mind not yet focused on the worship about to start, Tess craned her neck around and searched the back pews for Connie.
“She’s not here,” she whispered to Tick, her eyes scanning the crowd. “I thought sure she would come.”
“You said her cough was better?”
“Not completely, but that wasn’t it anyway. She’s all mixed up, you can just tell it the way she talks. All the fire has gone out of her. I knew it had to happen, this getting depressed and all, but I didn’t think it would keep her from church. She needs this place, these people, but she’s worried about what everyone thinks. She’s got this thing in her mind that she won’t know where to sit. It’s like she doesn’t think she has a place anymore. She wants to sit in her old spot, but she’s concerned she can’t take it. It’s tough on her, but I hoped she would—”
A ripple of motion rolled into the sanctuary from the entry of the church. Tess’s mouth fell open, and she grabbed Tick by the shirtsleeve and turned him around. From the back, they saw Connie walk through the door, her scarlet hair combed back in a neat bun, her brown eyes staring straight ahead, the same black suit she’d worn at the funeral outlining her petite frame. On Connie’s left, Katie held her hand and marched forward, a smile on her face, obviously glad to return to church with her friends. Daniel walked behind Connie to her right, his arm slightly around his mom as if holding her up. Behind the three of them came Reverend Wallace, his well-creased cheeks glowing, a tiny glint showing in his eyes. Tess could see the pleasure written across her pastor’s face. A hurting lamb had returned to the sheepfold where the shepherd could care for her wounds.
Tick reached out and took Tess’s hand. A hush fell on the congregation as Connie and her kids came down the aisle. Collectively, the people held their breath. Where would Connie and her children sit? It became evident as they passed each pew and headed toward the front. At the third pew from the rostrum, Connie stopped. Tess watched her take a short step toward their old spot, then hesitate. Tess closed her eyes and breathed a short prayer.
“You can do it,” she urged Connie under her breath. “You can do it.”
For a second, Connie didn’t move. She seemed glued to the floor, her feet wedged in concrete. The congregation didn’t move. Daniel shuffled his feet, and Katie tugged her mom’s hand.
Without thinking, Tess suddenly stood, not sure what she planned to do next. Within a second, Tick stood too. Behind them Mrs. Everhart rose to her feet, her hand on Mr. Everhart’s lapel, pulling him up with her. To Tess’s right, a pair of church elders jumped up.
Like a rolling stream, the tide quickly overwhelmed the congregation, one person after another, one person after another . . . each of them quietly standing. Now, the whole church stood in one accord, a wave of human support for Connie and Katie and Daniel Brandon.
A tear came to Tess’s eye, and she brushed it away, but then another fell, and before she knew it she couldn’t brush them away fast enough. Though not known to have ever sung in church, not even on the congregational hymns, Tick Garner suddenly raised his voice and began to sing:
“Blest be the tie that binds, our hearts . . . ” and the people instantly joined in, “Our hearts in Christian love . . . The fellowship of kindred minds, is like to that above . . . ”
Sniffles echoed in pew after pew, and the men hugged their wives and the wives took their children’s hands, and before anyone could think of a reason to stop it, the whole congregation was holding hands and the song continued to ring out. . . .
“We share our mutual woes, Our mutual burdens bear; And often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.”
Tess left her seat and, with Tick in tow, moved to Connie’s side and wrapped her arms around her. Tick hugged Daniel and Katie, and the whole congregation left their seats and made a series of circles around the Brandon family, a mass and mash of human care, all of them crying and praying and singing their hearts out. “Blest Be the Tie” became “Amazing Grace,” and the wonderful echoes of the music and the shared grief and love poured out from the church and into the street.
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see . . . ”
A jogge
r passing by the church heard the loud singing and paused for a second to listen. A policeman waiting in his squad car for a light to change tilted his head and wondered what in the world was going on at the River City Community Church.
*****
Feeling the outpouring of love, Connie closed her eyes and basked in the warmth of her church. Her decision to return to church had been a simple one. When she had awakened that morning, she stepped down the hall to wake the children, then remembered they weren’t home. That brought her to her senses. Since the day they were born, they had never spent the night away on Saturday, and they had never missed church on Sunday except for the rare instances of sickness. Even on vacations, the Brandon family found a church somewhere and at least attended the worship.
Standing alone in her empty house, Connie started to shake. No matter what happened to her, she wouldn’t allow her children’s spiritual foundation to go untended. The men from Vegas might come after her, but until they did, she would seize every opportunity to teach her children the ways of God. To honor Jack, she could do no other.
That brought her back. Now, the music still reverberating in the sanctuary, she felt herself in the presence of an angel’s chorus. Though she had known it for years, she realized as if for the first time: No matter how tough life became, she belonged here, with the congregation of faith. It came to her that fresh, a revelation so new it made her insides tremble and her face flush. Here, to the church, she could bring her confusions, her awkwardness; here she could bring her questions and her fears, even her doubts and her anger. Here, in the house of God, she could hang out her dirty laundry and leave it to the cleansing power of the Almighty Lord.
The tears streaming, she slowly followed Katie’s tugging and moved to her spot in the pew. Deliberately, they moved far enough down the pew to leave the aisle seat for Jack, room for his long legs, he joked, long legs he didn’t have. Standing with Katie on the left and Daniel on her right, she listened to the congregation as it continued to sing at the top of its collective lungs. She looked to Reverend Wallace who waited in the aisle behind her. What next? Reverend Wallace motioned for her to sit. She nodded and eased into the pew. Katie and Daniel followed.