Lead Me Home

by Amy Sorrells

  Shelby plopped down next to him and brushed a damp strand of loose curls off her neck. Sweat glistened on her forehead and arms.

  “What happened to you?” He nodded at her arm, bruised all the way around. He knew she’d been out with Cade the night before.

  She cringed and put her hand over the spot. “Nothin’. I was carrying something up the stairs and stumbled. Caught myself on the railing.”

  Noble said nothing, just looked at her as she held his gaze. Something between vexation and pride replaced what had been tears in her eyes the other day at the Tractor Supply, and he suspected she was trying hard as she could not to give anything away.

  He remembered the way Mama kept hanging on to Dad, even when Noble’d gotten old enough to beg her to leave him. He remembered the way Dad drank and hit and Mama cried and cowered and Dad apologized and brought her flowers and the same thing repeated itself like a movie on replay week after week after week. He wondered if that was what Cade did to Shelby, if the wooing outweighed the pain . . . although it was hard to imagine Cade wooing anybody.

  James stuck his head out the door. “You two getting hot out here? How about gathering up some fans from the basement or wherever you can find them and setting them up in the sanctuary? It’s not any cooler in here.”

  “Be glad to,” Noble said.

  Shelby pulled her cardigan over her arms despite the heat, and the two of them went inside.

  James preached and the couple dozen folks who’d come to church that day sat and nodded at his assurances of life going on after Sycamore Community Church closed, about the determination to keep on following God even when the way got cloudy and the waters got rough, about God being outside of time and space and about the Holy Spirit not requiring bricks and mortar to do his saving work. He said the amen and the people sang the closing hymn in a collection of flat vibratos, while Mrs. Worley swayed in her organ seat, patches of sweat growing wider under her bosom.

  Noble slowly joined in with his guitar in the key of G, all the time wondering about the reason God had him playing here again and going to Nashville that week:

  “Some bright morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away . . .”

  When his life was over, what would he have to show for it if he didn’t go to Nashville? The same hills rolling past their sagging home, the same Mama hiding in her sewing room, the same Eustace preaching silent benedictions over the same brown cows? What harm would come in getting away from all of this, from the memories of Dad’s beatings that still stung and memories of Mama curled in bed for days after he left, from those shadows he couldn’t hide from, but maybe he could fly from, to Nashville, to lights and music and the stage . . .

  “Like a bird from these prison walls, I’ll fly away.”

  Thoughts of the possibility of playing in front of real crowds with real bands swelled in his chest, and for the first time since he could remember, he let himself feel excited. He saw Mama watching him from her spot in the back row of the church; he saw Eustace sitting beside her, bent over his phone. The stained-glass windows caught and splattered hot sunlight across the sanctuary, a beam of it illuminating Eustace’s white ball cap like a halo.

  Noble recalled stories of prisoners who got out of jail and didn’t know what to do with themselves after they’d been stuck there so long, the blue of the sky too blue, the freshness of the air near bursting their lungs, and them winding up right back in jail because they couldn’t handle the freedom. But he’d heard of others who’d made it out and gone on to live, and live well and live right.

  His family had not only been stuck in Sycamore, they’d been born into the pattern of the small town and the small ways that come along with it. Even if Mama and Eustace didn’t know what they were missing, Noble would go and find out. Maybe their lives were fine, the familiar safety of the creek running through the backyard, the embrace of the dirt- and crop-quilted countryside. But if Nashville were better . . . Well, like the reverend had even said, they’d never know unless he went and saw for himself. If he could get a good job there, they could all have a new start. Lord knew they deserved one.

  As the service ended, James reminded the attendees that they had only one remaining service and that Shelby and Bonnie were collecting memorabilia for scrapbooks to document and preserve church history. The people shuffled to their cars, which had turned into saunas in the blistering heat. Noble bent to put his guitar in the case and felt a hand on his sweat-drenched back.

  “Not now, Eustace. Let me pack up.” He turned and saw Reverend Horton there instead.

  “That was great, Noble. Truly.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You ready for your trip this week?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be. Cass said there won’t be any formal auditions. He’s got some CDs with my demos on them he’s had some friends listen to. Says this is just a meet and greet to see how I like things and to give folks a taste of what I can do.”

  “Try not to worry while you’re out there. I’ll take care of your mama and Eustace.”

  “Means a heck of a lot,” Noble said.

  “I know it does.”

  Noble tried not to watch Shelby as she adjusted the knot of hair on her head and reapplied lip gloss.

  “Still won’t talk to you much, eh?” James asked.

  Noble flushed.

  “You wear it on your sleeve.” James laughed as the two of them walked down the aisle and out to the front steps of the church. “And everywhere else for that matter. I wouldn’t recognize it so easily if I hadn’t been so in love myself when I was your age.”

  “Rev—”

  “Call me James.”

  “Okay. James. I . . .” He paused, unsure for a moment how to proceed with the conversation, then sighed, exasperated. “I mean, anyone else. Anyone besides him.” He threw his arm in the direction of Cade’s car, Shelby climbing into the front seat like they were headed to a fire, taillights flashing as it tore out onto Main Street.

  “She’s so much like her mother.” James sighed. “Beautiful and stubborn. Precocious and proud. All of which add up to a woman who can’t be told a thing and has to figure it out on her own or, sadly, learn the hard way.”

  “I’m worried about her.”

  James put a hand on his shoulder. “Me too, son. Me too.”

  27

  The last time James had set foot in the Methodist church was a few weeks after Molly died. They’d had enough casseroles to freeze and feed the two of them for months, partially because of the sheer number of them he and Shelby had received, but also because it was awfully hard for a man and a teenage daughter to finish a whole one at all. James understood that casseroles were the equivalent of condolences for congregants. But casseroles weren’t enough. James needed someone who didn’t place him on a precarious pedestal, who saw beyond his reverend mask.

  And so he had turned to Charlie Reynolds. Now he found himself seeking out the counsel of his fellow pastor once again.

  The Methodist church had advantages, not the least of which was that it was built in the 1950s at the height of the Eisenhower years. The floors were solid and did not squeak. The windows were not drafty. The roof was straight and intact. And although some aspects of the building—such as the heavy, odd-angled trim work—were a bit Googie-looking, at least nothing was falling apart.

  Charlie’s office was at the end of a long corridor of offices, and James nodded at the folks he recognized, a woman using a die-cut machine and colored construction paper, probably for a Sunday school craft; an associate pastor talking to a couple facing away from the door; the church secretary, who smiled as if to say, “Go right ahead,” as James knocked on the frame of the open door.

  “James!” Charlie’s voice echoed down the hall as it might have across the sanctuary on a Sunday morning, and he scurried to the door to shake James’s hand.

  James felt his face grow warm and he regretted that he had not thought to ask Charlie to meet him somewhere less conspicuou
s. Then again, there were few if any places either of them could go without being recognized. The only thing worse than the scrutiny of someone in the community suspecting something was wrong with the pastor were church staffers thinking something was wrong with the pastor.

  “Come in, come in! Have a seat.” Charlie motioned to one of two overstuffed chairs across from his desk.

  James was grateful when Charlie sat in one of them instead of behind his desk, which would have made him feel like a congregant rather than a peer.

  “How are you? How’s Shelby?” Charlie crossed his legs and leaned back.

  “I’m okay . . . alright . . . I’m not okay, really. And I’m concerned . . . Shelby’s still distant—she won’t hardly talk to any of her old friends, and now on top of her grieving . . . Well, I assume you saw the headlines last week.” James slouched back in his chair, his long legs poking out in front of him like a praying mantis, he thought.

  Charlie leaned forward, resting his chin on his steepled forefingers. “What can I do to help?”

  James shook his head, then cursed under his breath. “Sorry. You’re the only one I can talk like that in front of without thinking I ought to be disrobed . . . Then again . . .”

  Charlie laughed. “What’s said in my office stays in my office.”

  James glanced at the door, still open, and was grateful when Charlie got up to close it. He looked around the room, noting the books on the shelves, many they’d shared back and forth over the years. There were various paperweights and trinkets with Scriptures and platitudes engraved on them, probably gifts from congregants, and a large Thomas Kinkade painting hanging on the wall behind his desk, the windows of a church glowing as evening fell—or was the sun about to rise? He couldn’t tell.

  “What would you do?” James asked as Charlie sat down again.

  “Well, I—”

  “If you didn’t have any of this anymore,” James interrupted and waved his arm around the room. “What would you do then?”

  Charlie sat back and looked around the room then, too, as if noticing his office and all that was in it for the first time.

  “You know,” James continued, “the other night, Sheriff Tate found me sitting at the end of Maple Street out by the old mansion. Said he was on his way out to the truck stop for donuts, but God told him to turn, so he did. And because of that, he saved my life.”

  “How’s that?” Charlie leaned forward again, brow raised.

  “I thought . . .” James closed his eyes and massaged his temples, trying to decide how much to confess to his friend. But that’s why he’d come to see Charlie, wasn’t it? To confess? “I had a gun.”

  “Lord, have mercy . . .”

  “Well, that he did.”

  “I know you’ve had more than your fair share of pain . . . and you’d mentioned before about the church’s financial troubles . . . but I didn’t know you were feeling that desperate.”

  “Is that what I’m feeling, Charlie? Desperate? Because it feels a lot more like failure than desperation.”

  “Did he take it?”

  James cocked his head, confused by the question.

  “The gun. Did Tate take the gun, or do you still have it?”

  “Oh yes, the gun.” James let out a nervous half laugh. “You’re good to ask. Tate has it. I told him to keep it. The thing is, I don’t even know if I had the courage or the ability to have really shot the thing anyway. I think . . . after all these years . . . I think my father was right.”

  “Your father?” Charlie relaxed slightly, probably relieved to know about the gun.

  James hesitated again as he considered talking about his father, this time because he knew Charlie had his own inferiority complex when it came to his father, the great Chuck Reynolds Sr. He’d started a church in Texas with 150 people and turned it into the biggest megachurch in Texas. Chuck Sr. had not even tried to hide his disappointment when Charlie opted for a position in Sycamore, and at a Methodist church, besides.

  “Don’t you ever get frustrated . . . ?” James started. “You know, there’ve been nights I lay awake thinking about the church, the ministry, what God’s called me to, and I admit, the worst kind of jealousy comes over me. I wonder what it’d be like to have a great big stage and parishioners pouring through the doors . . . big, hot lights and sound boards and worship leaders and backup musicians with perfect segues between service elements, rows of people raising their hands, alive with passion, electric with the Spirit. Don’t you ever feel that way? I mean . . . between my dad telling me outright I’d never amount to anything by being a pastor and my pews being sparsely filled for a while now . . . Whatever those other churches are doing . . . whatever I’ve been missing . . . maybe my dad was right.”

  Charlie scratched his chin, and the two sat in silence for a while. Finally Charlie spoke. “It is a conundrum, that’s for sure. And yes, I think about those things every time I think about my dad too. I’ve struggled with it. Wrestled with God about it. Shaken my fist at him about it. Wept about it. I still do, sometimes. We clergy, we like to quote C. S. Lewis and Eugene Peterson. We applaud the clarion words of Henri Nouwen, the simplicity of St. Augustine, even the apostle Paul himself. But the bigger and better, the me of ministry, is what we’re really smitten with. Or at least, if we’re not careful, we are. We can’t help it. Everything in our world shouts at us to be more to more people, to not offend but to be relevant. But Jesus . . . he talks about the meek and the small, the tired and the poor, the unsightly and the overlooked, and the eye of the needle.”

  Charlie stopped for a moment, walked to his desk, and picked up a stack of booklets and brochures. “All this is what I’ve gotten in the last week alone, mailings about growing a church and discipleship programs that will knock the socks off small groups—”

  “My entire congregation is a small group.”

  “Right.” Charlie laughed and tossed the pile back on his desk. “Am I making any sense? We’ve got Higher Ground sucking people away from our church, too. I’ve even considered investing in a couple of fog machines.”

  “Don’t do it.” James grinned.

  “We won’t.” He laughed again. “But here’s the thing. A couple of things. First of all, like the old hymn says, the church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, and big or small, he uses them all. Second, no pastor ever feels like he’s enough. And third—”

  “A three-point sermon,” James taunted, holding up three fingers.

  “I can’t help it,” Charlie laughed. “Anyway, third, I think we forget that as much as grace is for our congregants, grace is for us—you and me—too.”

  “His strength is made perfect in weakness,” James said wistfully.

  “It’s not a cliché.”

  “Sounds like one. Lately every Scripture sounds cliché. I’ve heard them all too much.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Charlie grabbed a worn copy of the Bible off his desk. He flipped through the pages until he found one to settle on. “Even so, do you recall the story of the Jews building the wall in Nehemiah? When all they had was a pile of rubbish, and the Samarians were making fun of them for trying to make something out of the little that they had?”

  James frowned slightly, vaguely recalling the passage, but unsure of what Charlie was getting at.

  “It’s in Nehemiah, chapter 4. Nehemiah brought other people to surround the workers so they could carry on their work. Some men worked, and others stood guard and encouraged the workers to remember the Lord. It was quite a rescue effort, because the wall covered a very large area. And the workers, they were exhausted.”

  “Alright. Your three points and a conclusion, Reverend?”

  “Sometimes we’re like the workers, sometimes we’re like the guards, and sometimes we’re like Nehemiah. There’s a place and a time for all of us—”

  “Now you’re quoting Ecclesiastes.”

  Charlie laughed. “Look. You’ve been laboring a long time, friend. There’s no shame in what happened wi
th your church. There’s no shame in taking a break from the ministry, maybe even making a total change in your career. And to answer your question, I don’t know what I’d do if I were you. Except to say that I do hope after the doors close, you’ll consider this a safe place for you, or if not here, then with the Baptists.”

  “That might be a stretch,” James laughed. “Kidding, of course. Well . . . sort of.”

  “‘It is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved,’” Charlie quoted.

  “Ahh, there we go. Romans 11. Always could relate a little better to Paul. ‘For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice?’”

  “Verse 34,” Charlie said.

  “Can we just agree that I’m a horrible pastor?” James rubbed his temples again, weary of the effort to try to sort out where and why and how things went so wrong.

  Charlie leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked hard into James’s eyes. “I will not agree to that. I will instead insist that you are one of the greatest pastors, because you are here doing the hardest, most courageous thing of all, which is admitting that you can’t do the job yourself. The rest of us, whose doors will remain open for the foreseeable future, have a lot we can learn from that.”

  James considered this, and even as he did, he felt his face relaxing a bit.

  The two men talked awhile longer, arguing over translations, wrestling with God’s grace, even cursing a little about the taking of a wife too soon, the state of the church in Sycamore and at large, and because they could in the privacy of that office. They could be plain men in front of each other. That in itself was a blessing to James, for it had been too long since he felt the robes of his calling lift enough for him to come out from under them and breathe.