by Amy Sorrells
That’s the church, right there, James thought, prayed, sitting on the tailgate of Shelby’s blue pickup truck. That’s what you’ve been trying to show me, isn’t it, Lord? That walls and buildings come and go—some grow too large, some get too small, some join together, some split apart—but the body of Christ and your purposes, your will, never fail.
Laurie came to join him on the tailgate. “Think the power’ll come back on by this evening?”
“We can pray,” he said.
“Looks like we’re gonna need prayer and then some.” Noble set his guitar down beside them, then stormed toward the tricked-out truck kicking up dirt on the road.
James recognized Silas’s truck and walked out to where Noble stood.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” Noble said to Silas as he jumped down from the cab.
Silas, shame-faced, put his hand up in defense. “I don’t mean any harm . . . and . . . well . . . I sure didn’t know all these folks would be here.”
James swallowed hard, furious. He hadn’t given much thought to Cade, since all his focus had been on whether or not Shelby was going to be alright. “Your son—”
“My son . . . ,” Silas interrupted, avoiding their eyes and looking almost as shrunken and defeated as Cade had on the side of the river, “my son is a coward.”
“Lucky for you, Shelby’s gonna be okay,” Noble said.
“That’s good to hear.” Silas adjusted the bill of his ball cap.
“Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall; don’t be happy when they stumble.”
I’m trying, Lord. Really, James prayed silently, then said to Silas, “So . . . what are you doing here?”
Silas glanced at the back of his truck, then met James’s eyes. “Cade knew better than to show his face around here today. And I know you don’t really want to see mine either. But he’s right sorry about what happened last night. We both are. The deputy told me it was Laurie’s boy who saved your girl . . . so when I heard about the power still being out here and that y’all were lookin’ for some help . . . well, I figured finding a generator was the least I could do.”
“A generator?” Laurie joined them.
“Yes, ma’am.” Silas studied the ground for a moment and tugged his hat down again. “It’s not a rental. It’s yours to keep, if you’ll have it.”
James wasn’t sure if she was going to accept it or not. He wasn’t sure whether he would’ve either, even though neither of them could’ve afforded even to rent—let alone buy—one. He thought about Shelby still at the hospital, her head wrapped and sutured, how he’d thought she was dead when Eustace laid her on the riverbank the night before.
And he thought about Cade, shivering and frail, watching everything at a distance, safe.
Laurie reached for Silas’s hand, her face grim but not unkind. “Much obliged, Silas.”
Silas’s timorous expression softened into a gratified grin. “Alright then. We’ll need a few men to get this unloaded.”
James kept an eye on Silas as several of them helped unload the generator and set it outside the cooling chamber of the barn, where all the electrical connections were for the milking machinery. He considered how much pride the man had to set aside to not only apologize, but offer a sort of peace offering, too. He considered how it could have been Cade who’d been stuck in that truck and how any one of their three children could’ve died last night. But they’d all been spared, children and their parents alike. They all still had futures. They all still had hope. And in that moment it occurred to James that God could use any situation, even the impossible and unlikely, to make all things new.
37
“Feels like the old days, doesn’t it?” Noble said to Shelby, sitting next to him with her feet propped up on a footstool. Before her mom’s accident, they’d often rented movies or watched TV together at her house on Saturday nights.
She glanced at him sidelong and grinned. “Almost.”
The power had been restored to all of Sycamore by midafternoon. The evening milking had been a success and a relief to the sore arms of everyone who’d come to help that morning, as well as to the nerves of the cows.
“You sure you’re gonna be up to singing tomorrow? Did the doctors say it was alright?” Noble said.
She’d only been home from the hospital for a couple of hours, and Noble had come over after milking to welcome her home, to sit with her while James went to the church, and to practice singing with her for the last service the next day, if she still felt up to it.
“I didn’t ask the doctors. Dad was right there the whole time, and it’s supposed to be a surprise.”
He studied her for signs that she might not feel well.
She’d been dizzy when she’d gotten up to make popcorn, and the dusky gray of fatigue circled her eyes.
“I don’t think he’d appreciate the surprise of you passing out on the stage,” he said.
“I’ll be fine. Really. Another good night’s sleep . . . I’m not saying I’d be ready for hard-core worship, but Sycamore Community Church worship? I think I can handle that.”
“If you’re sure. How long did your dad say he’d be at the church?”
“He said not to wait up for him, that he’d be late.”
“So no chance of him hearing us practice?”
“Nah—I think we’re good.”
He stood and tucked the quilt in snug around Shelby’s feet before going to the car to get his guitar. “Be right back.”
When he came back inside, she was right where he’d left her.
“My people will live in safety, quietly at home. They will be at rest.”
Noble recalled the verse from Isaiah. Where he’d heard it exactly, he could not say. Perhaps in Sunday school, perhaps a repetitive prayer or plea of Mama’s.
He set his guitar down and unlatched the case, running his fingers along the smooth cool of the wood, the tension of the finely ribbed strings. He thought about the studios, Mack, Cass, the big homes, the way the hills around the music city seemed to rise up around it, a perfect sanctuary, as if to say, “This! This is what you’ve hoped for all your life!”
He grabbed the neck of the guitar and turned to Shelby. “I thought we could start with—”
He stopped and caught his breath as he took in the sight of her, the bandages around her head, the bruising on the side of her face, the dark curls she’d braided and which rested against the side of her lithe, pale neck.
She rested her head on the back of the couch, eyes closed.
You’re safe, darlin’, he thought.
We’re home.
38
As it often is with the finishing of a time or a place, there were more folks in attendance than usual on the last Sunday of the existence of Sycamore Community Church. Although some folks were not present, such as George Kernodle, plenty of others were. Jack McGee. Rosie and Pete from the Purple Onion. Brock and Tiffany even made an exception from attending the Methodist church to be with them this day.
James smiled when he saw Silas and Cade slip in late. They took a seat in the back row on the left. He couldn’t honestly say that he liked Silas or Cade any better than he had the day before, but he could say with a clear conscience he didn’t hate them, either. Because when the lights came on in the Burden barn, he realized there was something that could transcend hate and bitterness, something that could rise above loss and failure. He realized then that everything changes when someone who is lost is found and when things that look a lot like endings become beginnings after all.
The service commenced with a short sermon, one James had spent twenty years thinking about, but only fifteen minutes writing.
“The other day, my daughter . . .” He looked at Shelby in the front row, head in bandages, albeit finagled to look like a headband. He fought back a tightening in his throat. “Shelby brought up one of her favorite Bible stories when she was growing up, the story of Gideon and his battle against the Midianites. You may recall, in
Judges chapter 7, that God asked Gideon to do more and more with fewer and fewer men. Gideon doubted but went to battle anyway with the few men he had. He trusted God. And he won the battle.”
He looked out at Laurie, sitting in her place on the right side of the church, near the back, with Eustace at her side.
“If we’ve learned anything over the past twenty years, even in the past few days, it’s that we can do a lot with a little . . . that few of us end up where we hope to be, but somehow we all end up where we ought to be. In the same way, no one can say why a church dies or why a life ends. But we can say that no matter what, God is faithful, and faith keeps on going.”
He prayed, and when he gave her the nod, Myrtle Worley revved up the organ. With Noble on guitar, they sang a rousing rendition of “All Creatures of Our God and King.” James had told them he didn’t want the service to feel like a funeral, but a celebration. Because that’s what everyone who’d ever crossed the threshold of Sycamore Community Church deserved.
When James began the benediction and dismissal, Shelby approached the pulpit.
“We’ve got one more thing, Dad.”
She took her place next to Noble, like she had so many times before Molly died, and unclamped the microphone from the stand. She steadied herself on a stool and nodded at Laurie, who got up and began passing out papers to all the rows.
“We’ve got one last song we’d like to do for y’all, one some folks might think is about death, but we think it’s about the start of something new,” she said as Noble adjusted the frets and tuning pegs on his guitar. “It’s an oldie, but if you can’t remember it, the words are on the paper Mrs. Burden’s handing out.”
James felt for the chair behind the pulpit when he realized Shelby was going to sing. For the first time since before Molly died, she was really going to sing.
Noble began to fingerpick the notes softly, and Shelby began to sway, then sing:
“Precious Lord, take my hand,
Lead me on, let me stand,
I am tired . . .”
Shelby’s voice cracked and her face flushed. She lowered the microphone and shook her head, using her arm to shield her face from the congregation. James feared her concussion would cause her to have to stop.
In an instant, Noble stood and began to fill in. James watched through tears as she glanced at Noble, who smiled and nodded her on, as he continued the next line:
“Through the storm, through the night . . .”
Finally Shelby took a deep breath, then stood and joined him:
“Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.”
Shelby wiped away tears as Noble’s fingerpicking turned to strumming and as the song rose to a crescendo. Shelby’s voice soared as it always had, perfect and free, and the whole room brimmed with joy as the congregants and Myrtle joined in.
James held his arms out as she finished and came to him.
“Are you okay? Your head—”
“Couldn’t be better.” She nestled herself against his chest.
He couldn’t remember the last time they’d really embraced since Molly’s funeral. He kissed her damp forehead, which still smelled faintly like hospital antiseptics, and he was overcome with love . . . for her . . . for the time God had given him at this place . . . for whatever he had planned for them next.
A second feast in as many days awaited them all after the service, as Bonnie had set up tables in one of the children’s rooms off the sanctuary. Soon they were topped with casseroles and covered dishes, salads and pies. Another table displayed several scrapbooks chock-full of decades of memorabilia from not only his ministry, but also Tilly’s and even a few relics from generations before that. Programs of Sunday services and funerals, baptisms and weddings, snapshots of potlucks and newspaper clippings of vacation Bible school, and a pair of old, yellowed gloves someone had worn when they’d had a bell choir.
James sat in one of the chairs—meant to hold a child—his long legs splayed out as he balanced a plate of food on his lap.
Across the way, Noble and Shelby talked to each other and carried on like they were the only ones in the room.
“Mind if I sit here?” Laurie nodded toward the small chair next to James.
“Please.”
Laurie pulled a third little chair over for Eustace, who plopped down next to her, knees bent awkward nearly up to his chin.
Posters of Bible timelines and the Ten Commandments, a cartoon of a soldier wearing the armor of God, and giant cutouts of fruit—each one representing gentleness or kindness, peace or joy, love or patience or self-control—hung all around them. People piled corn casserole and baked beans and cheesy potatoes and apple pie high on their paper plates.
Jersha Pittman cut the cake, and Jack McGee doled it out, along with Dixie cups brimming with lemonade to wash it all down.
It was one of the finest Communion services Sycamore Community Church had ever had.
Epilogue
TWO YEARS LATER
“You need anything else, Mrs. Johnson?” James tucked the last two pots of red and yellow mums into the cart and handed Gertrude the receipt. James had come to love his work at the hardware store, which was unusually busy for a Friday evening. He thought he might even have a sort of gift for helping folks find the right sizes of bolts and washers, deciphering what sorts of drill bits were required for certain jobs, and mixing paint.
“No. Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
If he didn’t know her, he’d say her smile was almost congenial.
The next customer placed several packages of string lights, landscaping burlap, and outdoor votive candles on the counter.
“Did you find everything you needed today?” James asked, focusing on the computer behind the register.
“Everything ’cept the bride,” the customer chuckled.
“Noble! How’s everything going?” James came around the counter and embraced Noble, patting him heartily on the back.
“The barn’s cleaned out, tables and chairs delivered this morning, and Shelby’s a nervous wreck. Aside from that, everything’s great,” he laughed.
James stood back and took in the sight of him, the young man who’d be his son-in-law in less than twenty-four hours. “I’d expect nothing less from her. She’s like her mother was about how things look. Wants it to be perfect. I guess I can’t blame her.”
“Me either. I keep telling her it’ll be perfect, even if it rains all day and the only guests who show up are the cows.”
“Cows are enough,” James chuckled, reminiscing about the vows he and Laurie had exchanged under the big cottonwood the previous spring. Charlie Reynolds had officiated. Shelby, Noble, and Eustace had been the attendants. Laurie had carried a bouquet of blush-pink peonies, freshly cut from where they blossomed along the fencerow. And they’d been serenaded by the piping and warbles of chickadees, mourning doves, and sparrows. He could almost feel again the warmth of her small hands as he’d taken them into his, the trembling of his heart as he promised to love and cherish her as the dew rose up from the meadows all around them. Everything under that ancient tree that day was enough.
But Noble needn’t have feared. More than cows did show up for his and Shelby’s wedding the following afternoon. Seemed like most of the town of Sycamore was there. James officiated; Eustace was the best man. Gertrude Johnson had done a beautiful job arranging the mums, along with sunflowers and bright-eyed daisies, on the burlap-covered tables and in the bouquets and boutonnieres. Lizzie Bailey had done Shelby’s hair up in loose braids, accented with sprigs of baby’s breath. Shelby had chosen to wear Molly’s wedding dress, which Laurie lengthened and tailored so that the sleeves were capped instead of long.
As the ceremony proceeded, James scanned the crowd and was pleased that he had not lost his ability to speak and notice the countenances of his audience at the same time.
Do you love me? James heard the Lord whisper, even as he read the vows from his worn and dog-e
ared prayer book.
Lord, you know I do, James replied silently.
Then feed my sheep.
James knew then, as he spoke the promises ushering in the future of his daughter, that his calling to minister had been and always would be real. He would continue to preach the gospel and heed the gospel. At times he would doubt it and be furious with it; at other times he would revel in the ecstasy of its certain truth—whether in the pews of the Methodist church, in the aisles of Hank’s hardware store, in the interminable silence as he knelt alongside Molly’s grave, or in peaceful moments spent with Laurie on the front porch swing, watching the sun set gold, then pink, then blazing orange over the rolling fields.
When it was time for the ring, Brock, a groomsman, nudged Eustace, who reached and fumbled around in his jacket pocket. As he held it out to Noble, a blue Karner butterfly drifted down from the barn rafters above as if someone had orchestrated it. The tiny wings shuddered and the antennae twitched as it lit upon Eustace’s wrist, batted its wings three times, and flew away before anyone but the wedding party could notice.
“Maybe—” James leaned in toward Noble and Shelby, their faces flushed and stained with tears—“the promise of Jeremiah 29 isn’t as much about deliverance or success as it is about finding hope right where we are.”
He straightened and said in his best preacher’s voice, “Noble Burden, you may now kiss your bride.”
Afterward, they feasted on Rosie’s barbecue and danced under the strings of lights until well after midnight, when the cows moved like shadows in the far pasture and meteor showers began to shoot and glisten across the sky.
A Note from the Author