The Arms of God: A Novel

by Lynne Hinton

  The preacher smiled, his eyes, wide with delight. He lifted his hands and unfolded his fingers. He was as big as a mountain.

  “God reached down from the gates of heaven and set this world to spinning. He loved it when he made it, ’cause he knew it started in goodness, and he loved it when he realized it would not always stay so. He loved it so much that he planted himself in every thing he made. Hill and glen, planet and shooting star, little bitty drops of water and perfect flakes of snow, lacy petals of soft flowers, and…” He cleared his throat and we all listened; we were all so hungry for something to fill up the emptiness.

  “And in you.” He paused just for a moment and I felt the shock of good news. Even at the young age of seven I knew I was desperate for salvation.

  “God has planted himself in you.”

  I became so light-headed that I fell against my chair; and the room exploded into colors, yellow and orange and a red so bright it covered over every dull imagining or dim thought I had ever known. When I came to, the big preacher and his wife were kneeling over me, dark, loving hands stroking my brow. I was trembly and weak; but I was alert with the knowledge that something had opened inside of me, something slipped and made room for more than just my loss, more than just my sorrow. I somehow understood that I would one day survive my loneliness and that at that moment, the only regret I felt and could name was that my mother had not received the same stern blessing.

  Later that evening I sat at the kitchen table in that cool, restful house and drew pictures of a tree. Tall, full, stretching to heaven but firmly rooted on earth, thick limbs, big, brown branches, filled with smiling, laughing children. It was, I knew at the time, the most important picture I had ever drawn.

  “What you got there, baby girl?” The preacher sat down beside me. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck.

  “It’s God,” I answered.

  The preacher nodded, the smile spread across his face. “And who’s that?” he asked, pointing to a little girl just in the crook of a limb, alone but still steady, still safe.

  “That’s me,” I answered, sounding as if I thought he should have guessed that.

  “Ah,” he responded in perfect understanding, “there you are, way up close in the arms of God.” He pulled me to him and squeezed and I remember thinking that God Himself could not hold me any tighter.

  I sit in the breezy room where my mother sorted through her life and I think of that picture I drew when I was too young even to understand what was happening. I think of that scared, abandoned, little girl and that clear, undeniable moment when she was not afraid.

  I think of a preacher who opened himself so completely to lost children and a woman who lived her life bound to her sadness but who, just before passing over to another life, to the next one, happier I hope, reached back, searching even in the bowels of her hell, and found me.

  I realize as I sit in the place where she grieved and dreamed that I had been wrong. We are more than just pieces yanked away and given to another, more than just bits broken off and lost. We are more than an incomplete puzzle. For even if we merely brush against one another, two strangers speaking a word of kindness on a warm afternoon, two people laughing at the same cartoon, even if we forget where it was we met or never even learn each other’s name, even if we are mother and daughter who were pulled apart only seconds after we became two instead of one, or even if we were friends taken from each other by someone else’s violence, we are forever bound together, forever related, forever connected.

  Once we have met and touched, once our lives have intersected, even in the smallest way, even if only in a dream or only in the picture of a child, we are instantly joined together, like a dance that never ends, like a tree with full and limber branches, like the arms of God. And for good or for bad, the connection will bind or will loose, sometimes doing both.

  In my mother’s album there are only a few clues to what her life had been. A photograph of a family, one black, one white, three women, two girls, two boys, a note on the back that read Easter in Smoketown, poems written in longhand, authored by someone with the initials E.S., a letter from the military about someone named Roy, a relative I presume, and a release form from a mental hospital.

  There are a couple of obituaries, silly rhymes and riddles, and an article from the forties that had been ripped and taped together about an incident involving my mother and a young black boy, the same one in the picture, an incident that sent her to the asylum for an indefinite time. There are a few more pictures, mostly of me when I was a little girl, a curl of hair, mine, I guess, a copy of a psalm, and a poem about a tree.

  And this is all that I have of her. This and the sense that she was broken a very long time ago. Sliced and rent in such a way that she was not able to give love again. Bear a child maybe. Watch from a distance. Live and work through endless days of mediocrity. But not give love, not open up herself.

  I realize, however, as I shut the lid on the old box and head down the stairs, I have what I have, a trunk, a scrapbook, a few tender memories of her last three weeks on earth, and a daughter who birthed in me forgiveness. And I will carry these things and cherish them, because they are the parts of my mother connecting me to her and drawing me to my daughter, interlacing me with all the other people I have known.

  As I gather up my mother’s things and carry them to my car, as I place the trunk in the seat next to mine, Olivia’s clothes, shoes, and personal items in the back, I turn to the house and the window where I am sure my mother used to sit. Then my eyes drop down and I notice that the landlord is outside, sitting on the porch, rocking in one of the two chairs. She looks out toward the road as an old brown Chevrolet pulls up behind me. I watch the familiar old man as he opens the car door, slides from behind the wheel, steps out, and waves in my direction.

  Across the yard, between the branches of the corner sugarberry, I turn back toward the rocking chair and I see the landlord’s dark face, her silver hair, the split vision she possesses. I wait to see if she has something to say to me, a question to ask, a greeting to share. And for what seems like a long time, seconds stretched into a lifetime, she and the man at the car just look at me, just watch me from their distances.

  As I see her, see her seeing me, her eyes now suddenly steady, like bark, I am reminded of something my mother said at a meal we shared last week. It was one of the few times in the twenty days we were together that she spoke more than just a few words.

  Anna had come home from school that afternoon, angry at her best friend, a friend that she had known since she was six and a first-grader at Ashton Elementary.

  Lateesha moved with her family into our neighborhood when she, like Anna, was only a toddler. I met the little girl’s mother one afternoon when we were both out enjoying a walk, our daughters strapped tightly in their strollers. We hit it off, became friends, and the girls became inseparable. Anna adores Lateesha.

  My daughter sat down at the dinner table, her eyes swollen and red. She slumped in her chair, took her fork, and began picking at her food.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened?” I asked as I served Olivia. Having only been home an hour, I knew none of the details of the argument.

  She shook her head.

  “Do you want me to call her mother and the four of us work this out together?”

  She rolled her eyes, put down her fork, and folded her arms hard across her chest.

  I sat in my chair, placed the napkin across my lap, and started eating.

  Dinner was leftovers. Vegetable lasagne from a potluck at work, salad, and fresh rolls that I brought home from the bakery next to the school. They were Anna’s favorite.

  She still had not taken a bite; and for a while, the three of us just sat quietly. I noticed that Olivia had stopped eating and had bowed her head. For a minute, I thought she was praying.

  “I had someone once,” she said, “a friend.” And when she spoke, she startled both Anna and myself.

  “
She was the only person…” Her voice trailed off and she didn’t finish her sentence.

  Anna glanced up, checking my reaction, waiting for me to respond. I stuffed some salad in my mouth and raised my eyebrows.

  There was a pause. Olivia still faced the table.

  “That was a long, long time ago,” she said.

  Then it seemed forever before she spoke again. I could feel my daughter’s concentration.

  “But sometimes even those things you think are dead, pulled up by the roots and cast aside, sometimes even what you know is lost forever, shows up, real and breathing, like a dead man in the garden.”

  I stopped chewing my lettuce. I turned to Anna who was watching my mother, her grandmother. I followed her eyes and watched her too.

  One lone tear rolled down the old woman’s cheek. One single drop of water, and Anna and I looked with a bit of embarrassment as she reached with her napkin and wiped it away before it slid down her chin.

  I quickly turned away. Anna picked up her fork and ate.

  The dinner ended without further conversation. Anna left the room and called her friend, to set things right, I imagined. Olivia and I cleaned the dishes and then sat in silence as I phoned and we waited for her ride.

  I must admit that at the time she spoke, I thought that she was talking about me. That she was talking about finding me, that I was the one who had been found. That I was the dead thing that was now alive, that I was the one for whom she wept that single tear. And I waited the entire rest of the evening, hoping for her confirmation.

  All she said, however, was good-bye, which she spoke softly to both my daughter and me as she walked out on the porch and down to the driver, who waved as he got out and opened her door.

  Later that night I fell asleep, still not understanding what my mother had meant. It became simply one more riddle left unsolved.

  Until now.

  As the sun stretches across the early afternoon sky and as I stand next to the car, my mother’s life neatly ordered and stacked on the seats, I recognize from that gaze with the old woman on the porch, in that silent exchange of vision, that she bears some of the secrets my mother never named. That she was more than just a landlord, more than just a woman in whose house my mother lived, more than just some passing acquaintance.

  She was my mother’s friend; she was that only person. She was the one who was yanked up by the roots and given to the wind, the one who had broken free from death and had become my mother’s final resting place. She was the source of my mother’s courage to find me, and the strength finally to put all the ghosts away.

  The old woman simply lifts her head like it is the end of an unspoken prayer. She turns away from me and toward the man parked behind me, her brother, I presume, and nods as if she knows that I understand.

  Then, just as quickly as she came forward, she rocks back and slips away, her dark brown eyes, the strong, steady gaze, broken but not lost.

  A Reading Group Guide

  1. Olivia dies only a short time after reappearing in Alice’s life. Do you think that she knew she was going to die? If she did, was it the knowledge of her imminent death that led her to seek out her daughter? If you knew you had three weeks to live, who would you try to find?

  2. Alice reveals some of her difficulty in living with her mother’s decision to abandon her. What do you see in Alice that might be the result of such an action?

  3. Do you think that Olivia should have explained why she did what she did? How frustrating do you think it would be not to hear an explanation or an apology? Was it enough that she just showed up?

  4. After leaving the hospital, Alice decides to go to her mother’s residence. What did the place, the room, say about Olivia? What do you think was the most important thing she found?

  5. The book makes clear that Alice never really knows about her mother’s past. How differently might have Alice turned out had she known her mother’s history?

  6. How much of your mother’s story do you know? How much of a mother’s life story affects the life story of her child?

  7. Olivia not only finds her daughter, she finds her best friend Tree. How important is a long-term friendship? Do you have any friends from your childhood? How are they different from your other friends?

  8. The story deals a lot with racism. What do you think about the state of our nation regarding race relations? How integrated is your life? The lives of your children?

  9. How do you define hope in this story? The hope for Olivia? For Alice? For Anna?

  10. Regardless of the judgments that can be made about Olivia and her choice to abandon her daughter, she did show up. How important is it to make amends for past wrongs?

  11. What would be your wish for each of the characters in this story? Alice, Tree, E. Saul, and Anna.

  For more reading group suggestions, visit

  www.readinggroupgold.com

  St. Martin’s Griffin

  Also by Lynne Hinton

  FICTION

  Friendship Cake

  Hope Springs

  Forever Friends

  The Things I Know Best

  The Last Odd Day

  NON FICTION

  Meditations for Walking

  Praise for The Arms of God

  “Everyone who has read and enjoyed Lynne Hinton’s books will love The Arms of God. This lovely book will add to her roster of fans. Moving and touching and everything a good book should be.”

  —Philip Gulley, author of The Harmony Series

  “Lynne Hinton has gifted us with a wondrous novel. Sit at the feet of her characters and learn from them. Love and grief, truth and courage bloom wildly in the garden of their lives. Read this book slowly—like a prayer book.”

  —Macrina Wiederkehr, author of Gold in Your Memories: Sacred Moments, Glimpses of God

  “Hinton’s story depicts the innocence and rationalizations only known to children with sweetness, humor, and poignancy.… Her characters are original, her imagery strong, and her storytelling unsettlingly exquisite.”

  —Rapid River Art Magazine

  “Like a river that whispers, beckons, conjures, and then swallows, The Arms of God seduces us into a spiraling dry ocean of sorrow, reverence, bittersweet remembrance, and unconditional love and shows us the many faces and languages of grace. Lynne Hinton picks up every nuance, color, taste, whisper, and sigh of ache and redemption and serves up a feast of holiness.”

  —Jaki Shelton Green, author of Singing a Tree into Dance

  “Another memorable collection of characters in a story of hardship and heartache, friendship, and forgiveness.”

  —Our State

  “A portrait of black and white, endurance, hatred and despair, and at least a little hope.”

  —Winston-Salem Journal

  “Lynne Hinton is a born storyteller, here at the top of her form, writing with compassion and understanding.”

  —Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls

  “A memorable story, full of the huge American themes of race, class, and sex.”

  —The Washington Post

  “If you thought you had Lynne Hinton pegged as a novelist, think again. The Arms of God is a stunning leap for what was already a gifted storyteller. Hinton gives us the profoundly moving story of a woman searching for the soul of the mother who abandoned her years ago—and finding, in the journey, frighteningly dark places and, ultimately, understanding and forgiveness.”

  —Robert Inman, author of Captain Saturday and Dairy Queen Days

  “Through memorable characters and lovely language, Lynne Hinton tells a story of forgiveness and personal transformation with remarkable grace and skill.”

  —Ann Howard Creel, author of The Magic of Ordinary Days

  “Beautifully written and captivating from the very first line, The Arms of God is one of Lynne Hinton’s best novels yet.”

  —Michael Morris, author of Slow Way Home

  THE ARMS OF GOD. Copyright © 2005 by Lynne Hinton. Al
l rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First St. Martin’s Griffin Edition: November 2006

  eISBN 9781466883413

  First eBook edition: September 2014